3 May 2014 — WashingtonsBlog
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says that JP Morgan has massively manipulated energy markets in California and the Midwest, obtaining tens of millions of dollars in overpayments from grid operators between September 2010 and June 2011.
18 February 2014 — RT
Stefan Selig
A controversial trade deal being touted by the White House is expected to give American corporations broad new authority if approved. Now according to newly released documents, big banks gave millions to the execs that are now orchestrating the agreement.
Investigative journalist Lee Fang wrote for Republic Report on Tuesday this week that two former well-placed individuals within the ranks of Bank of America and CitiGroup were awarded millions of dollars in bonuses before jumping ship to work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership on behalf of the White House.
24 February 2014 — OpenDemocracy
Austerity doesn’t make sense economically: but it does make sense as a politics of autocracy and the securitized state. Europe should learn from China and Latin America, interviewed by Andrea Mura. (Video, 17 minutes).
1 November 2013 — Global Research
It’s been a while since I last wrote an article on the on-going financial crisis. I don’t write for the sake of writing, as others do because they have to do so, on account of their subscribers who pay hefty subscription fees and demand their money’s worth.
14 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
It is interesting that until recently, all the major initiatives to investigate the illegal and criminal activities of banks came from Washington. A certain amount of activity has also been witnessed in London, which (oh, the horror!) has started to prosecute Rothschild banks. Some experts are seeing this kind of “unpatriotic” position from the British authorities as a result of the fact that the country’s current leadership is heavily dependent on Washington like never before.
13 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Global banks: a continuous series of scandals
Despite some stabilisation in the financial markets by the time the first wave of the crisis had come to an end (2007-2009), global banks are still not leading a quiet life. Since the beginning of the current decade, we have seen a continuous series of scandals surrounding the banks that make up the core of the global financial system. Violations and even crimes committed by banks at different times are being uncovered, financial regulators are carrying out official investigations into the activities of banks and there have also been legal proceedings. Banks are being forced to pay out enormous amounts in fines, and the circle of banks being pulled into the epicentre of the scandals is growing continuously.
10 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
At the end of July, eurozone deputy finance ministers approved another transfer of money to Greece to the tune of EUR 6.8 billion (it had previously been thought that Athens would be allocated EUR 8.1 billion). Several days earlier, meanwhile, the Greek parliament approved the latest in a series of legislative acts, the adoption of which had been a condition of receiving money from international creditors – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Continue reading
22 July, 2013 — Michael Hudson
How can China avoid the “Western financial disease” – a real estate bubble followed by defaults and foreclosures? The U.S. and European economies originally sought to avoid this fate by taxing the location’s site value. A rent tax was the focus of Progressive Era reforms.
11 June 2013 — WSWS
Last weekend, approximately 200 European trade unions, political NGOs (non-governmental organizations), charity groups, and feminist, environmentalist and pseudo-left groupings organized a so-called Alter-Summit in Athens. The meeting endorsed the institutions of the European Union (EU), with which union bureaucracies have worked closely in negotiating and approving austerity policies since the outbreak of the European debt crisis.
20 April 2013 — China.org.cn
Following the death of Hugo Chávez on March 5, 2013, last Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela produced a narrow victory for the Socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro.
4 March 2013 — Media Channel
Durban, South Africa: Back in 2002, South Africa hosted a UN environmental Summit on sustainability. It drew a rag tag army of green activists from all over the world, many excited to visit the now free South Africa that they fought for through the apartheid years, and hoping to meet members of the liberation movement led by Nelson Mandela.
21 February 2013 — Global Research
Leeches could also be used in bloodletting. The withdrawal of so much blood as to induce syncope (fainting) was considered beneficial, and many sessions would only end when the patient began to swoon.
As the economy shows signs of recession, the leeches return. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have issued a new report calling for even deeper austerity. It is not what the economy needs as it stagnates and sputters toward a possible new collapse. Their report combined with President Obama’s State of the Union, the sequestration and Republican dogma are all combining to bring on another round of budget cuts, which will only make recession more likely. Continue reading
8 February, 2013 — IACenter.org
Millions of workers across the United States received a rude and unpleasant jolt this January when they discovered that their take-home pay had just shrunk by 2 percent. The Social Security payroll tax cut of 2009 was restored, costing workers an average amount of $850 a year, a significant wage decrease for workers on the edge of financial ruin.
9 February 2913 — RT
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection act (CISPA) will be reintroduced before the US House next week following a spate of cyber espionage and hacking attacks. Civil liberties advocates have criticized the bill for violating privacy laws.
31 January 2013 — SANA
Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Wednesday sent two identical letters to President of The UN security Council and UN Secretary General on the mass execution perpetrated by terrorist groups of “Jabhat al-Nusra” against tens of abducted citizens in Aleppo on Tuesday and throwing their bodies in Qweiq river in Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood.
31 January 2013 — Morning Star Online
by Rory MacKinnon Corporate Affairs Reporter
25 January 2013 — FAIR Blog
Jon Lee Anderson is a reporter I’ve long admired–since reading Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League, which he co-wrote in 1986. But his latest piece for the New Yorker, “Slumlord: What Has Hugo Chavez Wrought in Venezuela?” (1/28/13–subscription required), reads almost like a parody of corporate media coverage of an official enemy state.
13 January, 2013
“Disengage, avoid, and withhold support from whatever abuses, degrades and humiliates humanity.” (Alice Walker, b: 1944)
“[former Danish PM and Secretary General of NATO] Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Du har blod på dine hænder” ( “You have blood on your hands”), Danish protester, 2003.
The siege of Leningrad is still considered the most lethal siege in world history, a shocking “racially motivated starvation policy”, described as: “an integral part of Nazi policy in the Soviet Union during World War II.”
The New Dark Age 