The inquiry comes in the week after the US Securities and Exchange Commission opened a similar procedure. If convicted, companies could face massive fines and see their current and future contracts with the new government declared null and void. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investigation “casts a cloud on the companies' ambitions to expand their foothold in the country with the largest oil reserves in Africa”.

ENI, in particular, was the biggest operator in Libya under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi and quickly recovered its lead after the regime change, with a current output share of about 14 per cent. The company was planning to invest over $30 billion (€22.9 billion) to double that figure over the next decade.

We must face the facts. If Europe is sending Catherine Ashton, who is as eloquent as she is powerless, on reconnaissance to Teheran; if Barack Obama has, for the past few months, responded more strongly to the Israeli challenge, it is only due to the fact that the Israelis are flexing their muscles and pretending that nothing can hold them back. Had [Israel] been as cautious as most states, Teheran would have been more likely to have quick access to the bomb. [...] In case of an emergency, it is the West that will, single-handedly, take the nuclear weapons from the hands of Iran's leaders.

Monti’s mission matters to everybody, from Wall Street financiers to Chinese factory workers. That’s because Italy’s problems have became the world's problems, and Monti must fix Italy to avoid another global financial crisis. [...] Though the debt crisis in Europe has been raging for over two years, Italy [whose debt exceeds 120% of its GDP] looms as the biggest threat to the embattled shared currency’s survival, because Italy paradoxically is both too big to fail and too big to save. [...] Yet if Italy tumbles into insolvency, it could set off a chain of events that unravels the monetary union and puts Europe’s even grander half-century long democratic integration experiment in peril.

Monti's success is just as crucial for the global economy. The consequences of a default of Italy – and, worse, the collapse of the euro – are almost unimaginable. Italy could spark a financial crisis even more destructive than the one tipped off by the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Shock waves would ripple through global financial markets to every corner of the world, sinking banks and economies along the way. A recession in Europe, home to hundreds of millions of rich consumers, could derail the U.S. recovery and dampen emerging markets. The fates of Mario Monti, Europe and the worldwide recovery have become inexorably entwined.

Over the last two years, Europe has taken a number of crucial yet very difficult steps to address the mounting crisis. In Italy and across Europe, citizens are making painful sacrifices. European governments have come together to reform the architecture of the European Union. […] Our economic fortunes are inextricably linked, and our economic relationship with Europe is an important part of our efforts to create jobs and prosperity in the United States. The European Union is America’s single largest economic partner.

Nevertheless the president said European countries need to raise a “bigger firewall” to prevent the debt crisis to spread, and must “show their absolute commitment to the future of economic integration in Europe”.

Obama also stressed the importance of NATO ­– praising Italy’s decision to extend its commitment in Afghanistan beyond 2014 – and Europe’s role in the “Arab spring”, hoping it will help add pressure on Syria’s Bashar el Assad to resign. But if Washington is already mulling over military intervention, as disclosed by CNN, European countries still oppose it and count on a last-gasp diplomatic solution, La Stampa reports.

A threat and a sharp choice of words that the FTD describes as “remarkable.” The fact that the Secretary of State “is talking about a transportation issue shows how politicised this particular dispute has become,” the newspaper writes. Europe decided in 2008 that the directive on greenhouse gas emission allowance trading would include airlines, and in order not to disadvantage European airlines, it has called for all flights to or from Europe to be included in the directive – that is, flights by non-European companies as well as routes outside European airspace.

China has already warned that billions in contracts with the Franco-German aircraft maker Airbus may fall through, while Russia and India are threatening to curtail or cancel overflights by European airlines. Like the other countries, the United States sees the EU plan as an affront to the sovereignty of their own airspace.

Similar to other sites operated by the CIA in the Middle East and elsewhere in Europe, and used to interrogate alleged terrorists in the wake of 9/11, the Bucharest “prison” was hidden in a courtyard belonging to the “Romanian NSA,” an intelligence agency created in 2002 to prepare Romania’s accession to NATO.

It was this prospect that was the motivating force behind Romanian authorities’ collaboration with the CIA, explains Süddeutsche Zeitung. Romania has always officially denied the existence of the centre, while the deputy chief of the Romanian NSA, Adrian Cămărăşan, has insisted that no Islamic terrorists were ever detained by his organisation.

