Aaargh! Just when I thought the economic situation in Europe couldn’t get any worse, I read this article about the German economy from Der Spiegel. Apparently the German debt situation is comparable to some of the economies currently under stress–we just haven’t been paying attention to it because the German economy was always growing. Now that the overall European economy is slowing down, the stress on the Germans will intensify. The Europeans clearly need some external funding stimulus, but I can’t see where it would come from.
The situation in Egypt continues to deteriorate as protests against the military turn increasingly violent. The size of the protests is extraordinary which makes categorizing the movement difficult. Quite clearly, the protesters oppose continued military control. But are the current protests simply a continuation of those last spring? Or are the current protests something different. We’ll have to watch how these protests evolve.
South Korea just ratified a highly controversial Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The agreement was stalled in the US Congress for a number of years, and only recently passed. The passage in the South Korean Parliament was accompanied by fist fights and the use of tear gas. The opposition to Free Trade seems to be growing globally as the economic situation gets for difficult.
World Politics News 
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