Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/20/2011

Our Italian tipsters seem to be on vacation, so news from the Mediterranean is rather scanty tonight. Fjordman, however, has made up for it with his tips on science, the financial crisis, and EU political affairs.

The crisis in the eurozone continues to intensify. The other nations of the EU have stepped up the pressure on Greece to form a national unity coalition and institute the austerity measures necessary to earn a new bailout. The euro countries are obviously worried about a possible Greek default, and the IMF has told the EU in no uncertain terms that it must achieve fuller “integration” and solve the debt problem, or risk damaging the world economy.

Meanwhile, Moody’s says that it may have to downgrade Italian debt as a result of the current economic situation. This announcement caused the Italian stock market to plunge 2%.

In other news, a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped in Pakistan while on her way to school and forced to wear a suicide bomb belt by terrorists who wanted to use her in a terror attack. She escaped, however, and reached safety before her belt could explode.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, Egghead, Fjordman, Gaia, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.