Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Published on The Telegraph.co.uk, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, June 5, 2015.: No developed country has ever skipped a payment to the IMF – but Greek sources say they were provoked [incl. picture: Syriza had the money at hand. It chose not to pay as a conscious political choice; Video: How big is Greece’s dept, 1.12 min; Graphs].

Greece is to take the drastic step of skipping a €300m payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday, invoking an obscure mechanism in abeyance since the 1970s to bundle all debts due in June and pay them at the end of the month.   Continuer la lecture de « Greece misses IMF payment in warning shot as showdown with Europe escalates »

Published on Russia Today RT, June 3, 2015.

WikiLeaks has published 17 secret documents related to a controversial trade agreement currently being negotiated behind closed doors between the US, EU and 23 WTO members. NGO Global Justice Now called the leak “a dark day for democracy” … (including Chapters and Annexes of the TiSA text under negotiation, with it’s Docs dates and wikileaks publishing dates) …;   Continuer la lecture de « Wikileaks releases ‘largest’ trove of docs exposing secret TiSA trade deal »

Early Middle Ages Music, 61.18 min, uploaded by Gramila888, Sept 17, 2013: the Middle Ages saw the emergence of great changes. After fall of the (Roman Empire) the violent times of the Dark Ages had led to a primitive society lacking in engineering skills or refinement. The traditions of Western music can be traced back to the social and religious developments that took place in Europe during the Middle Ages, the years roughly spanning from about 500 to 1400 A.D. Because of the domination of the early Catholic Church during this period, sacred music was the most prevalent. Beginning with Gregorian Chant, sacred music slowly developed into a polyphonic music called organum performed at Notre Dame in Paris by the twelfth century. Secular music flourished, too, in the hands of the French trouvères and troubadours, until the period culminated with the sacred and secular compositions of the first true genius of Western music, Guillaume de Machaut.
On en.wikipedia: Medieval music; /External Links.

Interview with Cairo University professor Mustafa Kamel Al-Sayed – published on Al-Ahram weekly online, by Khaled Dawoud, May 28, 2015 … (he) has spent years battling for a modern, democratic state. Under Hosni Mubarak he was a leading member of Kifaya and of the National Association for Change, groups in the vanguard of protests that eventually led to the end of Mubarak’s 30-year rule … (about) his hopes and fears … //

… Does Al-Sisi act in such a way because he believes the country is in a state of war against terrorism?   Continuer la lecture de « Egypt: more of the same »

… Can SYRIZA Put Forward a Progressive Alternative? – Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1124, by John Milios, June 1, 2015.

1. The Nexus of Economic Crisis and Austerity

1.1. Austerity as a cost saving capitalist strategy:

• After the outbreak of the 2008 global economic crisis, extreme austerity policies prevailed in many parts of the developed capitalist world, especially in the European Union (EU) and the Euro-area (EA). Austerity has been criticized as an irrational policy, which further deteriorates the economic crisis by creating a vicious cycle of falling effective demand, recession and over-indebtedness. However, these criticisms can hardly explain why this ‘irrational’ or ‘wrong’ policy persists, despite its ‘failures’.[1] Continuer la lecture de « The Class Logic behind Austerity Policies in the Euro-Area »