Prince Alwaleed receives Crown Prince Guillaume of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

This story has two very important aspects. Here is the story as reported from Saudi Arabia:

http://www.ameinfo.com/256255.html

The first piece of information is that Luxembourg continues a long tradition of creativeness when it comes to economic development and its corollary of establishing privileged relationships anywhere in the world. The targeted support from the Crown Prince of Luxembourg has over the years proven to be an invaluable contribution to that effort.

When we think a little bit, we agree with Thomas Friedman that the world is flat: everyone is competing. We know that our Benelux partners are no exception. That's the second piece of information.

So who set up the Luxembourg delegation, that includes "HE Mr. Ron Srikker, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Saudi Arabia"? !! Business meetings are confidential by essence. This is the equivalent of taking your mother in law to your honey moon.

Luxembourg urges EU freeze of Mubarak's assets - Taiwan News Online

Luxembourg urges EU freeze of Mubarak's assets - Taiwan News Online

The Luxembourg PM answered the question if Europe should freeze Mubarak's assets with "yes".

If I were to ask questions here, I would have asked if Mubarak has any assets in Europe, where and why those countries / institutions accepted them in the first place? What about the faithful application of European directives in the anti-money laundering field at the level of willfully accepting institutions and the obvious willful blindness of regulators? True, these are realms beyond the reach of regulations.

Maybe see here: http://egidethein.blogspot.com/2009/11/luxembourg-lesson-of-democracy-that.html

Luxembourg's Schleck Brothers and their Career.

On July 31, 2009 I wrote a post on this blog: Luxembourg, Tour de France, Armstrong, Andy Schleck and Radioshack. (1). In this post, I gave the following unsolicited advice: Join team Radioshack with Lance Armstrong for the 2010 season. You'll learn a lot from the science behind team Armstrong, and it will be good for your career.

What if?

Today I still believe that was good advice, though of course that didn't happen. But the "what if" question is appropriate, as Team Leopard Trek starts a new season. So what if Season 2010 had been a Radioshack association?

As things went, a weakening Armstrong, seeing that he couldn't win the Tour, would have pushed Andy Schleck into the leadership position, and he might have won the Tour in a clear manner. With a serious support team, his equipment would probably not have had a chain incident that cost him the Tour. He also would have gotten closer to the US sponsorship market, which obviously needs a reason to support a Luxembourg champion and that reason would have been the link to Armstrong. Let me guess: the Luxembourg sponsors are very few?

A lost year 2010.

What really happened was that the Schlecks spent a year with a dysfunctional Team Saxobank. Key managers left early in the season. Those who stayed spent their time on damage control, on altercations, and the director Bjarne Riis was already secretly managing Alberto Contador as he was scrambling to set up a 2011 team. Knowing that, he had more interest in a Contador victory while he was directing Schleck, in whose victory he was probably less interested. One has to be naive to assume that Riis was not managing his future interests, whereas his day to day job was about contentions.

Andy "stuck" to Riis' program to attack Contador only on the last kilometer in the crucial stage. It's hard to believe that this was a serious strategy, only in reverse. We know what happened: a mechanical malfunction aborted Andy's attack, and Contador, who had eaten a lot of beef as he said, seized the occasion and showed that if you are not a fair play guy, you can still win the Tour. He won it by exactly the amount of seconds that he took on Andy Schleck in that fatal stage. Ill gotten in more than one way.

Get upset, Nondikass!

Even after the Tour was over and Contador was struggling to explain a forbidden substance in his system, detected during anti-doping controls, Andy was not upset. Andy: this is a world level competition. Being a gentleman with your closest competitor stops at least at the moment when he violates the code of honor. As we now know, he seems to have violated the law too.

Leopard Trek

All the above is not relevant anymore, were it not to introduce the following: As everyone knows the new season got started with the Schlecks being at the center of Team Leopard Trek. Nice. No Bjarne anymore, but no Armstrong either. So far it has been a marketing success with a zest of Luxembourg patriotism and of mystery. The main sponsor, Luxembourg's Flavio Becca is mostly unknown.

A team of 29 has been assembled and counts a number of great champions. That's many primadonnas. There lie two dangers: first such a team becomes the team to beat, and everyone ends up running against them. The second danger is that the team will not work like a team but like a collection of just primadonnas, nice to show on a stage, but impossible to have them work together.

