“Germany has three months to save the euro,” says billionaire George Soros (Telegraph, June 3, 2012).  Soros suggested the “summer window” could allow Germany and the Bundesbank to save the EU’s sinking ship because “in a crisis the creditors are in the driver’s seat and nothing can be done without German support” (ibid.).

During the four days set aside last week to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, only a very few recognized its deepest significance. The British monarchy is generally considered to be over 1,000 years old, but it can in fact be traced back even further through the annals of time to the Scottish kings who were crowned on the Stone of Scone from the 5th Century AD. This stone is the same one that was returned to Scotland in 1996 and is on display in Edinburgh Castle. It had been absent from its Scottish home for almost 700 years.

Der Spiegel’s attention-getting cover article this week announced that Germany developed and built submarines for Israel, along with nuclear-capable cruise missiles (June 4, 2012).  Germany has supplied Israel with three subs at a substantial discount—thus helping the Israelis pay for the subs.  Three more are scheduled to be delivered to Israel in the next five years, and there are talks about ordering three more.  The next generation craft, set to be delivered in early 2013, will have a new fuel cell that allows for quiet submersion for up to 18 days (ibid.).

A power outage, however brief, causes a lot of consternation. Lights go out, computers are down, refrigeration ceases and life as we know it with all our modern conveniences grinds to a halt. This happened in our city recently during a busy lunchtime, disrupting the schedules of thousands of people who were having their noon break. Restaurants and other enterprises lost business and customers went hungry. Happily, the power outage lasted only a short time, but long enough to remind everyone how dependent we are upon the power grid that supplies our communities.

June 1 marked an historic event between close trade partners—Japan and China. Japan is China’s largest trade partner and the two nations are growing closer together.  On June 1 the two began trading directly in their own currencies instead of in U.S. dollars.  This direct currency exchange will bolster their relationship and could be used by China to press for the eventual replacement of the dollar with the yuan as the world’s reserve currency (Agence France-Presse, May 29, 2012).