From RIA Novosti News (3/1/11):
Saudi Arabia has sent dozens of tanks to Bahrain, where anti-government protests continue for about two weeks, Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper said on Tuesday.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing "15 tank carriers carrying two tanks each heading towards Bahrain" along the 25-km King Fahd causeway, which links the small island nation of Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.
and $4.5 billion short on reserves to cover the litigation costs, according to the article on The Street yesterday (2/28/11).
The proceedings are the result of "faulty" (fraudulent would be the word) mortgage origination, securitization, servicing and foreclosure processes by the bank, who is the originator, securitizer, servicer, trustee of REMICs all in one, just like other TBTF Wall Street banks:
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- JPMorgan Chase is a defendant in more than 10,000 legal proceedings and may be $4.5 billion short of reserves needed to cover those costs in a worst-case scenario, the firm said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
The New York-based bank's legal woes range from individual actions against JPMorgan Chase to class actions with "potentially millions" of litigants to "regulatory/government investigations." The suits include common law tort and contract claims, statutory antitrust claims, securities claims and consumer protection claims, the bank said in its 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
...In a conference call last month, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon predicted that securitization lawsuits alone will be a long, difficult battle.
"It is going to be years before this plays out and this litigation is going to be fought almost securitization by securitization," Dimon said. "There is almost no other way to do it."
No kidding, Jamie. J.P.Morgan Chase has inherited the securitization done by Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, as well as their own.
The article also mentions how the other TBTF banks are faring in terms of litigation reserves:
Citigroup: $4 billion short
Bank of America: $1.5 billion short
Wells Fargo: $1.2 billion short
With J.P.Morgan Chase's $4.5 billion, the total reserve deficit for these four banks is $11.2 billion. Considering Wells Fargo got Wachovia and Bank of America got Countrywide, their reserve shortage look too small.
Particularly for Wells Fargo, as the bank is one of the 3, 4 banks that act as the trustee of REMICs that supposedly hold underlying mortgages. What are the duties and responsibilities of a REMIC trustee? Among others, it is supposed to verify and confirm that the mortgages are properly transferred to the REMIC within the time frame specified in the pooling and servicing agreement, and that the mortgages meet the standard set out in the agreement.
thanks to the sudden, collective saber-rattling by the West over #Libya. Currently (9:33AM PST),
Spot gold: $1,429.10
Spot silver: $34.53
according to Kitco.com.
asks End of American Dream in its article (2/25/11). Or is it just a trial balloon to be ditched if it doesn't fly?
The article mentions recent reports, or I should say recent slant in reporting, in the US that seem to indicate the Obama administration is ready to do the same thing that the Bush administration did: Invade Libya, because...
Gaddafi has weapons of mass destruction (Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, supposedly);
Gaddafi has 1000 tons of "yellow cake" (uranium, just like Saddam supposedly did);
The US has to free Libya from the dictator and set the country on the path to democracy as defined by the US.
And as the article points out, if the US is going to do it, it has to do it alone or with the NATO, as China and Russia are likely to block any UN resolution that includes invasion of Libya by the UN coalition forces.
Why would the US be eager to invade Libya to "save" Libyans? Oil. (Hey isn't that what Gaddafi has been saying?)
Here's the CBS news segment that was linked in the article. It is from Thursday February 24. The reporter lists the US options one by one, dismissing all of them as "taking time", and concludes that the military option may be the only option for the US. The CBS analyst that appears in the news segment, Juan Zarate, says the military power may be needed to protect Libyans and remove Gaddafi from power.
They (powers that be in the US) seem to be prepping us, or testing our reaction, while they wait a one "wrong" move by Gaddafi which will give them an opening for military intervention.
Mr. Zarate never explains why that military power has to be provided by the United States, while Libyans are quite capable and more than willing to do that themselves.
Mr. Zarate was a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism during the Bush administration.
As EC President Barroso said, everyone is now eager to be on the "right" side. Obama can use a new, truly righteous war in Libya to cover up the mess he inherited (for sure) but has greatly expanded since then in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the mess he has created in Pakistan.
as being planned by Qatar, the US, and the UK.
Tweet by @SultanAlQassemi:
to set up their "favorite" dictator in Libya that they can control?
Not just the US and the UK, but even the Canadian government wants to intervene with its military.