So I reiterate my unsolicited good advice to Andy Schleck: as I said, the Leopard Trek setup is fraught with dangers. You will be the man to beat because of the reputation out there. Reputation alone doesn't make a winner, it is being physically and mentally prepared (à la Lance Armstrong I would say). It is not the best reputation but being the fastest that will make you win. And remember, you are a naturally nice person. But call a cheat a cheat and an usurpation an usurpation. And all best wishes for this year's great adventures.

http://egidethein.blogspot.com/2009/07/luxembourg-tour-de-france-armstrong.html

Journalist Denis Robert vs Clearstream Luxembourg wins the final round

This is a long and murky story of freedom of speech, libel, banking secrecy, illicit funds and more. Investigative journalist Denis Robert suffered through years of legal proceedings. A Luxembourg saying says "you can't win against the bank". I always disagreed, but it takes some guts, maybe some money because the banks have more of that. Here is one of the examples of such a win, though it is in the French courts:

http://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/premiere_chambre_civile_568/106_3_18842.html

I'll elaborate as this link points to a French site. But the implications are significant. This decision gets top ratings in publicity as jurisprudence, as it is vastly published at all levels of the French system. I don't know the journalist, but probably this is a sweet revenge and a green light to speak out more.

US Ambassador to Luxembourg Cynthia Stroum and the Press.

I have several friends who brought up the story of US Ambassador Cynthia Stroum resigning, abruptly it seems, from her post.

Unfortunately, the story got sensationalized after she resigned. When you have a closer look, there are four key players:

• The inspector general and the official report. Given that this is an open administrative process and the report is factual with remedies that were recommended, it is the only source available to set my opinion. I don't see therein an absolute reason to resign, except for the embarrassment and the unusual spin this got.
• The Embassy staff. They were unhappy with their boss. If the boss has a boss that can boomerang.
• Ambassador Stroum said nothing as far as I know and leaves for personal reasons, in fact the usual boiler plate reasons when you don't want to elaborate.
• The Press: at least one guy seems to have read the official report, quite obliquely, just to find those passages that feed an interesting story, yellow mark them and then spin them a little bit. Chances are that the final product then was taken over as is and the Luxembourg press did not read any further. And I'm almost sure they didn't try to talk to Ms. Stroum either, because that's modern journalism.

I really believe that if this were a Luxembourg Embassy (of our own Grand Duchy), we would not talk about it. In my memoirs I'll have some stories about some funny but extraordinarily expensive and unreasonable Luxembourg Ambassadors. This US report doesn't even compare to those. Here is the report:

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/156129.pdf

I don't know the lady, just met her once. But I understood she did a good job in Luxembourg with Luxembourg. Her personal style is unknown to me except for the articles that look like gossip compared to the inspector general's underlying sober report. So she wanted a new smaller mattress? Which Democrat wants to sleep on a Republican's mattress, and vice-versa? As for wine buying, the Press subliminally suggests she has a drinking problem. I imagine though that the same is standard procedure in Luxembourg's Embassies and Administrations: not a drinking problem either I hope, but comes December 31st, they scramble to spend the last cent on their budgets. A scandalous waste, yes, the reason being that next year's budget risks to be amputated if you don't spend it all. All said, it looks to me like boulevard press reporting. I would speculate that she wasn't easy and was demanding, maybe too zealous in a sleepy post, which got translated into bullying and mobbing. She did not comment as far as I know. She was not a career diplomat, but so are many US Ambassadors. One has to wonder: did she get some guidance on how she was supposed to work? She certainly got a report with issues and with remedies.

Overall a sad story.

Luxembourg: the financial centre of the world in 2011?

We are going to watch this:

Luxembourg: the financial centre of the world in 2011?

That world is flat, competitive, watchful, broke and jealous. It is populated by dangerous cliffs that it takes to navigate: European Commission, G20, G8, IMF, OECD, Financial Action Task Force, US Congress, Paris, Berlin .....

US Ambassador to Luxembourg Cynthia Stroum and the Professionals

My friends:

More than a year ago, we followed here step by step the nomination and then the arrival of the new US Ambassador Cynthia Stroum in Luxembourg. Luxembourg, the dream of any aspiring diplomat! Our excitement was also great because of the "mostest" famous predecessor, Pearl Mesta, the first woman Ambassador ever. Remember her in Irving Berlin's musical "Call me Madam"? She ends up falling in love with Luxembourg's Secretary of State, who by the way was wearing one of those irresistible uniforms.

But instead of a Happy End, Madam Cynthia Stroum left all of a sudden. We were wondering why? Did someone say something? Jean Asselborn didn't wear a uniform? Wikileaks? No my friends I'm so relieved, it was none of us. We would have kept the lady. So it was not a Happy End as we expected, but according to press articles, it is a thriller. Really? I read the stuff. See for yourself, it also gets you a link to the "sensitive but unclassified report".

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48843.html#ixzz1D0Su2Ilx