The shadows over the global economy darkened this month as the euro zone's private sector contracted, U.S. manufacturing growth slowed and China's once-booming factories faltered, surveys showed on Thursday.
In Europe, a downturn that started in smaller states on the euro zone's periphery is now taking root in the core countries of Germany and France, where tepid growth had been the main ballast of support for the euro area economy.
"We are very much in a period of weakening global growth. It doesn't quite feel like 2008 yet but the danger is we could get there quicker than we think," said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank.
The euro zone composite PMI, comprising the services and manufacturing sectors, fell to 45.9 from April's 46.7, its lowest reading since June 2009 and its ninth month below the 50-mark that divides growth from contraction.
Puppet Masters
Chicago police kettle anti-NATO protestors then beat them, leaving hundreds injured.
Me neither. But then again, the Tea Party took to the streets in favor of higher profits and less regulations for the richest 1 percent, whose ranks they hope to but will never join. The media is more than happy to inflate their crowd estimates, and police are more than happy to let pro-status quo protests take to the streets undisturbed. The Tea Party has since phased out street protests to take over a major political party and make it bend to their every radical whim.
While it hasn't yet taken over a major party, the Occupy movement has successfully exposed the oppressive, fascist police state that has reared its ugly head in the past year. If you want to see what tyranny looks like, consider what happened to the estimated 75,000 protesters who took on the military-industrial complex at last weekend's NATO summit in Chicago, after the mayor revoked protesters' attempts to lawfully assemble.
Comment:
Raw Video Footage aired by CNN described by CNN as 'Chicago Police Pummel NATO protestors with Batons
There is beating of the protestors throughout but the most severe beatings are around the 2:50 to 3:00 minute mark.
Another video from yesterday:
Police beat corralled protesters at State and Washington NATO
© Martin Godwin
Alexis Tsipras in his office at the Greek parliament building on Friday. He says Greece has been used as a guinea pig for the rest of Europe.
Alexis Tsipras in his office at the Greek parliament building on Friday. He says Greece has been used as a guinea pig for the rest of Europe.
"I don't believe in heroes or saviours," says Alexis Tsipras, "but I do believe in fighting for rights ... no one has the right to reduce a proud people to such a state of wretchedness and indignity."
The man who holds the fate of the euro in his hands - as the leader of the Greek party willing to tear up the country's €130bn (£100bn) bailout agreement - says Greece is on the frontline of a war that is engulfing Europe.
A long bombardment of "neo-liberal shock" - draconian tax rises and remorseless spending cuts - has left immense collateral damage. "We have never been in such a bad place," he says, sleeves rolled up, staring hard into the middle distance, from behind the desk that he shares in his small parliamentary office. "After two and a half years of catastrophe, Greeks are on their knees. The social state has collapsed, one in two youngsters is out of work, there are people leaving en masse, the climate psychologically is one of pessimism, depression, mass suicides."
This week, Julian Assange talks to the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa. Correa is a left wing populist who has changed the face of Ecuador. But unlike his predecessors he holds a Ph.D. in economics. According to US embassy cables, Correa is the most popular President in Ecuador's democratic history. But in 2010 he was taken hostage in an attempted coup d'etat. He blames the coup attempt on corrupt media and has launched a controversial counter-offensive. Correa says the media defines what reforms are possible. Assange tries to figure out is Ecuadorian president justified and what is his vision for Latin America.
© Omar Ibrahim/Reuters
A man hides behind sandbags amid clashes in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.
A man hides behind sandbags amid clashes in the Bab al-Tebbaneh neighborhood in Tripoli, Lebanon, on Thursday.
A hole punched through the wall of the local mosque by a rocket or mortar shell, smoke blackened masonry, shops and apartments bearing the pock marks of fierce gun battles.
Syria Street is the aptly named thorough-fare that separates rival factions in Lebanon's second city.
For much of the past week, the two sides have been waging a mini-civil war.
It is a direct spill over from the chaos in neighboring Syria.
One side of the street is home to a hard-line Sunni Muslim militia who run guns to rebels across the border.
Comment: ...guns, tanks and other weapons which originate in the US and Israel and end up in the hands of 'rebels' flown into Syria after serving NATO in Libya.
"President Assad is trying to destroy us," says Sheik Bilal Masri, by way of explanation. "They cause trouble here to take the pressure of[f] them in Damascus."
A suit has been filed by Facebook shareholders against Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Morgan Stanley and others. It's based on a very simple concept: when internal analysts learned that Facebook's numbers were going to be worse than expected, the company and its bankers didn't tell everyone, but just "selectively disclosed" information to a small group of "preferred investors."
Henry Blodget, who unfortunately should know about these things, gave a good summary of it all on CBS This Morning:
I was on the phone last night with a former hedge fund CEO who was talking about this. "Facebook," he said, "is a colossal example of a complete clusterfuck where everybody wins except the ordinary investor."
His point was that virtually every week now we see stories like this that hint at a kind of two-tiered market system - in which most of the real action takes place inside an unregulated black-box network of connected insiders who don't disclose their relationships or their interests, while everyone else, i.e. the regular suckers, live in the more tightly-policed world of prospectuses and quarterly reporting and so on.
Henry Blodget, who unfortunately should know about these things, gave a good summary of it all on CBS This Morning:
I was on the phone last night with a former hedge fund CEO who was talking about this. "Facebook," he said, "is a colossal example of a complete clusterfuck where everybody wins except the ordinary investor."
