Greece Hands Power to Radical Far Left Party
The Wall Street Journal wrote on January 26:
“Greek voters handed power to a radical leftist party in national elections on Sunday, a popular rebellion against the bitter economic medicine Greece has swallowed for five years and a rebuke of the fellow European countries that prescribed it…
“A Syriza victory marks an astonishing upset of Europe’s political order, which decades ago settled into an orthodox centrism while many in Syriza describe themselves as Marxists. It emboldens the challenges of other radical parties, from the right-wing National Front in France to the newly formed left-wing Podemos party in Spain, and it sets Greece on a collision course with Germany and its other eurozone rescuers.”
Tsipras Sworn In, Forms Coalition with Radical Far Right Party
BBC News wrote on January 26:
“The head of Greece’s far-left Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras, has been sworn in as prime minister and is set to lead an anti-austerity coalition government. Turning up for the ceremony without a tie, the leftist took the oath less than 24 hours after winning the general election on an anti-austerity platform…
“Breaking with tradition at his swearing-in, Mr Tsipras [an atheist] also refused the customary blessing from Orthodox priests…”
The Telegraph wrote on January 26:
“Mr Tsipras’s decision to form a coalition with the right-wing ANEL, or Independent Greeks party… strongly suggests that he intends to force a showdown with the Troika. ANEL is a nationalist champion of the Greek Orthodox Church, opposed to immigration… Party leader Panos Kammenos is virulently anti-German, describing his country as an occupied land under the austerity dictatorship of a Fourth Reich…”
Huge Greek Debts
The Telegraph wrote on January 26:
“The new Greece of Alexis Tsipras will run out of money by early March. It will then face a series of escalating crunch points that will end in default and a return to the drachma unless it can reach a deal with EU creditors. Greece must repay €3.4bn to the International Monetary Fund in February and March…”
No Greek Debt Cancellations
Deutsche Welle wrote on January 26:
“At a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday, attendees spoke out against the idea of writing off Greek debt… Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who usually chairs these gatherings, told reporters that there was ‘little support’ for forgiving Greek debt… Hans-Hoerg Schelling, Austria’s finance minister, said the rest of Europe shouldn’t be made to restructure its financial policy ‘just because a country like Greece has a problem.’…
“Yanis Varoufakis, a member of the now-ruling far left Syriza, who is tipped by some to become Greece’s next finance minister, tried to allay fears on Monday that his party wanted to leave the euro, a move nicknamed the ‘Grexit,’ which would greatly destabilize the currency. He said his party wished to convince euro partners that reducing Greece’s debt burden would help growth, thereby benefiting everyone. ‘We who are in the eurozone must not toy with loose or fast talk about Grexit or fragmentation…If that happens, disruptive forces would be unleashed,’ Varoufakis told BBC radio.”
The Telegraph wrote on January 26:
“Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, said Greece is legally bound by its agreements. ‘There are rules, there are agreements. New elections change nothing,’ he said… IMF chief Christine Lagarde said there is ‘no question of cancelling Greek debt’, deeming it unfair to other EMU states. It would entail losses for Italian and Spanish taxpayers just as much as for Germans.”
