Europe
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The European Union and the McJihad in Syria By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Interesting developments have been taking place in the European Union. Red flags are going up across the EU, with officials in the European Union and various EU member states expressing fears about their returning nationals fighting in Syria. Continue reading
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Video: Privatizing Europe
Nick Buxton: A massive European fire sale is one way finance is using the crisis to entrench neo-liberalism (inc. transcript) Continue reading
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Video: Study Debunking Austerity Research Sparks Wide Reaction
Bob Pollin (Co-Author of Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff): Deficit Hawks still defend conclusions of a study that contained spreadsheet errors and weighted selected countries in an inappropriate way; led to incorrect theory about public debt and growth (Inc. transcript). Continue reading
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Statewatch News Online, 17 April 2012 (05/13)
17 April 2013 — Home page: http://www.statewatch.org/ • e-mail: office@statewatch.org 1. EU: Dublin III: Council of the European Union 2. EU: Agency for Fundamental Rights report: Fundamental rights at the EU’s southern sea borders3. EU: European Commission: Proposal for a Regulation for the surveillance of the external sea borders in the context of operational cooperation4. UK: Secret mission? UK “homeland security”… Continue reading
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European Trade Unions and the Struggle for Public Services By Christoph Hermann
The public sector is a key battleground for a progressive trade union strategy and for an alternative to neoliberalism in Europe. On the one hand the existence of a public sector is a continuing example that a not for profit driven production of goods and services is not only possible in the 21st century –… Continue reading
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For the Finance Minister of Germany, Crisis Is a “Necessity” By Victor Grossman
Angela Merkel’s face usually displays a rather plain, friendly, almost benign expression, matching her simple, benign words. But in rare unguarded moments, some claim, they glimpse a very hard visage, which is matched, equally rarely, by hardly benign words, like her annoyed statement that Cyprus was “exhausting the patience of its euro partners.” Continue reading
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It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors By Ellen Brown
Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the… Continue reading
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The Cypriot Pawn By Thierry Meyssan
Washington was quick to use the financial crisis in Cyprus to implement a strategy for capturing capital described three weeks ago in these columns [1]. With the help of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, US comprador Christine Lagarde, the American leadership challenged the inviolability of private property in the European Union and… Continue reading
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The Crisis of the European Welfare State An interview with Asbjørn Wahl
This is the start of a new era of social struggle. Social models, however, cannot be copied, neither from previous phases in history, nor from country to country. Social models are the concrete results of struggles and power relations in society. Continue reading
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Statewatch News Online, 8 March 2013 (03/13)
013 — Home page: http://www.statewatch.org/ • e-mail: office@statewatch.org 1. EU: Millions of euros for new police databases in West Africa2. EU: Justice and Home Affairs Council: 7-8 March 20133. EU: EUROPEAN INVESTIGATION ORDER (EIO): Nine MSs who proposed the EIO lobby the Council of the European Union for it to be quickly adopted Continue reading
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Democracy, Disillusion and The Political Process By Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin
A new nationwide opinion poll in Ireland has shown that people are becoming more and more disillusioned with the political process leading one to wonder if democracy (people rule) has simply become demopsefia (people vote). This type of disillusionment is becoming widespread across Europe in general. While no one is naive enough to believe all… Continue reading
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Reshaping Fiscal Policies In Europe: Enforcing Austerity, Attacking Democracy By Hugo Radice
These proposals, when fully implemented, will not only enforce a permanent regime of fiscal austerity, but also further remove macroeconomic policy from democratic control. For these reasons they need to be vigorously fought right across Europe. But if readers in the UK imagine that they are not affected, since we are not in the Eurozone,… Continue reading
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The EU moves to privatise water: the people mobilize
it has recently become known that the European Commission wishes to privatise the distribution of water across Europe i.e. to make water distribution rights something that can be traded on the stock market for profit. Continue reading
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Statewatch News Online, 4 February 2013: EU: Solidarity or militarisation?
4 February 2013 — Home page: http://www.statewatch.org/ e-mail: office@statewatch.org 1. EU: Council of the European Union: Visa lists and Intra-Corporate Transferees2. USA: BODY SCANNERS: Rapiscan Backscatter Contract Terminated – Units to be Removed3. EU: Solidarity or militarisation? Proposed ‘solidarity clause’ legislation criticised for lack of clarity and “encouraging armament” Continue reading
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Europe: Existential Danger: New Political Challenges By Elisabeth Gauthier
In Europe, an ‘oligarchy’ has increasingly gotten hold of various powers; it is becoming radicalized and sees the moment as having come in which brutally to accelerate the dismantling of social and democratic gains, notably by profiting from the ‘crisis of public debt,’ generalizing austerity policies which, in turn feed the crisis. Continue reading
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The Left in Europe: From Social Democracy to the Crisis in the Euro Zone. An Interview with Leo Panitch
Because we need time. If the catastrophists, of which there are a great many, are right that we’ve only got five or ten years, we’re screwed. I mean, really screwed. Whether that’s the ecological crisis, or before fascism takes over, or what have you. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 