One Air Freight Dispute Settles Whilst Another Cargo and Passenger Labour Scenario Worsens - Latest industry shipping news from the Handy Shipping Guide

    My Orchids. Oncidium. Photo ET

Two tales. Interesting to compare two cultures:

One Air Freight Dispute Settles Whilst Another Cargo and Passenger Labour Scenario Worsens - Latest industry shipping news from the Handy Shipping Guide

Talks with four potential candidates over Cargolux stake - Lloyd's Loading List

    My Orchids. Oncidium. Photo ET

Talks with four potential candidates over Cargolux stake - Lloyd's Loading List

This very good article reports and summarizes the present thinking at Cargolux: trying to replace the Luxembourg government, holding 35% of CV, as a shareholder by another investor.

Talks with four potential candidates over Cargolux stake - Lloyd's Loading List

Comments:

1. Apart from what seems the government's wish to find a buyer for its 35% share, there is no urgency to find such a buyer. I would dismiss the argument that assumes that the European Commission would want this to happen asap.

2. Allowing for external pressure from the European Commission is bad for decision making. We hopefully still remember Mr. Frieden's fire sale to QR, the lowest bidder.

3. It will be difficult to trust an airline partner after QR almost cannibalized CV.

5. Selling the Luxembourg governments shares doesn't add a cent to CV's capital base. Only acquiring NEW shares would achieve this. Although that is obvious by itself, those who didn't know this should have learnt from the QR debacle.

6. So the Unions shouldn't know what is going on in those negotiations? CV however is not the standard private company, where this would be defensible. It is owned by the government, and CV is a pillar of its newly proclaimed national logistics strategy. The government should actually be interested to share the state of those negotiations with the unions. For the simple reason that the QR debacle had been "negotiated" by management and government representatives who now again don't want to share information. But wouldn't it be prudent for our negotiators to let those who saved them and the company before, know firsthand where things are going? That could spare another painful U-turn later. They can be asked to keep the secret, though my aunt Léontine will tell me all about what's going on anyway in the days to come.

Financial paradise in Luxembourg may go down in flames - English pravda.ru

My Orchids. Paphiopedilum "Pravda". Photo ET

Financial paradise in Luxembourg may go down in flames - English pravda.

Pravda (Truth) had a pretty startling headline. In particular for the Russian money that just escaped Cyprus and went to Luxembourg. However going down in flames?

Unfortunately the article's background information is somewhat outdated for today. Which makes it somewhat funny to read for insiders.

As for the Luxembourg financial center, there are several adjustments to make. They are mostly in the area of the "tax haven", as Luxembourg has finally opted for automatic reporting within the EU (and the US). Outside these jurisdictions, it remains the little mother of all tax havens for our many Russian friends.

Financial paradise in Luxembourg may go down in flames - English pravda.ru

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Resigns

My Orchids. Phalaneopsis "Masterspy" Photo ET

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Resigns

The New York Times / Andrew Higgins put this murky, impenetrable story in a form understandable to foreigners. Now you know the TRUTH. 

18 and Counting: Plum Ambassador Posts Go to Obama Campaign Bundlers | CNS News

My Orchids.  With a Bundler, with a B like in Bee. 

That makes a Bundle-Bee. Photo ET

18 and Counting: Plum Ambassador Posts Go to Obama Campaign Bundlers | CNS News

I''m counting and counting. Is there one missing?

OK, this is just a distraction from other Luxembourg stories. Like being orphans when the nanny state doesn't have a government anymore.

Luxembourg Crisis. Mr. Juncker’s Fantasia - Genesis of a Downfall

My Orchids, Phalaneopsis. Three scandals cannot be whitewashed. Photo ET

Luxembourg Crisis. Mr. Juncker’s Fantasia - Genesis of a Downfall

I would characterize Mr. Juncker’s career, that when he graduated from College where he had majored as Prime Minister, he became Prime Minister. Of course it is a little cartoonish, but it helps to understand the story. Being the Prime Minister at a very young age carries some problems. Such as, what is your career perspective, except to slide from boring reelection to boring reelection in a boring small country? The therapy is a European ambition, in that vast field of unelected European positions.

His dream was to become the first European President. Mr. Sarkozy killed that. Maybe become President of the European Commission? Not good enough. The second Prize was acceptable though: President of the Euro Group, or “Mr. Euro”. He would cumulate this job with his duties as Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Any military commander knows that you can’t command the whole and also a part of the whole. Something had to give, and that was to care about his Luxembourg duties. He governed superficially as an absentee Prime Minister, something the Luxembourg voter tolerated. Of course, if you don’t pay attention, you pay a price. In his case he pays for a succession of scandals during his tenure.