Canada (from CTV News):
the Canadian military has sent a reconnaissance team and medics to Malta
CTV News has been told that Canadian special forces are also on the ground in Libya
UK (from WSJ):
British Prime Minister David Cameron said his country wouldn't rule out the use of "military assets" in confronting Gadhafi. Cameron also told Parliament that he had asked the Ministry of Defence to work with "our allies" on plans for a military no-fly zone.
USA (from San Jose Mercury News):
Pentagon officials said military aircraft and ships were being ordered to move into position closer to the Libyan coast. The Navy has an aircraft carrier strike group -- with ample planes and helicopters -- and an amphibious landing vessel, with Marines and helicopters, in the nearby Red Sea.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said it all: they want to be on the "right" side, this time:
"This is an historic moment and we have to be on the right side of history. This is a [once in a] lifetime opportunity to assist those who are pursuing freedom, justice, democracy and human rights," Barroso said.
In other words, 99.99% of the time they don't do anything or pick the wrong side.
Remember they all screwed up in Tunisia and Egypt, when one after another these leaders of the West were calling for restraint on the protesters and dialogue with Ben Ali and Mubarak, until it was too late and Tunisians and Egyptians got rid of them. They didn't have control over the outcome of the revolutions. (I'm sure they are trying really very hard to influence the interim governments.)
So, they, the Western leaders, don't want to repeat the same mistake again in Libya. Events in Tunisia and Egypt have made them look like bumbling idiots. They don't like that. They want to get it "right", for them, and they are willing and eager to use military forces whether it is needed or wanted by Libyans. It's for THEM.
Ever since the Libyan uprising got serious and deadly (#Feb17), the media has been reporting the huge exodus of foreign workers in Libya, from a few hundreds (European countries, US) to tens of thousands.
I was rather taken aback by these big numbers for a country of 6 million, so I decided to add them all up, as reported in various news reports.
The result: there are between 2.7 to 3.2 million foreigners in Libya.
---------------------------
50,000 Bangladeshi workers, mainly in Benghazi, as construction workers (http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=418662&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24)
More than 30,000 Chinese (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-02/28/content_12089919.htm).
30,000 Filipinos, as doctors, nurses, engineers (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/213646/phl-govt-offers-to-repatriate-30000-filipinos-in-libya)
18,000 Pakistanis (http://ftpapp.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=132047&Itemid=1)
18,000 Indians (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gBfFZqccedrlFK0-1DiDNSz83K0A?docId=CNG.6009b45dafd3ffa1601b90a867dbe4be.9f1)
23,600 Thais (http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/445805-anti-govt-protesters-in-libya-loot-thai-workers-camps/)
9,840 Vietnamese (http://english.vovnews.vn/Home/Over-9800-Vietnamese-labourers-working-in-Libya/20112/123790.vov)
1,400 Koreans (http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20110225-265259.html)
6,000 Italians (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12552374)
3,000 Ukrainians (http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidANA20110222T143158ZSXK58/Ukraine%20to%20evacuate%20medics,%20staff%20from%20Libya)
1,500 Bulgarians (http://www.realclearworld.com/news/reuters/international/2011/Feb/22/factbox___country__company_libya_evacuation_plans.html)
25,000 Turks (http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+News/Asia/Story/A1Story20110225-265259.html)
30,000 Tunisians (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12552374)
They add up to 246,340. Then,
1.5 million Egyptians (http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/egypt-economy-to-take-a-hit-from-libya-turmoil/)
1 to 1.5 million sub-Saharans (Chad, Niger, etc) (http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/blog/index.cfm/2011/2/24/African-migrants-become-easy-target-for-racist-violence-in-Libya)
Total foreigners in Libya: 2,746,340 to 3,246,340
------------------------------------
Libya's population: 6,460,000 (CIA Factbook)
Libya's working age population (15 to 64): 3,960,346
Unemployment rate: 30%
Estimate of the number of the unemployed: 3,960,346 times 30% = 1,188,104
---------------------------------
Well, is it any wonder that Libyans are angry that there are no jobs for them? They are all taken by foreigners - from white-collar jobs (e.g. engineers at the oil plants, doctors) to manual jobs (e.g. construction workers, housekeepers).
I'm sure the argument is the same in Libya as in the US: the native population is too lazy, they don't want to work in manual hard labor; or the native population is not educated well enough.