Touring represents a major chunk of income for major rock acts. In 2010 alone, Metallica earned $110.1 million (€82.2 million) from the activity. Now, instead of playing Europe in 2013, as originally envisaged, they will take a curtailed tour dubbed "European Summer Vacation" in 2012, taking in Norway, Germany, Denmark, England and Austria. The WSJ notes:

With the gloom among investors spreading to richer countries such as France, Mr. [Cliff] Burnstein [Metallica’s manager] is worried that the euro will tank, making it harder for concert promoters in the 17 countries that use the currency to pay Metallica's fees.

Mr Burnstein said –

Over the next few years, the dollar will be stronger and the euro weaker, and if that's the case, I want to take advantage of that by playing more of these [European] shows now, because they will be more profitable for us.

The WSJ adds that The Red Hot Chili Peppers, another group Mr. Burnstein manages, has also brought forward its European plans.

About 75% of the band's revenue comes from touring abroad, Mr. Burnstein said.

Banks including Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Nomura issued a cascade of reports examining the likelihood of a breakup of the euro zone. “The euro zone financial crisis has entered a far more dangerous phase,” analysts at Nomura wrote on Friday. Unless the European Central Bank steps in to help where politicians have failed, “a euro breakup now appears probable rather than possible,” the bank said.

The New York daily of report expresses surprise that “banks in big euro zone countries that have only recently been infected by the crisis do not seem to be nearly as flustered.”

"While in the United States there is clearly a view that Europe can break up, here, we believe Europe must remain as it is,” said one French banker, summing up the thinking at French banks. “So no one is saying, ‘We need a fallback.’”

The Financial Times has followed up on this story with a report that international companies are preparing contingency plans.

Car manufacturers, energy groups, consumer goods firms and other multinationals are taking care to minimise risks by placing cash reserves in safe investments and controlling non-essential expenditure. Siemens, the engineering group, has even established its own bank in order to deposit funds with the European Central Bank.

The London business daily points out that “Some businesses with global reach say a euro break-up would be grim but manageable.” It also notes that:

Some French, Italian and Spanish executives say they have plans in place for severe financial and economic turbulence, but not specifically for a euro break-up. The risk, in their eyes, is that the region’s stability might come under even greater threat if it became known that companies were contemplating the worst.

French financial daily Les Echos focuses on the return to national currency that such a euro break-up would entail. It reports that:

For months [British brokerage firm] Icap has been discreetly testing a return to the Greek drachma on its EBS electronic platform, the largest interbank exchange for currencies.

In Warsaw, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reports that businesses around the world might be preparing contingency plans, but that “Polish companies keep their cool.” According to one spokesperson from Solaris Bus & Coach:

... should the euro zone collapse, it would not be a blow to us. We already take payments not only in euro, but also in in Czech crowns or Swedish krona.

Meanwhile the vice-president of an aluminum can manufacture, says that “nobody knows what the euro zone collapse would look like in practice. The only thing we can safeguard against is currency fluctuations.”

Firstly, because of the Kyoto protocol and its dictates, the EU has built an emissions market involving banks and enterprises in long term investments estimated at €107billion.

Secondly, because the South African summit could end in more than a stalemate: it could sanction the death of Kyoto, seeing that Canada, Japan and Russia have already said they will not join its second phase in 2013.

Thirdly, because the brave European commitment to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 could sideline it in a fight which is meaningful only if shared by all the planet. But which also requires billions in public spending which do not go well with the regime of fiscal discipline [practised in] these modern times.

As Herman Van Rompuy has pointed out, Europe has now reached a point where it can’t finance its social model anymore. Worse still, its financial ills could lead to a domino effect, in which: “Greek banks collapse, then French banks collapse, then U.S. banks collapse” – a pessimistic vision shared by the Washington Post, which remarks that “kicking the can down the road” has been the only response to these problems thus far. However, the newspaper warns that “Europe’s day of reckoning on its financial crisis is at hand.” European governments will “need to find common ground, and fast, lest Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy, and their colleagues, go down in history as the leaders who brought Europe, and the world, to the brink of economic disaster – and then over it.

