Germany

Austerity Has Failed: Open Letter From Piketty To Angela Merkel

July 8, 2015 Thomas Piketty , Jeffrey Sachs , Heiner Flassbeck , Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis, www.thenation.com Create! Finance and the Economy, France, Germany, Truth

By Thomas Piketty , Jeffrey Sachs , Heiner Flassbeck , Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis in The Nation - The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more. As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175 percent of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital. The humanitarian impact has been colossal—40 percent of children now live in poverty, infant mortality is sky-rocketing and youth unemployment is close to 50 percent.

IMF & Germany Seek To Finish Off Even a Moderate Left In Greece

June 28, 2015 C J Polychroniou, www.truthout.org Educate! European Central Bank, Finance and the Economy, Germany, Greece, IMF, Syriza

By C J Polychroniou in TruthOut. Negotiations between Greece and its official creditors - the European Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank - are currently in renewed deadlock. Yet, only a few days ago, in the Euro summit on Monday, June 22, all indications were that Europe’s political beasts and the "criminal IMF" were ready to accept thelatest capitulation on the part of the Greek leftist government, which, since coming to power in late January, has spent a lot of time doing nothing more than "yelling, kicking and screaming" against austerity and the bailout program (and treating senior-level EU officials with disdain in public as part of its well-orchestrated populist theatrics) while at the same time seeking to assure Greece’s euro partners that it is committed to keeping the country in the euro area and that it would fulfill all its obligations to the creditors.

Activists In Berlin Dig 100 Mock Graves To Highlight Refugee Crisis

June 22, 2015 RT, www.rt.com Resist! Germany, Immigration, Racial Justice, Refugees

By RT - Some 5,000 activists in Berlin rallied in front of Reichstag and dug at least one hundred graves to express their solidarity with asylum seekers, who have died trying to reach Europe after fleeing war and persecution in their home countries. The rally was organized by the Center for Political Beauty; a group, which says it wants to “re-transform Europe into a continent of immigration.” The organization used the controversial slogan: "The Dead Are Coming,” while they have also made art works to spread their message. The protest, which took place a day after UN World Refugee Day, gathered at least 5,000 people, according to police estimates. An officer told AFP that a "small number" of people were arrested for minor offences. The activists, many of them dressed in black, carried improvised coffins, which apparently symbolize the caskets of asylum seekers who have died while trying to make their way to Europe.

G7 Protesters Unite In Opposition To Transatlantic Trade Deal

June 11, 2015 Charlie Skelton, www.occupy.com Resist! Finance and the Economy, Free Trade, Germany, TPP

By Charlie Skelton in Occupy - “It’s the largest police operation in the history of Bavaria,” said Martin Jäschke, a journalist from Der Spiegel. “Such a huge display of power like this, I’m afraid people feel it’s a provocation.” At the very least, it feels a bit weird. There could not actually be any more police in Garmisch than there are right now. There wouldn’t be room. There are traffic jams of police vehicles. Every spare inch of tarmac has been commandeered for police coaches, riot vans and operations trucks. The only cars on the road that aren’t police cars are being driven by plainclothes policemen. This is the kind of response you might expect.

Activists Occupy Giant Coal Excavator To Block Mine

June 8, 2015 Jennifer Baker, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Germany

By Jennifer Baker in Revolution News - Four activists have occupied a giant bucket wheel excavator in the Inden open-pit mine. They climbed 70m to the top of the excavator. The machine halted is one of the largest in the world that normally destroys 24/7, literally churning the landscape. In Inden lignite mine is designated for the Rhenish open-pit mining, that is: Everything in the way will be destroyed; homes expropriated and people evicted. Where villages, fields, meadows and woods once stood, inconceivably huge holes now appear in the landscape, an industrial wasteland to the horizon. Of all of the energy sources, lignite, is ridiculously inefficient, releasing huge loads of CO2 and particulate emissions.

Germans March In Munich Against G7 Talks & Trade Deal

June 6, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Climate Change, Free Trade, Germany, Poverty

By Ashoka Jegroo in Waging Non-Violence - Over 30,000 people crowded onto the streets of Munich, Germany on June 4 to protest the upcoming meeting between leaders of seven of the world’s richest countries. “I’d say I’m here against the inequality that continues to prevail — that we have it so good and others have it so bad,” a protester named Julia told EuroNews. “And because we must not lose hope that one day the world really will be equal, and we will all have the same values.” Protesters also took the chance to address a wide variety of issues. Chief among these issues were poverty, climate change, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, a proposed free trade deal between the United States and Europe that has been negotiated mostly in secret. Environmentalist groups, NGOs, opposition parties and anti-globalization activists all marched through Munich’s streets together with “Stop TTIP — Save the Climate — Fight Poverty” as their motto.

Tens Of Thousands March Against Global Elites Ahead Of G7

June 5, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Empire, Europe, Germany, Neo-Liberalism

By Sarah Lazare in Common Dreams - As representatives of some of the most powerful countries in the world prepare to gather for their annual Group of Seven (G7) meeting, this time at a castle in the German town of Elmau, tens of thousands marched through nearby Munich on Thursday to protest the summit's politics of "neo-liberal economic policies, war and militarization, exploitation, poverty and hunger, environmental degradation, and the closing-off towards refugees." Over 34,000 people reportedly turned out for Thursday's march, with one demonstrator identified as Julia by Euronews declaring "we must not lose hope that one day the world really will be equal, and we will all have the same values." The massive protest is just one of many mobilizations, including alternative summits and direct actions, in the lead-up to the gathering of global elites, which will take place June 7 and 8.