The Local wrote on January 26:
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel expects the new Greek government to uphold its commitments to international creditors, her spokesman said Monday… Earlier mainstream politicians had reacted sternly to Syriza’s election victory in Greece, while the European Central Bank (ECB) said it would not take a ‘haircut’ on Greek debts it holds. ‘The Greeks have to bear the consequences of their own actions and can’t saddle the German taxpayer with them’, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) deputy leader in the Bundestag (German parliament) Hans-Peter Friedrich told Bild’s Monday edition…
“‘We cannot honour breach of contract’ said Wolfgang Bosbach, head of the Bundestag’s Interior Committee, adding that any leniency shown to Greece would send the wrong signal to other struggling countries… Meanwhile, ECB board member Benoit Coeure told business newspaper Handelsblatt that Greece couldn’t expect any leniency from the Frankfurt-based central bank… Cutting that debt would be tantamount to so-called monetary financing – printing money to get a government out of debt – which is strictly forbidden under the ECB’s own statutes…”
“Grexit” Unlikely – Americans Might Be Affected
ABC News wrote on January 26:
“While the Greek elections on Sunday were an ocean away, Americans may feel the ripple effects of the anti-austerity Syriza party’s leadership when it comes to their bank accounts and homes. By voting for the far-left Syriza leader to be their premier, Greeks essentially voted against the measures imposed by European Union leaders. Though their single euro currency, put in place in 1999, likely won’t go away, many Greeks are fed up with 26 percent unemployment and budget cuts that they face…
“Kasi Turpin, founder and director of boutique travel company Greece A La Carte, based in Athens, said:… ‘I think [Tsipras is] going to negotiate with Europe… A lot of what he promised was rhetoric so he could get elected…’ Peter Morici, professor at University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, said shifting European politics may have a depressing effect on U.S. interest rates. That’s because uncertainty about the euro will cause Europeans to send money to the U.S., and that could push up stock prices and push down interest rates, he said.”
Der Spiegel wrote on January 26 that the “Grexis” is unlikely, and that the most likely scenario is that nothing will change and the new Greek government –notwithstanding all rhetoric and saber-rattling–will continue to act as the previous one without offering or finding any real solutions…
Bild Online ran a big article on its front page, saying that Tsipras’s election promises would cost 20 billion euros; and if he were to fulfil those promises, then Greece would be bankrupt again in no time. According to the article, Tsipras is also asking the EU for the cancellation of at least half of Greece’s debts, which EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker categorically rejected.
Die Welt Online commented that the situation in Greece is similar to the Weimar Republic and that Greece’s craving for a new “fuehrer ” or “Caesar” will not make them happy.
Why the Greek Experiment Will Fail
The Independent wrote on January 28:
“Greece’s new cabinet faces the biggest task of any Greek government since democracy returned in 1974; how to save the nation. A frustrated, fatigued and angry electorate has put into power a new radical left party because all else seems to have failed. Indeed, in some ways the austerity programme had made things worse. So now prime minister Alexis Tsipras, and finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, a self-described libertarian Marxist, face Angela Merkel and the conservatively-inclined Germany taxpayer in a battle of wills. All the signs are that the Greeks will not win…
“You owe the money; you need to pay it back as agreed. Alexis Tsipras and his new cabinet will soon be told that. If Greece has her debts written-off, … every other nation that has had to have a bailout will want the same treatment…
“The Greeks have no bargaining power. If they cannot scare the Germans into easing up because they can threaten the whole European project then they have nothing left to rely on for leverage… Even if they got their debts entirely written off, it would all start over again before long. This is the fundamental point. Greece was living beyond her means after the euro was introduced; taking advantage of the cheap interest rates on the euro bestowed by its status as a strong currency backed by Germany. They had a great big party, buying all those nice German cars and the consumer digital wonders of the noughties; and now the hangover is still taking time to work through…
“The Germans are fed up… the German taxpayer is growing weary of bail-outs and rescues for what they often regard as lazy southern neighbours. They fear ‘printing’ money to solve these problems will re-ignite inflation, a national folk fear after the hyperinflations of 1923 and at the end of the Second World War. Right wing protest parties such as Alternative For Germany are gaining support…
“Like Belgian chocolate and pralines, political fudge is a commonly found commodity in Brussels; the EU and Germany will do a deal with Greece, but only a face-saving, cosmetic affair. Greece is not going to get off the hook, but its new prime minister will be able to declare victory and move on.”
Controversial History of Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman
Free Beacon wrote on January 26:
“King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned monarch, has a controversial history of helping to fund radical terror groups and has maintained ties with several anti-Semitic Muslim clerics known for advocating radical positions… Salman, previously the country’s defense minister and deputy prime minister, was crowned king last week after his half-brother King Abdullah died at the age of 90.
