A glance at the week that was
We now know:
* Knut , the world’s best-known polar bear, has died at Berlin Zoo at the age of four.
* Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, claims capitalism could have wiped out life on Mars.
* Filming has begun on Peter Jackson's The Hobbitmovies, ending years of setbacks.
The numbers:
267Suspected drink-drivers arrested over the St Patrick's bank holiday.
33The percentage of Irish people who believe leprechauns exist, according to a poll by Cooley Distillery.
2.9mThe price fetched at auction by a Mayan sculpture that Mexican officials believe is fake.
73The percentage of management jobs in news media held by men, according to the International Women's Media Foundation.
€100,000
The record fine given to Google by France’s privacy watchdog over data it gathered when setting up Street View.
361
The number of crimes and traumatic incidents suffered by 620 tourists in Ireland last year.
A pensioner scorned:
When 92-year-old Helen Staudinger was refused a kiss by her neighbour, authorities say, the Florida woman fired four gunshots at his house, leading to charges of aggravated assault. The neighbour, 53-year-old Dwight Bettner, said the elderly woman seemed attracted to him since he moved in, six months ago, and began helping her with “neighbourly stuff” such as taking the bins out. “I guess she just took that as something else,” he said, adding, “I thought this only happened to younger people.”
Give me a crash course in . . . Portugal's crisis
Another rescue?Portugal's debt crisis took a grave turn this week when the country's prime minister, José Sócrates, resigned in the wake of parliament's rejection of a drastic austerity plan. As crippling borrowing costs weigh the country down, the demise of his administration has intensified expectation that Portugal will soon be forced to follow Ireland and Greece into the bailout zone.
Oh no, not againOh yes. Portugal does not have a banking crisis like that of Ireland, but the country suffers from moribund public finances, rising debt, high unemployment, low growth prospects and a weak private sector. For many months Sócrates's minority socialist government tried to avert the threat of a bailout with sweeping austerity measures. All that came a cropper on Wednesday when the opposition voted down his latest budget- trimming plan, the fourth in less than a year.
What happens next?An election looms in a few months, and Portuguese bond yields are under stress, suggesting the country will find it impossible to refinance a €4.23 billion bond next month at a reasonable rate. Repaying this debt now looks like an unwelcome date with destiny.
Why don't they opt for a bailout?Sócrates saw grave danger in a bailout, choosing to mete out fiscal pain himself in preference to having it imposed from outside. Why? Well, Fianna Fáil's near-obliteration in our election is an apt illustration of the political risk that comes with bailouts. Sócrates took a gamble by saying he would quit if the opposition rejected his budget. It blew up in his face. A bailout now appears inevitable.
H ere we go again?Not so fast. The government's collapse presents a new set of knotty difficulties for the EU, as there are serious doubts about the power of any caretaker administration to negotiate a rescue programme with the EU and the IMF. That €4.23 bond is set to mature before any election, leaving officials from Lisbon to Berlin fretting about the difficulties posed by external intervention. This raises clear questions about the political legitimacy of any aid programme that includes policy conditions rejected only three days ago by parliament.
Tricky?Very much so. The European authorities had hoped the summit that wrapped up yesterday would provide a platform for a new "grand bargain" to strengthen the euro-zone bailout scheme. The plan was that an agreement on the overhaul of the rescue net would prevent Portugal from tripping over the edge. In the end, however, Sócrates had quit by the time the meeting began. The summit to end the emergency was dominated by a worsening of the crisis.
What does this mean?The sovereign debt debacle has claimed a second government, the first being the hapless Cowen administration. This demonstrates a clear link between debt risk and political risk, which affects even strong countries such as Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel is also on a losing streak at home, limiting her room for manoeuvre on the European stage.
In short?The debt drama continues. Almost four years since the eruption of the credit crunch, no end is in sight.
ARTHUR BEESLEY
Next week you'll need to know about . . . April Fool's Day
No media story will be taken at face value next Friday. In recent years the appointment of Alan Shearer as manager of Newcastle football club, the launch of Gmail and the sprinter Dwain Chamber’s career switch to rugby have all been warily dismissed as hoaxes purely because the news emerged on April 1st.
People are on guard because, well, they've been tricked before. In 2008 the BBC claimed to have captured footage of flying penguins while filming its natural history series Miracles of Evolution. Similarly, two years ago the Guardianannounced its decision to publish exclusively via Twitter, condensing every news story to 140 characters. Perhaps even more farcical was the supposed launch of Burger King's "Left-Handed Whopper" in 1998.
April Fool's Day is said to have evolved from celebrations of the spring equinox. In the mid 16th century January 1st was widely adopted as the beginning of the year, and it's believed that those who were unaware of the change or insisted on celebrating new year on April 1st became the subject of ridicule and were labelled "April fools". But this theory would not explain earlier references to a connection between April and foolishness, such as in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th century.