The IMF now has access to approximately 300 billion dollars. “Even if crises erupt elsewhere, the IMF’s involvement in Greece would not prevent the IMF from awarding emergency loans elsewhere,” he says. “There is no competition for funds.” What are sustainable debts? Kaiser thinks a haircut for Greece is still possible, even though the IMF will be involved in the third bailout package. “They have bought themselves a little bit of time. Until the next deadline,” he reckons. The programs that Athens must now implement are based on the same “illusory figures that have been forced on the country the past five years.” The IMF and the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, came closer when the controversy over the definition of debt sustainability broke out this week. Now, the debt amount itself is not decisive, but the servicing of debt, instead. Europe’s lenders claim to have given Athens the best conditions possible to service its debt to the IMF, argues the ESM. Langhammer considers the changed approach long overdue. “The sky may fall in on Greece, but Greece will continue to exist as a state. A country is an infinite investment object,” he says and adds, “Economically, it is complete nonsense to think that a country will pay back its debts. It is more important that a country is able to meet its interest payment obligations on a regular basis.”

Source: IMF changing tack on Greece | Europe | DW.COM | 30.08.2015

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for mass deportation of millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, as well as their American-born children, bears similarities to a large-scale removal that many Mexican-American families faced 85 years ago….

Source: Trump’s mass deportation idea was tried in the 1930s

Saudi women registered to run in municipal elections for the first time in the country’s history on Sunday, just one week after voter registration was opened to women in another first for the ultraconservative kingdom.Original enclosures:

Source: Women register to run for election in a first for Saudi Arabia

“I was twenty-two during World War II. First the English invaded us from the south, then the Russians invaded us from the north. They had a lot more men than us and the city completely ran out of food. I saw many horrible scenes. My job was to distribute bread from the bakery. Crowds would gather and wait for the handouts. One winter night I found a mother sitting against the bakery wall, nursing her child. I went to give her a loaf of bread, but only the child was alive.”

Source: Humans of New York