Denmark and Finland jointly announced they were joining Sweden, which had granted Palestine embassy status. The formal announcement was Monday, at a Scandinavian ministerial conference.

A variety of links to articles/interviews/speeches on current issues that may be of interest.

There was fairly unanimous agreement that the most recent EU summit did some good, if for no other reason than it offloaded some of the risk for bank bailouts off of sovereign governments. The European bailout fund would be able to lend directly to the banks, rather than tying only the bank’s sovereign in with it. But now even that structure is unraveling.

Fatsert rounds up news stories you might have missed over the weekend, including articles about Syria,, Afghanistant, Egypt, Tibet, Finland, $44 million CEO, North Dakota boom, Thaddeus McCotter, PA charter schools, Bill Gates, banksters, minimum wage Scranto, Rick Scott, voter suppression, and more.

On a day where unemployment in the Eurozone hit a new high of 11.1%, with youth unemployment over double that, German manufacturing is feeling the bite from the slump among export partners. This reminds us that while last week’s agreements may have averted the immediate bank crisis, it hasn’t addressed the underlying economic problems.