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Friday, December 23, 2011
Alarm over Manning defense team strategy
Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning leaves U.S. Magistrate Court at Fort Meade, Md., on Tuesday.
By Mike Brunkermsnbc.com
Raising the hackles of some attorneys who work on transgender legal issues, defense attorneys for Bradley Manning apparently intend to make an almost novel legal argument -- that the Army private was suffering from gender identity disorder when his alleged crimes were committed -- if his case proceeds to court martial as expected.
In the first five days of Manning?s preliminary hearing at Fort Meade, Md., prosecutors and defense attorneys have both presented evidence that Manning, accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of secret government documents to the WikiLeaks website, was wrestling with gender issues in the period leading up to the publication of the documents.
The defense stated Saturday that Manning, 24, had written to one of his supervisors when he was stationed in Iraq before his arrest and said he had concluded he was suffering from gender identity disorder, which is classified as a medical disorder in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. He included a photo of himself dressed as a woman in the letter and said the issue was affecting his ability to do his job or think clearly.
A defense attorney and a witness also stated that Manning had created a Facebook profile and opened at least one email account using the name ?Breanna Manning,? which the attorney described as an ?alter-ego.?
As the hearing continued Tuesday, prosecutors presented testimony indicating that Manning had used another soldier?s laptop to order a book on female facial reconstructive surgery from Amazon.com that he had shipped to his Potomac address.
A search of Amazon.com for the term ?female facial reconstructive surgery? returns just one title, ?Facial Feminization Surgery: A Guide for the Transgendered Woman.?
Also Tuesday, Manning?s attorneys did little to challenge testimony by prosecution witnesses tying Manning to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other electronic evidence collected in the case.
Manning is charged with aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
If Manning?s case does go to court martial, his attorneys will apparently be just the second defense team to attempt to use a gender identity disorder as at least a partial defense in a military case, according to Jack King, a staff attorney with the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys specializing in mental health issues.
The only other case on record, he said, involved Karen Davis, a Navy electrician's mate, second class, formerly known as Charles Marx, who was prosecuted in the mid-1980s ?for wearing women's clothing (a skirt, nylons, a women's blouse, a bra, women's fashion jeans, nail polish, a purse, and a wig) on numerous occasions while at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.?
In appealing her court martial in 1988, Davis' attorneys argued that such conduct was not illegal. They also stated that, while living as Marx, she had been diagnosed by several Navy psychiatrists as having gender identity disorder and that cross-dressing was therapeutic.
The military appeals court allowed her dishonorable discharge to stand for the reason that?cross-dressing was??prejudicial to good order and discipline and discrediting of the Armed Forces."
King said such a case would be unlikely today, given the greater understanding of gender identity disorder.
?Now, if a person could show that because he or she believed themselves to be a member of the opposite sex they had an irresistible impulse to cross-dress, they would in all likelihood qualify for a medical discharge,? he said.
Several attorneys who work with transgender legal issues said they were not aware of a gender identity disorder defense being raised in a civilian court, and King said it?s easy to see why not, noting that such a diagnosis ?doesn?t prevent you from knowing right from wrong.? The disorder is most often raised in criminal proceedings as part of an overall insanity defense, or by expert witnesses arguing that a defendant is so mentally damaged that he or she should be committed, he said.
And several lawyers who work with transgender clients indicated they were not happy with the direction that the Manning proceedings have taken.
?We don?t think that being transgender, if he in fact is, has anything to do with him breaking the law,? said Kylar Broadus, an attorney with the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. ?Obviously the charges are serious and we don?t want the trial to be sensationalized or detracted from by him being transgender.?
?Our opinion is there is no correlation between anything he has done and gender identity disorder,? agreed Dru Levasseur, a transgender rights attorney with Lambda Legal.
?This plays into stereotypes that are not true,? he continued. ?There are a lot of people with gender identity disorder?fighting for their lives to be respected and understood as human beings who need equal access to the law. This type of scenario just confuses the situation.?
Follow Mike Brunker on Facebook or Twitter.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Will 'Sister Wives' stars beat Utah's bigamy law?
The Kody Brown Bunch is hoping to rewrite the rule books in Utah.