“While Abdullah served as a close U.S. ally and was considered a reformer by many, Saudi Arabia has long been criticized by human rights activists for its treatment of women and its enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
“… throughout his public career in government, Salman… has been tied to the funding of radical groups in Afghanistan, as well as an organization found to be plotting attacks against America… In 2001, an international raid of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, which Salman founded in 1993, unearthed evidence of terrorist plots against America…
“Salman also has been reported to be responsible for sending millions of dollars to the radical mujahedeen that waged jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s… Salman also has embraced radical Saudi clerics known for their hateful rhetoric against Israel and Jews…”
One of the “closest” U.S. allies….
Argentina in Crisis
Fox News reported on January 24:
“Faced with one of the biggest crises of her presidency, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has given her countrymen a confusing and sometimes contradictory view of how her most damaging accuser [criminal prosecutor Alberto Nisman] was found dead, at first seeming to accept the idea of suicide and later describing it as an elaborate murder plot to undermine her government.
“Fernandez’s response… has deepened a political crisis with wide implications for the last year of her presidency and perhaps even for the future of the country beyond that… Many Argentines say the mysterious death has underscored an erosion of faith in the country’s institutions and in Fernandez at a time when her administration is struggling to fight economic ills and rising street crime.”
Russia’s Provocations
The Local wrote on January 28:
“More than 25 years after the Berlin Wall’s fall, Russian lawmakers are mulling a proposal to condemn West Germany’s 1990 “annexation” of East Germany as Moscow’s answer to Western denunciation of its seizure of Crimea. Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of Russian parliament’s lower house, on Wednesday ordered legislators to consider an appeal from a Communist Party deputy to denounce the reunification of Germany as an illegal land grab of East Germany by its western neighbour. The collapse of Socialist rule in East Germany – officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – heralded the end of the Cold War, and was met with jubilation in the West.
“But the Communist lawmaker sponsoring the proposal argued the absorption of the GDR – a Soviet Union satellite since the end of WWII – into a unified Germany in October 1990 was illegal. ‘Unlike Crimea, a referendum was not conducted in the German Democratic Republic,’ Nikolai Ivanov was quoted saying before the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma. The desire by some to revise Moscow’s position on one of the late twentieth century’s most momentous events is born of anger over international condemnation of Russia’s own seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March – and an apparent yearning to match it.
“‘We understand that Western hypocrisy knows no limits,’ Ivanov told AFP, singling out German Chancellor Angela Merkel for particular criticism over her tough stance on the Ukraine crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself a KGB officer in East Germany when the Berlin Wall fell, spearheaded the annexation of Crimea against a backdrop of patriotic fervour last year…
“But the notion that West Germany had illegally annexed its eastern neighbour was met with scorn by one key figure from that period. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — who is praised in the West for his decision not to use force to quell uprisings in Eastern Europe, and to let the Berlin Wall crumble — called the contention ‘nonsense.’… ‘What referendum could one talk about when one hundred thousand-strong demonstrations were taking place in both countries — both in East and West Germany – with one slogan only: “We are one people!”’”
Almost Half of Germans Have Negative View of Israel
JTA reported on January 26:
“More than one-third of Germans equated Israeli policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi policies towards the Jews, a new study found… The survey, which was conducted in October by the German Bertelsmann Foundation, found that… 48 percent of respondents held a negative view of Israel…
“Overall, 36 percent of Germans viewed Israel favorably. Regarding the Holocaust, 58 percent of Germans said it was time to put the past behind them, while 38 percent disagreed.”
