VIDEO — Day of Rage: French cops clash with protesters at rally against Hollande
RT
Jan 27, 2014
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RT’s video agency Ruptly has obtained exclusive footage from Paris during a “Day of Rage” against President Francois Hollande Sunday, during which videographer Jonathan Moadab was detained by authorities for filming clashes between protesters and police.
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If You Are Waiting For An “Economic Collapse”, Just Look At What Is Happening To Europe
by Michael Snyder
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Jan 8, 2014
If you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the “economic collapse”, just open up your eyes and look at what is happening in Europe. The entire continent is a giant economic mess right now. Unemployment and poverty levels are setting record highs, car sales are setting record lows, and there is an ocean of bad loans and red ink everywhere you look. Over the past several years, most of the attention has been on the economic struggles of Greece, Spain and Portugal and without a doubt things continue to get even worse in those nations. But in 2014 and 2015, Italy and France will start to take center stage. France has the 5th largest economy on the planet, and Italy has the 9th largest economy on the planet, and at this point both of those economies are rapidly falling to pieces. Expect both France and Italy to make major headlines throughout the rest of 2014. I have always maintained that the next major wave of the economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening. The following are just a few of the statistics that show that an “economic collapse” is happening in Europe right now…
-The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is still sitting at an all-time record high of 12.1 percent.
-It Italy, the unemployment rate has soared to a brand new all-time record high of 12.7 percent.
-The youth unemployment rate in Italy has jumped up to 41.6 percent.
-The level of poverty in Italy is now the highest that has ever been recorded.
-Many analysts expect major economic trouble in Italy over the next couple of years. The President of Italy is openly warning of “widespread social tension and unrest” in his nation in 2014.
-Citigroup is projecting that Italy’s debt to GDP ratio will surpass 140 percent by the year 2016.
-Citigroup is projecting that Greece’s debt to GDP ratio will surpass 200 percent by the year 2016.
-Citigroup is projecting that the unemployment rate in Greece will reach 32 percent in 2015.
-The unemployment rate in Spain is still sitting at an all-time record high of 26.7 percent.
-The youth unemployment rate in Spain is now up to 57.7 percent – even higher than in Greece.
-The percentage of bad loans in Spain has risen for eight straight months and recently hit a brand new all-time record high of 13 percent.
-The number of mortgage applications in Spain has fallen by 90 percent since the peak of the housing boom.
-The unemployment rate in France has risen for 9 quarters in a row and recently soared to a new 16 year high.
-For 2013, car sales in Europe were on pace to hit the lowest yearly level ever recorded.
-Deutsche Bank, probably the most important bank in Germany, is the most highly leveraged bank in Europe (60 to 1) and it has approximately 70 trillion dollars worth of exposure to derivatives.
Europe truly is experiencing an economic nightmare, and it is only going to get worse.
It would be hard to put into words the extreme desperation that unemployed workers throughout Europe are feeling right now. When you can’t feed your family and you can’t find work no matter how hard you try, it can be absolutely soul crushing.
VIDEO — Central African Carnage: Kids beheaded as ethnic violence ‘out of control’
RT
Jan 3, 2014
The sectarian slaughter in the Central African Republic has reached a vicious new level according to the UN. Reports are emerging even children are being lynched by marauding mobs.And that’s despite France’s military intervention as RT’s Maria Finoshina reports.
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France is pushing for “Intervention” in Central African Republic
nsnbc international
November 22, 2013
nsnbc , – French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius announced that France is planning to deploy troops to the Central African Republic (CAR), if the U.N. Security Council votes for a U.N. Intervention in December. Despite many common denominators with Ivory Coast and Mali, Fabius claims that “this intervention will be different from that in Mali”.
“It will not be so massive nor as long” promised French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, referring to the French involvement in Mali, where France still has 3.000 soldiers deployed.
Fabius stressed that “there is an absolute disorder in the CAR, and that “action must be taken as soon as possible to avoid tragedy”. France has been pressuring the United Nations for authorizing an intervention in the Central African Republic for months, and has increased the number of French troops in the country, that is plagued by clashes between a number of foreign-backed militias to almost 600.
French Eagerness to “Intervene” and Non-Humanitarian Common Denominators with Ivory Coast and Mali.
The Central African Republic has several features in common with Ivory Coast and Mali, where France has “intervened” since 2010.