The polygamous clan made famous on the TLC hit reality series "Sister Wives" has asked a federal judge in Utah to continue to let them challenge the state's bigamy laws.
Here's what went down today.
MORE: Sister Wives' Polygamy Clan: We Live in Fear Because of Utah's Bigamy Law
Lawyers for Brown and his four wives ? Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn ? offered oral arguments this morning for an hour-and-a-half before U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups, who, according to his clerk, took the case "under advisement" and plans to rule on the matter at an unspecified future date.
"The court gave us a fair hearing and we will await his decision," Brown's attorney and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley tells E! News. "We are committed to pursuing these claims on behalf of the Brown family wherever they take us in the legal system."
The family filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City District Court back in July claiming Utah's bigamy law is unconstitutional because it criminalizes their private sexual relationships and prohibits them from living together. They've told the court they fear being punished by the statute, which they say has caused them irreprable harm and forced them to temporarily move to Nevada.
"The Brown's remain subject to potential persecution due to their status as a plural family," reads the complaint. "The family used their savings and moved their 17 children to Nevada in January after the state of Utah opened up a bigamy investigation on them."
(Kody is legally married only to Meri and the other three "sister wives" are so-called "commitments.")
The ever-expanding family belongs to the Apostolic United Brethren Church, which is centered in Salt Lake City, but per court docs, "due to the low of AUB members in Nevada, the Brown's cannot fully perform their religious practices outside of Utah and must return to Utah to engage in certain religious practices."
MORE: Sister Wives Take Their Big Love to the Silver State
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Part of the suit's aim is to make it safe for the Brown's and their 21-strong brood to move back to Utah.
"This family is asking no more than any family deserves: to be heard in the courts," says Turley. "This challenge was brought to benefit not just polygamists but all citizens who wish to live their lives according to their own values ? even if those values run counter to those of the majority in the state."
The Utah Attorney General's Office has asked Waddoups to toss the suit on the grounds that because it's unlikely prosecutors will go after the clan and the family failed to show how they've been injured by the state.
AG Mark Shurtleff has previously said his staff does not have the resources to prosecute polygamists unless they discovered more serious offenses, such as incest , statutory rape or abuse.
None of the Browns attended today's proceeding, prefering to let their attorneys do the talking on behalf of their privacy rights.
"While the state has asked for the courthouse doors to be shut to this family," says Turley, "we believe they have a right to be heard on the unconstitutionality of this law."
PICS: Check out some slightly less complicated famous families
? 2011 E! Entertainment Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45703754/ns/today-entertainment/
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Whither the Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs ? Today?s Q?s for O?s WH ? 12/16/2011 (ABC News)
Full ban on driver calls could be tough to enforce
FILE - In a Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011 file photo, Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving, in San Diego. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday, Dec. 13, that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. But if lawmakers follow the advice of the federal board, police officers could be faced with decoding whether someone is using their cell phone or simply singing along to the radio, pleading with backseat children to stop fighting or reciting an important sales pitch. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FILE - In a Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011 file photo, Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving, in San Diego. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday, Dec. 13, that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. But if lawmakers follow the advice of the federal board, police officers could be faced with decoding whether someone is using their cell phone or simply singing along to the radio, pleading with backseat children to stop fighting or reciting an important sales pitch. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FILE - In a Tuesday, June 24, 2008 file photo, a sign warning drivers that hands-free technology will be required starting July 1, displays its message over a highway in San Francisco. While most states have banned texting among drivers and a number have also prohibited hand-held phones, the Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board is to outlaw all behind-the-wheel cell phone use, wireless or not. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
A driver uses a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Los Angeles. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
A motorist uses a cellphone while holding the steering wheel and a cigarette in her other hand while passing through an intersection Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in Houston. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting on a cellphone while driving is just too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States and is urging all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Dan Johnson uses a hands-free device to talk on a cellphone while driving Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, in San Diego. Johnson, an operations manager, uses his cellphone while driving frequently for business. The National Transportation Safety Board declared Tuesday that texting, emailing or chatting while driving is simply too dangerous to be allowed anywhere in the United States. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? A driver in the next lane is moving his lips. Is he on a hands-free cellphone? Talking to someone in the car? To himself? Singing along to the radio?
If lawmakers follow the advice of a federal board, police officers will have to start figuring that out ? somehow.
