Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has drawn opprobrium and praise in equal measure for his suggestion that Greece takes a “time-out” from the eurozone. In proposing that Greece could be better off outside the euro, the irascible 72-year-old crossed a political rubicon: he confirmed that the single currency was “reversible” after all. But having broken the euro’s biggest taboo, commentators …
Germany Might Be Trying To Steal SOCAR’s Main Asset In Greece By Andrew KORYBKO
The Greek Crisis has been a long-running drama that’s sucked in all of Europe (and even involved Russia to an extent), but for the most part, it hasn’t directly touched any of the Union’s peripheral countries. That may change, however, after the latest twist coming out of Athens. Per the debt agreement that’s been offered to the country, Greece must surrender …
Record torrential rainfall linked to warming climate By Alex Kirby
Scientists show that devastating increases in extreme rainfall over the last 30 years fit in with global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gases. LONDON, 13 July, 2015 – If you think you’re getting an unusually hard soaking more often when you go out in the rain, you’re probably right. A team of scientists in Germany says record-breaking heavy rainfall has been …
Germany Showing ‘Lack of Solidarity’ Over Greece: Stiglitz
Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, seen on May 12, 2015 in Washington, DC, accused Germany of displaying a “lack of solidarity” with debt-laden Greece that has badly undermined the vision of Europe. (AFP/file) Prominent economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz accused Germany on Sunday of displaying a “lack of solidarity” with debt-laden Greece that has badly undermined the vision of …
Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel By Thomas Piketty, Jeffrey Sachs, Heiner Flassbeck, Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis
The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more. As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt …
Greens warn: German breast milk unsafe
The Green party made their warning after testing the breast milk of 16 women from a variety of German regions. Traces of glyphosate, a chemical used in weed-killers, amounting to between 0.210 and 0.432 nanograms per mililitre were recorded. In drinking water a quantity of no more than 0.100 nanograms of the substance is allowed. Irene Witte, professor of toxicology …
On Brink of ‘Irreparable Split’ Between Rich and Poor Nations, European Leaders Scramble – Lauren McCauley
In the wake of Greece’s historic ‘No’ vote this weekend, European leaders are scrambling to cement a new deal after the resounding rejection of the austerity program that has heretofore dominated fiscal policy and conversation. European Parliament President Martin Schulz confirmed that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will address parliament plenary on Wednesday morning. Tsipras is expected to put forth a new …
The Pope’s Letter: Neoliberalism and Fukushima By Mateo Pimentel
Japanese sociologist and Tokyo Metropolitan University professor, Shinji Miyadai argues that European nations progressed from the communal self-governance of food to the communal self-governance of energy after World War II. Miyadai compares Europe’s post-war developments with those of post-war Japan in his article entitled ‘Pitfalls of the Nuclear Power Reduction Movement’. His contention is simple: As opposed to Europe, Japan …
EuroZone Profiteers: How German and French Banks Helped Bankrupt Greece – Pratap Chatterjee
Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister of Greece, has called a national referendum this Sunday to call the bluff of the European Union and International Monetary Fund who are trying to force his country to accept severe austerity in return for effectively rolling over much of the countries’ debt. Today Greece owes its creditors €323 billion ($366 billion), some 175 percent of the country’s …
Renewable energy redoubles its global reach By Alex Kirby
As the world economy and energy use both grew in 2014, renewables continued their rapid rise− but carbon emissions did not. LONDON, 27 June, 2015 − A significant threshold has been crossed by renewable energy as analysts report that the sectorʼs size last year reached double the level it was at just 10 years earlier. This expansion happened in a year when the global economy and energy …