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CCSF's
$138 mil albatross? - (www.sfgate.com) As the college teeters on the
financial brink, it opens a spiffy 14-story campus in Chinatown. Ambitious
buildings often debut at the most awkward possible time. The Chinatown/North
Beach campus of City College of San Francisco is the
latest case in point. The 14-story tower that now anchors Portsmouth
Square had its ceremonial opening Friday as the 86,000-student system is
threatened with the loss of accreditation because of managerial and financial
problems. The first meeting held by trustees in a companion four-story building
included a vote to bring in a state trustee to oversee operations. In this
context, it is difficult not to view the $138 million campus as an albatross.
But from the urban design perspective, or as a manifestation of San Francisco's
cultural dynamics, look on it as something else: a smart addition to the
landscape no matter what comes next.
Investors fear imminent tail-risk event - (www.ft.com) The world’s biggest investors fear a fresh market crisis will erupt in the next 12 months amid worries that troubles in the eurozone will hit global growth and cause disruption in the financial system similar to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. More than 70 per cent of investors warn that a so-called tail-risk event, an external shock that causes a market sell-off and potentially threatens the financial system, will happen in the next year, says State Street Global Advisors. State Street, the third biggest manager of money in the world, said 71 per cent of investors in a survey of 300 around the world, including the largest pension funds, asset managers and private banks, fear an imminent Lehman-like event.
Greek protest turns violent during general strike - (www.ap.com) Europe's fragile financial calm was shattered
Wednesday as investors worried that violent anti-austerity protests in Greece
and Spain's debt troubles showed that the continent still cannot contain its
financial crisis. Police fired tear gas Wednesday at rioters hurling gasoline
bombs and chunks of marble during Greece's largest anti-austerity demonstration
in six months. The protests were part of a 24-hour general strike, the latest
test for Greece's nearly four-month-old coalition government and the new
spending cuts it plans to push through. The brief but intense clashes by
several hundred rioters among the 60,000 people protesting in Athens came a day
after anti-austerity protests rocked the Spanish capital. In Madrid, thousands
of angry protesters again swarmed as close as they could get Wednesday night to
Parliament, watched by a heavy contingent of riot police. There was no fresh
violence, but the demonstrators cut off traffic on one of the city's major
thoroughfares at the height of the evening commute.
ECB Bond Buying May Hinder Reforms, Weidmann Tells NZZ - (www.bloomberg.com) The European Central Bank’s bond purchasing
program could hinder a recovery in the euro zone if it eases pressure on
governments to implement reforms, German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann
said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung. Weidmann
questioned whether bond-purchase programs are the appropriate mechanism for
solving structural problems, such as the lack of competitiveness and loss of
trust in an individual country’s fiscal policies, according to the interview.
Weidmann was the only member of the ECB Governing Council to oppose the
so-called Outright Monetary Transactions program.
Exclusive - IMF, EU clash over Greece's bailout prospects - (www.reuters.com) Greece's international lenders are at
loggerheads over how to solve Athens' debt crisis, threatening more trouble for
the euro as the IMF demands European governments write off some of the Greek
debt they hold. Officials from Greece and the "troika" of European
Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund have told Reuters
that tensions among them have increased of late as the Washington-based Fund
has played tough. It has been pushing to restructure debts Athens owes to
public-sector foreign creditors. EU leaders prefer to give Greece more time to
meet bailout goals. While strains between Greece and its would-be saviours have
been evident, as significant are frictions among the lenders.
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