The National Transportation Safety Board said this week that drivers should not only be barred from using hand-held cellphones, as they are in several states, but also from using hands-free devices. No more "Sorry, I'm stuck in traffic" calls, or virtually any other cellphone chatter behind the wheel.
Though no state has yet implemented such restrictive rules, the NTSB's recommendations carry weight that could place such language into future laws, or motivate the federal government to cut funding to states that don't follow suit.
Many of the men and women patrolling the nation's streets and highways wonder how they would sort the criminally chatty from the legally chatty.
"It would be almost impossible to determine if someone was talking on a phone or exercising their vocal cords," said Capt. Donald Melanson of the West Hartford, Conn., police department, which took part in a national pilot program aimed at cracking down on drivers' cellphone use. "That would be much more difficult to enforce, almost to the point where it would be impossible."
Officer Tom Nichols of the Port St. Lucie, Fla., police said a law written like the NTSB suggests would be difficult to enforce because so many variables would be at play.
"If you identify someone who has a hands-free set hooked up to their ear that doesn't mean they are talking on the phone," he said. "They could be talking to a passenger. They could be talking to a child in the back. They could be singing."
Police could end up turning to technology for help. They might even end up with the cellphone equivalent of a radar speed gun.
Fred Mannering, a Purdue University civil engineering professor who is associate director of the Center for Road Safety, said that since all cellphones emit signals, a simple Bluetooth detection device could spot them.
Computers are already common in patrol cars, and Mannering said a relatively cheap add-on could fit them to track cellphone signals.
"It would be really easy for police to have a computer on board and pick up those signals," Mannering said, "but it is sort of Big Brother."
The NTSB's proposal, announced Tuesday as a unanimous recommendation of its five-member board, urges all states to impose total bans except for emergencies. It cited deadly crashes caused by distracted drivers across the country, and noted that many studies have shown that hands-free cellphones are often as unsafe as hand-held devices.
The recommendation poses an astounding number of questions. What about chauffeurs and traveling salesmen who spend their entire day on the road? And roadside Amber Alert and Silver Alert notifications that implore drivers to call in if they spot a specific vehicle? What comes of phone lines dedicated to those "How's My Driving?" signs on trucks? How will you let someone know you're stuck in traffic?
Joe Schwieterman, a DePaul University professor who studies people's use of technology while traveling, said he can't envision a law so restrictive ever hitting the books because phone use has become commonplace for drivers. He called such an approach "draconian" and said that if such a law were passed, the public would despise it as "imperial overreach," then ignore it.
"It's a little like speeding laws where it will become just culturally acceptable to violate," he said. He said a no-call law would be followed only if violations carried stiff penalties like those for drunken driving.
Lewis Katz, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said a nationwide ban on using cellphones while driving would be wildly unpopular, and likely the target of legal challenges. But he believed such a law, and the methods police might use to enforce it, ultimately would be deemed as constitutional as seatbelt enforcement.
"I'm sure that it would be challenged on all sorts of constitutional grounds, including free speech," he said in a phone call from his car. "But it seems to me that it doesn't in any way infringe on any constitutional rights. It's a simple safety issue."
Whether the NTSB's recommendations will motivate decision-makers remains to be seen, but they have certainly caught their attention.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has made combating distracted driving the signature issue of his tenure, stopped short of an endorsement. His department is separate from the NTSB.
"My focus is going to be on preaching to people: Take personal responsibility. Put your cellphone and your texting device in the glove compartment when you get behind the wheel of a car," LaHood told reporters at a news conference in Chicago. "You can't drive safely when you have your hand on a cellphone and are trying to drive a 4,000- 5,000 pound vehicle."
Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon, a Republican, said he was wary. His state is among those that have resisted passing laws restricting drivers' cellphone use.
Cannon said future technological advances may prove more effective than legislation at addressing driver distraction issues. As an example, he cited his new iPhone, which can make phone calls and send text messages via voice command.
"In these attempts to try and prevent every bad thing from happening," he said, "it's all too easy to overly restrict personal freedoms and individual rights and responsibilities."
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, the top law enforcement official in Palm Beach County, Fla., said that if lawmakers take the NTSB's suggestions to heart, they should address all manner of distracted driving.
