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Economy

Crisis Set To Cost 100,000 European Bankers Their Jobs

Europe’s “systematic crisis,” as EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso recently described the situation, has banks across the region preparing for widespread layoffs. Just this week France’s BNP Paribas gave word it’ll be letting 1,400 employees go.

Danske is one of several European banks that will be cutting staff
Danske is one of several European banks that will be cutting staff


*NEWSBITES

BERLIN -- The euro crisis has infected Europe's banks, which are depositing billions with the European Central Bank (ECB). Bankers are fearing for their jobs – with good reason.

On Wednesday, French bank BNP Paribas announced it would be cutting some 1,400 jobs. And Italy's Unicredit, which has been under enormous market pressure for months, is planning to let 6,150 people go by 2015, or some 3% of its workforce. The Milan bank suffered a huge loss of nearly 11 billion euros in the third quarter.

The job cuts are occurring in banks across Europe, not just in the main euro crisis countries. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is cutting 3.4% of its jobs, the Spanish Intesa Sanpaolo nearly 2%, and the Danske Bank a whopping 9%.

Overall, 100,000 European bankers are set to lose their job based on cuts agreed upon this year. And one look at the third quarter figures indicates that many banks may well increase the number of jobs they plan to slash.

Meanwhile, European supervisory authorities are trying to form a more detailed picture of the extent and distribution of risks, Raimund Röseler, the chief executive director of banking supervision at Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), told the Financial Times Deutschland.

Banks are being called on to disclose how many CDS derivatives they bought and sold so that a better picture may be formed of what and where the risks are.

In comments before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso expressed just how worrying the banking situation is. Europe now faces a "systemic crisis' requiring not only a stronger commitment to Europe, but further measures to combat the euro crisis – such as Euro Bonds, he explained. Barroso said he was preparing to offer more precise details next week about how Euro Bonds will be laid out.

Read the full story in German by J. Dams, M. Greive and H. Zschäpitz

Photo – king_david_uk

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

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Muslim Call To Prayer, NYC-Style: A Turkish Eye On New York's Historic Azan Law

New York Mayor Eric Adams has for the first time allowed the city's mosques to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer over loudspeakers. A Turkish correspondent living in New York listens in to the sound of the call ("cleaner" than in Turkey), and the voices of local Muslims marking this watershed in their relationship with the city.

Photo of a man walking into a mosque in NYC

Mosque in NYC

Ali Tufan Koç

NEW YORK — It’s Sept. 1, nearing the time for the noon prayer for Muslim New Yorkers. The setting is the Masjid Al Aman, one of the city's biggest mosques, located at the border of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. WABC, Channel 7, one of the local television stations, has a broadcast van parked at the corner. There are a few more camera people and journalists milling around. The tension is “not normal,” and residents of the neighborhood ask around what’s happening.

This neighborhood, extending from East New York to Ozone Park, is not the Brooklyn that you see in the movies, TV shows or novels. Remove the pizza parlors, dollar stores and the health clinics, and the rest is like the Republic of Muslim brothers and sisters. There are over 2,000 people from Bangladesh in East New York alone. There’s the largest halal supermarket of the neighborhood one block away from the mosque: Abdullah Supermarket. The most lively dining spot is the Brooklyn Halal Grill. Instead of a Kentucky Fried Chicken, there's a Medina Fried Chicken.

The congregation of the mosque, ABC 7, a clueless non-Muslim crowd and I are witnessing a first in New York history: The azan, the traditional Muslim public call to prayer, is being played at the outside of the mosque via speakers — without the need for special permission from the city. Yes, the azan is echoing in the streets of New York for the first time.

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