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Update: confusion, of course. According to Syria’s TV channels, there has been an “aggression on T4 airfield with several strikes, likely to be by the US”. Meanwhile Pentagon officials deny any US involvement.
BREAKING: U.S. officials: The United States is not carrying out airstrikes in Syria
Which suggests that Israel (and/or France) may have taken the initiative to bomb Syria on its (their) own, although it is unclear if with or without Trump’s blessing:
✔Pro-regime Syrian channel reports: “an aggression on T4 airfield with several strikes, likely to be by the US”. Meanwhile Pentagon officials deny any US involvement.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
In Libya, NATO bombed a path to Tripoli to help its proxy forces on the ground oust Gaddafi. Tens of thousands lost their lives and that country’s social fabric and infrastructure now lies in ruins. Gaddafi was murdered and his plans to assert African independence and undermine Western (not least French) hegemony on that continent have been rendered obsolete.
In Syria, the US, Turkey, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been helping to arm militants. The Daily Telegraph’s March 2013 article “US and Europe in ‘major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb’” reported that 3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia had been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels. The New York Times March 2013 article “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With CIA Aid” stated that Arab governments and Turkey had sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters. This aid included more than 160 military cargo flights.
Sold under the notion of a spontaneous democratic uprising against a tyrannical political leader, Syria is little more than an illegal war for capital, empire and energy. The West and its allies have been instrumental in organising the war as elaborated by Tim Anderson in his book ‘The Dirty War on Syria’.
Over the last 15 years or so, politicians and the media have been manipulating popular sentiment to get an increasingly war-fatigued Western public to support ongoing wars under the notion of protecting civilians or a bogus ‘war on terror’. They spin a yarn about securing women’s rights or a war on terror in Afghanistan, removing despots from power in Iraq, Libya or Syria or protecting human life, while then going on to attack or help destabilise countries, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
During the Spanish Civil War, many loyalist leaders and supporters of the Spanish Republican government fled into exile to wage their battle against the Spanish fascist dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco from abroad. 2018 is beginning to feel like 1939. After the fall of the Second Spanish Republic to Franco, who was aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Spanish President Manuel Azaña and Prime Minister Juan Negrin fled to exile in France. Following the October 27, 2017 declaration of independence of Catalonia by the Catalan Parliament and the dissolution of the Catalonian government by Franco’s proto-fascist successor, Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Rajoy, key members of the Catalonian government fled into exile. The President of the Catalonian Generalitat (Prime Minister) Carles Puigdemont and four of his ministers fled to Belgium to avoid arrest by Rajoy’s security forces.
Other Catalonian leaders were imprisoned in Madrid, where they await trials on sedition and rebellion charges. The leader of the pro-independence Popular Unity Candidature (CUP), Anna Gabriel, attained political asylum in Switzerland, where she told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps, “I will not go to Madrid . . . Since I will not have a fair trial at home, I have looked for a country that can protect my rights.” As with the loyalists imprisoned under Franco, the Catalan independence leaders, who enjoy a majority in the newly-elected Catalonian parliament, face decades in Spanish prison cells under Madrid’s EU-supported regime.
Rajoy, like Franco, appointed not a Catalonian but a Spanish Castilian, Deputy Prime Minister María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, as acting President of the Generalitat in Barcelona. Rajoy, as was the case with Franco, has Galician roots. Franco’s rule was infamous for stamping out Catalonian government, language, culture, and national identity and Rajoy, whose Spanish People’s Party is the ideological and chronological heir to Franco’s Falangists, does his very best to emulate his party’s ideological forbearer.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
French President Emmanuel Macron has said he would order airstrikes against Syria if the rumors that its government has used chemical weapons (CW) against civilians are confirmed. Never backed up with any solid evidence, such reports crop up from time to time in the Western media. In some cases the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has claimed that the traces actually led to the rebels, not the Syrian government. More of the CW stories have been published recently. Why now? A bit of background information can offer some clues.
The situation in Syria has been greatly aggravated. France is not the only actor threatening an incursion. Israel has just attacked some sites in Syria, as well as what it called “Iranian forces in Syria” and said that it would not hesitate to do so again. It hit an Iranian drone and lost an F-16 fighter. A direct confrontation between Israel and Iran is highly likely. Israel has beefed up its defenses at the Syrian border.
