All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.” — Medium

After the war ended in 1945, Germany’s debt amounted to over 200% of its GDP. Ten years later, little of that remained: public debt was less than 20% of GDP. Around the same time, France managed a similarly artful turnaround. We never would have managed this unbelievably fast reduction in debt through the fiscal discipline that we today recommend to Greece. Instead, both of our states employed the second method with the three components that I mentioned, including debt relief. Think about the London Debt Agreement of 1953, where 60% of German foreign debt was cancelled and its internal debts were restructured.

via Thomas Piketty: “Germany has never repaid.” — Medium.

Sinai’s Violence: A Timeline ( 2004 – 2015)

Endless struggle?

Nervana

Following the recent terror attacks in Sinai, some tried to portray the violence as an armed insurgency in response to July 3 coup against Morsi. Sinai militancy, however, has been ongoing before Morsi, continued during his tenure, and after his ousting. Here is a summery of main events since 2004. 

Sinai violence

(photo via Reuters)

During Mubarak

 2004

  • Bomb blasts at Egyptian resorts in South Sinai, in which at least 28 people died.

2005

  • At least 88 people have been killed in bomb attacks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh

2006

  • At least 23 people – including three foreigners – have been killed and 62 wounded in three blasts in the Egyptian resort town of Dahab

2010

  • Rocket attacks on Israel’s Eilat and Jordan’s Aqaba fired from Egypt’s Sinai

2011

  • Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to Israel near the Gaza Strip amid raging protests against Mubarak

After the revolution/ before…

View original post 624 more words

afp-photo: GREECE, Thessaloníki : An elderly man is crying…

tumblr_nqwnj3TGCT1r9jzs2o1_500.jpg

afp-photo:

GREECE, Thessaloníki : An elderly man is crying outside a national bank
branch as pensioners queue to get their pensions, with a limit of 120
euros, in Thessaloniki on 3 July, 2015. Greece is almost evenly split
over a crucial weekend referendum that could decide its financial fate,
with a ‘Yes’ result possibly ahead by a whisker, the latest survey
Friday showed. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government is asking
Greece’s voters to vote ‘No’ to a technically phrased question asking if
they are willing to accept more tough austerity conditions from
international creditors in exchange for bailout funds. AFP PHOTO /Sakis
Mitrolidis