News of the Restless

From Deutsche Welle, the German satellite TV channel, an interesting passage buried well down in the piece:

The Return Directive raises hackles not only because of possible human rights infringements, but because the remittances sent home by illegal workers to their poor countries of origin -- for example Ecuador and Bolivia -- are an important source of income there.

Last year, immigrants in Europe, the US and Japan sent money back to their families in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting to just under 43 billion euros ($66 billion), the EU Observer online newspaper said.

It is more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined.

"...more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined."

Sit back and let that sink in for a bit.

Okay?

Continue reading "Why the EU wants to punish economic migrants" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...it's all of Mercosur rejecting that draconian, disgusting European "Return Statute"--you know, the one that deprives undocumented immigrants of all legal rights, including recourse to an attorney before the country they're in decides to boot them out--after a prison stay of up to a year and a half?

On Friday, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and its associated countries expressed their "firm repudiation" of the discrimination supported by the European Union's directive of return for irregular immigrants, approved this past week by the Europarliament. The law decrees incarceration of 18 months for the undocumented.

"The governments of the participant and associate states of Mercosur deplore the approval on the part of the European Parlilament of the "return directive", announced a communication from the Argentine Chancery, which heads the South American union at this time.

Argentine diplomatic sources say that the EU's measure will be debated at the Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur, which will take place on July 1 in the Argentine city of Tucumán.

Continue reading "It's not just Evo or Chavecito..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone please tell the Burschen at Der Spiegel that their story was kaputt long before it came out. They're recycling a piece of pure horseshit under the laughable title of "The Colombian Connection: How Hugo Chavez Courted FARC":

They called him "Angel." He was the highest-ranking outside contact for the Colombian guerilla organization FARC. More and more details are now emerging that demonstrate the close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the jungle terrorists.

He already had a photo of himself posing with Vietnamese general and revolutionary hero Vo Nguyen Giap, and he also planned to suggest to Cuban leader Fidel Castro that he don his combat uniform once again for a joint photo, "Angel" told FARC commander Ivan Marquez. All that was missing in his collection, he said, was a photo with "J.E."

"Angel" was FARC's code name for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and "J.E." was Manuel Marulanda, a.k.a. "Tirofijo" ("Sure Shot"), the legendary leader of Latin America's oldest guerilla organization.

What a shame. Such a provocative lede, and already we know it's all wrong. How? Oh, here. Let Greg Palast school you on how not to read shit into an e-mail:

Continue reading "Oh gawd, now the GERMAN media is in on it too..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

...maybe she should clean this plank out of her own eye before criticizing the dustmotes she imagines she sees in his.

New details continue to emerge on the spying scandal that has hit German telecommunication giant Deutsche Telekom. In addition to rifling through telephone records for a year from 2005 to 2006 to determine the extent of contacts between management and journalists, it now looks as though Telekom was also using mobile phone signals to keep track of their locations.

According to information from SPIEGEL, Telekom sought to follow the movements of journalists covering the telecommunications company as well as members of Telekom advisory boards, in an effort to determine how sensitive company information was finding its way into business magazines and newspapers.

Continue reading "While Angela Merkel criticizes Hugo Chavez..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Remember all those stories about mysteriously dying honeybee populations? Looks like we've got the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder all figured out, kiddies. Or at least, one very unsurprising chief suspect:

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

Continue reading "Bzzzzzzzzzzzz--STING!!!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And for some reason, I found a lot of funny pix from it...and for some reason even stranger, most of the funniest ones had Evo in them. In some funny context or other.

Like this one, in which he's chatting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel:

What do you suppose is going through her mind? My educated guess is it's something like this:

Continue reading "Festive Left Friday Blogging: Some summit that was in Peru" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't care if the current German chancellor is a woman. I have scant respect for her at the best of times, because she is not an uppity woman. She licks Bush's butt. And do you know what the implications of that are?

Ask Chavecito, if you're still unsure. He knows!

Continue reading "Chavecito calls it right again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But would they listen to me? Nooooo. They just had to figure out for themselves that certain interrogation methods don't work as well as advertised...

A threat of possible terrorist attacks in Germany, based on a tip from Lebanese authorities after they interrogated an al-Qaida suspect, is less severe than initially thought, authorities said Monday.

The tip came after Lebanese police arrested suspect Mohammed Naddoum last Thursday on allegations that he called the German Embassy in Beirut threatening to strike German security targets.

Officials have given no details of the possible threats, but German news reports said Lebanon told officials that the suspect indicated terrorists inside Germany were prepared to attack targets such as Berlin's Justice Ministry building. The ministry said it had heightened security.

