Climate strike: How elites have been fighting Generation Alarm for five years (tags)
Some activists are later sentenced to pay millions in damages, others have to spend months in prison for their civil disobedience. In the Bild newspaper, RWE boss Rolf Martin Schmitz calls them "eco-terrorists." But neither heat, nor summer drought, nor coal protests led the politicians to ask questions about the climate.
War in Ukraine. Nato taboos fall (tags)
This military-scientific glorification of a war that has long been hopeless for both sides, which is also supported by some media, leads to the postulation of the prospect of victory against one's better judgment. What is meant, however, is more likely a victorious peace.
Nobody knew China landed on the moon and Bill Gates (tags)
In 2020, China was the second and so far only country besides the USA that was able to put a flag on the moon.
Peace Policy and Every military solution leads to disaster (tags)
"Our Common Security" (April 21, 1982) called the Palme Report revealed a new way of thinking that helped make German unity and the overcoming of the European divide possible in 1989.
Was the policy of detente a political mistake? (tags)
At Easter, "a strong signal must be sent against a policy of military confrontation, against a new global arms race and against an increase in the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction," is the reason given for the call to actively participate in the Easter marches.
Against all reason and The Afghan Debacle (tags)
Like the chaotic flight of the U.S. Army from Vietnam in 1975, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 highlights the failure of the geopolitically based "war and nation-building concept" of the U.S. and NATO countries.
Economic Crisis in the Anthropocene (tags)
They are in a life-and-death struggle for the future of American democracy and from their point of view – and I happen to share this view – that depends on their not losing the congressional majority to the GOP in 2022, which doesn’t necessarily end American democracy, but it takes us in a direction which is really bad.
It is long past time to finally bury the intervention doctrine, which has been marketed under the euphonious title "responsibility to protect"[5] since 2001, and to brand it for what it was from the beginning: a neocolonial project.
Stolen childhood and The language of violence (tags)
To make the hospitals fit for the "pandemic of the century", the government did nothing... The population will suffer in every respect - with one lockdown after another, inadequate health care, increasing impoverishment and lack of prospects, and presumably with endless depression.
Saving the planet by disempowering the elites (tags)
Humanity is at the final crossroads of becoming aware of the drama of the ecological and peace crisis in which it finds itself. The book "The Eco-Catastrophe" is a wake-up call to take note of the seriousness of the situation, to accept the Herculean tasks ahead, to understand the growth ideology of global capitalism.
The market is more powerful than politics (tags)
Every year more social housing units fall out of rent control than new ones are built. As a result, the stock of apartments with legally fixed maximum prices is continually shrinking. The negative effects that were feared with the introduction of the Berlin rent cap have largely failed to materialize.
Lockdown and curfews, state of emergency and tracing apps, compulsory testing and quarantines, serial stops, compulsory masks, short-time work and mass unemployment, waves of bankruptcies and extended poverty traps: the COVID-19 disaster has escalated the chronic crisis of capital utilization with falling profits.
The war metaphor in the Corona crisis (tags)
Instead of a positive elimination of conditions, a social regression could also occur: intensified competition in the fight for market share, "exclusive solidarity" (Klaus Dörre) in the fight for jobs and welfare benefits. Will governments master the crisis?
The Crises of Today's Economy (tags)
The market is not a subject but an instrument. Nevertheless "the primacy of the market" replaced "the primacy of politics." Neoliberalism actually serves the interests of finance capital. A doctor whose therapy causes sicknesses cannot understand this. Our elites are in great distress.
Who Owns the Sky? The Climate in the Globalization Trap (tags)
The bad news is that there are more inconvenient truths. Climate change is present, not future. Globalization and protection of the atmosphere do not go together. Climate policy has a past. Economic profit dominance always has a priority over climate protection.
Thomas Piketty: Germany has never repaid its debts. It has no right to lecture Greece (tags)
Conservatives, especially in Germany, are about to destroy Europe and the European idea, all because of their shocking ignorance of history... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt.
Over-the-Top Israeli Policies (tags)
Israel
Global turn-around: to persuade Western Powers to adopt 'bottom-up' ethical human rights. (tags)
Major Western Powers invited to New Zealand gives opportunity to adovate a global 'turn-around' by adopting the 'bottom-up' emphasis of global ethical human rights (developed in NZ) to replace 'near absolute', 'top-down' control of 'neoliberal absolutism'.
Germany
Obama Encourages Spying on World Leaders (tags)
Obama
The Shortwave Report 07/19/13 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Radio Deutsche-Welle, Radio Havana Cuba, Spanish National Radio, and NHK World Radio Japan
U.N. Vote on Palestinian Recognition Blocked by U.S., Israel and Germany (tags)
The right wing government of Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel has made the unfortunate choice to side with the U.S. and Israel in blocking Palestinian recognition in the upcoming United Nations vote. However France, Spain, U.K. and many other nations are going to act with ethics to support Palestinian statehood instead of caving in to the imperialist whims of U.S. and Israeli pressures to maintain their state sanctioned apartheid and discrimination against the Palestinian people.