- The CAR is rich in resources and holds considerable reserves of gold, diamonds and uranium.
- The CAR is a member of the UMEOA, uses the CFA-Franc, and has to deposit 65 % of all of its foreign currency reserves in France.
- Each time the CAR earns more on export than it spends abroad, it is creating a debt in France, rather than accumulating wealth for its population.
- France is “lending” the interest of the 65 % of the foreign currency reserves the CAR “has to deposit” in France, on which France earns about 3 % interest, back to the CAR and other UMEOA member states, at 5 – 6 % or more as “development aid”.
- The CAR has to deposit all of its gold reserves in the French “Tresor Nationale” against zero percent interest as a guaranty for the value of the CFA-Franc. Given the refusal of the French government to make any information available about its gold reserves, it is uncertain whether France could deliver the gold back, even if its government should decide to do so.
One of the conditions for “granting its former African colonies independence” was that “France installed commissars with veto rights” in the region’s three central banks, the, B.E.A.C., the B.C.C., and the B.C.E.A.O.
A detailed article about the virtually absolute French control over the 15 Central African nation’s economies has been published by Christof Lehmann under the title:
” French Africa Policy Damages African and European Economies – Bleeding Africa and Feeding France, the Face of French Modo-Colonialism”.
The confidence of French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, that the UN will give permission to intervene under a UN mandate may in part be based on a statement by U.N. Secretary General Ban Kyi-moon, last Monday, that “he may be prepared to send peacekeepers”. The Secretary General stressed that further tensions between communities might well lead to uncontrollable sectarian violence with untold consequences for the country, the sub-region and beyond.
The country, with its population of 4.6 million, has descended into chaos since March, when the predominantly Muslim Seleka insurgents, many of them mercenaries from neighboring Chad and Sudan, ousted the country’s president, Francois Bozize.
The Seleka insurgents relied on the support of a loose coalition or local warlords, militia and criminal networks who have begun fighting each other for control since September. The renown Africa expert Alexander Mezyaev argues that the “failed state concept” with regards to the instability in the CAR may be related to the covering-up of international crimes. Recently, attacks were also launched against Magistrates in the capital Bangui.
U.N. Mission a French Attempt to assert French Control, countering African Initiatives.
The French push for an intervention at the U.N. is by many analysts understood as a French attempt to assert control over the CAR and to maintain French hegemony over its former colonies. Although the USA ultimately may be “pulled into another French military adventure”, U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry has made it clear that Washington would prefer that the African Union intervenes.
Considering the political economics it is understandable that France much rather would see a French led “intervention” under a U.N. Mandate, than an initiative that asserted African countries control of the African continent.
The African Union (A.U.) has already deployed 2.500 troops and is discussing to strengthen the mission with additional troops.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, pledged USD 40 million towards the African Union, sending a signal to Fabius and France, that the USA is not particularly interested in getting involved in a CAR mission, while it has more than enough to do with managing the subversion of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the involvements it already has on the African continent.
The result of French involvement in the 15 UMEOA member states, and how it manifests with regards to the Central African Republic, which with its richness in gold, diamonds and uranium, fertile, prime agricultural land and a population of no more than 4.6 million could be more prosperous than any of the European nations, is best understood by considering the CAR ranks 180th of 186 on the United Nations Human Development Index.
Ch/L – nsnbc 22.11.2013
For a detailed breakdown of the French control over the national economies of the 15 Central African U.M.E.O.A. member states, and the impact on the development of these countries as well as on regional stability and peace, please read Christof Lehmann’s article:
French Africa Policy Damages African and European Economies.
Other related articles:
Central African Intrigue; The Coup in the Central African Republic
Central Africa: Failed State Concept to Cover International Crimes
South Africa; Zuma accused of violating Constitution in Central African Republic Coup d´Etat
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VIDEO — Protesters clash with police during Hollande-Letta meeting in Rome
RT
November 21, 2013
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Several hundred demonstrators clashed with police in Rome on Wednesday, during a meeting between French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. Riot police deployed tear gas and baton charges against crowds gathered in the Campo de Fiori, with an unknown number of arrests made.
One of the protesters facing the police said: “This town needs to have freedom of protest and you (the police) are not granting our right!”