"I see women putting makeup on. I see a guy with an electric shaver. I see one woman with a newspaper. I see a guy with a dog in his hands. All of those are worse than texting," he said.
Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Police, said training would be key to enforcing any ban. Officers are already looking for unbuckled seat belts and swerving drivers; they'd have to add to their mental checklists.
"It's something that is not insurmountable," Bond said. "How you're going to spot it, or how you're going to look for it ? you have to acclimate the troops and acclimate the operations as to how to do this."
Chief Walter McNeil of Quincy, Fla., president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said enforcement of a total ban would be difficult, but that distracted driving needs to be addressed.
"We certainly need to deal with the overall problem with distracted drivers, and getting some level of uniformity in how we enforce that would be helpful," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Torrent of bad financial news flows out of Europe (AP)
DUBLIN ? Alarming financial news flowed out of Europe in a torrent Friday, just a week after the EU leaders struck a deal they thought would contain the continent's debt crisis.
The bombardment shredded hopes of a lasting solution to the turmoil that is endangering the euro ? the currency used by 17 European nations ? and threatening the entire global economy.
In quick succession:
? The Fitch Ratings agency announced it was considering further cuts to the credit scores of six eurozone nations ? heavyweights Italy and Spain, as well as Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland and Slovenia. It said all six could face downgrades of one or two notches.
? Moody's Investors Services downgraded Belgium's credit rating by two notches. Belgium's local- and foreign-currency government bond ratings fell to "Aa3" from Aa1," with a negative outlook. The ratings remain investment grade.
? Ireland's economy shrunk again much deeper than had been expected, with its third-quarter gross domestic product falling 1.9 percent. Ireland is one of three eurozone nations kept solvent only by an international bailout.
? Bankers and hedge funds were balking in talks about forgiving 50 percent of Greece's massive debts, a key issue in the debate over Greece's second rescue bailout.
? The red ink in Spain's regional governments surged 22 percent in the last year, endangering the central government's efforts to cut overall Spanish debt.
? France, the second-largest eurozone economy after Germany, warned that it faced at least a temporary recession next year.
? The euro hovered Friday just above $1.30, a cent higher than its 11-month low.
On the positive side, Fitch said France should keep its top AAA credit rating even though the country's debt load is projected to rise through 2014. Italian lawmakers overwhelmingly passed Premier Mario Monti's new austerity package in a confidence vote, even though many still objected to its pension reforms.
French officials and investors had feared that France could get downgraded, which would have immediate repercussions for the entire eurozone. France and Germany's AAA credit ratings underpin the rating for the eurozone's bailout fund.
European Union leaders confirmed Friday they have distributed the text of their proposed new budget-stability treaty, a pact designed to deter runaway deficits and supposed to become EU law by March. But as growth prospects fade across the continent, governments are facing the likelihood that Europe's debt crisis will prove longer and tougher to overcome than even their most recently revised forecasts.
Until this week, EU leaders held up Ireland as the model for how a debt-struck nation should behave ? defying economic gravity by simultaneously growing its economy while sucking billions out of that same economy in Europe's longest austerity drive.
But on Friday, Ireland announced its third-quarter gross domestic product fell 1.9 percent, its national product 2.2 percent. Economists had expected only an 0.5 percent fall for GDP and none at all for GNP. The latter figure is considered a better measure of Ireland's economic vitality because it excludes the largely exported profits of about 600 American companies based in the country.
Ireland has been cutting spending and hiking taxes since late 2008 and has plans to keep doing so through 2015. Next year's target is euro2.2 billion ($2.9 billion) in cuts and euro1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) in extra charges, including a hike in national sales tax to 23 percent and introduction of a new euro100 ($131) tax on every property.
But the country's finances this year are seriously out of whack: It is spending euro57 billion ($74.5 billion), including euro10 billion ($13 billion) to keep its five nationalized banks afloat, but collecting just euro34 billion ($44 billion) in taxes.
Labor union leaders say the unexpected slump confirmed Friday is irrefutable evidence that Ireland's 4.5 million citizens already have been squeezed too much, too quickly.
"Current policies are making recovery almost impossible," said David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. "No economy can sustain the sort of ongoing damage that is being inflicted on us."
"We need growth and we need it quickly," he added.
