Europe advances towards single banking supervisor
By Julien Toyer and Andreas Rinke
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders took a big stride towards establishing a single banking supervisor for the euro zone, striking a deal under which the bloc's rescue fund could start recapitalising ailing banks next year, a French government source said.
The source told reporters at an EU summit that all 6,000 banks in the single currency area would come under European Central Bank supervision by 2014, but most day-to-day oversight would be delegated to national bodies.
Creating an effective banking union, for which this deal is just a first step, is regarded by the International Monetary Fund and market economists as a key step to overcome the euro zone's three-year-old debt crisis.
The French source said the agreement meant the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) could start injecting capital into troubled banks as early as the first quarter of 2013, but a German source said it was "very unlikely" to happen so soon.
The German government source said the ECB would be responsible for supervising systemically important banks and could oversee others if necessary, emphasizing that direct recapitalization of banks by the ESM could only happen once cross-border banking supervision was firmly in place.
The point when the ECB will effectively become the bloc's banking supervisor is important because it would open the way for the euro zone's bailout fund to inject capital directly into troubled banks, without adding to their host governments' debts.
EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said this was vital "to break the vicious circle between sovereigns and banks".
The legal framework would be completed by the end of this year so the ECB could begin working to implement supervision arrangements from January 1, 2013, starting with banks receiving state aid, the French source told a midnight briefing.
"The entire banking supervision mechanism -- that means the effective supervision of 6,000 banks -- will become reality on January 1, 2014," he said.
The agreement, still to be officially confirmed, appeared to be a defeat for German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's efforts to limit the scope of European banking supervision.
The deal came after the leaders of France and Germany, Europe's central powers, held a private meeting after clashing in public over greater EU control of national budgets.
Germany has been reluctant to see its politically sensitive savings and cooperative banks come under outside supervision. It rejects any joint deposit guarantee under which richer countries might have to underwrite banks in poorer states.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier demanded stronger authority for the executive European Commission to veto national budgets that breach EU rules, but French President Francois Hollande said the issue was not on the summit agenda and the priority was to get moving on a European banking union.
For once, the summit was not under intense pressure from financial markets, which have calmed since the ECB pledged last month to intervene decisively if needed to buy bonds of troubled euro zone states to preserve the euro.
"FISCAL CAPACITY"
Addressing parliament in Berlin earlier in the day, Merkel skirted the issue of a possible credit line for Spain, which EU officials expect Madrid to request within weeks, but reiterated her desire to keep Greece in the currency area despite chronic debt problems.
In Athens, police clashed with protesters hurling stones and petrol bombs during a general strike that brought much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill.
"We have made good progress on strengthening fiscal discipline with the fiscal pact but we are of the opinion, and I speak for the whole German government on this, that we could go a step further by giving Europe real rights of intervention in national budgets," Merkel told the Bundestag lower house.
A proposal by Schaeuble to create a super-empowered European currency commissioner was a possible way forward, she said, and more European control called for a stronger European Parliament.
Merkel also advocated the creation of a European fund to invest in specific projects in member states which she said could be fuelled by a financial transaction tax which 11 euro zone countries have said they will adopt.
Her call echoed a proposal for the 17-member euro zone to have its own budget -- known in EU jargon as a "fiscal capacity" -- on top of the 27-nation union's common budget, which mostly funds agriculture and aid to poorer regions.
Several states, including the Netherlands, Finland and Austria, were uneasy at the idea but none rejected it outright.
Decisions on institutional reforms are not expected until a December summit.
Since the ECB said last month it was ready to buy the bonds of struggling euro zone states in unlimited amounts, state borrowing costs have fallen sharply, easing the immediate pressure for Spain to seek a bailout.
Spain's 10-year bond yields sank to their lowest since February at an auction on Thursday, helped by Moody's decision this week to leave its credit rating at investment grade.
But rather than signaling that Madrid does not need help, Moody's verdict was predicated on Spain soon applying for a euro zone assistance program to trigger ECB intervention.
Italy raised a bumper 18 billion euros from a four-year inflation-linked retail bond -- the most ever raised in a single debt offering in European markets -- reducing its need to issue debt before the end of this year.
The leaders agreed at their last summit in June to create a single banking supervisor under the ECB, but tricky legal issues remain and Germany and its north European allies had appeared to be backtracking on elements of the June decision.
