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By James Mann
$18.45
By Margaret B. Jones
$16.47
$20
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Shutterstock photo of EU roundtable.
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By William Pfaff — It is not simply the euro zone that is threatened by the dramatic economic discrepancies that now exist among its members. Now it is the European Union itself that is in danger.
Posted on May 14, 2013
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AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko
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By Ivo Mijnssen — The collapse of the Cypriot banking system reveals much about the complex relationship among ordinary Russians, “offshore oligarchs” and a political system that depends on both.
Posted on May 14, 2013
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Patrick Chappatte, Cagle Cartoons, Le Temps, Switzerland —
Posted on May 5, 2013
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The policy mystery of our time is why politicians in the United States and across much of the democratic world are so obsessed with deficits when their primary mission ought to be bringing down high and debilitating rates of unemployment.
Posted on Apr 28, 2013
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mcdett (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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A gloomy forecast for the sales of a German automaker portends the possible spread of Southern Europe’s economic crisis to other parts of the continent—and the world.
Posted on Apr 26, 2013
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Shutterstock photo of recession.
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By William Pfaff — The blood runs cold when one fully appreciates how vulnerable official policymakers and the Western policy community are to slogans and to magical thinking.
Posted on Apr 23, 2013
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Shutterstock photo of the euro.
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By William Pfaff — A new “Alternative for Germany” political movement has erupted as a backlash against the euro, and against Germany’s fellow members of the EU.
Posted on Apr 17, 2013
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Danny Birchall (CC-BY)
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By Joe Conason — Amid all the suffocating claptrap celebrating Margaret Thatcher in the media, only the British themselves seem able to provide a refreshing hit of brisk reality.
Posted on Apr 11, 2013
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dutourdumonde / Shutterstock.com
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Two important conservatives departed this life within days of each other. One was a world-historical figure with extravagant political gifts, the other’s misgivings about politics led him to counsel Christians to undertake a political “fast.”
Posted on Apr 10, 2013
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bengrey (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network —
East Asian countries are showing the most progress in reducing the carbon intensity of their economies, leaving their competitors in Europe and the U.S. in their dust.
Posted on Mar 27, 2013
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AP/Gregorio Borgia
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As The New York Times points out, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years.
Posted on Mar 13, 2013
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Daryl Cagle, CagleCartoons.com —
Posted on Mar 13, 2013
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By William Pfaff — Switzerland just had a referendum in which it voted to give company and bank shareholders veto rights over the salaries, bonuses and overall compensation packages of senior executives and board directors.
Posted on Mar 5, 2013
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Flickr/401(K) 2013
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By Juan Cole — The “sequester” is actually, of course, the American form of austerity, or cutbacks in government spending during a recession. Austerity, or stingy government in Europe has kept employment extremely depressed compared to what it would have been with government stimulus, as Paul Krugman argues.
Posted on Mar 4, 2013
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Screenshot
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Tests by the British Food Standards Agency revealed that the European food company’s product contained up to 100 percent horse meat.
Posted on Feb 8, 2013
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Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho (CC BY 2.0)
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By Paul Brown, Climate News Network —
The European countries currently struggling most economically—Greece, Spain and Portugal—will fare worst under climate change as they lose both harvests and tourists to rising heat and low summer rainfall, the European Environment Agency says.
Posted on Feb 1, 2013
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Luojie, Cagle Cartoons, China Daily, China —
Posted on Jan 29, 2013
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Michael Filion (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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By Paul Brown, Climate News Network —
A combination of successful lobbying, political interference and lack of economic growth has wrecked the carbon market designed to combat climate change. It is now cheaper to pollute the atmosphere than to invest in becoming energy efficient.
Posted on Jan 27, 2013
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U.S. Navy/MC1 Eileen Kelly Fors
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By William Pfaff — The utopian and missionary qualities of American political belief began in the Puritans’ Calvinist theology of “the Elect,” the chosen people.
Posted on Jan 15, 2013
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U.S. Army/Specialist Ken Scar
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By William Pfaff — Christmas has provided a day of distraction from war, the usual condition for most of the world, and the steady-state of the modern American nation, so to speak.
Posted on Dec 29, 2012
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By William Pfaff — The United States and the European Union remain impotent or irresolute observers of the most important issues of political “governance” of concern these days.
Posted on Dec 18, 2012
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AP/Robert F. Bukaty
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The pregnancy was announced Monday after the Duchess of Cambridge was admitted to a London-area hospital for treatment of acute morning sickness.
Posted on Dec 3, 2012
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By William Pfaff — France has a double crisis. Its ruling political party, Francois Hollande’s Socialist, is in a state of catatonia, usually defined as a condition of incoherence with alternate periods of stupor and activity. More after the jump about that.
Posted on Nov 29, 2012
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InsideClimate News/Osha Gray Davidson
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By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law —
There is no debate on climate change in Germany, where architects of the clean energy movement estimate that from 80 percent to 100 percent of the country’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050.