Eroding Social Justice in Spain (tags)
class war
class war
class war
Wrecking Europe to Fix It (tags)
class war
Spreading Eurozone Contagion (tags)
class war
Japan's Leaking Water Radiation 100,000 Times Above Normal (tags)
nuclear disaster
Destructive Neoliberal Austerity (tags)
austerity, not stimulus coming
Relections on "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage"--NYT 11/12/10 (tags)
G20 nations reject US plans for world economy.
World Geopolitics and The Battle for the Mediterranean (tags)
"If one were to live in a city where the only form of employment was a coal mine and there was no means to leave the city then one would have no choice but to work at the coal mine. Control of labour movement is a cornerstone to the socio-economic objectives of the U.S., the E.U., the World Bank, and a league of associated international financial institutions (IFIs). By rendering work forces immobile in any given geographic locality the rights of employment choice and occupational alternatives are removed and a new form of monopoly is established — a forced acceptance of work on whole pools of individuals. Rising fuel prices are also adding to the erosion of mobility rights.??The security agenda behind controlling movements is heavily tied to economic objectives, as are the international disease scares like avian influenza (bird flu) and the swine flue that lock up human movement. Control of mobility in the oceans and international waters of the world is also part of this objective. The internationally illegal Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) was initiated by the U.S. government, with the support of the E.U., in 2003 as part of the “Global War on Terror.” The Proliferation Security Initiative is presented as a means to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), however it can be applied to bring about a hold over global maritime mobility. The strategy is a threat to international movement on the high seas and maritime trade. There is good reason why it is illegal under international law and the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.??Industrial De-location in the European Union and the Global Economic Crisis??This process of industrial de-location has already been underway in the E.U. for years, under which industries have been relocated to Eastern Europe and other global regions. Under this neo-liberal paradigm jobs and industries can gradually be removed from wealthier E.U. states to Southern Mediterranean nations, where cheap and immobile labour forces will be awaiting."
A Financial Boom Despite the Crisis (tags)
For the banks, deficit state budgets become important clients. They compensate the private demand for credit. The financial boom is completely based on support measures of state organs. An economic upswing is not in sight.
Attac's Bank Tribunal: The Jury's Verdict (tags)
This crisis did not break out over society like a force of nature. Financial managers spread the legend that financial crises belong to capitalism as water belongs to the ocean and that euphoric phases of bubble formation and the bursting of bubbles come and go like the seasons.
Israel's Open Secret: Nuclear Armed and Dangerous (tags)
Israel's nuclear arsenal threatens humanity
Bank Tribunal: In the Claws of Speculators (tags)
The enormous rise in prices of oil and food in the summer of 2008 was largely caused by speculation. Thousands upon thousands of people died of starvation at that time. Politics was a compliant accessory of the financial branch. The Bank Tribunal will be from April 9-11 in Berlin.
Preparations for a Hit against Iran: Stopping Israel’s Next War (tags)
"Subjectively, the time could not be more propitious for a concerted international drive to force a transformation in Tel Aviv. Israel’s standing in the world has been vanishing like snow under a hot spring sun, as even President Peres was forced to recognize. Israeli diplomats no longer feel free to travel abroad, fearing that international arrest warrants might be slapped on them as perpetrators of war crimes committed during the Gaza war. As reported in the March 15 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Israeli government has launched a desperate public relations campaign, through a website for “Public Diplomacy and the Diaspora,” aimed at preparing Israelis to project a positive image of their country while travelling abroad. If citizens have to study government-issued brochures handed out at the airport, to learn how to defend the reputation of Israel, then the moral crisis the country has entered is quicksand."
Stiglitz Calls for Global Solutions to Crisis (tags)
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that the only way to fix the world's economic crisis is to act globally. Speaking at the Development Policy Forum in Berlin on Monday he said the reform of the world's financial institutions wasn't going fast enough.
Full Speed Against the Brick Wall (tags)
Massive capital has streamed into the raw material sector and crude oil. When we leave the market to speculators, panic rules. The economy falls into a double crisis-out of scarce raw materials and energy and falling profit rates and mass demand.
"Stop the Biofuel-Madness!" (tags)
"The high oil price and the food crisis threaten the existence of over a hundred million people." (Walden Bello) "People in poor countries must starve so the rich can continue driving their cars." Growing plants for biofuels is a crime against humanity.
CEO Salaries and the Minimum Wage (tags)
"After the fall of the Berlin Wall, capitalism let its mask fall. Capitalism did not have to be social any more since socialism did not exist any longer as a counter-movement..Most economic leaders act irresponsibly today toward Europe's people and the future."
Washington recognizes India as a nuclear power in the middle of the Iran negotiations over its nuclear program. That is a fatal sig-nal. Governments in the third world ask why India's disdain of disarmament is given priority.