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.
Category Archives: Global Politics
Greek debt crisis: Photograph of elderly man collapsed outside bank reveals pensioner’s despair – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Recounting how he had gone from bank to bank in a futile attempt to collect his wife’s pension, Mr Chatzifotiadis said when he was told at the fourth “that I could not get the money, I just collapsed”.
Both he and his wife, like many Greeks in the north of the country, had spent several years in Germany where he “worked very hard” in a coal mine and later a foundry.
And it is from Berlin, which has been blamed by many in Greece for its hardline stance in demanding the government impose more austerity measures for fresh international aid, that Mr Chatzifotiadis is receiving his wife’s pension.
“I see my fellow citizens begging for a few cents to buy bread,” he said.
“I see more and more suicides.
“I am a sensitive person. I cannot stand to see my country in this situation.
“Europe and Greece have made mistakes. We must find a solution.”
Palestine – IDF deliberately fires teargas at Jordanian TV crew

Israeli troops deliberately fired teargas at two Palestinians journalists with Jordan’s Ro’ya TV while they were covering a peaceful Palestinian demonstration near Jaba, a village north of Jerusalem, on 2 July.
The demonstration was held to mark the first anniversary of the death of Mohamed Abou Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian who was murdered a few days after three young Israelis were kidnapped and murdered near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Ro’ya TV posted a video online showing Palestinian Territories bureau chief Nebal Farsakh and cameraman Mohamed Shousha being targeted although they were wearing bulletproof vests marked “Press.” They were taken to a hospital with facial burns.
“The Israeli security forces must respect the physical integrity of journalists who are just doing their job by covering demonstrations,” said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Middle East and Maghreb desk. “We remind them that the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution in March 2014 recognizing that journalists play an essential role by covering protests.”
The incident was not isolated. Israeli police used force to prevent a crew with Russian TV station RT from filming during Jerusalem Day on 17 May, which commemorates Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem and the Old City during the Six Day War.
Although they had accreditation, RT reporter Dalia Nammari and cameraman Muhammad Aishu were manhandled and their camera was broken. They have filed a complaint.
Nidal Ashtiyeh, a Palestinian photojournalist working for the Chinese news agency Xinhua, was covering a Palestinian demonstration near Nablus on 15 May marking the 67th anniversary of the Nakba (Palestinian defeat and exodus in 1948) when he was badly injured in an eye by a rubber-coated bullet fired by an Israeli soldier. He has not yet recovered his sight in the eye and needs to receive special treatment.
The Israel Defence Forces <a href=”http://www.madacenter.org/report.php?lang=1
via Palestine – IDF deliberately fires teargas at Jordanian TV crew.
This euro is destroying the European dream | Jonathan Freedland
<img title=”Alexis Tsipras campaigning for no vote in referendum” src=”http://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/7/3/1435949555519/Alexis-Tsipras-campaignin-009.jpg?w=300
via This euro is destroying the European dream | Jonathan Freedland.
Greece and Spain helped postwar Germany recover. Spot the difference | Nick Dearden | Comment is free | The Guardian
the country’s creditors came together in London and showed that they understood how you help a country that you want to recover from devastation. It showed they also understood that debt can never be seen as the responsibility of the debtor alone. Countries such as Greece willingly took part in a deal to help create a stable and prosperous western Europe, despite the war crimes that German occupiers had inflicted just a few years before.
Fire claims another US black church

An African-American church once targeted by the Ku Klux Klan has been burned down again, the latest in a series of blazes at black churches in the US south.
Speak Up Sell Out by Munir Zamir
The moral crusade against Greece must be opposed | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian
On Saturday the Eurogroup broke with its tradition of unanimity, issuing a petulant statement “supported by all members except the Greek member”. Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, sought legal advice on whether the group was allowed to exclude him, and received the extraordinary reply: “The Eurogroup is an informal group. Thus it is not bound by treaties or written regulations. While unanimity is conventionally adhered to, the Eurogroup president is not bound to explicit rules.” Or, to put it another way: “We never had any accountability in the first place, sucker.”
More striking still is this line of the statement: “The Eurogroup has been open until the very last moment to further support the Greek people through a continued growth-oriented programme.” The measures enforced by the troika have created an economic contraction akin to that caused by war.
via The moral crusade against Greece must be opposed | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian.
ASIA/HOLY LAND – “New” jihadist acronym threatens Christians in Jerusalem
Jerusalem – Some leaflets containing threats to Christians in Jerusalem and signed by an unknown organization calling itself “Islamic state in Palestine” – with the clear intention of showing their affiliation or proximity to the Islamic State – were found on Thursday evening, June 25 in some Arab neighborhoods in the eastern part of the Holy City. According to reports by the Israeli media, in the leaflets the Christians in Jerusalem are threatened with death if they do not leave the city before 18 July, the day in which the feast of Eid al Fitr falls this year, at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. In the message – that also contains threats against Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas – Christians are called “agents of Israel”.
The message of intimidation contained in the leaflets caused immediate reactions by Michel Sabbah, Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem of the Latins, and Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia, of the Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. “No one knows who distributed the leaflets”, says to Agenzia Fides Fr. Raed Abusahliah, Director General of Caritas Jerusalem. “Of course the episode has spread concern among some Christians. Some of them ask themselves: how can these fools have come this far?”. Father Raed points out that “Muslims reacted before Christians: many Muslim leaders have condemned the threats contained in the leaflets and said they will be the first to defend their Christian brothers, if something happens.
While many faithful Christians have said they will never leave the land of Christ, where they were born, before any threat”. The Director of Caritas Jerusalem also notes that “these acronyms and such groups are most probably supported and infiltrated by forces acting in the shadows. Maybe now some want to show that Christians are fragile and need some kind of ‘protection’ “.
via ASIA/HOLY LAND – “New” jihadist acronym threatens Christians in Jerusalem.
Thousands join anti-corruption march in Honduras

Tens of thousands of Hondurans have marched in Tegucigalpa to demand the president’s resignation over a corruption scandal. They also want an independent probe into one of the country’s worst corruption scandals.

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