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Black Monday
by Stephen Lendman
As this is written, US financial markets haven’t opened. Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures indicate steep opening declines.
European bourses are down about 3% - following continued sharp Asian market sell-offs - in lockstep with what Reuters called “the Great fall of China.” The Shanghai Composite fell another 8.5% after last week’s steep declines. More on this below.
So far, it’s too soon to know if what’s happening is what the late longtime market expert/Progressive Radio News Hour guest Bob Chapman warned listeners and readers about in his twice-weekly International Forecaster reports.
“There is absolutely no way a financial crisis can be avoided,” he said. “Fragile isn’t the word,” for what’s happening. “The operative (word) is abject failure,” headed for eventual collapse.
Most Palestinians won't be sorry for Abbas's departure
By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Palestine
Palestinian Authority (PA) sources have been disseminating rumors indicating that Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has submitted his resignation as Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee.
It is uncertain whether these leaks contain any modicum of truth or are just balloon tests meant to gauge Palestinian public reactions to the possible resignation of the PA leader.
Abbas did on several occasions "threaten" to resign. According to sources close to him, Abbas, now 82 years of age, probably thought that the overall Palestinian scene would fall into shambles should he quit his post.
Gaza in Ruins a Year After Israeli Aggression
by Stephen Lendman
A year after Israel launched premeditated aggression on Gaza last July, the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement said:
“(T)he Strip remains in ruins, light years away from the reconstruction many had hoped for.”
“Despite the growing recognition amongst the Israeli security establishment that Gaza’s rehabilitation is a precondition to regional stability and security, Israel continues to impose sweeping, arbitrary restrictions on travel and on movement of commercial goods. Today, access remains the exception, rather than the rule.” Unemployment exceeds 40% - for youths around 60%. “(N)o significant rebuilding is taking place and civilian infrastructure has not even been restored to its state prior to the operation. Poverty and aid dependence are rampant.” Widespread destruction was overwhelming.
U.S. Gov’t. Says: 'July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded for the globe’
Eric Zuesse
To global-warming-deniers such as the Koch brothers and Exxon/Mobil, the news that was reported on 20 August 2015 must be just a ‘coincidence,’ but the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported then that July 2015 was “the all-time highest monthly temperature” in this planet’s entire scientifically recorded record, which started in 1880.
Furthermore: "Global oceans record warm for July; January-July 2015 also record warm.”
The more detailed version of the report says: The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July 2015 was the highest for July in the 136-year period of record, at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.08°C (0.14°F). As July is climatologically the warmest month of the year globally, this monthly global temperature of 16.61°C (61.86°F) was also the highest among all 1627 months in the record that began in January 1880. The July temperature is currently increasing at an average rate of 0.65°C (1.17°F) per century.
Pentagon Plans Escalated Drone Killings
by Stephen Lendman
Drones are instruments of state terror. Washington’s official narrative is pure rubbish - claiming terrorists alone are targeted, civilians aren’t killed, and drone warfare makes America safer.
Fact: Attacks are indiscriminate extrajudicial executions - in flagrant violation of core international law.
Fact: Few so-called “high value” targets are eliminated.
Fact: Large numbers of civilian men, women and children are murdered in cold blood. International law protecting them in combat theaters is ignored. Fact: Bodies of innocent victims are blasted into unrecognizable pieces or burned beyond recognition. Fact: Family members, bystanders and rescuers are killed or maimed by what’s called “double tapping” - striking the targeted area two or more times.
Iran to Get Upgraded Russian S-300 Missiles
by Stephen Lendman
In 2007, Russia agreed to supply Iran with five battalions of S-300 medium-range air defense missiles. They designed to defend military, industrial and other strategic sites against enemy air attacks.
Russia’s technology is the most sophisticated air defense systems in service, able to destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy. Its newest generation S-400s have both medium and long range capability.
In 2010, then President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to observe Security Council Resolution 1929 - imposing new sanctions on Iran on top of earlier ones. He annulled the 2007 S-300 contract.
Greece’s SYRIZA Party Splits Ahead of Snap Elections
by Stephen Lendman
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was widely expected to call snap elections - Greece’s fifth general election in six years.
Twenty-nine anti-austerity SYRIZA party members bolted. They’ll challenge Tsipras despite virtually no chance to prevail. They formed a new Popular Unity party headed by former energy minister/vocal Tsipras critic Panagiotis Lafazanis.
They call it a “wide, anti-memorandum (austerity), progressive democratic front that will go to the elections with the agenda to cancel all memoranda,” a statement they issued said. They accused Tsipras of breaching his anti-austerity campaign pledge. He signed a new austerity memorandum without approval of other SYRIZA members, they explained. They continued saying: “The snap elections Alexis Tsipras decided, will be held in order to bury the proud ‘no’ of the referendum. To bury the anti-memorandum struggles and anti-memorandum expectations of the people, Greek people are asked to put a noose around their necks and approve a new memorandum.”
George Soros’s Fakery
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
George Soros pretends to be a progressive, but he invests in and finances nazis. That’s not “Nazis” as in National Socialist Party of Germany, which was outlawed after WW II, and whose racist obsession was against Jews. Instead, it’s “nazis” as in any racist fascist ideology (any ideology of racist fascism, instead of a political Party), in any country, against any ethnic group. But George Soros happens to support only nazis (racist fascists) whose passionate hatred is specifically against Russians. His entire biography in public life has actually been that.
People used to think that he opposed merely communism, and that he was aiming to end communism in the Soviet Union, but, after it did end there in 1991, he continued, now much more clearly than before, hating Russians instead of “communists," and now doing everything he could to encourage NATO to increasingly surround that increasingly alone country, by its former Warsaw Pact allies, which would become, instead, NATO members, military bases for U.S. and other hostile forces, against Russia.
Israeli High Court Frees Muhammad Allan
by Stephen Lendman
The court suspended his illegal detention, a first step toward freeing him. More on this below.
Food provides nutrients needed to survive. Without it, energy wanes. Bodily functions break down. Starvation follows, causing disability, organ failure and death, a painful way to die.
On Wednesday, Allan ended his hunger strike after 65 excruciating days - following Israel’s High Court order suspending his indefinite detention order, lawlessly imprisoning him uncharged and untried because he committed no crimes.
Justices acted after learning he suffered brain damage from his long ordeal. He can’t see, hear or communicate. He’s conscious but remains zombie-like. He’s in intensive care at Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center on life support in serious condition.
Justices said if his brain damage is irreversible, his detention order will be revoked. It never should have been imposed in the first place.
Greek PM Calls Snap Elections
by Stephen Lendman
On Thursday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and announced snap elections, likely in late September - a ploy hoping for enough voter support to remain in power before ordinary Greeks feel the pain of greater austerity he agreed to after pledging no more in January.
His SYRIZA-led coalition holds a slim majority. Polls astonishingly show he remains popular - at least compared to alternative choices.
Greece is like most other nations. Monied interests rule. Ordinary people have no say. Whatever party or coalition rules, their welfare gets short shrift at best, entirely ignored at worst.
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