The Trump administration, which has taken a hard line on Iran, strongly supports Israel. It says the US will not allow Iran to entrench itself in Syria so close to Israel’s border. A conflict between Israel and Iran will jeopardize US forces all over the Middle East. Iran’s mobile missiles have a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), which puts every American base in the region within their reach, including the ones in Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. A strike range like that is enough to make the US outposts in Syria and Afghanistan vulnerable as well. Israel is also within the missiles’ reach. Iran’s ballistic missiles are not covered by the 2015 “nuclear deal,” but nonetheless the US has slapped sanctions against Tehran because of its missile program.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Macron’s Aim
In the press conference, Emmanuel Macron announced that restricting the presence of fake news online was essential to French democracy, andadded:
“As you know, propagating fake news on social media these days only demands a couple of tens of thousands of euros, and can be done while remaining completely anonymous.”
While it is true that you can spend tens of thousands of euros, fake news can easily be spread with no money whatsoever. All it takes on social media is for a post to go viral, in which case there is no need to sponsor the posts at all.
In order to achieve better public information, Macron wants to make transparency about who operates and runs news websites compulsory (if it sponsors content on social media), and give judges the possibility to completely delete content. His proposed bill will only apply for election periods, during which he says that public opinion should be fuelled by facts, not false information. This restriction was due to the “#MacronLeaks” which happened shortly before the second round of France’s presidential election in May last year. Thousands of emails of Macron’s staffers had been leaked on 4Chan and led to wild accusations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, the official Twitter account of Brazil’s Federal Police (its FBI equivalent) posted an extraordinary announcement. The bureaucratically nonchalant tone it used belied its significance. The tweet, at its core, purports to vest in the federal police and the federal government that oversees it the power to regulate, control and outright censor political content on the internet that is assessed to be “false,” and to “punish” those who disseminate it. The new power would cover both social media posts and entire websites devoted to politics.
“In the next few days, the Federal Police will begin activities in Brasília [the nation’s capital] by a specially formed group to combat false news during the [upcoming 2018 presidential] election process,” the official police tweet stated. It added: “the measures are intended to identify and punish the authors of ‘fake news’ for or against candidates.” Top police officials told media outlets that their working group would include representatives of the judiciary’s election branch and leading prosecutors, though one of the key judicial figures involved is the highly controversial right-wing Supreme Court judge, Gilmar Mendes, who has long blurred judicial authority with his political activism.
Among the most confounding aspects of the Twitter announcement is that it is very difficult to identify any existing law that actually authorizes the federal police to exercise the powers they just announced they intend to wield, particularly over the internet. At least as of now, they are claiming for themselves one of the most extremist powers imaginable – the right of the government to control and suppress political content on the internet during an election – with no legal framework to define its parameters or furnish safeguards against abuse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Following Germany’s (and Brussels) lead to tyrannical repression of any free speech in Europe, French President Macron said on Wednesday he would overhaul French media legislation this year to fight the spread of “fake news.”
As Reuters reports, since he was elected last year, Macron has criticized Russian media in particular, openly accusing TV channel RT of sowing disinformation about him via its website and social media during the presidential election.
“If we want to protect liberal democracies, we must have strong legislation,” Macron told a news conference.
Macron said the legislation would concern social media platforms, especially during election periods, and deeply change the role of France’s media watchdog CSA.
One can’t help but read Macron’s quote and think Orwellian utopia…
In recent weeks, the locals living in the Maurienne part of Savoie in the French Alps have been getting used to being shaken awake at night. The region has been rocked by 140 earthquakes in a mere 40 days sparking fears that Europe may soon experience “the big one.”
Sismalp, a French earthquake organization, has registered 140 minor tremors in the area in the last month or so. And with the strongest tremor being recorded 3.8 on the Richter scale, many are panicked that Europe’s “big one” could occur soon. While none of the earthquakes have been strong enough to cause any structural damage, they are starting to worry locals. Residents have been briefed about how to act in the case of a powerful tremor.
Martine, a resident of the village of Montgellafray, told a local radio station: “The noise is like a storm coming from far away. Everything shakes. I said ‘that’s it, all the tiles are going to break’. The last earthquake was really frightening. Since the end of August, it has never stopped. Every two days there is one and they are getting more common.”
Other village residents say many are asking questions about the earthquake swarm and the potential large-scale quake in the near future. “Everyone is asking questions. Everyone in the village is talking about it,” Yves, a fellow resident said.