The deeper the discussion on banking union goes, the more complex and problematic it will get.
Countries outside the euro zone -- particularly Britain, which has Europe's biggest banking sector -- are concerned their banks could be disadvantaged if a balance is not maintained between the ECB and its oversight of euro zone banks and the powers of other authorities to oversee non-euro zone banks.
And if non-euro zone countries such as Poland join the banking union, as policymakers are hoping, it is unclear what representation they would have within the ECB, since the central bank is currently answerable only to euro zone member states.
(Additional reporting by Stephen Brown and Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Jan Strupczewski and Luke Baker in Brussels, Harry Papachristou and Lefteris Papadimas in Athens and Gilbert Krijger in Amsterdam. Writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Mike Peacock)
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| It's An Evil And Sinister Conspiracy That Involves Very Rich And Powerful People Who Mastermind Events And Control World Affairs Through Governments And Corporations And Are Plotting Mass Population Reduction And The Emergence Of A Totalitarian World Government! By Using Occult Secret Societies The ILLUMINATI Will Bring All Of The Nations Of This World Together As One. We'll Have No Recourse But To Submit And Be Under Their Control Utilizing Their Digital Central Bank Currency Or To Reject This Ill-Fated Digital Identification. The Goal Is UN Agenda 2030! This Is The Beginning Of The End!
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FBI Celebrates Foiling Its Own Terror Plot, Again
Alex Newman The New American October 18, 2012
Federal agents convinced a naïve, violence-inclined 21-year-old Bangladeshi that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” giving the dupe fake bombs to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before swarming in and arresting him on October 17. As has become typical, government officials scrambled to put out press releases patting themselves on the back for their work protecting the “Homeland.”
In reality, however, there was no al-Qaeda, there was no threat, there were no bombs, and the only alleged “plot” the FBI “foiled” was the one it helped hatch with its dupe, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis. Like the vast majority of recent domestic “terror” schemes against the United States, the latest supposed “operation” was essentially run by authorities from start to finish.
“It is important to emphasize that the public was never at risk in this case, because two of the defendant’s ‘accomplices’ were actually an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent,” Acting Assistant FBI Director Mary Galligan admitted in a press release celebrating the arrest. “The FBI continues to place the highest priority on preventing acts of terrorism.”
The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court also confirmed that authorities gave their dupe bogus explosives to carry out the bogus attack. “The material that purported to be the explosive material was actually inert and posed no threat to the safety of the public,” the document confirmed, fueling more criticism of the government’s terror-war tactics that include cultivating terrorists and supplying all their terror needs.
The apparently dim-witted young man from Bangladesh was in the United States on a student visa when he allegedly tried to find others to join him in carrying out an attack. According to the criminal complaint, he miraculously managed to find an FBI source to help on his mission. The confidential informant promptly introduced him to government agents who promised to assist.
“I don’t want something that’s like, small,” Nafis allegedly told an undercover agent who was posing as an al-Qaeda member and wearing a recording device. “I just want something big. Something very big. Very, very, very, very big, that will shake the whole country.” He was apparently hoping to “destroy America” with an attack that would bring Muslims closer to running “the whole world.”
Despite claiming to have “connections,” authorities had to convince Nafis that he really was part of al-Qaeda. “The thing that I want to ask you about is that, the thing I’m doing, is it under al-Qaeda?” the confused would-be “terrorist” asked one of his government handlers. The unidentified undercover law-enforcement officer assured the bewildered dupe that the attack would indeed be for “al-Qaeda.”
In numerous similar setups where the FBI has persuaded dupes to help plot “terror” attacks, the government offered big money in an effort to get the schemes off the ground. It remains unclear whether Nafis was given any cash reward for his “services.” However, most everything else was supplied by law enforcement — including the bogus bombs.
The undercover agent, for example, asked Nafis what he would need to carry out his “attack.” The dupe responded that he would need “a big car with lots of fruits and vegetables in there which can blow up the whole New York Stock Exchange building.” Nafis later proudly told a separate government informant, after being convinced by his handler, of course, that he was now officially a member of “al-Qaeda.”
At one point, Nafis told his handlers that he wanted to go home to see his family before the attack. However, the agents told him not to do that because law enforcement might “detect” its own plot. More than likely, Nafis was urged not to go home to ensure that the FBI would have somebody to arrest after hatching its complex bogus terror plot over a period of several months. His handlers told him “al-Qaeda” would stop helping him if he went home, court documents show.