In case of Libya, Gaddafi seems to distrust Libyans in certain professions, like doctors and nurses. He probably doesn't trust them in crucial industries like the oil industry.
and were denied, reports Reuters Africa:
DUBAI, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Sons of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have failed to persuade prominent Saudi clerics to issue religious rulings against a revolt that is threatening to bring down the veteran leader, Al Arabiya television said on Monday.
The Saudi-owned channel said on its website that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam had contacted one cleric, Salman al-Awda, and Saadi Gaddafi had reached out to a second, Ayedh al-Garni, but both rejected their calls.
"You are killing the Libyan people. Turn to God because you are wronging them. Protect Libyan blood, you are killing old people and children. Fear God," Garni said he told Saadi.
Garni made the remarks on air on Sunday, the website said, adding Awda gave the same message to Saif al-Islam.
There are protests planned in Saudi Arabia on March 10 and March 20. Robert Fisk, of The Independent, thinks the "end game" is Saudi Arabia. We'll see.
Saadi Gaddafi spoke the truism in his interview with ABC's Amanpour the other day:
"It's fever. It's going to spread everywhere. No one can stop it. That is my personal opinion, and the chaos will be everywhere. ... They think it's about freedom. I love freedom. You love freedom, but it's powerful, this earthquake. No one can control it."
We'll see soon enough.
That's the spirit! You do not want the US, or the UK, or the UN, on your soil. They are squawking louder now, because they see that you've done the most of the job already of taking down the madman and his family. Now they want to take the claim that the "international community" has "spoken with one voice" and rescued Libyans just in time.
Don't let them.
In the meantime, Gaddafi says everyone loves him (Al Jazeera Libya Blog 3/1/11):
"All my people love me," Muammar Gaddafi insists, ignoring mounting global pressure to step down and perhaps head into exile after four decades at the helm of his country.
"They love me. All my people with me. They love me all. They would die to protect me," the veteran Libyan leader said, speaking in halting English in an interview with Western media.
"No demonstrations at all in the streets," claimed Gaddafi, who has ruled his north African country for more than 41 years.
"No one is against us, against me for what?"
The "Battle of Tripoli", which seemed all but certain only a few days ago, hasn't happened. Gaddafi offers to negotiate with the opposition, as the Western journalists are treated by the regime to a tour of sunny Tripoli, where foods are abundant in the market, streets are clean, and people cheering for Gaddafi.
Will Gaddafi succeed in convincing the West that everything is under HIS control, that some minor skirmishes are unfortunate but nothing to worry about, yes he's been bad sometimes, but C'mon, he's been like that for 42 years and the West know it?
Maybe. Whether he can convince Libyans is totally another matter.
The images from Al Jazeera Libya Blog 2/28/11:
The Fed's unofficial third mandate is to keep Dow Jones Industrial levitating and gold and silver down (so that JPM and HSBC can survive another day shorting silver).
Dow's "strength" is due to:
Disney (up 1.7%)
3M (up 1.9%)
HP (up 2.5%)
Pfizer (up 1.9%)
Verizon (up 1.5%)
Notable laggards in Nazdaq (which is down for the day so far, by the way):
Amazon (down 2.4%)
Netflix (down 4%)
Intel (down 1.9%)
(At least my puts on AMZN is a modest success today...)
Small/mid cap (Russell 2000) is down, along with Nazdaq. Economy is growing, Mr. Dudley?
And still no bid on US dollar.
#Yemen, #Bahrain, #Oman, #Algeria, #North Korea, #Vietnam, for that matter anywhere (like here in the US) where the food and energy prices have been going up sharply. Why, it's the demand growth from the emerging markets that's been pushing up the prices! Growth! Isn't that good?
William Dudley, former Goldman Sachs exec (he was the chief economist) and current chief of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, spoke this morning to the New York University Stern School of Business. As almost all Fed chiefs do (with the exception of Hoenig, maybe), he carefully hedges his position but he was put in there at the head of the NY Fed to help out Ben Bernank in FOMC. So what would you expect from him but the defense of the Fed policies?
I read his speech, and I kept scratching my head - am I living in the same space-time continuum as he? Is he right, and is everything OK? All I know for myself is that I've been long priced out of Whole Foods Market, and am about to be priced out even from Safeway.
