Alternative Visions – How Macron and Trump Economic Policies Are Similar – 05.12.17

Dr. Rasmus reviews early policy directions of newly elected French President, Emmanuel Macron, that focus on anti-labor reform, business tax cuts, and privatization and how that set of policy priorities is similar in many ways to Trump’s.  How recent reports on unemployment in Europe show jobless rates at 18% (not 9.5%) while the US rate is really 9%-12% and not …

James Forsyth – 2017: Europe’s year of rage

After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to be held in four of the six founder members of the European project, and populist Eurosceptic forces are on the march in each one. There will be at least one regime change: François Hollande has accepted that he is too …

Scandalous Poll: 84% of Ukrainians want Putin as their president

The Ukrainian publication Nedelya.UA conducted a poll among its readers asking the following question: “Which politician would you entrust with the governance of your country?”  The survey was participated in by 41,600 readers and showed the following figures: 84% (34,900) of Ukrainian respondents want to see Vladimir Putin as president of Ukraine. In second place with 5% (2,000) was Belarusian …

Nika Knight – Filmmaker Faces 45 Years in Prison for Reporting on Dakota Access Protests

In an ominous sign for press freedom, documentary filmmaker and journalist Deia Schlosberg was arrested and charged with felonies carrying a whopping maximum sentence of up to 45 years in prison—simply for reporting on the ongoing Indigenous protests against fossil fuel infrastructure. Schlosberg was arrested in Walhalla, North Dakota on Tuesday for filming activists shutting down a tar sands pipeline, …

Slovak food producers call on cabinet to reject TTIP trade deal

* Food producers are worried that it will lead to the EU market being flooded with genetically modified organisms Slovakia should join Austria and France in their demands that negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the USA should be halted, the Slovak Food Chamber (PKS) stated on Monday, September 12. PKS noted that …

Peter Koenig – ECONOMY OF PEACE WITH AN ALTERNATIVE MONETARY SYSTEM IS IN REACH

Globalisation is the demise of humanity. That being said, if we want peace, solidarity, harmonious cohabitation, justice and equality – we have to defeat globalisation. And to be able to defeat it, countries which strive to take back autonomy and sovereignty may want to move away from the oppressive fist of the west. BREXIT offers Europe and the world a …

Is The Merkel Era Coming To an End?

Chancellor Merkel’s refugee policies have divided the country and the right-wing populist AfD party is rapidly gaining support. Conservatives are calling on Merkel to change course, but she is refusing to admit fallibility. Could this be the end? By SPIEGEL Staff There are days in the life of a chancellor when the chasm between the glamour of the geopolitical stage and …

John Harris – Does the left have a future?

There is more than one spectre haunting modern Europe: terrorism, the revival of the far right, the instability of Turkey, the fracturing of the EU project. And in mainstream politics, all across the continent, the traditional parties of the left are in crisis. In Germany, the Social Democratic party, once a titanic party of government, has fallen below 20% in the …

ANDREI AKULOV – US Faces Major Setback As Europeans Revolt Against TTIP

France wants to halt thorny EU-US trade talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as President Francois Hollande underlined there would be no deal until after President Barack Obama leaves office in January. Matthias Fekl, the French minister for foreign trade, has said his country will call for an end to the deal. France has been sceptical about …

Calling Corporate-Backed Deals an “Indisputable” Good, Obama Makes Pitch for TTIP

Despite the tens of thousands of people who marched against the deal in Germany ahead of his arrival and the steady drop in support for such neoliberal trade deals overall, President Barack Obama stood next to Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and defended the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and said similar past deals have been an “indisputable” benefit to the U.S. economy. …