Anti-Semitism in France and all over Europe
Der Spiegel wrote on January 26:
“Following the recent terror attacks in France, more French Jews than ever before are planning on emigrating to Israel… anti-Semitism in Europe, say many, is becoming intolerable… ‘In some (EU) states, the majority of the Jewish community is not sure they have a future in Europe,’ said European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans…
“In 2014, more than 7,000 people left France for Israel, almost double the total from the previous year. A total of 500,000 Jews live in France, putting it third behind the United States and Israel in terms of its total Jewish population. But it has also become the country from which the most immigrants to Israel come. ‘We are now also prepared if 15,000 come,’ says Nathan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency. ‘For the first time in Israel’s history, more Jews are arriving from the free world than from other countries,’ Sharansky says…”
Icy Relationship Between Netanyahu and Obama Hits New Low
BBC News wrote on January 22:
“Barack Obama will not meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits in March to speak to Congress, the White House says… ‘A full blown crisis’ was how Jeffrey Goldberg, one of America’s leading Middle East commentators, described relations between the US and Israel last October, in an article that famously quoted a senior Obama administration official describing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a most unflattering, ornithological manner.
“Since then, relations have deteriorated still further…”
Fox News reported on January 24:
“The Obama administration reportedly is fuming over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to address Congress in March regarding the Iranian threat, with one unnamed official telling an Israeli newspaper he will pay ‘a price’ for the snub. House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu — and the Israeli leader accepted – without any involvement from the White House.
“… in private, Obama’s team is livid with the Israeli leader… Haaretz also reported that Obama had directly warned Netanyahu to stop urging U.S. lawmakers to back legislation teeing up new sanctions against Iran… Obama and Netanyahu have a ‘fundamental disagreement’ about the diplomatic talks with Iran…”
The Israeli Daily wrote on January 27:
“The icy relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu hit a new low this week, with the American president ‘defriending’ the Israeli Premier on Facebook. [A] White House source said, ‘But if the President had to read one more post somehow tying whatever [bad negative derogatory word] Jewish holiday it happened to be with the Iranian nuclear threat, he would have snapped.’”
Most Serious Escalation Since 2006
The Associated Press reported on January 28:
“The Lebanese militant Hezbollah fired a salvo of missiles at an Israeli military convoy in a disputed border area Wednesday, killing two soldiers and triggering a deadly response that marked the most serious escalation since the sides’ 2006 war.
“The flare-up, which also left a U.N. peacekeeper dead and seven soldiers wounded, adds to the regional chaos brought on by neighboring Syria’s civil war. Hezbollah indicated the attack was in retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike on its fighters inside Syria earlier this month.
“The violence sparked fears in both countries of yet another crippling war between the two foes. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel would respond ‘forcefully,’ and the military fired artillery shell barrages that struck border villages in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah responded with rocket fire on Israeli military positions in an exchange of fire that lasted for hours.”
America’s Most and Least Bible-Minded Cities
The Huffington Post wrote on January 24:
“Bible lovers out there might want to steer clear of Providence, Rhode Island and New Bedford, Massachusetts — two cities that have tied for ‘least Bible-minded city’ in the country for three years in a row.
“The ranking derives from a study conducted by Barna Group in association with the American Bible Society, which measured how frequently residents of 100 U.S. cities read the Bible and how fervently they believed in the book’s accuracy. The organization considered respondents to be Bible-minded if they had read the Bible in the past seven days and believed strongly in its accuracy.
“The survey found, however, that only 27 percent of the American population qualified as Bible-minded.
“Topping the list for least Bible-minded in the country were eight cities in the Northeast, three in the West and one Midwestern holdout. Not entirely surprising, the most Biblically minded cities are all located in the south.”
Topping the list for the most Bible-minded cities are Birmingham, Alabama; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Tri-Cities, Tennessee; Roanoke, Virginia; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Springfield, Missouri. At the very bottom of the list are Cedar Rapids, Iowa; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Albany, New York; Providence, Rhode Island; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. In light of these statistics, note the following article and ask yourself whether the two could be related in any way.
Winter Storm in the USA
The Weather Channel wrote on January 26:
“Millions of people in the Northeast are bracing for Winter Storm Juno, which will become a major snowstorm today through Wednesday with the potential for blizzard conditions and more than 2 feet of snow. The high confidence in forecast wind and snowfall led the National Weather Service to issue blizzard warnings well in advance of the storm from the New Jersey shore all the way to Downeast Maine, including the cities of New York City, Boston, Providence, Hartford and Portland…”
The prognosis did not hold true for New York City, but the blizzard was a terrible disaster in other places, as the next article shows.