Ireland's year-old international bailout requires the Irish to reduce their annual deficits from an EU record 32 percent of GDP in 2010 to the traditional eurozone limit of 3 percent by 2015. But analysts agree that Ireland cannot hope to meet the 2015 goal if its economy doesn't grow sufficiently.
Ireland's recovery plan now presumes 1.6 percent growth in 2012 and 2.8 percent growth in each of the next three years ? figures many consider way too optimistic.
Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers in Dublin, said Ireland would "do well" to reach 0.5 percent growth this year "given the deteriorating world economic backdrop and the fall-off in global demand." He said he doubted Ireland could top 1 percent growth next year.
In other developments:
ITALY:
The new premier's austerity package passed 495-88 Friday, but lawmakers on both the left and right criticized the pension reforms as too harsh. The plan raises euro30 billion ($39 billion) in extra taxes and pension reforms and plows about euro10 billion ($13 billion) of that back into growth measures.
Prosecutors in the southern region of Calabria, meanwhile, said they were investigating 10 envelopes with bullets inside found in a post office in the town of Lamezia Terme. The envelopes were addressed to the new leader Monti, his labor minister, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi and other top political or media figures, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
Reports said the envelopes contained notes threatening those named if the austerity package wasn't changed.
GREECE:
European officials told The Associated Press that private holders of Greek bonds were resisting EU efforts to persuade them to take a voluntary 50 percent cut in the value of their holdings. The talks in Paris between EU and Greek leaders against representatives of global banks and hedge funds have been very difficult, they said.
The proposed euro100 billion ($130.6 billion) write-off of privately held Greek bonds is supposed to be agreed upon by early next year ? and it's central to Greece's second bailout deal. Without it, Greece's debt is forecast to escalate to nearly 200 percent of GDP.
SPAIN:
A new conservative government committed to increased austerity is coming into office next week, but it faces a rapidly deteriorating financial outlook.
The Bank of Spain announced a 22 percent surge over the past year in the debts of the country's 17 regional governments to euro135.2 billion ($176.6 billion). Spain's central government debt rose 15 percent to above euro706 billion ($922.3 billion).
PORTUGAL:
The main opposition party refused Friday to support the government's plan to amend the constitution to include a budget-deficit limit. All 17 members of the eurozone are supposed to make such commitments as part of the bloc's week-old plan to enshrine spending controls in a new treaty.
In a further worrying development, ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the credit rating of six leading Portuguese banks to junk status.
Portugal received its own euro80 billion ($104.5 billion) international bailout deal in April.
___
Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels, Barry Hatton in Lisbon and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.
___
Online:
Ireland's GDP and GNP, http://bit.ly/vTKjuI
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Euro under pressure as EU summit optimism fades (AP)
FRANKFURT, Germany ? The euro slid to an 11-month low and borrowing costs spiked Wednesday for heavily indebted Italy, as economic realities dispelled the last wisps of optimism left about an EU deal aimed at containing Europe's debt crisis.
The market verdict ? that Europe's debt problems are still unsolved ? comes after five days of accumulating questions about whether the deal's new limits on debt and added contributions to the International Monetary Fund will take full effect.
There's also the recognition that last week's summit deal:
? Doesn't reduce existing government debt levels;
? Doesn't do much to promote the long-term growth that would shrink those burdens;
? And didn't create a financial backstop big enough to convince markets that all European countries will pay their debts no matter what.
The loss of confidence comes as experts from the 17 nations that use the euro started reworking the summit deal into a new treaty late Wednesday in Brussels, which will be followed Thursday by a get-together of delegates, a European official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential.
The euro traded below $1.30 for the first time since January 12, hitting a low of $1.2973. Some of that is loss of confidence in the assets of eurozone nations, but it's also the result of two quarter-point interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank. The cuts lower the return on euro-denominated holdings and can induce investors to move money elsewhere.
One of the reasons why the euro not fallen further against the dollar this year, despite the pressures heaped on it by the debt crisis, is that interest rates in Europe have been so much higher than those in the U.S., where the Federal Reserve has kept its main interest rate near zero percent.
That interest rate differential has helped offset the concerns investors naturally felt as the European debt crisis raged and threatened to undermine Europe's banking system and the currency itself.
