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Απ' τα κόκαλα βγαλμένη των Ελλήνων τα ιερά, και σαν πρώτα ανδρειωμένη, χαίρε, ω χαίρε, Ελευθεριά!
Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα english_text. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων
Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα english_text. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων

Δευτέρα 29 Μαΐου 2017

Macron: a French (potential) Thatcher (by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos)

Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας για by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Macron “scooped the pool and decamped” in the second round of the French presidential elections, scoring an easy victory over Marine Le Pen. Her performance was in any case so bad in the last week of the pre-election campaign that it led some commentators to the conclusion that the National Front did not want to be required to govern.

Δευτέρα 6 Μαρτίου 2017

Παρασκευή 17 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Greek default: To be or not to be? ( by Dimitrios Konstantakopoulos)

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/greek-default-to-be-or-not-to-be/

Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας για Dimitrios Konstantakopoulos
The following is from an interview transcript
The situation in Greece is a little bit complicated. You should remember that Greece is not any more a sovereign  nation-state. It has become a legal protectorate of “Troika”, of Germany, the EU, and the International Monetary fund.

Δευτέρα 13 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Mama Mia. After the Germans, now Americans want to save Greece!

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/mama-mia-after-the-germans-now-americans-want-to-save-greece/
Ted Malloch the prospective US Ambassador to the EU has nothing else to do now than appearing to one TV station after another in Greece, suggesting to Greeks that they should go out of the Euro and the Troika, but simply to fall under the IMF rule.
He is right on one point. There must be a debt alleviation for Greece. What he omits to say of course is that the program which destroyed Greece was imposed to it by both the EU and the IMF, with the approval and support of the US administration. And it was this program that led the Greek sovereign debt to climb to 175% of the GDP, instead of 110% that is was in the beginning and also to an explosion of private debt.

Σάββατο 11 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

They hate Chaves even dead

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/they-hate-chaves-even-dead/
Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας


By Resumen Latinoamericano
Original post date: 2 February 2017
Latin America and the Caribbean are not just going through a neoliberal political and economical offensive through the installation of right-wing governments by various means—more than that, it is a giant counter-revolution spreading across the continent.

Πέμπτη 9 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Α declaration on Greece – now even more relevant than in 2015

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/%CE%B1-declaration-on-greece-now-even-more-relevant-than-in-2015/

Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας
Original post date: 30 July 2015
European governments, European institutions and the IMF, acting in close alliance with, if not under direct control of, big international banks and other financial institutions, are now exercising a maximum of pressure, including open threatsblackmailing and a slander and terror communication campaign against the recently elected Greek government and against the Greek people.

Δευτέρα 6 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

MIT States That Half of All Children May be Autistic by 2025 due to Monsanto

Original Post date: 26 January 2015
A senior scientist at MIT has declared that we are facing an epidemic of autism that may result in one half of all children being affected by autism in ten years.

Κυριακή 5 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Τετάρτη 1 Φεβρουαρίου 2017

Σάββατο 7 Ιανουαρίου 2017

Πέμπτη 5 Ιανουαρίου 2017

A Comment On Kissinger And Cyprus: The Devil In The Detail

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/a-comment-on-kissinger-and-cyprus-the-devil-in-the-detail/
Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας για Kissinger And Cyprus
By James Mallinson (*)
As yet another ‘High Noon’ looms over Cyprus, with the usual Western/NATO threats about this being the last chance for a solution, let us consider the rôle of Henry Kissinger, without whom it is highly unlikely that Turkey would have dared to invade and occupy Cyprus in the first place. Before we specify how he procrastinated and slithered to allow Turkey the space it needed to invade, we need some brief background to illustrate his obsession with Cyprus, and his delaying tactics following the Turkish invasion.

Τετάρτη 4 Ιανουαρίου 2017

The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its relevance the ‘Conference on Cyprus’ in Geneva on 12 January 2017

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-fourth-geneva-convention-of-1949-and-its-relevance-the-conference-on-cyprus-in-geneva-on-12-january-2017/

Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας για κυπρος διχοτομηση
In Politics, Aristotle issued a timeless warning: ‘Man, when perfected, is the best of animals but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.’ 