The Washington Post reported on January 28:
“The Blizzard of 2015 might have been a disappointment for New York, but it will go down in the record books for eastern Massachusetts after as much as 36 inches of snow fell between Monday and Tuesday, making it the snowiest storm on record in Worcester, Mass., and the snowiest January storm for Boston… The Blizzard of 2015 is now ranked number one for snow in Worcester, Mass. The powerful winter storm dumped 34.6 inches on the city which — maybe unsurprisingly — was ranked the second snowiest location in the United States in the winter of 2012-2013, when 109 inches of snow fell.
“Boston’s official reporting station, Logan International Airport, reported a storm total of 24.6 inches, which makes the blizzard the snowiest January storm on record, and the sixth snowiest of any storm on record…
“Given the storm’s track, which was about 100 miles farther to the east than forecast, locations west of Hartford, Conn., and Long Island saw smaller totals… But no one is arguing that the forecast was a bust in southeast New England. Blizzard conditions were experienced for over 10 hours in some far eastern Massachusetts locations. Marshfield had 14 solid hours of blizzard conditions from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Hyannis, Chatham and Nantucket were all whipped by blizzard conditions for over 10 hours. Boston reported blizzard conditions for nine hours from 1 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesday, and blizzard conditions belted Worcester for a total close to 10 hours… Long Island wind gusts peaked at 60 mph, and Provincetown, Mass., saw gusts of 69 mph during the height of the blizzard…
“The snow might have been the least of worries for coastal locations, as strong winds combined with high tide ravaged the shoreline Tuesday evening. Dozens of reports of flooding, road washout and beach erosion were streaming into the National Weather Service as the tide peaked between 5 and 6 p.m. across coastal Massachusetts…”
Big Asteroid Comes Close to Earth
News.at reported on January 26 that a huge asteroid passed by earth within a distance of 1.2 million kilometers, which is three times as far as the distance from the earth to the moon. The asteroid is between 450 to 900 meters big and travels with 15 kilometers per second. If it had hit earth, it would have been a “huge” catastrophe with “millions of people dying” and it could have totally wiped out “a country as big as Germany,” according to the article.
When Life Begins…
Newsmax reported on January 26:
“San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, responding to recent statements made by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, says there is no debate in the Catholic Church about life beginning at conception and no room for Catholics to ‘dissent’ on the principle… Pelosi would not answer whether she believes life begins at 20 weeks, saying that ‘it’s not up to politicians to’ make that decision… ‘The life and the health of a mother is what is preeminent when a decision is made about a woman’s reproductive health,’ the California Democrat, whose district includes San Francisco, explained, adding that since she is a ‘Catholic and a mom of five’ that it’s ‘true’ that ‘she knows more about having babies than the pope.’
“When asked about these comments, Archbishop Cordileone [said] that ‘it is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception. This has been established in medical science for over 100 years. Catholic moral teaching acknowledges this scientific fact, and has always affirmed the grave moral evil of taking an innocent human life,’ Cordileone explained. ‘This has been the consistent teaching of the Church from the very beginning, a teaching already discernible in the natural moral law, and so a teaching from which no Catholic can dissent in good conscience,’ he said…”
The Archbishop is correct…
The Neanderthals Lived Alongside “Modern Man”
The Independent wrote on January 28:
“The partial skull of an anatomically modern human who lived alongside the Neanderthals about 55,000 years ago has been unearthed from a cave in northern Israel, scientists say. It is one of the oldest non-African skulls of Homo sapiens and comes close to the date when modern humans migrated out of Africa, eventually to colonise Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas… ‘It has been suspected that modern man and Neanderthals were in the same place at the same time, but we didn’t have the physical evidence. Now we do have it in the new skull fossil,’ said Bruce Latimer, a palaeontologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, who took part in the study. ‘Modern humans and Neanderthals likely encountered each other foraging for food,’ Dr Latimer said.