Some points from his speech:
The Fed has successfully planted the "inflation expectations" among businesses and households through quantitative easing and zero-rate policy, but the inflation expectations remain "well-anchored" - meaning they are not very high, slightly above 2%, as seen in various surveys. So they are healthy signs that the economy is growing.
The only way that the (price) inflation goes much higher in the next year or two is if these "inflation expectations" become "unanchored" - meaning "if there were a loss of confidence in the ability and/or willingness of the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy in a timely way in order to keep inflation in check". But don't worry that's not going to happen as long as the Fed "communicates" effectively.
The bloated [well, he didn't say bloated, but how else would you call it?] balance sheet of the Federal Reserve is not a problem at all, because the Fed has tools to shrink it if necessary - for example by raising the interest paid on the excess reserves.
And oh by the way the Fed is not likely to raise the short-term interest rate any time soon.
In short, print print print, spin spin spin.
People in north Africa, Middle East, and Asia, when you see (as you've been seeing) the price of food goes up, think the US Federal Reserve. And give thanks to them for the "growth" that your country is experiencing. The only thing growing is the amount of fiat currency chasing pretty much the same amount of goods, causing the price of goods to go up. Simple math.
But the Fed economists like Dudley hate simple math.
It always takes a crook to spot a crook, it seems.
New York magazine has a long article by Steve Fishman (2/27/2011) based on a telephone interview with Bernie Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence for his Ponzi scheme that has cost $65 billion for the wealthy, mostly Jewish, investors.
He calls the whole US government "a Ponzi", and says it's a joke that no one at Goldman Sachs has gone to jail.
For that matter, no one at J.P.Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, no one has gone to jail.
Difference between them and Madoff? Madoff screwed the wealthy, whereas TBTF financials screwed the general populace, small flies called taxpayers and middle-class Americans, with the active help from the Treasury Secretary (first Paulson then Geithner) and the Federal Reserve Chairman (Ben Bernank), as their boss (Prez of the USSA, first Bush the lesser, then Obama) either didn't comprehend the gravity of the situation (Bush) or simply didn't care other than to look and sound good (Obama).
Here's the link to the article online.
For the printer-friendly version (it's 10 pages), click here.
Ben "Bernank" Bernanke will appear in the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday 3/1/2011 and in the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday 3/2/2011 (starting at 10:00AM EST on both days); it is his semi-annual policy report to Congress.
Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum has 5 questions for Bernank, in her effort to help out the Senators and Congressmen in the committees who may not be as astute as her in economic and financial matters, has come up with 5 questions she would ask Bernank. As she says, "To expect our elected representatives to have a good grasp on quantitative easing when Fed chief Ben Bernanke says the term is a misnomer is too much to ask."
(Can we expect them to have a good grasp on anything? I mean, other than on taxpayers' money?)
You can read about her 5 questions here, which I thought were not that much above what our elected representatives would be capable of asking. (Why QE2 is $600 billion, when are you going to raise short-term rates....etc.)
I have my own questions to Bernank:
Where is gold that is supposed to belong to the US government?
How much gold is there, at Fort Knox? At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York?
If gold is not there, where did it go, how did it go, and who is responsible?
Has the Fed participated in any way in gold/silver price manipulation?
You said the Federal Reserve did not, and would not monetize Treasury debt. QE2 is de facto monetization, as you purchase Treasuries from the Primary Dealers that they got at the Treasury auctions only a few weeks before. Did you lie?
How much loss has been sustained on the Fed's balance sheet since the start of QE2, as the rates on Treasury notes and bonds have been going up and the prices falling?
How much are you paying to the Primary Dealers? How many extra billions are you giving to the PD by buying Treasuries from them, instead of buying directly through TreasuryDirect, for example?
How do you respond to the accusations that your QE2 has unleashed the powerful price inflation around the world that in turn has triggered popular uprising against the rulers? Guide us through your logic that monetary inflation (QE2) does not cause price inflation. And don't give us the crap that there is no price inflation in core CPI, which excludes two of the items that matter most to people around the world who try to earn a decent living: food and energy.
Is QE3 coming? Your Fed governors are saying yes (you and Bullard, for example) and no (Plosser, for one). When will we know? (And please stop this "good Fed, bad Fed" routine; it's getting tired.)
And what was the reasoning behind QE2, again? QE1 was to help out Wall Street banks who are the Fed member banks. QE2, did you say it was to help out the US federal government? How do you think it has helped, other than the levitating stock market and soaring commodity market?