Hollande is visiting Rome for the Italy-France bilateral summit. One of the topics on the agenda is realization of high-speed railway line between Turin and Lyon. Protesters oppose to the construction of the infrastructure which while run through the small Alpine village.
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St. Jude Day Storms: 13 Dead as Hurricane-Force Winds Batter Britain, France, Germany
weather.com
October 28, 2013
LONDON — A savage coastal storm powered by hurricane-force gusts slashed its way through Britain and western Europe on Monday, felling trees, flooding lowlands and snarling traffic in the air, at sea and on land. At least 13 people were reported killed.
It was one of the worst storms to hit the region in years. The deadly tempest had no formal name — and wasn’t officially classified as a hurricane due to a meteorological standard — but it was dubbed the St. Jude storm (after the patron saint of lost causes) and “stormageddon” on social networks.
Gusts of 99 miles per hour were reported on the Isle of Wight in southern England, while gusts up to 80 mph hit the British mainland. Later in the day, parts of Denmark saw record gusts up of to 120 mph and an autobahn in central Germany was shut down by gusts up to 62 mph.
“This was not just a British storm,” said weather.com meteorologist Nick Wiltgen. “The core of powerful winds marched relentlessly east, raking northern France and the Low Countries before slamming into northern Germany, Denmark, and southern Sweden. That latter phase in particular was exceptionally intense, with a 105-mph gust in extreme northern Germany and many many places gusting over 85 mph in the surrounding area.”
Wiltgen warned the high winds would sweep across the southern Baltic Sea and into the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania Monday night.
(MORE: Track the UK Storm)
All across the region, people were warned to stay indoors. Hundreds of trees were uprooted or split, blocking roads and crushing cars. The Dutch were told to leave their beloved bicycles at home for safety’s sake.
At least thirteen storm-related deaths were reported, most victims crushed by falling trees. Germany had six deaths, Britain had five and the Netherlands and Denmark had one each. One woman was also missing after being swept into the surf in France.
Two people were killed in London by a gas explosion and a British teen who played in the storm-driven surf was swept out to sea. A man in Denmark was killed when a brick flew off and hit him in the head.
Despite the strength of its gusts, the storm was not considered a hurricane because it didn’t form over warm expanses of open ocean like the hurricanes that batter the Caribbean and the United States. Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, said Britain does not get hurricanes because those are “warm latitude” storms that draw their energy from seas far warmer than the North Atlantic. Monday’s storm also did not have an “eye” at its center like most hurricanes.
‘Expect everything’: A new pretext to justify bombing Syria?
Land Destroyer
September 12, 2013
by Nile BowieWhile the Obama administration pays lip service to the Russian solution, there is no reason to believe that Washington will take its finger off the trigger. In a recent interview with CBS, Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that the United States should “expect everything” if it launches a military strike against Damascus, insinuating that the already highly combustible situation could genuinely spiral out of control if Washington escalated this war. The pictures coming out of Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 speak for themselves. A year after the killing of US Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was one of the principle coordinators of arms to the Libyan rebels (many of whom are now fighting in Syria on the side of the US), instability ensues in a chaotic post-regime change Libya. In the words of Hilary Clinton reflecting on last year’s attack, “How could this happen, how could this happen in a country we helped liberate?” It’s an easy question to answer – it happened as a result of unthinkably destructive and illegal US foreign policy that materially enabled terrorist groups to overthrow a government that Washington didn’t like.
The Obama administration clearly hasn’t learned its lesson, but as bombs rip through the Libyan city of Benghazi two years in a row, it’s going to be even harder for Obama to sell this war not only to the public, but to his own government. Round two of Benghazi blowback raises numerous questions – we’re supposed to believe Washington’s intelligence that it knew Assad planned to use chemical weapons 3 days in advance and that its totally secret evidence, which it won’t reveal to anybody, is solid. It seems that US intelligence agencies are only adept at finding “evidence” that is amenable to their strategic foreign policy objectives, meanwhile they are totally incompetent when it comes to preventing terrorist attacks, from Benghazi to Boston. The Russian solution has succeed in getting warmonger Obama to backpedal on his bombs-for-peace proposal for the time being, even so, one should also “expect everything” from the rabid Washington regime that has poured enormous financial and diplomatic resources into bombing Syria and toppling Assad. In other words, expect a new pretext.
PN 