Obama prods Europeans on economy

CANNES, France ?? Conceding a fragile global recovery and plodding job growth back home, President Barack Obama said Friday he is confident European leaders are fixing their ominous debt crisis that threatens to undermine the United States and his own shot at a second term.

A year shy of the election, Obama said the American economy is growing, but "way too slow."

The president capped his role at a brisk G-20 summit essentially where he started it, offering solidarity to his European peers with none-too-subtle signals it was their responsibility to clean up the economic mess in their own backyards.

At issue is an evolving rescue package across the 17 nations sharing the euro as their common currency. The plan could prevent a default in Greece, put up a financial firewall against future trouble and reassure markets about the credibility of the euro.

1. Other political news of note

   1. Obama prods Europeans on economy

      Updated 88 minutes ago 11/4/2011 8:23:32 PM +00:00 President Barack Obama said Friday he is confident European leaders are fixing their ominous debt crisis that threatens to undermine the United States and his own shot at a second term.

   2. Democrats hopeful to retake House in '12
   3. Obama's rating improves, loses edge vs Romney
   4. Koch group dealt with Cain campaign's chief
   5. Bachmann: I'll create 'millions of jobs'

"I am confident that Europe has the capacity to meet this challenge," Obama said in a news conference at the meeting of leading industrialized and developing countries.

PhotoBlog: All wet

"I know it isn't easy, but what is absolutely critical ? and what the world looks for in moments such as this ? is action," he said. "That's how we confronted our financial crisis in the United States."

The drama of Greek's messy internal struggles and their potential to derail the entire European effort hung over the summit in this French Riviera resort, as did a gloomy rain.

While Obama met with world leaders, a news jobs report showed the American economy added 80,000 jobs in October, and that the job expansion in the previous two months was better than first thought.

Job market shows gains but faces huge risks

The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9 percent. Should it remain anywhere close to that level a year from now, Obama will face re-election with the highest jobless rate in recent times.

"The least of my concerns at the moment is the politics of a year from now," Obama said. "I'm worried about putting people back to work right now because those folks are hurting and the U.S. economy is underperforming."

He cast the jobs report as positive but said the pace of the recovery shows "once again that the economy's growing way too slow."

Story: Greece PM faces crucial confidence vote

Obama repeatedly tried to keep the focus on his confidence that Europe is on its way to solving its financial woes. "I can say that we've come together and made important progress to get our economic recoveries on a firmer footing," Obama said.

Still, important questions had not been answered. Leaders of the economic powers did not agree on how to increase the firepower of the International Monetary Fund to help stem the European debt crisis.

Obama acknowledged that there is hard work left to do. But he said Europe had a foundation with the right elements: a way ahead for indebted Greece, a credible firewall to contain the crisis and a plan to strengthen European banks.

"All of us have an enormous interest in Europe's success and all of us will be affected if Europe is not growing, and that certainly includes the United States," Obama said. "If Europe isn't growing, it's harder for us to do what we need to do for the American people: creating jobs, lifting up the middle class and putting our fiscal house in order."

Obama even extended some political sympathy, reminiscing about the economic difficulties he faced upon taking office in 2009.

Instead of working with a single legislative body as he did, Obama noted that there are multiple parliaments, commissions and institutions involved in solving Europe's crisis. He said some of his counterparts joked that he had gotten a crash course in European politics in the past couple of days.

What Obama was not, clearly, was the center of attention here. The United States came into this gathering in a supporting role.

He talked economic cooperation with Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez and congratulated her for recently winning re-election. He joined the summit host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in saluting service members from both their countries who fought in a NATO-led campaign that drove Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.

Obama was on his way home Friday, but not for long. He is to leave on Nov. 11 for another economic summit, in Hawaii, before traveling to Australia and Indonesia.

Stalled joblessness poses significant problems for Obama, who has been unable to get Republican support for elements of his $447 billion jobs plan.

"As soon as I get some signal from Congress that they're willing to take their responsibilities seriously, I think we can do more," the president said. "But that's going to require them to break out of the rigid ideological positions that they've been taking. And the same is true, by the way, when it comes to deficit reduction."

Directing his remarks at Europe and the United States, Obama said: "There's no excuse for inaction. That's true globally. It's certainly true back home, as well, and I'm going to keep on pushing it regardless of what the politics are."

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45163857/ns/politics-white_house/

the lion king john cabot john cabot safety razor safety razor star wars blu ray star wars blu ray

Italy accepts IMF monitoring, EU looks for support (Reuters)

CANNES, France (Reuters) ? Italy, under fierce pressure from financial markets and European peers, has agreed to have the IMF and the EU monitor its progress with long delayed reforms of pensions, labor markets and privatization, senior EU sources said on Friday.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his government close to collapse after more loyalists defected on Thursday, agreed to the step in late-night talks with euro zone leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes, France.

The Italian move came after Greece stepped back from a proposed referendum that could have triggered its exit from the euro area and agreed to seek national consensus in support of a 130 billion euro ($178 billion) new bailout program.

