One of the continuing protests against the policy of austerity has been in Canada, as the government decided to raise fees for university students. The protests have not received a great deal of attention, but, in an attempt to stop them, the Canadian government passed new laws against public protests. Predictably, those laws simply fueled greater protests, and those last night were among the worst so far. I doubt that the government will back down, so I would expect more protests in the short term.
The negotiations between the Western powers and Iran in Baghdad did not yield any breakthrough. But there is an agreement to meet again in Moscow in a month. It is difficult to interpret the impasse since all sides are seemingly adamant. Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu regards the talks as nothing more than a stalling action, and indicated that Israel might not consider any agreement reached as binding on its policies toward Iran.
There was virtually no good news anywhere for the global economy today. All the signs indicated that China, Europe, and the US were experiencing slowdowns. Europe, in particular, got hammered as investors fled from the euro which has lost 5% of its value in the last three weeks. It seems clear that the EU has decided that Greece must leave the eurozone and everyone is getting ready to withstand that storm. June 17th will decide Greece’s fate–we’ll see if the elections produce a viable government.
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