Posted on Nov 15, 2012
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By Amy Goodman — Amaia Engana didn’t wait to be evicted from her home. On Nov. 9, in the town of Barakaldo, a suburb of Bilbao in Spain’s Basque Country, officials from the local judiciary were on their way to serve her eviction papers. Amaia stood on a chair and threw herself out of her fifth-floor apartment window, dying instantly on impact on the sidewalk below.
Posted on Nov 15, 2012
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Luojie, Cagle Cartoons, China Daily, China —
Posted on Nov 12, 2012
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Luojie, Cagle Cartoons, China Daily, China —
Posted on Oct 22, 2012
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Photo by Peter Pearson (CC-BY-SA)
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By William Pfaff — From the beginning of the Arab Awakening (“Arab Springtime,” as it was, but alas two springtimes have already passed), my opinion has been to stay out of these events, as far as possible, and certainly not to attempt to control them.
Posted on Oct 16, 2012
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Olle Johansson, Cagle Cartoons, Sweden —
Posted on Oct 12, 2012
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Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons —
Posted on Oct 11, 2012
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Photo by Luis Argerich (CC-BY)
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By William Pfaff — The West Europeans are contemplating handing their independent arms and aerospace companies over to a conglomerate that would bestow on the United States an effective veto over the greater part of Europe’s rival defense industry.
Posted on Oct 2, 2012
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Photo by Shaun Dunphy (CC-BY-SA)
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — A specter is haunting the affluent societies of the West. Across the rich countries, and across the political spectrum, there is an unstated but palpable longing for a return to the 1950s.
Posted on Sep 12, 2012
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HaPe_Gera (CC BY 2.0)
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Germany’s Constitutional Court permitted Chancellor Angela Merkel to use German funds to buoy the economies of eurozone countries that have struggled in the continent’s nagging debt crisis.
Posted on Sep 12, 2012
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Photo by TaxFix.co.uk (CC-BY)
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By William Pfaff — Most of the damage to the European economy was done by innocent submission of credulous policymakers to the conventional wisdom of the international marketplace.
Posted on Sep 4, 2012
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Tom Janssen, Cagle Cartoons, The Netherlands —
Posted on Jul 19, 2012
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John Loo
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Small portions of chocolate a day can actually be good for your health—if it’s the right type and the right amount, according to a European regulator.
Posted on Jul 17, 2012
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NASA GSFC/Jacques Descloitres and Ana Pinheiro
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By Amy Goodman — As Spain’s prime minister announced deep austerity cuts Wednesday in order to secure funds from the European Union to bail out Spain’s failing banks, the people of Spain have taken to the streets once again for what they call “Real Democracy Now.”
Posted on Jul 11, 2012
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Photo by motiqua (CC-BY)
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By William Pfaff — Nearly every step in the federalist direction has produced unnecessary complication and strain in the EU. Portugal is not Iowa. Italy cannot become California.
Posted on Jul 11, 2012
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European youths, disaffected by the amorality of modern capitalism, are turning to Marxism in increasing numbers. Could America undergo a similar revival?
Posted on Jul 5, 2012
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Photo by WEF/Remy Steinegger (CC-BY-SA)
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By William Pfaff — The latest, and 20th, European “summit” meeting, held last week in Brussels, was symbolically a defeat for Germany’s Angela Merkel, who agreed that Europe’s permanent bailout fund could directly recapitalize certain troubled eurozone banks.
Posted on Jul 3, 2012
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Photo by Rock Cohen (CC-BY-SA)
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By William Pfaff — On Tuesday the European Council published a new proposal for European monetary reform that rests on continued monetary union—the source of the present crisis.
Posted on Jun 26, 2012
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Photo by (CC-BY)
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The verdict in Britain’s Supreme Court did not go well Wednesday for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been fighting extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. Assange has been granted two weeks to consider his next move, which may be a petition for a retrial.
Posted on May 30, 2012
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Christo Komarnitski, Cagle Cartoons, Bulgaria —
Posted on May 16, 2012
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Last time on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Scott Tucker disrupts the celebration of Obama’s gay marriage announcement; the Green Party candidate; Robert Scheer and Sergei Plekhanov; austerity check; and the class politics of parking tickets.
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Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)
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Last time on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Scott Tucker disrupts the celebration of Obama’s gay marriage announcement; the Green Party candidate; Robert Scheer and Sergei Plekhanov; austerity check; and the class politics of parking tickets.
Posted on May 15, 2012
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Obama administration has chosen a distinctly American path that kept austerity at bay. As a result, the American economy has climbed out of the Great Recession more quickly than most of Europe.
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Photo by (CC-BY-SA)
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By William Pfaff — The weekend elections in France and Greece seem widely to have been taken, at least on the European and American left, as a solution to the great European economic crisis.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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