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Misguided Calls for More QE
by Stephen Lendman
Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and other US financial community members urge more money printing madness - duplicitously suggesting current market turmoil conditions warrant it.
Reckless monetary policy instituted by the Fed and other major central banks bears full responsibility for what’s unfolding - how severe for how long remains to be seen. More on what Summers said below.
Three rounds of Fed quantitative easing (QE) did nothing to create jobs or put money in the pockets of ordinary people who spend it, generate economic growth and create a virtuous circle of prosperity lifting all boats equitably.
Greek Elections: January and September 2015 - From Hope to Fear and Despair
James Petras
Introduction
Eight months will have passed since the election of Syriza on January 25 up to the snap elections in September. During that time Syriza’s leaders play-acted their ‘opposition to austerity’ and then knelt down in submission to the ‘Troika’.
The contrast between January and now is dramatic: Syriza’s leader, Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, aroused joy and great hope among the Greek voters with his promises to end Greece’s subjugation to the European oligarchs (the “Troika”) but now convokes snap elections exploiting the pervasive fear and misery among the population. Greeks confront a future of even greater impoverishment and despair with an entire generation bound up and delivered to forty years of debt slavery and colonial subjugation by their elected Syriza leaders.
Congresswoman for Palestinian Rights
by Stephen Lendman
Rep. Betty McCollum (D MN) is an exception proving the rule - supporting the rights of Palestinian children in a Congress largely ignoring them.
In June, she wrote John Kerry, saying “Israel’s military detention of Palestinian children is an indefensible abuse of human rights. I hope this letter results in State Department pressure on the Government of Israel to end this systemic abuse immediately.”
“Palestinian children should be treated exactly the same as Israeli or American children, without the fear that one day soldiers will arrest them, beat them, and lock them away in prison.”
On August 18, she wrote the State Department again - addressing the cold-blooded killings of Nadeem Nawarah and Mohammad Anu Daher during May 2014 Nakba Day protests.
Her remarks were unusually forthright - calling Daher’s murder “a blatant example of an unlawful killing that merits both condemnation and action by the US.”An Israeli border policeman lethally shot him with an M-a16 rifle. “Most disturbing, Nadeem’s murder was captured on video as he walked innocently down the street.”
Panic Grips Markets
by Stephen Lendman
Monday trading showed Dow stocks plunging 1,089 points in minutes at the opening before rebounding sharply, then closing down 588 points - the single largest intraday point move in one of the most volatile trading days in stock market history, the most volatile ever for Nasdaq stocks.
The Dow fluctuated in a 7% trading range - an unprecedented 9% for Nasdaq stocks. Volatility was so extreme, the VIX S&P 500 index options volatility measure (the so-called fear index) couldn’t open during the first 30 minutes. Values of options its based on couldn’t be calculated. For the first time ever, the index closed up over 40% two consecutive days. At its Monday peak, it was up an astonishing 90%.
Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
by Stephen Lendman
Besieged Gazans endure deplorable conditions. No end of their suffering looms.
On July 23, humanitarian aid worker Laura Grant headlined her London Guardian op-ed “Aid in Gaza: We don’t have the words to deal with this level of suffering.”
She came to Gaza for the first time after working in Occupied Palestine for almost a year. When crisis strikes like last summer’s Israeli aggression, international workers are largely evacuated. “(L)ocals are left to play the grim hand they’ve been dealt,” Grant explained How they manage is beyond what any outsider can imagine. Internationals come and go. Gazans remain besieged, trapped in rubble, without essentials most people take for granted or enough of them.
Former Greek Finance Minister on SYRIZA Capitulation to Troika
by Stephen Lendman
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faked his progressive credentials. He was a Judas all along - pretending opposition to austerity to get elected, planning betrayal straightaway in office.
Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis maintains a web site - posting his “comments for the post-2008 world.”
On August 18, he headlined “Bailout deal allows Greek oligarchs to maintain grip,” saying:
Terms lawmakers agreed to lets oligarchs dominating Greek economic sectors “generate huge profits and continue to avoid paying taxes” - at the expense of greater economic wreckage and harm to millions of ordinary households thrown under the bus.
The Age of Imperial Wars
James Petras
Introduction
2015 has become a year of living dangerously.
Wars are spreading across the globe. Wars are escalating as new countries are bombed and the old are ravaged with ever greater intensity.
Countries, where relatively peaceful changes had taken place through recent elections, are now on the verge of civil wars.
These are wars without victors, but plenty of losers; wars that don’t end; wars where imperial occupations are faced with prolonged resistance.
There are never-ending torrents of war refugees flooding across borders. Desperate people are detained, degraded and criminalized for being the survivors and victims of imperial invasions.
Now major nuclear powers face off in Europe and Asia: NATO versus Russia, US-Japan versus China. Will these streams of blood and wars converge into one radiated wilderness drained of its precious life blood?
Sergey Lavrov’s Message to Washington
by Stephen Lendman
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is a world-class diplomat - shaming his US and EU counterparts. He represents a nation dedicated to world peace and stability. Claims otherwise are Big Lies.
Never before in history has the threat of humanity destroying nuclear war been greater. The UN Charter’s Preamble stating: “We the peoples of the United Nations (stand) determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of (devastating world) war did nothing to stop America’s endless aggression for unchallenged global dominance - heading recklessly toward WW III if not stopped.
On Sunday, Russia’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta and China’s Renmin Ribao published Lavrov’s article titled “Lessons of History and New Milestones.”
Repressive Israeli Administrative Detentions
by Stephen Lendman
Life threatening hunger strikes by Khader Adnan, Muhammad Allan and others reflect the longstanding struggle of persecuted Palestinians for justice - indefinitely detained solely for political reasons, no others despite Israeli claims otherwise.
Criminals deserve punishment - no one for their political views or right to express them. Israel uses administrative detentions as a repressive tool, enforcing occupation harshness.
Jews aren’t administratively detained (with rare exceptions short-term proving the rule), only Palestinians. They’re denied due process and judicial fairness, held indefinitely, at times longterm, and aren’t told why they’re imprisoned.
Kiev Mobilized for Full-Scale Aggression on Donbass
by Stephen Lendman
Obama’s war on Donbass using Ukrainian army foot soldiers, paramilitaries, foreign mercenaries, Nazi-infested death squads and others never stopped since initiated in April 2014.
Kiev flagrantly violated Geneva and two Minsk ceasefire agreements straightaway. Obama wants endless war. So do US-installed fascists violating human and civil rights brazenly, terrorizing Ukrainians opposing their ruthless rule. At an August 22 military ceremony in Chuguev, near Donbass, illegitimate oligarch president Petro Poroshenko boasted about using Minsk II to rearm and increase Ukraine’s military ranks to much greater size than last year - despite a bankrupt economy near collapse, using borrowed funds desperately needed for vital services going begging. More on this below.
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