As soon as news of the arrest was publicly announced, commentators across the Internet slammed and ridiculed the FBI and the federal government for continuing to prod dupes into carrying out bogus attacks. Perhaps anticipating that critics would cry foul at yet another “foiled” government-orchestrated “terror” plot, federal officials said they had to proceed with the setup to ensure that Nafis would not go plot an attack on his own.
“We have an obligation to take action to protect the public when an individual expresses a desire to commit violence and recruits others for an attack,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd was quoted as saying. “Allowing such individuals to proceed without a government response is not an option, given that they may take action on their own or find others willing to assist them.”
Indeed, if the criminal complaint is to be believed, it is true that Nafis was anything but an upstanding citizen. After the FBI convinced him that he was a member of “al-Qaeda” and that his government handler was working with “al-Qaeda leadership,” for example, the would-be terrorist said he knew there would be innocent casualties, including women and children. Still, he told his handlers he was ready to proceed.
Nafis also purportedly hoped the plot he hatched with the FBI would disrupt the upcoming presidential election. According to the criminal complaint, he was apparently an admirer of former CIA asset Osama bin Laden, too.
The dupe was arrested after using a cellphone to try to detonate the fake bomb the FBI gave him. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Last year, federal authorities hatched a similar half-baked plot, using a convicted felon to deceive a group of young self-styled left-wing anarchists into trying to blow up a bridge near Cleveland. A separate case in 2009 in which a government informer convinced dupes to plant fake bombs in New York even drew criticism from the judge who oversaw the case, who said: “The government made them terrorists.”
Government-hatched terror attacks, despite generating a lot of headlines, paranoia, and budget increases for the terror war, have still come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. “Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones?” wondered author David Shipler in a piece for theNew York Times earlier this year about the absurdity of manufacturing terror plots to stop terror.
Analysts speculated that the most recent bogus “terror” scheme would be seized upon by the privately owned Federal Reserve banking cartel to portray itself as a potential target. The fake attack might also pave the way to helping paint the Fed’s growing number of vocal critics as potentially dangerous — at least if the FBI can find them, radicalize them, and give them money and fake explosives.
While the FBI was busy convincing Nafis that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” a terror group largely created and funded by the U.S. government decades ago, the Obama administration and Western powers were providing arms and money to real self-styled al-Qaeda fighters [8] waging “jihad” in Syria. Before that, known al-Qaeda leaders were benefiting from overwhelming support from the Obama administration [9] in the fight to oust Libya’s former despot, Moammar Gadhafi.
Whether Nafis would have been able or even willing to carry out any real attack without months of prodding by authorities will remain a mystery — he can be convicted based on current U.S. law regardless. What has become clear, though, is that the vast majority of “attacks” supposedly “foiled” over the last decade would never have made it into even the planning stages without government assistance.
Alex Newman The New American October 18, 2012
Federal agents convinced a naïve, violence-inclined 21-year-old Bangladeshi that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” giving the dupe fake bombs to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before swarming in and arresting him on October 17. As has become typical, government officials scrambled to put out press releases patting themselves on the back for their work protecting the “Homeland.”
In reality, however, there was no al-Qaeda, there was no threat, there were no bombs, and the only alleged “plot” the FBI “foiled” was the one it helped hatch with its dupe, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis. Like the vast majority of recent domestic “terror” schemes against the United States, the latest supposed “operation” was essentially run by authorities from start to finish.
“It is important to emphasize that the public was never at risk in this case, because two of the defendant’s ‘accomplices’ were actually an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent,” Acting Assistant FBI Director Mary Galligan admitted in a press release celebrating the arrest. “The FBI continues to place the highest priority on preventing acts of terrorism.”
The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court also confirmed that authorities gave their dupe bogus explosives to carry out the bogus attack. “The material that purported to be the explosive material was actually inert and posed no threat to the safety of the public,” the document confirmed, fueling more criticism of the government’s terror-war tactics that include cultivating terrorists and supplying all their terror needs.
The apparently dim-witted young man from Bangladesh was in the United States on a student visa when he allegedly tried to find others to join him in carrying out an attack. According to the criminal complaint, he miraculously managed to find an FBI source to help on his mission. The confidential informant promptly introduced him to government agents who promised to assist.