Since when has the Fed had the third mandate of raising the stock market? Why do you think the stock market is the reflection of the economy?
Remember her exclusive interview with Hosni Mubarak on February 3rd, to give the viewers around the world the Mubarak's side of the story? Well, Mubarak was gone in a week.
Here's the well-connected Amanpour, who was one of the select journalists to get invited by the Gaddafi regime to the sanitized Tripoli, interviewing a mad son of the madman Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam (a hard-partying playboy who has been fawned on by the West as Libya's new "reform" leader, until recently...). The whole point of the exercise? Probably the same as in Mubarak's case - to present the Gaddafi side of the story, to give a humane face, so to speak:
About "President Barack Obama's call for Moammar Gadhafi to step down and the U.N. Security Council's unanimous vote to impose an arms embargo on Libya and urge nations to freeze Libyan assets":
"Listen, nobody is leaving this country. We live here, we die here," he insisted. "This is our country. The Libyans are our people. And for myself, I believe I am doing the right thing."
"It's not an American business, that's number one," said Gadhafi, who was dressed casually as he spoke with Amanpour. "Second, do they think this is a solution? Of course not."
[That I have to agree. It's not an American business, not from this particular president who orders killer drones over innocent people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.]
About deadly attacks on Libyans:
About UN sanctions to freeze their assets:"Show me a single attack, show me a single bomb," he told her. "The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites. That's it."
"There's a big, big gap between reality and media reports."
"First of all, we don't have money outside. We are a very modest family and everybody knows that. And we are laughing when they say you have money in Europe or Switzerland or something. C'mon, it's a joke."
[Britain just froze the Gaddafi family assets amid rumors that the Gaddafis transferred 3 billion pounds ($4.83 billion) to Britain last week, and impounded 900 million pounds ($1.45 billion) worth of uncirculated Libyan currency.]
[And I'm wondering who those American bankers are who manage the Gaddafi fortune. I also wonder if the Libyan Sovereign Fund was a buyer of the recent Illinois pension fund bond offers..]
About Libyan diplomats who resigned and calling for his father to step down:
"C'mon, they are employees working for the government. It's not their business."
She also interviewed another Gaddafi son, Saadi (the one who plays soccer).
About what would happen if his father were to step down:
"If he were to leave today, there would be war," he said. "Civil war in Libya."
[Uhhh, it's already a civil war, in case you haven't notice..]
"It's fever. It's going to spread everywhere. No one can stop it. That is my personal opinion, and the chaos will be everywhere. ... They think it's about freedom. I love freedom. You love freedom, but it's powerful, this earthquake. No one can control it."
[That I agree, except for the "chaos will be everywhere" part - from what I've seen, the cities and towns that freed themselves of the Gaddafis quickly self-organize, just like in Egypt. Food distribution, newspapers, radio station, blogs, police, cleanup crew. A civil order is emerging, not chaos.
[But his comment that no one can control freedom once it's unleashed, I think that's true. And that's why the government leaders - East, West, anywhere - do not want their citizens to experience; control is their raison d'etre. This soccer playing Gaddafi seems to know that.]
From Oman News Agency:
Muscat, Feb 27 (ONA)- His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has issued his generous Royal Orders to employ 50,000 ( Fifty Thousand ) citizens.May Allah protect His Majesty the Sultan and grant him a long life and to remain always an inspiring leader and kind-hearted father.
Another Ben Bernank-induced "unrest", this time in Oman.
Omanis started to protest against high cost of living (with soaring cost of food items) and corruption back in January, as Tunisia was getting rid of Ben Ali (who's now in coma in Saudi Arabia).
In the latest protest, at least one protester died.
From Washington Post (2/27/2011):
.... In the Omani town of Sohar, security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters demanding a greater voice in the country's affairs. At least one person was killed, police officials said, but other reports cited Omani media sources saying at least two died.
Oman's state-run news agency said protesters set cars and houses on fire, burned down a police station and set the governor's residence ablaze in the seaside town, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of the capital of Muscat.It marked the first serious confrontation against protesters seeking to open up the ruling system of Sultan Qaboos bin Said, whose nation straddles the southeast corner of the Arabian peninsula and is co-guardian of the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of the world's oil tanker traffic passes through the waterway at the mouth of the Gulf.