“Modern humans share a small percentage of their DNA with Neanderthals, suggesting that limited interbreeding had taken place at some point in the past. However, it is not known when this contact took place, or whether it had occurred somewhere in Europe or the Middle East.
“The overall shape of the Manot cranium is more similar to the ancient fossil skulls found in Europe compared to other modern human skulls found in the Middle East, according to the study published in Nature led by Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University. ‘This suggests that the Manot people could be closely related to the first modern humans who later successfully colonised Europe,’ the authors said, adding that the skull suggests that interbreeding with Neanderthals could have taken place in the Middle East rather than in Europe.”
Of course, these scientists are totally off on the dating, as they are using a completely unreliable method—the Radio Carbon Dating. But this article proves once more that the Neanderthals lived “alongside” “modern man,” and that interbreeding took place between them. What it really proves is that Neanderthals were modern human beings, as we have explained recently in several Q&As.
Speaking to Invisible Voices?
The Independent wrote on January 25:
“One night, during her first year at the University of Sheffield, Rachel Waddingham struggled to fall asleep. She could hear three middle-aged men she didn’t know talking about her downstairs. ‘They were saying, “She’s stupid, she’s ugly, I wish she would kill herself”’, she remembers. ‘I was angry and went down to challenge them, but no one was there. They kept laughing and saying, “She’ll never find us.”’
“The voices became a recurring presence, providing an aggressive, unsettling commentary on her life. Waddingham came to believe that they were filming her around the clock, and became paranoid. When she had a neck ache, she assumed a tracking device had been planted under her skin. At the supermarket, the voices would ask each other questions like ‘Does she know what she’s buying?’ – leading her to reach sinister conclusions…
“A doctor eventually admitted her into a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on a cocktail of drugs. During her eight months in the hospital, the voices faded, but the side effects of the medication made life intolerable… Suicide attempts followed… Because she was no longer hearing the voices, she was released from the hospital…
“Research suggests that up to one in 25 people hears voices regularly and that up to 40 per cent of the population will hear voices at some point in their lives… Recently, Waddingham and more than 200 other voice-hearers from around the world gathered in Thessaloniki, Greece, for the sixth annual World Hearing Voices Congress… They reject the traditional idea that the voices are a symptom of mental illness. They recast voices as meaningful, albeit unusual, experiences, and believe that potential problems lie not in the voices themselves but in a person’s relationship with them…
“Research bears that out: at least 70 per cent of voice-hearers are thought to have experienced some form of trauma. The characteristics of voices vary widely from person to person, but they often mimic the sound and language of abusers or their victims: demonic and frightening, or angelic and friendly.
“Waddingham, for instance, now hears 13 voices. Among them are Blue, a frightened but cheeky three-year-old; Elfie, an angry adolescent; Tommy, a teenage boy who criticises her speech; the Scream, a female voice filled with pain and suffering… and the Not Yets, a group of voices Waddingham is not yet ready to engage with fully. ‘They say very nasty things about me – abusive, sexual, violent things, which echo what I heard when I was little,’ she says…
“When the younger voices can’t fall asleep, Waddingham reads them bedtime stories. When voices suggest that she’s going to be harmed by a stranger, she thanks them for their concern but lets them know she is being vigilant.
“Eleanor Longden tells a similar story. After leaving a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia at 18, she was assigned to work with a psychiatrist familiar with the hearing voices movement. He encouraged her to overcome her fear of her voices, which included both human and demonic-sounding ones.
“Traditional psychiatry discourages patients from engaging with voices, and prefers to silence them through medication. But HVN members… say that listening to voices is vital to calming them down…”
Sadly, neither traditional psychiatry nor the “World Hearing Voice Congress” seem to understand the ORIGIN of these voices. And so, neither has the answer or a real solution to the problem. In fact, they only make matters worse. For more information, please read our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World.”