But those living in the region have not had their fears alleviated. Seismologists say they are unable to explain the increase in the number of quakes in the region but have placed five new sensors in the valley to “monitor and better understand the phenomenon”. Back in 2014 after a series of earthquakes along the French Riviera, a seismologist specializing in the swarms told The Local that south-east France would be hit with a huge quake at some point.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
I thought about the exquisitely rich tapestry of European languages, cultures, customs, and nationalities as I watched the sad spectacle of Spanish riot police and Catalan separatists confronting one another on the streets of Barcelona. How on earth can the European Union unite that which history forced asunder?
The Folly of the EU
The European Union, French President Emmanuel Macron has recently declared to almost universal acclaim, needs more unity, including the creation of “a eurozone budget managed by a eurozone parliament and a eurozone finance minister”.
Therein lies the conundrum of European unification.
The need for the centralization of power in Brussels is, apparently, the lesson that the EU establishment has learned from the outcome of the British referendum on EU membership. Meanwhile, in Catalonia, millions of people have set their sights on independence from Spain. Foremost among their complaints is that the Catalan budget is influenced by Madrid.
Independence, the Catalans feel, will rectify a grave injustice occasioned by the French capture of Barcelona in 1714. The conqueror, Duke of Anjou, became the first Bourbon king of Spain under the name of Philip V. His descendant, Philip VI, is on the throne today. In Europe, ancient lineages last as long as ancient resentments.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
And suddenly the storms of early Trumptopia subside, or seem to. The surface of things turns eerily placid as the sweets of May sweep away the toils of an elongated mud season. Somebody stuffed Kim Jong Un back in his bunker with a carton of Kools and the Vin Diesel video library. France appears resigned to Hollandaise Lite in the refreshing form of boy wonder Macron. It’s been weeks since The New York Times complained about the Russians stealing Hillary’s turn as leader of the free world. We’re given to understand that Congress managed overnight to cook up a spending bill that will avert a Government shut-down until September. Rest easy America… oh, and buy every dip.
A calm surface is exactly what Black Swans like to land on, though by definition we will not know they’re out there until our reveries are broken by the sound of wings flapping. Some kind of dirty bird showed up on Canada’s thawing pond last week when that country’s biggest home loan lender suffered a 60 percent pukage of shareholder equity and had to be bailed out — not by the Canadian government directly, but by the Ontario Province’s Health Care Workers Pension Fund, a neat bit of hocus pocus that amounts to a one-year emergency loan at ten percent interest.
If that’s a way for insolvent public employee pension plans to find enough “yield” to meet their obligations, then maybe that could be the magic bullet for the USA’s foundering pension funds. The next time Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and friends get a case of the Vapors, let them be bailed out by the Detroit School Bus Drivers’ Pension Fund at ten percent interest. That ought to work. And let Calpers take care of Wells Fargo.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Two remaining candidates fight for same political terrain as May 7 vote approaches
A man kicks back a tear gas canister at police in Paris on April 27, 2017 during a demonstration against the results of the first round of the presidential election. (Lionel Bonaventure/Getty Images)
“Il est un gigolo.”
With that, the waitress dismissed France’s front-runner for president, Emmanuel Macron, as swiftly as she carried away the empty dishes.
Two weeks later, after the results of the first round of voting on April 23 pit centrist Macron head-to-head with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, the waitress, who gave her name as Lucie, was forced to reconsider.
“It’s not much of a choice,” she said standing among the empty tables of the central Paris restaurant where she works. She wavered repeatedly between putting Macron ahead of Le Pen and not choosing at all.
The historic first round of voting redrew France’s political map and lines are necessarily shifting again. French citizens who may be following the old advice of voting with their hearts in the first round, then with their heads in the second, are now in the fraught process of a quick rethink before the May 7 vote that will determine their country’s next leader.
Emmanuel Macron, left, and Marine Le Pen will go head-to-head in the second round of France’s presidential election on May 7. Many voters aren’t thrilled with their options. (Christian Hartmann/Reuters)
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Most people are familiar with the story of the French Revolution: When the poor revolted against the unfairness and wealth inequality imposed by the aristocrats, they overthrew the monarchy and beheaded more than 40,000 people, mostly clergy and noblemen, as punishment for their crimes and injustices.
The days of using a guillotine may be behind us – but the anger that led to that revolution is similar to the growing anger at economic inequality in the US today, and could lead to the same kind of unrest.