Τρίτη 3 Ιανουαρίου 2017

Building Totalitarianism in Europe – The Last Coup of Victoria Nuland (By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos)

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/building-totalitarianism-in-europe-the-last-coup-of-victoria-nuland/

Αποτέλεσμα εικόνας για Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos (*)
Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State, did not spend much time and energy with Christmas and New Year celebrations this year. She has another very urgent and pressing problem to solve, before leaving the State Department, and this is the “Cyprus conflict”.

Παρασκευή 30 Δεκεμβρίου 2016

Turkey: 'Worst country' for media freedom in 2016

http://www.defenddemocracy.press/turkey-worst-country-for-media-freedom-in-2016/
http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-worst-country-for-media-freedom-in-2016/a-36924382


Turkey jailed more journalists than any other country this year. According to the Turkish Journalists' Association, 148 journalists are currently imprisoned and many media outlets have been shut down.

Fokus Europa Türkei Pressefreiheit (DW)
"In the past journalists were killed in Turkey,” said one journalist, who was not identified, in the Human Rights Watch report on the freedom of press in Turkey. "This government is killing journalism in its entirety."

Πέμπτη 29 Δεκεμβρίου 2016

Russia and Turkey: Consistency versus Unreliability


In this brief analysis and evaluation, we shall consider the Ottoman Empire and Turkey as a single concept, since ‘neo-Ottomanism’ is currently all the rage in Turkey, even if it simply reflects the hubris of the post-imperial rigor mortis of an empire that died formally in 1923. Before looking at the last few years, let us note that, even when the Russian Empire was in a weakened state, it won most of its wars against the Ottomans, between the Sixteenth and Twentieth centuries, and the one that it did not win quickly and decisively, by taking Constantinople – was the result of mainly English intervention.
In its later days, the Ottoman Empire was indeed maintained by the British and Austro-Hungarians, for their own selfish strategic reasons. Today it is the US and their foreign policy subset Britain that prop up Turkey, through Turkish NATO membership (dating from 1952), the IMF, arms supplies, and turning a blind eye to the illegal occupation of Cyprus.

Τρίτη 27 Δεκεμβρίου 2016

Berlin attack: Using “Islamic Terror” to undermine Democracy?

