Financial Crisis and Geopolitics

Earlier on Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the nuclear fuel swap with Iran was a "positive step" and it was waiting for Tehran to provide full written details, as China and Lebanon also voiced their support for the new deal.

China and India stand to lose a lot from reducing their trade with Iran, so the Americans will find it difficult to preserve these giants' commitment to sanctions.

The United States reached agreement Tuesday with Russia, China and other major powers on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would modestly expand and stiffen sanctions on Iran for its failure to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Rumors of the imminent collapse of the eurozone continue to swirl despite the Europeans' best efforts to hold the currency union together. Some accounts in the financial world have even suggested that Germany's frustration with the crisis could cause Berlin to quit the eurozone - as soon as this past weekend, according to some - while at the most recent gathering of European leaders French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently threatened to bolt the bloc if Berlin did not help Greece. Meanwhile, many in Germany - including Chancellor Angela Merkel herself at one point - have called for the creation of a mechanism by which Greece - or the eurozone's other over-indebted, uncompetitive economies - could be kicked out of the eurozone in the future should they not mend their "irresponsible" spending habits.

On Monday, Brazil and Turkey brokered a deal with Iran that would see it trading enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. Observers in Germany see a diplomatic coup for the rising powers, but warn that it could just be another ploy on the part of Iran.

The 750 billion euro package the European Union passed last week to prop up the common currency has been heavily criticized in Germany. Former Bundesbank head Karl Otto Pöhl told SPIEGEL that Greece may ultimately have to opt out, and that the foundation of the euro has been fundamentally weakened.

Worried about your euros? You're not alone. As the euro plunges, many observers fear a possible collapse of the European single currency.

No fundamental, os termos do acordo são os mesmos da proposta oferecida por Estados Unidos, Rússia e França há oito meses, pela qual o Irã deveria entregar ao redor de 70% do seu urânio enriquecido a mais de 5%. A própria Agência Internacional de Energia Atômica já calculara que a neutralização de 1,2 toneladas do minério seria o suficiente para anular qualquer projeto atômico de caráter militar. A formação de alianças fora da órbita imperial, porém, é tudo o que não interessa a Washington e seus subservientes associados europeus. O artigo é de Breno Altman.

No curto espaço de uma semana, o Brasil viu-se como protagonista em duas questões centrais para a humanidade. Primeiramente quando Lula é condecorado pela ONU com a medalha pelos esforços no combate à fome, fato que a mídia comercial escondeu, para espanto geral. Segundo porque neste final de semana o presidente do Brasil, após conseguir o apoio da Rússia para suas gestões, desembarca em um Irã ameaçado levando uma mensagem clara ao mundo: os problemas devem ser resolvidos pelo diálogo não por sanções, muito menos pela guerra, que, comprovadamente, veja-se hoje o Iraque e o Afeganistão, só trazem solução para o caixa da indústria bélica, a principal economia dos EUA.

O Brasil soube buscar aliados - Rússia, China, Turquia, França - para abrir um espaço de negociação política, que se revelou possível e correto. A posição brasileira de que os EUA - e outras potências - possuindo imensos arsenais nucleares, não tinham moral para buscar acordos que limitem a disseminação de armamento nuclear, abre caminho para outras iniciativas de paz.

The uranium transfer deal transforms Iran and Turkey into strategic allies without undermining Turkey's standing in the West.

Brazil and Turkey, which were represented by their presidents in the talks, invested significant diplomatic cache in the negotiations. It is rare for non-permanent members of the Security Council to intervene in a process led by nuclear powers, and in many ways the result could be seen as a revolt by smaller powers over the rights to nuclear power and prestige.

The deal widens a divide between a group of countries led by the U.S., on the one hand, and developing nations on the other, over the right of Iran and other developing nations to use nuclear energy.

Europe's common currency fell to a four-year low against the dollar Monday as fears mounted that deep cuts in government spending to combat the region's debt crisis could severely damage Europe's economic recovery.

The pain of the European debt crisis is spreading, with the plummeting euro making Chinese companies less competitive in Europe, their largest market, and complicating any move to break the Chinese currency's peg to the dollar.

The deal, negotiated by Turkey and Brazil, calls for Iran to ship 1,200 kilograms (2,640 pounds) of low enriched uranium to Turkey, where it would be stored. In exchange, after one year, Iran would have the right to receive about 265 pounds of material enriched to 20 percent from Russia and France.

In a SPIEGEL interview, Jean-Claude Trichet, the 67-year-old president of the European Central Bank, discusses the largest financial rescue package in the history of Europe, the role and importance of speculators in the euro crisis and the weakness shown by politicians in the euro zone member states.

Political leaders and central bankers on both sides of the Atlantic struggled over the weekend to persuade jittery investors that Europe would pull through its sovereign debt crisis, saying that it would be helped by a stronger-than-expected economic recovery in the United States.

Could euro devaluation increase the size of the U.S. deficit? Marshall Auerback explores the possibility, and what it means if deficit hysteria continues unchecked.

¿Por qué hay enormes déficits presupuestarios en todo el planeta? No es porque, de repente, todos los funcionarios del mundo se hayan convertido en apparatchiki de estilo soviético. Es, y por mucho, porque una economía global en declive ha llevado a menores ingresos y a un mayor gasto público en la red de seguridad social. El colmo de la ignorancia económica es proponer la destrucción de esa red de seguridad social a partir de una extrapolación de las equivocadas lecciones proporcionadas por los particularísimos problemas en que se ha metido a sí propia la eurozona.