WikiLeaks document dumps are largely what media want to make of them. There’s one conventional response, which goes something like this: “There’s nothing new here, but WikiLeaks is dangerous!” But there’s another option: “There’s nothing here, except for the part that confirms a storyline we’ve been pushing.” In those cases, WikiLeaks is deemed very, very […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
Israeli Intentions regarding the Iranian Nuclear Program
Reference ID Date Classification Origin 05TELAVIV1593 2005-03-17 14:02 SECRET Embassy Tel Aviv This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available. S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001593 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/14/2015 TAGS: PARM PREL MNUC […]
Help Unwanted
“When I was 20, they told me I must have experience. Now that I have experience, they tell me they’re looking for a 20-year-old.” Juan Kalvellido, born in Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain in 1968, is a working-class cartoonist who has never stopped believing in revolution. He currently lives in Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]
Ireland: “We Can’t Pay That Money, and We Won’t Pay That Money”
Outside the General Post Office, Dublin, Ireland, 27.11.10 “Well, our gallant allies in Europe have arrived 95 years too late and uninvited, and instead of guns to help the revolution they have brought economic weapons of mass destruction. Does anybody in this country or in Dáil Éireann think that we can as a people […]
Gates’ False Iran Premise: Sanctions Will Not Sow Internal Discord and Change Iran’s Nuclear Calculations
Since returning to government service to take up his current position, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been a sober skeptic about the wisdom of military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets — under President Obama as well as under President George W. Bush, and regardless of whether such strikes would be carried out by the […]
Squeezing Iran: The European Connection
Negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are due to start again shortly, and once again the European Union is called upon as a “mediator.” This is no minor challenge. With Iran insisting on discussing Israel’s nuclear capacity and the United States preparing a tougher uranium swap agreement, a deal seems as far away as ever. Nevertheless, […]
The Spectre of Default in Europe
Default, Debt Renegotiation and Exit When the Eurozone crisis burst out in early 2010, an RMF report identified three strategic options for peripheral countries, namely, first, austerity imposed by the core and transferring the costs of adjustment onto society at large, second, broad structural reform of the Eurozone in favour of labour and, third, exit […]
Ireland Should Study the Lessons of Argentina
When a firefighter or medical team make a rescue, the person is usually better off as a result. This is less clear when the rescuer is the European Central Bank (ECB) or the IMF. Ireland is currently experiencing a 14.1 percent unemployment rate. As a result of bailout conditions that will require more cuts in […]
Ireland: Whose Rescue?
For the banks For the Irish Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 19 November 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
Haircuts: Estimating Investor Losses in Sovereign Debt Restructurings, 1998-2005
Table 14 summarizes the main technical characteristics of the debt restructurings studied in this paper: the size of the exchange, the participation rate, the numbers of instruments tendered and new instruments issued, the options available to investors, etc. Table 15 contains the main results, both in terms of the level and dispersion of NPV […]
Noam Chomsky on Hopes and Prospects for Activism: “We Can Achieve a Lot”
Acclaimed philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He shared his perspectives on international affairs, economics, and other themes in an interview conducted at his office in Boston on September 14, 2010. Keane Bhatt: Your new book Hopes and Prospects begins with the story of […]
China’s Export Conundrum
In 2009, the European Union, United States and Mexico filed a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s export restrictions on certain raw materials, including bauxite, coke, fluorspar, silicon carbide and zinc. They said that, firstly, these constraints — in the form of export taxes, quotas, licences and so on — caused […]
Ireland vs Iceland
. . . The travails of the lands of Ire and Ice are not so much at odds with each other and come down essentially to the same point — the size of banking assets to that of the general economy; but they do differ considerably in how the two economies approached the battle. […]
A New Proclamation
Poblacht na h Éireann™ The Temporary Government To the people of Anglo-Ireland™ IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of Mammon and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of subservience, we declare the name of this country to be Anglo-Ireland™, and through us, Anglo-Ireland™ summons her children to aid her banks […]
The Socialist Alternative to IMF/EU Diktats
The capitalist media say that there is no alternative to the thrust of the economic policies being advanced by the government, the EU and the IMF. This is completely untrue. There is an alternative — a socialist alternative. Shut Down Anglo Irish Bank The bailout of Anglo Irish Bank is set to cost the […]
European Authorities Pushing Ireland Down the Wrong Track
As another one of the so-called “PIIGS” countries is being led to the slaughterhouse, it is worth asking whether all the carnage advocated by the European authorities is really necessary. Ireland is in its third year of recession and income per person has already declined by more than 20 percent since 2007. Unemployment has more […]
Cuba’s Economic Reform: Interview with Oscar Martínez
Oscar Martínez is Deputy Head of the International Relations Department of the Cuban Communist Party. This interview was conducted during the South African Communist Party visit to Cuba this month. What is the nature of the economic problems Cuba is currently experiencing? In the context of our other problems, the US economic and financial […]
The Value of Money
Paul Jay: On November 7, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, issued a statement calling for the reintroduction of some form of gold standard to establish the value of money. Why now? . . . Is Robert Zoellick’s proposal grasping at straws? Jane D’Arista: Well, what you’re saying is quite right. The […]
Where’s the Growth Supposed to Come From?
Have governments everywhere simply lost their marbles? Not much emerged from the Seoul G-20 Summit — and definitely not anything really desirable in the form of coordinated Global Keynesian policies (of the kind that Matías Vernengo has advocated in the TripleCrisis blog). But then, quite frankly, not much was really expected to come out, given […]
No Fracking Way! PA: Exemption without Taxation in the “Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas”
Part 1 Part 2 Part 1 Tom Corbett, Governor-Elect for Pennsylvania: It’s now time to come together, to tell the rest of the world — to tell the rest of the world Pennsylvania is open for business. Jesse Freeston: And that business is natural gas. Pennsylvania’s race was unique in that it was fought primarily […]