....Omanis are not seeking to oust the country's ruler, al-Hanay said. "We just hope he will hear us and make changes," she added, noting that unemployment is high and education is poor in the country, which only has one university.
Sultan Qaboos, who became the Sultan in a palace coup that overthrew his father (it smells a British intrigue) is busy trying to placate people; he has ordered 150 Omani Riyals ($390)/month benefits for unemployed citizens, and he has also ordered 50,000 jobs to be created for the citizens.
(Oman's population is 2.97 million, with unemployment rate at 15%, according to CIA.)
Let there be jobs, declares the Sultan. (Obama must be jealous.)
as the city is now surrounded by the tanks of pro-Gaddafi forces.
From Al Jazeera (2/27/2011):
Forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have surrounded the city of Zawiyah, where anti-government protesters are bracing for an attack.
Men opposed to Gaddafi were patrolling the streets of the city 50km from the capital on Sunday, saying they had seized weapons and even tanks which they would use to defend themselves.
Ezeldina, a Zawiyah resident, told Al Jazeera that people in the city had raided some military camps.
"We are expecting an attack at any moment," he said. "We are forming rotating watchgroups, guarding the neighbourhood."
Police stations and government offices inside the city have been torched and anti-Gaddafi graffiti painted of walls.
Hundreds of protesters in the city centre chanted "Gaddafi Out". Some stood on top of a captured tank, while others crowded around an anti-aircraft gun. Women stood on top of buildings cheering on the men in the crowd below.
An effigy of Gaddafi hung from a light pole in the main square.
A group of foreign journalists were driven to Zawiyah by Libyan authorities on Sunday to show that forces loyal to Gaddafi still held the town. But once there, it was evident that the protesters were in control.
A doctor at a makeshift clinic in the town mosque said 24 people had been killed in fighting with government loyalists over the past three days, and a small park next to the main square had been turned into a burial ground.
Residents gave accounts of fierce fighting for control of the town against pro-Gaddafi paramilitaries who were
armed with heavy weapons. Some said they were using rocket-propelled grenades.
Her excuse: "When I am on holiday, I am not foreign minister."
Sure. So it should be OK for her to vacation in Tunisia during the uprising, travel in a private jet of a businessman with ties to Ben Ali and to offer France's support for him with riot police...
I suppose she also sent tear gas grenades to Tunisia as a private citizen.
According to wiki, she had considered running for the President of France in 2007; eventually she endorsed Nicolas Sarkozy.
Succeeding her as foreign minister will be Alain Juppe, current defense minister and former prime minister under Jacques Chirac, and an ex-convict...
The so-called West has no moral authority anywhere any more.
From Al Jazeera (2/27/2011):
Michele Alliot-Marie, the French foreign minister, has resigned following weeks of criticism over her contacts with the former leadership of Tunisia.
Her office announced her resignation on Sunday, saying that a letter had been sent to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.
In her letter, a copy of which was seen by news agency, Alliot-Marie made clear she felt she had done not done anything wrong.
"While I do not feel that I have committed any wrongdoing, I have ... decided to leave my job as foreign minister," Alliot-Marie wrote in her resignation letter to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.
"I ask you to accept my resignation," she wrote in the letter.
"Since several weeks, I have been the target of political attacks and then in the media, using, to create suspicion, counter-truths and generalisations."
Alliot-Marie became embroiled in a series of controversies over her links to Tunisia after she returned from holiday there last month during the popular uprising that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, then president.
Subsequent revelations about her and her family's links to Ben Ali's entourage, and her offer for France to help riot police quell the uprising there, made her position increasingly untenable.
It emerged that during her Tunisian holiday she used the private jet of a businessman allegedly linked to Ben Ali, from whom her parents also bought a stake in a company.
Faced with rising criticism, she announced: "When I am on holiday, I am not foreign minister."
A spokesman for Sarkozy's office declined immediate comment about whether the president had accepted the resignation, which comes amid speculation Sarkozy is planning a cabinet shakeup.
The president is expected to replace Alliot-Marie with Alain Juppe, the defence minister and a veteran conservative who served as prime minister and foreign minister in the 1990s.
The video was created by Noy Alooshe, an Israeli musician, and has gone viral on the net, said to be particularly popular among Arabs.
According to Al Jazeera, the chorus part of the song is Gaddafi's words "inch by inch, home by home, alley by alley".
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