On Monday the court of appeal overturned the verdict for lack of evidence, sparking the public's angry reaction. Pressure on judges was high, outlines Corriere: "Never before has the media aspect so far surpassed the judiciary. And the case had become an international one. The British media had sided with the victim, nicknaming beautiful Amanda ‘Foxy Knoxy’, just to emphasize her elusive slyness. The American media, however, were all for her. [...] To counter the Italian and British media, the Knox family got help from press office to send out to the U.S. one image of an American girl as a victim of injustice."

The case had even drawn the attention of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who had pledged full diplomatic support to the Knox family. The US department of state immediately expressed its satisfaction at the court's decision. Only one person has been so far convicted for the murder of Kercher – Ivorian born Rudy Guede, a small time drug dealer and drifter, sentenced to 30 years in 2008.

However, as Timothy Garton Ash has pointed out, the ten years that have passed since 9/11 have also, and perhaps more importantly, been marked by a long-term tectonic shift that has radically altered the balance of power on the planet: the rise of China and Asia, and the progressive weakness of the West, which has been accelerated by the economic crisis.

How is Europe situated with regard to these historic frameworks? The fact that we might even ask such a question, is a clue to its answer – which necessarily must take into account Europe’s current inability to influence world events. At the same time, the decade since 9/11 has also been rich in lessons for our continent.

In 2001, the EU comprised just 15 member states, and its enlargement to include 25 and then 27 members highlighted a fault line that was exacerbated by 9/11: its relationship with the United States. Let’s not forget that in 2003, the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis that opposed the war in Iraq was countered by a London-Rome-Madrid axis, which was also supported by the former Soviet bloc countries that were preparing to join the Union. If Europe’s external policy had been decided by a majority vote, in accordance with the logic of a community of states, then Europe’s flag would have flown in Iraq alongside America’ Stars and Stripes.

9/11 also contributed to the United States’ growing indifference to Europe and cast doubts on the appropriateness of the current form of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which further highlighted Europe’s inability to develop its own strategic vision and to support it with a proper defence policy. The manner in which Washington succeeded in establishing its missile-defence system on European territory without consulting the EU was an apt illustration of this problem, as was Germany’s abstention on the issue of intervention in Libya.

Although not many of us may remember, 2001 was also the year in which the 15 member states of the time created the Convention on the Future of Europe. Ten years later, in the wake of the stillborn emergence of the European Constitution and the painful adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, Europe has yet to speak with a strong single voice and no one, including its political leaders, has succeeded in presenting a project that responds to the new world order. At a time when some commentators and leaders have called for a new treaty to be established in response to the financial crisis, this observation remains a highly relevant one.

Translated from the French by Mark McGovern

“For the Swiss negotiators it is already clear that the issue is not whether the country should comply with this requirement, but how,” affirms the Geneva newspaper, which notes that “the United States have already indicated that a ‘global solution' such as that worked out with Germany and Great Britain, does not interest them."

This comes some weeks after Germany, followed closely by Britain, signed agreements with Bern to “regularise” their respective nationals’ assets parked in Switzerland. “This agreement will permit London to tax secret accounts held by British citizens in the Swiss Confederation,” explains Les Echos. For the French daily, “by guaranteeing the anonymity of the account holders,” Switzerland “has preserved the essential element of its banking secrecy.” And indeed, the country has “managed to fracture European unity in the fight against tax evasion.”

"Doubts about the credibility of Nafissatou Diallo’s testimony left Vance with little hope of obtaining a unanimous verdict from a 12-member jury were the case to go ahead," explains the daily, which points out that the attorney’s discovery of "lies" told by the plaintiff had already resulted in DSK being granted bail on 1st July. Following a hearing scheduled for 23 August, which is expected to rubber stamp the state attorney’s decision, Strauss-Kahn "will be free to leave America immediately." However, that is not to say that he has been proved innocent. As the daily notes, "the termination of the criminal prosecution will not mark the end of the affair in the US, where it is expected to be followed by a civil case."

