Category Archives: Global Politics

Israeli cities ban Gaza documentary film

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Pressure from right-wing activists led two mayors in southern Israel to cancel screenings of a Dutch film dealing traumatized Gazan heath workers. The film’s director said people in the cities could relate to the movie.

via Israeli cities ban Gaza documentary film.

When Hacking Team Met Bart Gellman : Additional Focus : Our Work

Last Sunday, the Milan-based spyware firm uncreatively known as “Hacking Team”—notorious for selling powerful, out-of-the-box surveillance tools to any government or law enforcement agency willing to pay the hefty price-tag—was itself hacked by unknown actors.

The firm’s compromised Twitter account began tweeting links to over 400 gigabytes of internal data, including company emails, invoices, financial documents, and source code—most of which appears to have been stored sans encryption on company servers.

To add insult to injury, the hacker(s) responsible—seemingly the same person(s) who infiltrated spyware purveyor Gamma Group last year—changed Hacking Team’s Twitter account name to “Hacked Team.”

The contents of the data dump confirms what researchers and journalists had long suspected: that Hacking Team regularly sells its spyware to repressive regimes—including Ethiopia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan—some of whom have used the technology to spy on reporters and activists.

In other words, the company has more than earned the appellation bestowed upon it by Reporters without Borders: Hacking Team is an “Enemy of the Internet.”

via When Hacking Team Met Bart Gellman : Additional Focus : Our Work.

East Jerusalem youth find escape in drugs | Middle East | DW.COM | 15.07.2015

Tamer Zakkak, director of a counseling center situated in the old city, claims over 5,000 children aged 12-17 years are using drugs in East Jerusalem. The center, run by the charity Caritas Jerusalem, has noticed that more children are being drawn toward drugs at increasingly younger ages.

“In the past we were working with children, 16, 17, 18, who were dealing with drug addiction,” Zakkak said from his office, just outside the old city walls. “In some cases we are now dealing with 13- and 14-year olds.” Zakkar refers to his most recent case as an example: a 13-year-old homeless boy hooked on marijuana and ecstasy.

Children as young as nine begin on what appear to be harmless legal highs, but before they know it they are craving a much bigger hit, says Zakkak. He is referring to synthetic marijuana. Packed with potent chemicals that can induce psychotic episodes, it is cheap, readily available, addictive – and a hit with the youth. “Some people leave school age eight or nine and start working in the streets, learning from adults and other youth in the streets about drugs,” Zakkak adds. “Heroin is the second level.”

via East Jerusalem youth find escape in drugs | Middle East | DW.COM | 15.07.2015.

Italy′s sovereign debt hits record high | Business | DW.COM | 14.07.2015

“Is Italy next on 4th Reich’s over-reach to dominate Europe?”

Italian public debt has risen upwards of 2.2 trillion euros in May, new data showed Tuesday – a new record for the southern European country that is the eurozone’s second-most indebted after Greece.

The new numbers from the Central Bank of Italy come at a time when the Greek debt crisis is dominating headlines and observers view ballooning public debt within the currency union with worry.

Italy’s debt is now at 132 percent of GDP, compared to Greece’s 175 percent. Both countries find themselves far from the 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio target set by the European Commission.

The consequences of an Italian debt crisis would however be more dire – it’s the third largest economy in the eurozone.

via Italy′s sovereign debt hits record high | Business | DW.COM | 14.07.2015.

That China’s Stockmarket Is Not A Market Cuts Both Ways | DQ-en

This is not to say that dangers don’t lie ahead for China’s continuing economic transformation, nor that everything is currently healthy and balanced in the world’s second largest economy. China remains a developing nation faced with massive challenges. And, beyond that, China realises that all advanced economies eventually come to rely on their stockmarkets to power economic growth and that these economies learn to live with that market’s vicissitudes. As long ago as 1966 Paul Samuelson had famously quipped that Wall Street predicted 9 of the last five recessions in the US. China will have to resign itself to that kind of behaviour too, or come up with some alternative formula for finance and economic performance.