On Friday night, Anis Amri was shot and killed by police in Milan. There is growing evidence that the 24-year-old Tunisian drove the truck that killed twelve people on Monday and injured 50 at a Christmas market in Berlin.
Investigators report that they found Amri’s ID papers, mobile phone and fingerprints inside the truck that was used in the horrific attack. The Islamic State press agency has published a video, probably recorded a few weeks ago, in which Amri swears allegiance to the organization and calls for “attacks on unbelievers.”
Amri may well have been responsible for the attack. However, the event itself remains obscure, and the extraordinary circumstances behind the attack raise many questions. It is now clear that security services were well aware that Amri was planning terrorist attacks. He had been in prison in Italy, was arrested in Germany and put under surveillance for months. Although the legal basis existed, the security and judicial authorities refused to detain him.
Morevoer, given the manner in which the event is being used to weaken the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel and shift German politics even further to the right, it would be a mistake not to consider the possibility that sections of the state were involved in some manner—if not in directing the attack, then in creating the conditions in which Amri was allowed to proceed.
There is a long tradition in Germany of organizing state provocations for political purposes. In 1933, the Nazis organized the Reichstag fire and declared a semi-blind Dutch communist to be the sole perpetrator in order to crush the Communist Party and pass the Enabling Act, which sanctioned Hitler’s dictatorship.
The secret services also had a hand in the resignation of Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974. Although they already knew that his personal assistant Günter Guillaume was a spy for the secret service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), they let the unsuspecting Brandt travel on holiday with Guillaume to completely discredit him.
The attack takes place amidst sharp conflicts within the German ruling class. Since Merkel opened Germany’s borders for a short time at the height of the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015, she has been bitterly denounced, including in the ranks of her own party.
These same forces are moving rapidly to exploit the terrorist attack to demand a sharp change in policy. The victims’ blood was barely dry when the leader of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, Horst Seehofer, proclaimed that “immigration and security policy” must now be “reconsidered and readjusted.”
Some on the extreme right have reacted even more aggressively. The leading representative of Alternative for Germany (AfD), Marcus Pretzell, tweeted, “These are Merkel’s dead!” And just a few hours after the attack, the right-wing Humboldt University Professor Jörg Baberowski demanded the resignation of the interior minister and Merkel confidant Thomas de Maiziére.
In October last year, the Welt am Sonntag published an article under the headline, “Security officials eagerly await Merkel’s ‘Go.’” It reported “massive resistance” to Merkel’s refugee policy in the intelligence community and security agencies. The article cited a paper circulating in intelligence circles that called for stopping refugees at the border, even if the government had ordered the opposite.
The facts of the attack as known so far also point to some level of state involvement.
On Friday, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Heribert Prantl drew attention to the fact that the immigration authorities, prosecutors and judiciary could have easily arrested Amri, who had sought to procure weapons and had broken laws under the eyes of the secret service and police.
Prantl wrote that Amri could have been placed on the strictest registration and residency requirements, citing a “danger to security,” and then arrested if he breached the regulations. This was not done, however. Prantl asks: “Had the authorities accepted the risks Amri presented because they hoped to gain intelligence from keeping him under surveillance? And had the authorities conducting the surveillance said nothing to other authorities because they wanted to keep the findings to themselves?”
Before Amri came to Germany, he spent four years in prison in Sicily for arson, where he evidently was won to Islamic extremism. The prison police sent an extensive report regarding Amri’s “radicalisation and readiness to conduct Islamist terror.”
Despite this, Amri avoided deportation and travelled to Germany in mid-2015. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, this was only because the Italian authorities had not fed his data into the European Information System in time. The Italian authorities, however, deny this.
In Germany, Amri immediately joined an Islamist group led by the preacher Abu Walaa. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, German intelligence had an asset in this group and was well informed about its activities. The intelligence agencies knew that some of its members were preparing to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or carry out terrorist acts in Germany.
Members of the security services reported that Amri was part of this group and had participated in exercises. He is said to have repeatedly talked about carrying out attacks.
Shortly after security service employees reported this, Amri was stopped for an ID check by two police officers in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. This ocurred on July 30 of this year. The police arrested him because he had been obliged to leave after his asylum application was rejected and he was not permitted to stay outside North Rhine Westphalia. He was detained in Ravensburg, but then released the next day, supposedly because a lack of papers meant he could not be deported.
At this time, the security services also knew from monitoring telephone calls and internet chats that Amri was planning something dangerous. According to broadcaster Bayrische Rundfunk, in March this year the risk register for terrorists contained an entry saying that Amri was seeking to recruit people from throughout Germany to “commit Islamist motivated attacks with him.”
Nevertheless, the federal prosecutor, who had taken over the investigation into the group around Abu Walaa in March 2016, sent the case against Amri to the state authorities in Berlin. The Berlin authorities kept Amri under surveillance around the clock, but in September this year the surveillance was halted under unclear circumstances.
Although his contact with the Abu Walaa group was documented by the secret service, and the Moroccan security authorities had warned their German colleagues in September and October of Amri’s plans for an attack, no action was taken.
Further questions arise from the aftermath of the attack itself. The police immediately arrested an innocent refugee from Pakistan on the basis of dubious eyewitness statements. He was presented as a strong suspect even though there was neither blood nor gunshot residue evidence to link him to the scene.
Only after media reports leaked out that Amri’s ID papers had been found in the truck did investigators admit that the refugee was innocent and that they were looking for Amri. On Friday, following a renewed inspection of the truck, it became known that Amri’s mobile phone had also been found.
The official explanation for the late finding of the ID papers is bizarre. Supposedly, other investigations had to be carried out first before anyone could inspect the truck’s cab.
This official story is further undermined by a tweet from one of the most well known right-wing extremists in Germany, the founder of Pegida, Lutz Bachmann. Just two hours after the attack, he wrote, “Internal information from the Berlin police leadership: culprit a Tunisian Muslim.”
If not just a pure coincidence, this tweet proves that the investigators already knew earlier who was responsible for the attack, and that a right-wing extremist, of all people, had been informed.
The close links of the intelligence agencies and the extreme right in Germany are well documented. For example, there are numerous indications that both far-right groups and state authorities were involved in the 1980 attack on the Oktoberfest. In the 1990s and 2000s, the extreme right-wing terrorist group NSU carried out at least ten murders under the eyes of the authorities. In both cases, considerable resources and energy were expended in order to cover up the connections.
The support, at least indirectly, of Islamist militias in Libya and Syria by the German government also strengthened the links between the German government and these forces, who were often able to travel back and forth between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

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