At Italy's last bond auction of the year, investors demanded even more money to lend to the eurozone's third-largest economy. Italy paid 6.47 percent interest to borrow euro3 billion ($3.95 billion) for five years at a bond auction, up from 6.30 percent just a month ago.
The higher rates reflected investors' fears over the inadequacy of last week's agreement to keep eurozone governments from piling up more debt in the future. Italy has a staggering euro1.9 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in outstanding debt, and its economy is too large for Europe to bailout, like smaller nations Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been.
The new treaty aims to impose tighter rules on how much money eurozone governments can spend. Leaders agreed to include automatic limits in their national constitutions, which would limit deficits to 0.5 percent of economic output in regular economic times. It also is expected to make penalties for overspending governments more automatic and force governments to spell out how they will reduce their big debts and what they are borrowing on the bond markets.
The debt treaty does provide some assurance that European governments are working together to address the euro's flaws in the long-term. But it will not be signed until March at the earliest, and a text must first win approval from the 17 eurozone governments and nine others that the EU hopes will sign. Britain has said it will not.
Issues remain, however, including how the new accord will interact with the existing debt provisions of the basic treaty of the European Union ? which remains unchanged ? and whether it can legally rely on EU institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, to enforce the new rules.
Governments and national parliaments are also likely to watch closely how much sovereignty they are transferring to Brussels or their fellow euro members and whether their own constitutions will be affected.
"The process of negotiating the final deal to suit all will only add to doubts about its relevance in the long run ? meanwhile the immediate crisis continues," said Elisabeth Afseth, an analyst at Evolution Securities.
Also Wednesday, the German government announced it was reactivating its financial sector rescue fund, providing more evidence that European banks are facing real funding pressures and may not have enough capital.
Last week, the European Banking Authority said the continent's banks need to raise about euro115 billion ($149 billion) to meet the new standard meant to protect lenders against market turmoil, including bad government debt. German banks need a total of euro13.1 billion ($17 billion) in new capital to comply with the new requirements. The country's second-biggest bank, Commerzbank AG, has been told it needs euro5.3 billion ($6.89 billion).
The key concept driving fears over Europe is that the proposed EU treaty didn't address the fact that Europe lacks a financial backstop big enough to support Italy and Spain, should they find themselves unable to borrow affordably. Countries must borrow regularly to pay off bonds as they mature ? if they can't, they need a bailout or face default.
That's what happened to Greece, Portugal and Ireland ? and why each received a massive bailout from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. Greece is already negotiating the details of a second huge bailout.
Last week's summit did come up with a commitment from EU governments to loan up to euro200 ($264 billion) to the IMF, which in turn could help out the eurozone. Yet not all countries have made firm commitments to this, and there is some indignation in non-euro using, poorer countries in Eastern Europe that they were being asked to help pay for richer countries' mistakes.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas said he is personally against contributing the roughly 90 billion koruna (euro3.5 billion; $4.6 billion) his country has been asked to give, but the decision is not yet final. In Slovakia, which uses the euro, the leader of a center-right party in the government said he has an "overall negative" view of the plan.
Leaders did agreed to start a new euro500 billion ($659 billion) euro backstop fund, the European Stability Mechanism, a year ahead of time in July, but again there are real questions whether it adds anything to Europe's firepower. Since Europe's existing rescue funds, which have the same financing caps, would expire once the ESM takes effect, the overall amount of eurozone money available to help out struggling governments will remain the same.
That leaves many economists saying that eventually the European Central Bank will have to step up its so-far limited purchases of government debt ? because only that will keep borrowing costs down. That's because the ECB has the power to buy bonds with newly created money.
The bank however has held off, with ECB head Mario Draghi saying governments must cut deficits and take steps to improve growth themselves to win back bond market confidence and not rely on central bank bailouts.
Draghi must also contend with fierce opposition to printing money to fund large-scale bond purchases from Germany's Bundesbank central bank, which is part of the ECB.
Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann is a leading critic, saying that creating new money would violate the bank's legal mandate to fight inflation. While the Bundesbank on paper has only one vote on the 23-member ECB council, Germany is Europe's strongest economy and the main contributor to its bailout funds.
__
Steinhauser contributed from Brussels
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