Well the WHO certainly isn’t thinking of taking half measures. The debate is now surely divided between those who say ‘don’t panic’, and those who want to be able to argue ‘don’t say you weren’t warned’.
The World Health Organisation on Thursday predicted governments would need to quarantine about 120,000 people to contain an initial [...]

Well, not unexpectedly, the ECB decided to leave its main refinancing rate unchanged at 2.25% yesterday. Rather more surprisingly (for some at least) the German Federal Statistical agency reported that German economic growth ground to a halt at the end of 2005.
According to the Financial Times:
Johann Hahlen, president of the federal statistics office, said that [...]

There are opinions to suit all taste this week. According to EurActiv:
EU leaders have almost all declined a proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to save the EU Constitution by splitting it up into single chapters and integrating those into the existing EU framework.
The EU observer puts it more bluntly - The Hague says [...]

Little known Moldova has been in the news at Afoe recently (here, and here), and today the story continues:
Russia’s use of energy as a political tool was in the spotlight again on Wednesday as the European Union expressed concern about Moscow’s dispute with Moldova over gas prices…….On Wednesday the European Commission urged Russia and Moldova [...]

A continent renowned for its supposed machismo seems about to get its first female president, Michelle Bachelet. This in itself is interesting, but equally interesting is the divide that can be seen across the continent between a more or less pragmatic group of politicians - Bachelet herself, Kirchner in Argentina, Lula in Brazil, or, to [...]

There is an interesting debate going on at present about whether or not the ‘rigours of the Stability and Growth Pact’ should apply to the UK which is, let it be remembered, (a) not member of the eurozone and (b) hardly a laggard in implementing the core of the Lisbon Agenda. New Economist is [...]

Leafing through the comments on Brussels Gonzo’s last post, I can’t help getting the feeling that this news about Iran’s decision to resume its nuclear programme may well serve to focus our energy debate a little.
Britain yesterday vowed to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council, intensifying diplomatic pressure over Tehran’s nuclear [...]

Expanding on (and slightly copying) my comments in Edward’s post below, I was really shocked to see the spin in the western coverage of the Ukrainian gas crisis. The part that didn’t shock me - just made me groan - is the spin of a western press that seems to have decided in advance [...]

Victor David Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has written an open letter to Europe asking us to “reawake, rediscover your heritage, and join with us in defending the idea of the West from this latest illiberal scourge of Islamic fascism.” It is getting some play in the usual right-wing quarters, despite his [...]

Brad Setser has a post, the perrenial dollar story, which IMHO, has one large and significant ommission: it doesn’t really mention the euro. Personally I don’t really see how you can consider the future evolution of the dollar without taking the euro into account. This realisation provoked a rather long comment from me on Brad’s [...]