But all in all, this most recent China stockmarket experience is just a fluctuation that, both in its wider implications and in the cold light of recent historical experience, registers to be far from dramatic.

via That China’s Stockmarket Is Not A Market Cuts Both Ways | DQ-en.

Momentous times for democracy in Europe | openDemocracy

We know we need reforms – we need to end the sclerosis of the nation-state. But reforms cannot mean cuts in pensions, increasing the precariousness of work, and declines in income that lead to even more debt.

Yet even though this is said over and over again, the creditors and their political associates don’t seem to get it.

Nevertheless, this debate about austerity and reforms is beginning to be reproduced in the media. Indeed the solidarity shown by people all over Europe towards Greece perhaps marks the beginning of a European public space. It is a debate we need to have – how to reduce inequality, how to reduce unemployment and homelessness, how to save the planet’s resources, how to bring peace to the Middle East. How we get out of the current impasse depends on our contribution to that debate.

We need to recapture the European project, to take it back from the global market, to reinstil the original values and more. That’s how we can construct institutions that are different in kind – relevant for the world we live in. It is a huge responsibility.

via Momentous times for democracy in Europe | openDemocracy.

Greece and Grexit

Deadly Medicine

Just before the Eurogroup’s summit, several prominent economists appealed to Chancellor Merkel in an open letter, asking that she take the Greek referendum as an opportunity for a course correction in the policy toward Greece. Among the signatories are Jeffrey Sachs, whose shock therapy is being held responsible for the serious economic collapse in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, and former State Secretary in the German Ministry of Finances, Heiner Flassbeck. “The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working,” write the economists. “As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy … and made the external debt crisis far worse.” The “humanitarian impact” has been “colossal.” For example “40 percent of children now live in poverty,” the “infant mortality is sky-rocketing” because of the austerity policy. “The medicine prescribed by Berlin and Brussels has bled the patient,” write the authors, not cured the disease. “It is having an impact on those, who were not even born at the beginning of the crisis.”[2] This is why the austerity dictate must be ended.

An Important Partner

Washington has even become involved in the debate. Yesterday, Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke by telephone to US Minister of Finances Jacob Lew and President Barack Obama. They spoke particularly about an accommodation loan, that Athens quickly needs, to bridge the gap until a third bail-out package begins, according to reports. Obama has “hopes” for an agreement that will definitely keep Greece in the Eurozone. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton also made similar demands. The EU must urgently “defuse” the crisis, says former Secretary of State and possible presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. “I want to see a resolution.” After all, Greece is “an important partner.”[3]

Geostrategic Bridgehead

For the USA, Greece is in fact an extremely important NATO partner. The political scientist Johannes Varwick has emphasized this point. According to Varwick, for the West, Greece serves as a “geostrategic bridgehead to the Middle East,” which was already “the reason” to have “Greece as a NATO partner in 1952.” To this date, “nothing has changed” in this respect, explains Varwick. It must be absolutely “avoided that there is a dislocation on NATO’s southeast flank,” explains the political scientist. “That means that as a prerequisite, for a stable opposite shore, the European realm must first of all, be stabilized, and therefore Greece …, even from a security policy standpoint, is a serious problem.”[4] Western allies’ support for Greece maintaining its expensive military budget is also due to its exposed geostrategic position. According to the SIPRI Institute in Stockholm, just last year, after the catastrophic cuts in pensions and social expenditures had long since been made, Greece invested a good 2.5 percent of its GDP in its military – much more than any of the other European NATO member countries. Last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that this must continue to be the case: “That is important for all.” Military spending were “not the reasons for the financial crisis in Greece.”[5] The Tsipras government has agreed to maintain the higher-than-average military spending.

No Other Option

Sunday, the EU special summit will make its final decision on Greece’s future. The Tsipras government either will then comply with the wishes of the Greek population, or again be forced to submit to the German-EU austerity dictate – possibly a bit veiled cosmetically. Berlin, as yesterday’s Eurogroup summit has confirmed, leaves no other option open.

via www.german-foreign-policy.com.