(photo: Ferdia O'Brien/wikimedia)

The coffee’s freshly ground, there’s a wide variety of teas and the sticky buns are homemade.

  • “France and Spain have cleared major funding tests, steadying volatile markets and giving some much-needed cheer to the embattled eurozone. Paris and Madrid secured €13bn (£10.8bn) [$16.86B] of funding between them in bond auctions at significantly lower interest rates than last year, despite a downgrade by the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s last week that sparked fears of a run on the euro and the collapse of several banks.”
  • “Has Merlin lost its magic? The grandiosely titled deal between the [UK] Government and the banks set up by former Barclays chief executive John Varley last February was supposed to improve the supply of credit to businesses. The big four banks – Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds – along with Spain’s Banco Santander would show ‘a capacity and willingness to lend’ by making borrowing facilities of £190bn [$294.3B] available to businesses in 2011. Of that, £76bn [$117.3B] would be specifically targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which the Government hopes will be the engine of economic recovery.”
  • “When companies go bust, we, the customers, rarely pay much heed. It’s all about judges, restructuring and then, if they are lucky, their re-emerging in some shrunken form to carry on as if nothing had happened. Not so in the case of Kodak, which is now taking the walk of ignominy to the bankruptcy courts.” A tale of short-sightedness.
  • “Hours after the US federal agents on Thursday arrested the leaders of and shut down Megaupload.com, a popular website for illegal file sharing, hackers collective Anonymous retaliated by shutting down the Department of Justice’s website, CNN reported.” heh heh heh
  • “Actor [Jude] Law received the highest payout of £130,000 ($200,000). The ex-deputy PM [Lord Prescott] got £40,000 [$61,942], the High Court heard. Sara Payne, mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah, and Shaun Russell, whose wife and daughter were murdered in 1996, were given undisclosed sums. News International apologised in court but later said senior staff knew nothing about the wrongdoing.”
  • “In an unprecedented outpouring of online activism, internet juggernauts Reddit, 4chan and Wikipedia, as well as thousands of other websites, shut down Wednesday to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its senate equivalent, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), an effort that many believe will save the soul of the internet. Millions of users on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter spent the day raising awareness about the bills and letting their representatives know they stand in opposition to legislation they say would result in unjust censorship.”
  • “Tehran has warned its Gulf neighbours that it would be ‘dangerous’ for them to join a western-led effort to isolate Iran, with the warning coming as a meeting of European ambassadors in Brussels failed to agree on the details of an EU oil embargo. The EU permanent representatives council had been due to agree a far-reaching sanctions package including a phased embargo on oil imports from Iran and a freezing of the assets of the country’s central bank.”
  • “The projection screen is draped across the base of a statue in a busy intersection. About 100 people are gathered around, watching violent images of army and police brutality broadcast to whomever passes by. It’s ‘3askar kazeboon,’ or ‘military liars,’ a media campaign organized by some of Egypt’s most dedicated revolutionaries to combat the military propaganda aired on state television and that paints the activists as destructive thugs.”

From Real News:

  • “Eurocrisis is a Global Crisis. Leo Panitch: People need to build their own political organizations that push for public banking and serious capital controls.”

The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.