the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Eric Tousaint’s study of the odious debt doctrine by Eric Toussaint Part 14 - The USA’s motivations regarding the two repudiations (Cuba and Costa Rica) The United States’ motivation in the two repudiations that have just been analysed (Cuba in 1898 and Costa Rica in the 1920s) is clear: to increase their influence and power in the region. Cuba was in a strategic location for Washington; the rich island was just a stone’s throw from the coast of the United States. With Puerto Rico, which the United States had also taken from Spain in 1898, Cuba was the last Spanish colony in the Americas. As for Costa Rica, it is part of Central America, which the United States considers its own “back yard”. Until then, Britain had been the dominant financial power in the entire region. The United States was very pleased to oust a large British bank from the country and send a warning to everyone else: other repudiations could take place, since the British banks, like the ...

globinfo freexchange Jimmy Dore made an interesting remark recently in his show about Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), one of the most successful presidents in the US history. As he pointed:             When the market crashed and Barack Obama came president, none of the Democrats mentioned FDR. Why? Because the Democrats were busy dismantling the New Deal for the prior two decades. Bill Clinton repealed the banking New Deal regulations, he crushed the poor people by gutting welfare at the same time exploding the prison population. [...] tried to privatize social security, passed NAFTA screwing over union workers. A lot of bad things that the Democrats did, and that's why they never and still don't mention FDR. Barack Obama mentions Reagan all the time, I never, ever heard him mention FDR. [...] Republicans still mention Lincoln, all the time, the party of Lincoln. We are the party of Roosevelt and they nev...

Monitoring AI and hyper-automation In a recent study, economists Daren Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University try to quantify how worried we should be about robots. They examine the impact of industrial automation on the US labor market from 1990 to 2007. They conclude that each additional robot reduced employment in a given commuting area by 3-6 workers, and lowered overall wages by 0.25-0.5% . A central question about robots is whether they replace human workers or augment them by boosting productivity. Acemoglu and Restrepo’s research is a powerful piece of evidence on the side of replacement. So, brace yourself: According to the International Federation of Robotics, there are already between 1.5-1.75 million industrial robots in operation, and some observers expect that number to more than double by 2025 . [...] Industrial robots are most commonly used in the automotive industry, which accounts for 39% of robot usage in the US...

Συνεχίζεται η Πέμπτη Φάλαγγα από την Τρόικα εσωτερικού. Ποιος να'ναι; globinfo freexchange                   Υψηλόβαθμο και εξέχων στέλεχος μιας από τις τέσσερις συστημικές τράπεζες, με πολύ στενές σχέσεις με τον Σημίτη και την περίοδο Σημίτη, γύρισε και είπε - κλείνοντας αυτή η συνάντηση - στον Γκάμπριελ, ότι 'τι κάθεστε και ασχολείστε με την Ελλάδα; Στην Ελλάδα δεν λειτουργεί τίποτα, δεν υπάρχει δικαιοσύνη, δεν υπάρχει κράτος, δεν υπάρχει λειτουργία τραπεζικού ...' Προφανώς ο Σημιτικός τραπεζοκαρχαρίας αναπολεί τις "καλές εποχές" Σημίτη που όλα λειτουργούσαν μια χαρά και το χρηματιστήριο ήταν στα ουράνια. Όταν έσκασε η φούσκα βέβαια τα τραπεζικά παράσιτα διασώθηκαν σε βάρος των κορόιδων από το "κακό" κράτος. Ο Σημιτικός τραπεζοκαρχαρίας μάλλον θεωρεί κανονικότητα τις μίζες και τις ρεμούλες που πήγαιναν σύννεφο επί Σημιτικού ΠΑΣΟΚ και μάλλον θεωρεί κακό η δικαιοσύνη να ερ...

« Θα γελάσει και το παρδαλό κατσίκι » είχε υποσχεθεί πρόσφατα ο Νίκος Κοτζιάς αναφορικά με παλαιότερες υποθέσεις κατασπατάλησης δημοσίου χρήματος στο υπουργείο του και φαίνεται πως έφτασε αυτή η στιγμή. Το ΥΠΕΞ ανακοίνωσε ότι εντοπίστηκαν και ανακτήθηκαν 2,5 εκατομμύρια δολάρια, τα οποία είχαν χορηγηθεί επί υπουργίας Ντόρας Μπακογιάννη στο «Κέντρο Κλιματικής Αλλαγής της Κοινότητας της Καραϊβικής». Τα χρήματα αυτά είχαν χορηγηθεί το 2008 από την Υπηρεσία Διεθνούς Αναπτυξιακής Συνεργασίας (ΥΔΑΣ) στο «Κέντρο Κλιματικής Αλλαγής της Κοινότητας της Καραϊβικής», στο όνομα της υλοποίησης προγραμμάτων που δεν πραγματοποιήθηκαν ποτέ. Τα 2,5 εκατ. δολάρια είχαν κάνει φτερά έως ότου, μετά από έρευνα υπό τον πρέσβη Ν. Βαμβουνάκη, εντοπίστηκαν, διεκδικήθηκαν και ανακτήθηκαν από την Ελλάδα. Το υπουργείο Εξωτερικών ενημερώνει ότι τα χρήματα κατατέθηκαν στις 24 Μαρτίου στην Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος, όπως αποδεικνύουν σχετικά παραστατικά που είναι αναρτημένα δημοσίως στην ιστοσελίδ...

The man who led a campaign to paint Dilma Rousseff as a corrupt politician has drowned in his own fraud scandals. A Brazilian judge sentenced Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of the lower house and mastermind behind the parliamentary coup against former President Dilma Rousseff, to 15 years and four months in jail Thursday for corruption charges. The sentence is the result of a criminal suit investigating Cunha for fraud related to millions of dollars in kickbacks he received for the 2011 purchase of an oil field in the West African country of Benin by the state-run oil company, Petrobras, which has been at the center of a major anti-corruption probe in the South American country known as Operation Car Wash. Federal Judge Sergio Moro handed down the sentence over charges of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The former head of the lower house has been held in pre-trial detention since last October. " The responsibility of a federal p...

If you read the headlines of major corporate media outlets, you’d think hundreds of Iraqi civilians coincidentally died in the same location that just so happened to be hit by a US airstrike. A March 17 US attack in the city of Mosul resulted in a massacre of civilians. The monitoring group Airwars estimated that between 130 and 230 Iraqis were killed in the incident. Iraqi media reported similar figures. Civilian victims of the US-led bombing campaign to oust ISIS from the major northern Iraqi city, which has been terrorized by the extremist group for three years, have received little media coverage. The Washington Post (3/28/17) noted, nevertheless, that the recent airstrike “was potentially one of the worst US-led civilian bombings in 25 years.” Yet just a few days before the Post published this stark fact, leading news networks went out of their way to craft some of the most euphemistic headlines imaginable. More: http://fair.org/home/m...

Last week, The Intercept published documents that definitively debunked and disproved a claim which numerous media outlets had circulated and affirmed for years: that Edward Snowden lied about where he was during his first 11 days in Hong Kong. Contrary to the fable these outlets dispensed to their readers – that Snowden did not check into the Mira Hotel on May 21 as he claimed but only did so on June 1: 11 days later – these new documents, obtained from the Mira, prove that Snowden arrived there exactly when he always said, rendering their published stories factually false. Many of these stories had even claimed that anonymous U.S. investigators were unable to find hotel or credit card records for Snowden during these 11 days – exactly the records we just published. The same day our story was published, the New York Times reporter Charlie Savage – who had previously spent weeks documenting that this claim about Snowden never had any journalistic basis to begin wi...

As millions suffer from hunger, disease, illiteracy and grinding poverty in the Lake Chad region of West Africa, a sinister game of resource extraction and exploitation is playing out, with geopolitics at the heart of it all. by Eric Draitser Part 6 - U.S. Military Empire Expands Elsewhere in Africa Recent years have seen other countries in sub-Saharan Africa struggling with terrorism and in desperate need of “assistance” from the U.S. While some might recall the January 2016 attack on a luxury hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, few know that the U.S. uses the country as a key node in its aerial surveillance and military intelligence network in Africa. As the Washington Post reported in 2012: A key hub of the U.S. spying network can be found in Ouagadougou, the…capital of Burkina Faso… Under a classified surveillance program code-named Creek Sand, dozens of U.S. personnel and contractors have come to Ouagadougou in recent years to es...

by system failure The UK withdrawal process from the EU has officially started with the letter sent by the British PM, Theresa May, to the European Council president, Donald Tusk. It has been estimated already (rather reasonably), that the two-year period until the final completion of Brexit is quite a short time, which means that much more time will be needed for all the issues to be resolved between the two parts. As the developments in Europe and globally change rapidly, we can think at least two cataclysmic events that may occur before the final “divorce” between the UK and the EU, that may overshadow Brexit, and lead Europe to an even more uncertain path compared to the one that has already entered. Frexit The most immediate, big event, is the oncoming French presidential election, which will determine to a great extent the fate of the eurozone and perhaps the European Union. All the recent polls show a tight battle between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel...

globinfo freexchange The main substantive achievement of neoliberalism has been to redistribute, rather than to generate, wealth and income. 'Accumulation by dispossession', meaning the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations, conversion of various forms of property rights into exclusive private property rights; suppression of rights to the commons; colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets including natural resources; and usury, the national debt and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. To this list of mechanisms we may now add a raft of techniques such as the extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property rights and the diminution of or erasure of various forms of communal property rights (such as state pensions, paid vacations, access to education and healthcare) won through a gen...

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been slammed in a new report for a "a lack of political leadership," little "democratic oversight and accountability" leading to a "marked decline in public trust" at a time when the eurozone is facing crisis. According to Transparency International EU — in its report, Two sides of the same coin? Independence and accountability at the EC — a " lack of political leadership and decisive reform " has led the ECB to stray into the area of political decision-making, without appropriate democratic scrutiny. " This has been accompanied by a marked decline in public trust at a time when the ECB has been granted extensive new powers to supervise major European banks, " the report says. The report comes at turbulent time for the Eurozone countries, with Greece struggling to meet the terms of its third bailout, amid calls to leave the Eurozone, and Italy, Spain and Portugal all fai...

Για κατάχρηση του ρόλου της κατηγορεί την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα η διεθνής οργάνωση Transparency International και ζητά να λογοδοτήσει για τις πολιτικές αποφάσεις που λαμβάνει, επισημαίνοντας ότι αυτές θέτουν σε κίνδυνο την ισορροπία στην ευρωζώνη. Σε έκθεσή της η οργάνωση επισημαίνει ότι « οι διακριτικές εξουσίες της ΕΚΤ της επέτρεψαν να ασκήσει πίεση στις ελληνικές τράπεζες ενώ διαπραγματευόταν μεταρρυθμίσεις διάσωσης με την ελληνική κυβέρνηση ως μέρος της Τρόικας των διεθνών δανειστών ». Στην έκθεση τονίζεται επίσης ότι οι κινήσεις της ΕΚΤ « θέτουν σε κίνδυνο τη τρέχουσα εύθραυστη σταθερότητα της ευρωζώνης » και αναφέρεται και πάλι η περίπτωση της Ελλάδας αλλά και η τρέχουσα ανακεφαλαίωση του ιταλού δανειστή Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Η Διεθνής Διαφάνεια αναφέρεται επίσης στις μυστικές επιστολές που έστελνε η ΕΚΤ σε ηγέτες κρατών εκβιάζοντας τους να δεχθούν την πολιτική λιτότητας της ΕΕ. Ως παραδείγματα αναφέρονται οι κυβερνήσεις της Ιταλίας και της Ισπανίας ε...

It’s alarming big European banks, unlike ordinary people are not paying their fair share of taxes, says Oxfam policy advisor Aurore Chardonnet. Tax dodging is a crime against the people, a robbery of the population, adds business consultant Gerald Celente. Europe’s 20 largest banks are involved in tax avoidance schemes, according to the latest Oxfam report entitled Opening the Vaults. The banks registered over a quarter of their multi-billion euro profits offshore. The report says in some cases the companies didn't pay any tax profit of €383 million. They made almost €630 million in countries where they had no employees at all. Oxfam policy advisor Aurore Chardonnet explained what is happening and why the situation is alarming. “ Big European banks are reporting far more profits in tax havens than their economic activity suggests in figures, ” she told RT. “ That means they report 20 percent of their profits in tax havens while they only have seve...

The Scottish Parliament has voted to back Nicola Sturgeon’s request to seek new powers from London in order to trigger a second independence referendum. The motion passed thanks to the Scottish Greens' support, and despite Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives expressing opposition to what they called another “divisive” referendum campaign. The Scottish first minister has called for a second independence vote to take place between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019, though she will need Westminster’s approval in order to actually implement her plans. Holyrood has backed Sturgeon’s motion, which urged MSPs to authorize the Scottish National Party (SNP) government to seek a Section 30 order from Westminster. The order, which the first minister said she would request "later this week," is needed for Scotland to hold a legally-binding referendum. In response to the debate, Sturgeon released a statement saying “ today’s vote must...

Police in Paris have used tear gas to disperse a crowd of protesters who turned violent and clashed with authorities over the killing of an Asian man over the weekend while also denouncing overall police brutality in the country. Police intervened to disperse the crowd shortly after 11 pm local time. Tear gas was shot during RT's live broadcast from the scene in Paris’ 19th district where police faced off with the local Asian community for the second night running. Footage from the site shows police in riot gear trying to quell protesters. Hundreds of people converged on the streets of Paris on Tuesday to speak out against police brutality. Activists and members of the Asian community marched in the vicinity of the police station of the 19th arrondissement for several hours before the violence erupted. The protesters, mainly from the Asian community, are demanding justice over the death of Shaoyo Liu. The 56-year-old Chinese man was shot dead on...

As millions suffer from hunger, disease, illiteracy and grinding poverty in the Lake Chad region of West Africa, a sinister game of resource extraction and exploitation is playing out, with geopolitics at the heart of it all. by Eric Draitser Part 5 - The Growing U.S. Military Footprint Compared to France, the U.S. is waging an even greater geopolitical and strategic proxy war with China over Africa’s resources. While China’s influence on the continent has grown by leaps and bounds, Western countries, especially the U.S., have been left scrambling to shore up their hegemony over the continent. The U.S. has chosen to meet Chinese economic penetration with military occupation, both overtly and covertly. The U.S. has established a vast network of drone bases in the region, though military officials refuse to describe the facilities as anything more than “ temporary staging areas. ” But a simple look at the map above, combined with disparate reports in multiple medi...

Two years after the end of WWII, George Orwell said that the only political goal that is worthwhile, is a Socialist United States of Europe. But some, instead of fighting for Orwell's vision, created his nightmares: they united citizens in poverty and austerity, and divided them with neo-nationalism. Once again, Europe is at the crossroads. It has to choose between European civilization and the European Union. globinfo freexchange The euro was constructed in Basel, which is where all the bankers are situated. The people on the committee that designed euro were all bankers. This is a monetary system designed to suit the finance system, not to suit the people of Europe. Before the banks could add the finishing touches, the economic and political elites had to be convinced that they needed the new currency. And they would impose it on the citizens. It was a huge undertaking in need of a gigantic lobby. The AMUE, the Association for the Monetary Unio...