“I don’t want something that’s like, small,” Nafis allegedly told an undercover agent who was posing as an al-Qaeda member and wearing a recording device. “I just want something big. Something very big. Very, very, very, very big, that will shake the whole country.” He was apparently hoping to “destroy America” with an attack that would bring Muslims closer to running “the whole world.”
Despite claiming to have “connections,” authorities had to convince Nafis that he really was part of al-Qaeda. “The thing that I want to ask you about is that, the thing I’m doing, is it under al-Qaeda?” the confused would-be “terrorist” asked one of his government handlers. The unidentified undercover law-enforcement officer assured the bewildered dupe that the attack would indeed be for “al-Qaeda.”
In numerous similar setups where the FBI has persuaded dupes to help plot “terror” attacks, the government offered big money in an effort to get the schemes off the ground. It remains unclear whether Nafis was given any cash reward for his “services.” However, most everything else was supplied by law enforcement — including the bogus bombs.
The undercover agent, for example, asked Nafis what he would need to carry out his “attack.” The dupe responded that he would need “a big car with lots of fruits and vegetables in there which can blow up the whole New York Stock Exchange building.” Nafis later proudly told a separate government informant, after being convinced by his handler, of course, that he was now officially a member of “al-Qaeda.”
At one point, Nafis told his handlers that he wanted to go home to see his family before the attack. However, the agents told him not to do that because law enforcement might “detect” its own plot. More than likely, Nafis was urged not to go home to ensure that the FBI would have somebody to arrest after hatching its complex bogus terror plot over a period of several months. His handlers told him “al-Qaeda” would stop helping him if he went home, court documents show.
As soon as news of the arrest was publicly announced, commentators across the Internet slammed and ridiculed the FBI and the federal government for continuing to prod dupes into carrying out bogus attacks. Perhaps anticipating that critics would cry foul at yet another “foiled” government-orchestrated “terror” plot, federal officials said they had to proceed with the setup to ensure that Nafis would not go plot an attack on his own.
“We have an obligation to take action to protect the public when an individual expresses a desire to commit violence and recruits others for an attack,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd was quoted as saying. “Allowing such individuals to proceed without a government response is not an option, given that they may take action on their own or find others willing to assist them.”
Indeed, if the criminal complaint is to be believed, it is true that Nafis was anything but an upstanding citizen. After the FBI convinced him that he was a member of “al-Qaeda” and that his government handler was working with “al-Qaeda leadership,” for example, the would-be terrorist said he knew there would be innocent casualties, including women and children. Still, he told his handlers he was ready to proceed.
Nafis also purportedly hoped the plot he hatched with the FBI would disrupt the upcoming presidential election. According to the criminal complaint, he was apparently an admirer of former CIA asset Osama bin Laden, too.
The dupe was arrested after using a cellphone to try to detonate the fake bomb the FBI gave him. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Last year, federal authorities hatched a similar half-baked plot, using a convicted felon to deceive a group of young self-styled left-wing anarchists into trying to blow up a bridge near Cleveland. A separate case in 2009 in which a government informer convinced dupes to plant fake bombs in New York even drew criticism from the judge who oversaw the case, who said: “The government made them terrorists.”
Government-hatched terror attacks, despite generating a lot of headlines, paranoia, and budget increases for the terror war, have still come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. “Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones?” wondered author David Shipler in a piece for theNew York Times earlier this year about the absurdity of manufacturing terror plots to stop terror.
Analysts speculated that the most recent bogus “terror” scheme would be seized upon by the privately owned Federal Reserve banking cartel to portray itself as a potential target. The fake attack might also pave the way to helping paint the Fed’s growing number of vocal critics as potentially dangerous — at least if the FBI can find them, radicalize them, and give them money and fake explosives.
While the FBI was busy convincing Nafis that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” a terror group largely created and funded by the U.S. government decades ago, the Obama administration and Western powers were providing arms and money to real self-styled al-Qaeda fighters [8] waging “jihad” in Syria. Before that, known al-Qaeda leaders were benefiting from overwhelming support from the Obama administration [9] in the fight to oust Libya’s former despot, Moammar Gadhafi.
Whether Nafis would have been able or even willing to carry out any real attack without months of prodding by authorities will remain a mystery — he can be convicted based on current U.S. law regardless. What has become clear, though, is that the vast majority of “attacks” supposedly “foiled” over the last decade would never have made it into even the planning stages without government assistance.
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