His point was that virtually every week now we see stories like this that hint at a kind of two-tiered market system - in which most of the real action takes place inside an unregulated black-box network of connected insiders who don't disclose their relationships or their interests, while everyone else, i.e. the regular suckers, live in the more tightly-policed world of prospectuses and quarterly reporting and so on.
© Jon Stephenson
A young Afghan villager named Sadiqullah was wounded in his right ear when he was shot allegedly by U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales at the home of his father, Haji Mohammad Naim
A young Afghan villager named Sadiqullah was wounded in his right ear when he was shot allegedly by U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales at the home of his father, Haji Mohammad Naim
He looked outside the house he'd been sleeping in with his grandmother, an aunt, two cousins and his sister, and he saw a man with a weapon walk to a shed that housed the family cow and open fire, shooting the animal dead.
"I told the women inside our room: 'Let's run! Let's get out of here,' " recalled Rafiullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name.
In the next compound, a short distance from the house where Rafiullah had been sleeping, Haji Mohammad Naim awoke to the sound of dogs barking wildly in the street.
"Then there was shooting, and the dogs stopped barking," said Naim, who's in his 50s.Shortly afterward, there was pandemonium at Naim's front door as Rafiullah and a handful of terrified women and children poured into his yard, seeking shelter. Minutes later, another woman and a young girl emerged from the darkness.
"She was screaming and crying," Naim said of the woman. "She said, 'My husband has been martyred,' " meaning that he'd been killed.
Suddenly a silhouette appeared, moving rapidly behind a bright light. Naim thought that U.S. forces were raiding his village, and he expected a squad of soldiers to arrive. Instead, he saw just one man.
"He got closer, and then he started shooting at me," Naim said.
Comment: It is indeed curious that these witnesses are claiming that there was only one shooter. Another child witness who was interviewed in March had a different version of the story. See here:
Child witnesses to Afghan massacre say Robert Bales was not alone
For more information, also read the Sott Focus: US Soldiers Look Deep Inside Their Souls - Find Vacuum - Decide To Kill Afghan Villagers by Joe Quinn.
© Agence France Presse/Manuel Pedraza
View of the Hotel Caribe, in Cartagena, Colombia. Two more Secret Service agents have resigned over the Colombia sex scandal and one more will have his security clearance permanently revoked, the elite presidential protection outfit said Tuesday.
View of the Hotel Caribe, in Cartagena, Colombia. Two more Secret Service agents have resigned over the Colombia sex scandal and one more will have his security clearance permanently revoked, the elite presidential protection outfit said Tuesday.
She says the employees' actions during the stunning prostitution scandal could have provided a foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or other criminals with opportunities for blackmail or coercion that could have threatened the president's safety.
In remarks prepared for the first congressional hearing on the matter Wednesday, Collins, R-Maine, also challenged early assurances that the scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident. She noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors - one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years - and both were married. Their involvement "surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road," Collins said.
"This was not a one-time event," said Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture."
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the committee's chairman, said, "I want to hear what the Secret Service is doing to encourage people to report egregious behavior when they see it."
© Unknown
Attack drones with missles
Attack drones with missles
A drone targeted a compound near Miranshah, the main town of the tribal district of Pakistan.
"The drone fired two missiles on a house in the Tabai area near Miranshah," one of the security officials told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, adding that four suspected militants were killed.
"It is not immediately known if an important target is among those killed," he said.
The area is a stronghold of the Haqqani network -- Afghan insurgents blamed for a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets in Kabul -- and Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.
Islamabad denies any support for Haqqani activities.
© Reuters
Hollande, due to join other European Union leaders later on Wednesday for talks over dinner, said all options should be put on the table because the gathering was about exchanging views before a decision-making summit at the end of June.
"This is not about entering into conflict with others," the Socialist president told a news conference in Paris. "Everyone should go into this in the best spirit."
Hollande, who held the news conference jointly with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after the two met, reiterated that he was committed to debt and deficit reduction but that helping economic growth was a necessary part of that objective.
He said he would raise a panoply of ideas including the role of the European Central Bank and the European Financial Stability Fund on the one hand as well as euro bonds.
Comment: The economy has been in shambles since 2007. Is it Greece's fault? How about the Bankrupt United States, it's wars, lack of investment in infrastructure? Could less wars of deception have helped if Joe Public were to have an income and purchased good/services that were imported or homegrown vs. his Tax Dollars buying more bullets, missiles, bombs..?
Could it be the constant strain on our brains from the fear-mongering (War on Terror™), war profiteering and sabre rattling of the Western World that is pushing the economy over the edge? Could it be the hyper inflated cost of fuel that has and is tightening the spending of the average household? There are many factors pushing and pulling at peoples wallets and purses, and it's the persons who control the economic strings that are ruining the World Economy, and it's evident, to those paying attention, that it's intentional.
The economic crimes against people are not just in Greece, or the United States..
The real statistics on the economy are kept out of mainstream news. 5 years into the current Depression and the people with Jobs and money still don't consider the economy as bad as during the Great Depression. Others going without, losing their homes, jobless, know this to be a much worse situation. And yet somehow the illusion of an economy limps along. And it is this illusion that is milking the last of the middle class into complete economic loss.
Here's a recent sample of how it works: Shareholders Weren't Invited to the Real Party -and it works well. Sadly, yet intentionally, the mainstream media doesn't want to talk about the puppetry, war, price fixing/gouging etc.. that are really causing the Great Global Economic Depression.