The first scandal was a real estate project combined with a "National Stadium" in a wetland zone. Developers, politicians and environmentalists got into a brawl that killed the project. An effort to investigate related threats and wrongdoings was voted down in Parliament. Public opinion sizzled.

The second scandal was the sale by Luc Frieden, Minister of Finance, of 35% of Cargolux, the national all cargo airline to Qatar Airways for $117.5 million. Qatar also bought two banks, KBL and BIL, and other arrangements were made for a rapprochement of Al Jazeera with SES, the Luxembourg satellite company. Pricing and those strange alliances brought up suspicions, but an effort to investigate wrongdoings was voted down again in Parliament. Public opinion sizzled more.

Then emerged a third scandal. Actually it started with a benign revelation by Mr. Juncker himself. He revealed that about four years ago, the chief of SREL, the Luxembourg spying agency, had secretly recorded a conversation both had. With the help of a gadget disguised as a wrist watch. Mr. Juncker, the political boss of the agency learned about it through a mole he had placed into the agency, but did not take legal action. To me the story was broken by Mr. Juncker to distract from scandal one and two, according to the wag the dog strategy, where you put your kitchen on fire to distract from the fire in the garage. Parliament got involved and lo and behold, didn’t dare to vote a third time against an official inquiry. A Parliamentary investigation was set up. What was considered as a low risk inquiry was however revealing very soon that the spying agency, under benign neglect, had taken a life of its own. Feeding into that inquiry were court proceedings in a 25 year old series of terrorist attacks on Luxembourg infrastructure, still unresolved but with suspicions that actually it was a plot by security forces, including episodes of the spying agency’s involvement.

The cumulative effect of those scandals have created an atmosphere of distrust in the government. The Parliamentary inquiry about the spying agency’s wrongdoing is so damaging for Mr. Juncker, its formal political chief, that the emerging consensus is that Mr. Juncker has to go and that the present Christian Social / Socialist coalition government will not survive.

The final outcome might be known as of today. Though an outdated and murky Constitution makes it very hard to predict which one of the many options it leaves open, will be adopted. A free interpretation could be that Parliament be dissolved and new elections held by October.

Andy and Frank Schleck's Career Building

    My Orchids. Vanda Maillot Jaune. Photo ET.

Andy and Frank Schleck's Career Building

Many, many years ago, I was dreaming myself of winning the Tour de France. Let me insert a picture here to lend some credibility to 

Emile Lamberty, Pierre Meyer, Marcel Holtgen, Egide Thein as members of UC Dippach, time ago

what I'm saying. But after a while, I postponed that ambition, and though I haven't completely given up hope yet to one day win the Tour, I have to consider those critical voices in my family that argue that a grandfather never won the Tour. Defeatists in my family! But I can still lecture the Schlecks I hope!

I did so in 2009, when it was obvious that what the Schleck brothers needed was a strong team, and learning from the Master. And the biggest Teacher at the time was Lance Armstrong and the best team was Radio Shack. In my analysis, it combined the most efficient training program, the best biking technologies, a scientific approach to diet and life style. Of course no one knew at the time that Armstrong's success also included a toxic component, prescribed by the famous doctor. As much as Armstrong is to blame, the supervisory bodies of UCI and other sports authorities are to blame for failing to detect the wrongdoings. Was it permissiveness, or willful blindness or another reason? Those  certainly failed the public too.

I still argue that joining Radio Shack by then would have been the right move for the 2010 season. Indeed you could have joined the team, and maybe when confronted with a culture of doping, decide to either participate or reject it. That's what grownups do.

For Frank in any case, convicted and barred for doping for one year, it wouldn't have made a difference, right?

Finally,after losing two years, an altered version of the once great Radio Shack team emerged from the Leopard constellation. But to me it looked like a Luxembourg "me too" shadow of the great Brand. Mr. Becca, the Luxembourg builder and sports fan being the new engine behind the team. The little engine that could not. And things went the way they went.

Today, Frank Schleck at age 33 has no team when his ban expires on July 15th. He is not happy, and Andy Schleck is not happy either about his brother's fate. Both Schlecks have to contemplate the obvious solutions: they were dealt a lemon, they should make lemonade.

Which means that the two brothers have to make the best out of their two particular situations. They are no longer linked by the hip. Andy has to show a good result in the Tour, all by himself. Recrimination about his brother's fate does not help. Actually, I would also like to understand the geniuses at the team management, who felt that now was the moment to fire a prime associate, Frank, and demoralize the team in the midst of the one hundredth Tour. Continuing mediocre results will of course disqualify Andy Schleck from the A-list of serious contenders for anything, and that is not a career.

Frank is the equivalent of a 55 year old employee who lost his job. It will take some good luck, help and optimism to get into the saddle again.

Impossible? No, certainly not, given the talent. However the two brothers integrating the same team might just be a wishful possibility. It cannot be a condition anymore.