Snowden, Manning & Assange Statues Unveiled In Germany

May 9, 2015 Jay Syrmopoulos, www.thefreethoughtproject.com Resist! Art, Germany, NSA, Surveillance

This past Friday life-size bronze statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning were unveiled in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz Square in front of German politicians and activists. In Germany and much of the world, the three are considered heroes in the fight for freedom of information and speech, for their respective leaking of classified U.S. documents. “They have lost their freedom for the truth, so they remind us how important it is to know the truth,” said the artworks creator, Italian sculptor Davide Dormino, during the unveiling. The artwork is not only an ode to the courage of these three whistleblowers, but also serves as a call to citizens to take a stand, as the three are standing on chairs with a fourth empty chair next to them.

Germany Is The Tell-Tale Heart Of America’s Drone War

April 21, 2015 Jeremy Scahill, www.firstlook.org Educate! Drones, Germany, usa, Wars and Militarism

A TOP-SECRET U.S. intelligence document obtained by The Intercept confirms that the sprawling U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany serves as the high-tech heart of America’s drone program. Ramstein is the site of a satellite relay station that enables drone operators in the American Southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and other targeted countries. The top-secret slide deck, dated July 2012, provides the most detailed blueprint seen to date of the technical architecture used to conduct strikes with Predator and Reaper drones. Amid fierce European criticism of America’s targeted killing program, U.S. and German government officials have long downplayed Ramstein’s role in lethal U.S. drone operations and have issued carefully phrased evasions when confronted with direct questions about the base.

Germany On Verge Of Virtually Banning Fracking

April 8, 2015 Caroline Copley, www.reuters.com Educate! Fracking, Germany, Law

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet signed off on a draft law on Wednesday that imposes an effective ban on the controversial technique of fracking for shale gas. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves blasting chemicals and water into rock formations to release trapped gas. Opposition is strong in densely populated Germany due to concerns about the risk of contaminating drinking water. Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said the new law would set Germany's strictest conditions for fracking. "Protecting health and drinking water are top priorities. For this reason, we want to restrict fracking as far as possible," Hendricks told a news conference. The new law, which now goes to parliament for approval, will impose an outright ban on fracking for shale gas in the next few years and only allow scientific test drilling under strict conditions to assess the risks and environmental impact.

German Couple Pay Greece £630 ‘War Reparations’

March 22, 2015 Agency France-Presse, www.theguardian.com Create! Germany, Greece, Reparations, War crimes

A German couple visiting Greece walked into a town hall and handed over €875 (£630, approximately $1,000) in what they said were second world war reparations. Dimitris Kotsouros, the mayor of Nafplio, a seaport in the Peloponnese, said: “They came to my office yesterday morning, saying they wanted to make up for their government’s attitude. They made their calculations and said each German owed €875 for what Greece had to pay during world war two.” The mayor of the historic town where the tourists deposited their cheque said the money had since been donated to a local charity. The couple chose his town “because it was the first capital of Greece in the 19th century”, he added. Greek media reports named the pair as Ludwig Zacaro and Nina Lahge. They say Zacaro is retired and Lahge works a 30-hour week. They did not have enough money to pay for two, one paper said.

US Threatened Germany Over Snowden, Vice Chancellor Says

March 22, 2015 Glenn Greenwald, www.firstlook.org Educate! Edward Snowden, Germany, Glenn Greenwald, NSA

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (above) said this week in Homburg that the U.S. government threatened to cease sharing intelligence with Germany if Berlin offered asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden or otherwise arranged for him to travel to that country. “They told us they would stop notifying us of plots and other intelligence matters,” Gabriel said. The vice chancellor delivered a speech in which he praised the journalists who worked on the Snowden archive, and then lamented the fact that Snowden was forced to seek refuge in “Vladimir Putin’s autocratic Russia” because no other nation was willing and able to protect him from threats of imprisonment by the U.S. government (I was present at the event to receive an award). That prompted an audience member to interrupt his speech and yell out: “Why don’t you bring him to Germany, then?”

Greece: Memory & Debt

March 19, 2015 Conn Hallinan, www.dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com Educate! Debt, Germany, Greece, Reparations, Wars and Militarism

Memory is selective and therein lays an explanation for some of the deep animosity between Berlin and Athens in the current debt crisis that has shaken the European Union (EU) to its foundations. For German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, “memory” goes back to 2007 when Greece was caught up in the worldwide financial conflagration touched off by American and European speculators. Berlin was a major donor in the 240 billion Euro “bailout”—89 percent of which went to pay off the gambling debts of German, French, Dutch and British banks. Schauble wants that debt repaid. Millions of Greeks are concerned about unpaid debts as well, although their memories stretch back a little further. In July, 1943 Wehrmacht General Hubert Lanz, commander of the First Mountain Division, was annoyed because two of his officers had been threatened by civilians in the Western Greek town of Kommeno.

Rage Against The ECB: What’s Blockupy Against?

March 18, 2015 DW, www.dw.de Resist! Banking, Europe, Germany

The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) had scheduled Wednesday as a festive day to commemorate the official opening of the 185-meter (202-yard) tall skyscraper that will serve as its new headquarters building - a big glass tower that took five years and 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to build. But the anti-capitalist Blockupy network has other plans. It's gearing up for a day of protest and blockade, speeches and street theater. Blockupy's goal: To draw attention to ECB policies which, they say, have favored the rich over the poor, the banks over the people, the creditor class over debtors - policies that have amounted to bailing out irresponsible financiers at the expense of ordinary citizens.

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