Coming projects include a project by the American director Gus van Sant and a film that will feature one of the Australian stars: Russell Crowe, Eric Bana or Geoffrey Rush. According to Rzeczpospolita, this development is a side-effect of the global economic crisis, as “many smaller studios are looking for business partners in order to survive.” 

On the other hand, “Polish investors have discovered that success in Hollywood has a unique taste that can’t be compared to any premiere in Poland.” Budding film moguls questioned by the paper showed little interest in investing in domestic film productions. “I have a simple principle: I can’t lose money on films,” one of them revealed.

“The EU has created a single currency, but it hasn’t forged a deeper political or fiscal union,” the magazine continues. Opinions differ on whether to centralize further or break up the EU.  There are historic precedents for both: look how the Russian ruble fell apart when “economic discrepancies became too great” between ex-Soviet countries who tried to keep using it after the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, remember the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis in 1992, which prompted many European countries to move “towards closer economic integration”? Whichever way, “the crisis reveals the choice and the choice has to be made.”

Ever since governments took on extensive debts to save banks three years ago, no one has provided a satisfactory answer to the question of who will rescue the rescuers, warns Spiegel. To date, "European bailouts are mainly defined by the fact that they arrive too late and are later found to be inadequate." The magazine also argues that those who believe that China will provide a solution are misguided: the Asian powerhouse, which is striving to keep control of an overheated economy that may become the next bubble, cannot be relied on to save the world economy.

In conclusion, “the moral of this sorry tale can be summarised by three words: solid public finances." That implies a painful drive for more austerity, as well as the delegation of national sovereignty. "The wellbeing of the West will be determined by the capacity of governments to plan for the long term – well beyond the next round of elections."

“The United States benefits from an optimistic ‘bias’, just as there exists a pessimistic ‘bias’ towards Europe,” Les Echos explains, adding that “per capita growth and job creation may be higher on this side of the Atlantic but nobody knows it”. This phenomenon will not be reversed until a political solution is found, the paper says, warning that “the eurozone will cause concern as long as it lacks a coherent and comprehensible steering mechanism”.

The wider situation has been grasped: Greece is nearing bankruptcy, despite belt-tightening and the money from the EU and the IMF; the Portuguese and Irish sovereign debts have been downgraded to “junk" by the rating agencies; and Italy is being forced, practically with a knife to her throat, to adopt a plan to cut 40 billion euros in spending. In response, the 17 states of the eurozone, as well as the European Central Bank and the Commission, are arguing over the strategy to adopt. “Owing to a lack of political leadership, squabbles over the conditions for the banking sector’s participation in the new aid package to Greece are leading nowhere. However, dear ministers, this is like nursing a cold when it’s cancer that’s the threat," lamented Le Monde after the last unsuccessful meeting of finance ministers.

Our leaders are, however working under mitigating circumstances – but those circumstances give even more reason for concern. The first, as Die Zeit explains, is that they must choose between, on one hand, domestic political pressure not to finance clearly useless bailouts that burden the people without troubling the banks – and, on the other, a financial sector that imposes its own rhythm, undermines states, and yet retains a strong argument: that its money is indispensable for financing state debts.

The second comes from across the Atlantic. On July 14 Standard & Poor's threatened to downgrade the credit rating of the United States. In Washington, Obama has so far failed to end the budget standoff with the Republicans. The financial crisis shaking Europe is thus threatening to undermine America, which would just worsen the situation on our continent further. US officials, however, don’t seem any more up to the task than the Europeans.

Whether indecisive, incompetent or simply paralysed by this challenge and the feeling of no longer being in control of the destiny of their countries, EU leaders must show determination. But it would take a very clever leader to show us the right way forward.

While they wait, French commentators are focusing their attention on the American judicial system. Le Monde castigates a "shocking" system in which "the prosecutor is elected, and gambles his re-election on results", criticising the way that "the American media-justice machine has run away with itself, at a time when it most needed to prove its slowness and prudence". By contrast, Libération praises the speed of the American system: "Once part of the accusation had collapsed, the US courts drew their conclusions with astonishing and admirable swiftness. There is a lesson here: that though justice systems are by nature fallible, they prove themselves by their capacity to question and to admit when they are wrong."