In France, there were three classes: The First Estate, made up of clergy; The Second Estate, made up of the nobility; and the Third Estate, made up of everyone else. Even though the first two Estates were made up of just 3% of the population, they owned 35% of the land, paid almost no taxes, and held virtually all the political power in the country.
Where are we in America today?
Wealth distribution
If they were around today, heads still attached, French aristocrats would be mightily impressed with the wealth accumulation of America’s rich. The top 1% of the country owns 35% of the wealth; the top 10% owns 77% of the wealth. The bottom 40% owns 0% (here).
Perhaps the best summary of where we are on wealth inequality can be found in the video below:
Tax burden
Certainly, the American rich are paying more in taxes than did their pre-revolutionary French Counterparts. But as a share of income, the American poor are carrying a much heavier burden.
When most people talk about taxes, they think of income taxes, and on that front the rich do pay quite a bit more: According to the Tax Foundation, in 2015, “The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a higher effective income tax rate than any other group, at 27.1 percent, which is over 8 times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.3 percent).”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Turkish economy is in horrible shape and Erdogan’s post-coup firings (hundreds of thousands) and jailings (tens of thousands) have made large parts of society unattended. The biggest of which may well be the army; you can’t fire large numbers of officers and pilots and expect to retain the same strike effectiveness.
Erdogan’s ongoing war on the Kurds is also turning against him, or at least internationally. Both Russia and the US acknowledge the important role Kurdish forces play in the battle against ISIS, and they’re not going to turn against them. So while Turkey demands a major role in neighboring Syria, it has essentially been put off-side, or benched.
Russia maintains (some of) its boycotts of Turkish products ($260 million worth of tomatoes) that were the result of Erdogan downing a Russian jet in late 2015, and the refuses to deliver arch-enemy Gülen, despite Michael Flynn’s best efforts. This means, by the way, that the country simply hasn’t provided irrefutable proof of the man’s role in the coup (if it was ever a real coup).
If Erdogan cannot come up a winner on Sunday, he would lose a lot of face. And he might lose more than that. Of course one must question if it’s even a option that the Turkish people vote NO, and that that would subsequently be announced as the referendum result. He controls just about anything in the country already; why not this too, by right or by might?!
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
According to French electricity grid operator Enedis, winter storm Zeus which unleashed hurricane-force winds across much of southern France, has left more than 600,000 French households without power as of 4pm on Monday. The company’s website advises that the power cuts have affected 175,000 customers in Brittany, 190,000 in Auvergne Rhone Alpes, 130,000 in Nouvelle Aquitaine, 80,000 in Pays de Loire, and the company advises that more than 3,500 technicians from Enedis are working in the field to deal with “very major” storm damage.
Centre : #tempetezeus#endirect les techniciens @enedis sur le terrain pour diagnostiquer le
le réseau et réalimenter les foyers impactés
Earlier in the day, The Local reported that weather warnings are in place for large swathes of France as wind speeds hit over 190km/hr on Monday. National weather agency Météo France updated the number of departments on orange alert to 31 on Monday morning, as fierce winds lashed much of the country. The town of Camaret, in Brittany, already saw record winds of 193km/hr during Monday morning, reported Europe 1 radio.
An orange alert is the second highest alert on the agency’s scale, and urges residents to be vigilant.
Winds are expected to reach up to 150km/hr on Brittany’s coastline and 120km/hr inland. Heavy rainfall has been predicted in some areas too. The agency said that residents could expect “significant damage” caused by the wind and disruptions to local traffic.
It warned that there was a possibility of cuts to electricity and telephone lines, and as noted above, this is precisely what has happened. The agency warned residents in affected areas to stay off the rooftops and to secure objects that are liable to be blown away.
Elswhere, the entire island of Corsica was issued an orange alert for flood risks as well as “particularly strong winds”. Residents were told to avoid getting too close to the sea, or indeed anywhere that was already flooded. The warnings are in place until Tuesday at 10am.
COMMENT: Martin, it happens now, as you wrote, all of each french citizen will be registered, fingerprints, adress, Job, banking account..they want to own us..Hell on earth
I have stated many times, as government enter this phase of the Sovereign Debt Crisis, they will be looking for ways to get more aggressive in extracting revenue from us. This is simply what they do. It is always our fault – NEVER THEIR’S – when they go broke. My old friend Milton Friedman, said it best:
