Europe // Current TV

My Dad, Adolf, Stalin, Mussolini and Memorial Day

I don't talk about my Dad much. Once I turned 13 something changed and we kind of... more

baghdadbythebay
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19 hours ago
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What Austerity Means and Why it Threatens the World Economy

In spite of lessons learned from history, and a growing chorus of warnings from... more

StewSteve
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8 days ago
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Ribelle Civile: Atene val bene una Messa!

Certo che l'Europa che le banche si stanno costruendo su misura è proprio... more

aldo1966
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14 days ago
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Eurozone crisis live: Markets slide as Greek euro exit looms

"Chances of Greece leaving the eurozone are growing, as political leaders prepare... more

TheInquiringOne
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15 days ago
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How Greece could leave the eurozone – in five difficult steps

"Two years ago, the prospect of a state falling out of the single currency area... more

TheInquiringOne
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15 days ago
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Will French Socialism be good for the world economy?

Professor Max Fraad Wolff, Economist/Instructor, New School University joins Thom... more

Vierotchka
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21 days ago
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The Day After: Europe Rejects Austerity | The Nation

So the voters have voted—in Britain, in France, in Greece, in Schleswig-Holstein—and the markets are tumbling. In Britain, the Tories took a serious beating from Labour in local elections, though Ken Livingston lost in London to Mayor Boris Johnson; their Liberal Democrat coalition partners were more or less wiped out. France has elected a socialist president for the first time since 1981 (though as I recall that one didn’t turn out so well); Francois Hollande has pledged to challenge European austerity and renegotiate the German-driven fiscal treaty that has effectively outlawed Keynesianism on the continent. Schleswig-Holstein dealt a blow to Angela Merkel’s ruling CDU and elected members of the Pirate Party to its regional assembly. And Greece has voted loudly, if incoherently, against the austerity program imposed by the EU and IMF. Across Europe, it’s no to austerity, and yes to—what?

European voters everywhere are turning against the elites that have managed most of the continent for the last few decades. The financial crisis has broken the illusion of stability; the cracks in the concrete of the Eurozone are gaping. As I wrote here on Friday, the voices being raised against austerity come from the far right as well as the left. Yesterday Greece became the first European country to elect neo-Nazis—twenty-one members of the racist Golden Dawn party—to its parliament. Their leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, dedicated his victory to "the brave boys in the black shirts"; some candidates used the rising phoenix, emblem of the colonels’ junta of 1967 to 1974, as their election poster. "Those who slander us," he barked, and "those who betray this country should be afraid: we're coming." Golden Dawn won votes across much of the country—and not just in the inner cities, where its supporters stage pogroms against immigrants and woo old ladies with offers to escort them to the cash machine. It also got the votes of one in ten young people. If you add that vote to those of the other two far-right parties, Laos and Panos Kammenos' Independent Greeks, then one in five Greeks voted for rabid nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

I’ve tried to explain the rise of Golden Dawn in my piece for the Guardian today—and also the success of Antonis Tsipras’s Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left. Syriza was the breakthrough party of the Greek election, taking all of the greater Athens region and central Thessaloniki and coming in second—ahead of the discredited socialist Pasok—overall. The charismatic Tsipras managed to articulate a very basic program—opposition to the EU/IMF measures, redistribution of wealth, a restoration of welfare rights—that much of the broad left opposition to austerity could sign up to; he’s also the man who figured out how to speak to the people in the streets. “We are the many, they are the few,” goes one of Syriza’s slogans; “They decide without us, we proceed without them,” goes another.

Greeks who remember the '80s and the speeches of Pasosk’s founder, Andreas Papandreou, find much in Tsipras to remind them of that master rabble-rouser. Although he swears he’s for “the people,” not “the state,” he has refused to talk about the reform of Greece’s creaking bureaucracy, or about how exactly he plans to save the economy, beyond taxing the rich and calling the Europeans’ bluff on ejecting Greece from the Eurozone. But at moment like this, populism can be (very briefly) useful, as well as seductive and dangerous. Set beside Hollande’s victory in France, Tsipras’ success has helped drive home the message that Europeans have had it with austerity. Both elections were referendums on European economic strategy; both roundly rejected it. The German finance minister issued a shameful threat to the Greeks the day before the vote, saying that they must honor their commitments or “take the consequences.” It isn’t clear yet what those consequences will be; but then, what we’ve got now clearly isn’t working either. In the long battle between the markets and democracy, it’s one to democracy, with all its flaws and pitfalls. No one said it would be easySo the voters have voted—in Britain, in France, in Greece, in... more

FreePressTV
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22 days ago
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France Goes With the Socialist

The austerity regime in Europe took a big hit Sunday, with French voters electing... more

BakedFresh
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23 days ago
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GREEK EXIT POLLS: New Democracy Biggest Winners - Business Insider

The first exit polls from today's big Greek election are out... The... more

FreePressTV
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23 days ago
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Worldwide Hippies News Briefs Sunday

Activist crisis is US envoy’s human rights moment Angry Greeks vote in... more

joeeddy
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23 days ago
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Global watchdog at risk

Europe has adopted an extensive monitoring programme to keep tabs on the environment... more

Vierotchka
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1 month ago
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Worldwide Hippies News Briefs Saturday

Backpacking across Europe, 20 years past prime Mike Tyson impregnated prison official... more

joeeddy
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1 month ago
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Matterhorn, Europe's great summit, crumbling in the face of climate change

Global warming is causing accelerated decay of Matterhorn, high peaks around the world
- Common Dreams staff

One of the highest peaks in the Alps, Matterhorn, is quickly disintegrating due to global warming patterns.

A new report released by researchers from the University of Zurich, shows that quickly altering cycles of freezing and thawing are causing large chunks of rock to fall off the mountain. As abnormal amounts of melting water penetrate cracks in the mountain's surface, irregular cycles of freezing and thawing cause the rock surface to morph in new ways, leading to subsequent speedy erosion.

"We have shown the importance of icy crevices and the melting water entering them, in the process of rock falls," the lead researcher, Stephan Gruber, told The Independent. "Unlike rock itself – changes to which take place over a very long period of time – just a few decades of temperatures rising by a degree or so are enough to affect the ice and water on the mountains."

"It's reasonable to expect the same processes are widespread elsewhere in the Alps at the same altitude," he added.
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With its four steep faces reflecting the compass points, the mighty Matterhorn has proven an irresistible and often deadly challenge to mountaineers.

But now, the mountain – one of Europe's tallest and most celebrated peaks – is falling to bits due to climate change, according to a new scientific report.

As with other Alpine mountains, experts have already documented the retreat of the peak's glaciers and the thinning of its permafrost in the wake of rising temperatures.

But scientists now say they have evidence that these rising temperatures are also prompting the physical disintegration of the mountain itself.

Researchers from the University of Zurich, who have been studying the mountain closely since 2007, say melting water is permeating exposed cracks and crevices on the 4,478m (14,690ft) mountain, which straddles the Swiss-Italian boarder. Subsequent cycles of freezing and thawing in these gaps are creating subtle movements under the rock surface, causing ever-widening fissures with the result that lumps of rock are falling off, the researchers say. [...]

The disintegration of the Matterhorn, which the researchers warn is symbolic of the problems affecting the rest of the Alps, appears to have continued since, the Swiss research team's report in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

More at the linkGlobal warming is causing accelerated decay of Matterhorn, high peaks around the world... more