"We need to make sure there is credibility with Italy's targets -- that it is going to meet them. We decided to have the IMF involved on the monitoring, using their own methodology, and the Italians say they can live with that," one EU source said.

"Italy has no problem with surveillance at all, even with the IMF being involved," he said, adding that the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund would each report separately on how Italy was meeting its targets.

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the European Central Bank, the IMF and European Union institutions also discussed with Obama ways of ramping up the IMF's warchest to help prevent contagion from the euro zone's debt crisis plunging the world economy back into recession.

A G20 source said no figures were agreed but the boost to IMF resources, mostly from large emerging countries such as China, could be in the range of $300-350 billion.

EU officials said three options were under consideration, including the possibility of pooling the euro zone countries' rights to borrow from the IMF to build a fighting fund to support vulnerable sovereigns such as Italy and Spain.

The concession by Berlusconi was an attempt to shore up his country's perilous position on bond markets, where its borrowing costs soared well above 6 percent this week, raising doubts about its long-term ability to cope with a debt pile of 120 percent of gross domestic product.

An official Italian source denied that Italy was being singled out for special surveillance and said the whole euro zone would be under closer monitoring. However, he confirmed that Rome was willing to request IMF advice on implementing the commitments it gave EU leaders on specific reforms on October 27.

BEYOND GREEK DRAMA

G20 leaders will try to look beyond the Greek drama that has shaken their annual gathering and agree on measures on Friday that will convince markets the risk of further euro zone contagion can be stemmed.

Delegates gathered in the Riviera resort of Cannes found themselves watching the euro zone battle to snuff out its biggest fire yet as Greece threw a rescue deal into question and seemed on the brink of quitting the euro.

The EU source said a precautionary credit line was not seen as a credible option for Italy, where one of the main problems has been market confidence.

"With the general climate and Italy's lack of credibility, every small setback or problem is compounded and makes things worse, so the markets cannot have confidence," he said.

Greece's future in the euro zone may hinge on a vote of confidence in Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou late on Friday night.

If he wins, government sources say he has pledged to step aside and make way for an interim national unity government that would enact the EU/IMF bailout plan, receive a vital aid installment and pave the way for early elections next year.

However, if he loses, Greece will be plunged into deeper political turmoil and may face a hard default and possible exit from the 17-nation single currency area.

But analysts are already eyeing Italy as a test case for the anti-crisis package agreed in Brussels last week.

"Italy holds the key to the euro zone debt crisis," BNP Paribas analyst Luigi Speranza wrote in a research note late on Thursday. "Developments in Italy are a crucial test for the credibility of the anti-crisis framework set up by the EU."

Concern is growing that Italy, the euro area's No. 3 economy and biggest government bond market, could go the way of Greece and require a bailout without rapid action.

Berlusconi has repeatedly promised to make deep reforms, balance the budget in 2013 and trim the public debt, but there are doubts about his commitment.

A clause in a draft communique for the Cannes summit, obtained by Reuters, showed Italy would only be held to bring its budget "close to" balance in 2013 as part of a package of economic pledges aimed at reducing economic imbalances.

SARKOZY AMBITIONS OVERTAKEN

The fast-moving Greek fiasco dominated the last meeting of France's G20 presidency and crushed any hopes by President Nicolas Sarkozy of making a last-minute breakthrough on big early goals such as rethinking the global monetary system.

The draft statement seen by Reuters showed the G20 is considering an IMF proposal to create a new short-term credit line to help countries hit by crippling economic shocks.

G20 sources said IMF resource talks were looking at an extension of the fund's New Agreements to Borrow (NABS), due to expire next year, and the injection of billions of dollars into the global economy through a special allocation of its Special Drawing Rights.

"It all depends on Sarkozy, how hard he pushes," one said.

The plan to ramp up SDRs should also help manage fears rippling through markets over Europe's crisis.

"The crisis in Europe is causing a global systemic crisis including Asia. Rather than creating a new global framework, everyone is expecting the IMF to become more proactive," Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.

"The focus of debate is how to set up a firewall but we consider that the IMF should become one big wall."

Several sessions of grueling talks ahead of this week's G20 summit had patched over differences between Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel about how to fix Europe's debt woes and led to an October 27 deal they had hoped would reassure markets.

Yet news Papandreou's call on Monday for a referendum on Greek measures in the agreement appeared to turn the deal on its head, until Sarkozy and Merkel summoned the prime minister to Cannes and told him Greece would get no more aid until it confirmed it would meet its EU/IMF commitments.

Final G20 sessions on Friday will focus on largely agreed topics like commodity transparency and financial regulation issues like the risks posed by high-frequency trading.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Gernot Heller, Giselda Vagnoni; Writing By Paul Taylor and Catherine Bremer)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/bs_nm/us_g20

google street view gluten free diet oprah winfrey iaa blackberry torch 2 the closer ea sports