The details of the tip have now been checked out, and have led to no concrete results, said Federal Criminal Police Office spokeswoman Sandra Clemens.

"At this point in the investigation, an attack can be ruled out," she said.

My guess is they got it out of him by what's euphemistically called "coercive interrogation", and what is more correctly called TORTURE. Lebanon is not exactly free from it.

But I could have told them that Germany is not on the terror shit list. Why? It's not involved in the war on Iraq. Spain was; that's why Spain's trains were bombed, and why the Spaniards wised up and got rid of Aznar in their next election. Australia was; that's why a nightclub in Bali catering to Aussie tourists was bombed in '02. Britain still is; that's why ITS subway trains were also bombed. (The Brits, alas, have not gotten wise and thrown out THEIR warmongers.)

Logic should dictate that Spain is now off the terror shit list. And that Australia, too, will soon follow suit. And that Britain should watch its back.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The European Left has lost credibility. It has opened itself too much to neoliberalism, which spells destruction for the social order. If it reverts to its origins, it will make gains again."

--Oskar Lafontaine, German leftist politician, in an interview with Aporrea. Translation mine.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

John McCutcheon tells the story of his ballad and the dedicated band of German followers it won him.

Continue reading "Christmas in the Trenches" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not convinced yet that creeping fascism is...well, on the creep? Listen to Naomi and think again.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) has created a powerful video that rings all the right alarm bells. Crank your speakers.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You people. You're always claiming that Hugo Chavez--YOUR president, like it or not--is trying to drag your barely-existent middle class into poverty, because it's the poor that vote for him and so he wants to make/keep people poor in his efforts to be president for life.

The fact that all this is a shameless lie doesn't stop you from repeating it. Or believing it. You people are not so much human beings as loop tapes on endless replay. Do you seriously believe Karl Rove's unwritten adage--that endless repetition magically turns a lie into truth?

Continue reading "Venezuelan opposition, take note..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

And I defy you to tell me differently.

A group of Venezuelans shattered a glass monument to Cuban hero Che Guevara built by the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez, an area mayor told state television on Friday.

Jesus Espinoza, a municipal mayor in the mountain state of Merida, said "on Wednesday night (a group) from outside of the municipality inconsiderately destroyed the monument to Che Guevara."

Local media reported that a group identifying itself as the Patriotic Command of the Plateau took responsibility for destroying the 8-foot-(2.4 meters-) tall glass monument inscribed with a message to honor the Argentine-born icon of Cuba's 1959 revolution.

"We do not want a monument to Che, he is not an example for our children," the group said in a note left at the scene of the monument shattered by six gunshots, according to the El Universal newspaper.

Continue reading "Yup, they ARE brownshirts." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And in case you wonder why, let Deborah James and Medea Benjamin explain it to you:

Continue reading "Everyone loves Evo" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Was? Ihr habt das ohne Krieg gemacht? Und zwar nur mit Polizei? Was seid ihr, Angsthasen?

Three men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a "massive" attack on US facilities in the country, officials have said.

Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals for explosives.

She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports.

Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said the men had posed "an imminent threat".

Media reports said the men were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport.

Continue reading "Schnitzel-eating surrendermenschen?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 04:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...but not THIS much:

(BTW, the lady in the car is saying "Next time, we'll take our bikes!" in German.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You can always tell what side a newspaper is on by how they choose to present any given story. Take this, for example, from the Washington Post...the paper that has the dubious distinction of having bogged down in complacency since its Watergate glory days:

It was a tiny gesture of protest: a dozen college students flagging down cars for an hour on Embassy Row this month, wearing symbolic white gags across their mouths and holding up posters that quoted Albert Camus and Walt Whitman on the importance of free speech.

But the anger of these Venezuela-born young people -- furious at the shutdown of a popular private TV channel in Caracas -- reflected the fast-rising political fervor that is gripping Venezuelan immigrants in the United States after years of private frustration over the tightening revolutionary grip of President Hugo Chavez.

Continue reading "Washington Post sinks into the oil-soaked swamp" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:44 PM | Permalink

Bim, bam.

Gott sei dank, jetzt ist die Welt um einen Nazi-Mistbock leichter. Nur schade, dass es so lange gedauert hat...

Continue reading "Kurt Waldheim ist kaputt" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seen at the G8 protests in Rostock, Germany:

His sign reads "I am an armed uprising"--clearly a bitterly ironic statement in light of the fake popgun he's carrying. Nevertheless, the water cannons did not discriminate.

According to Der Spiegel, an outbreak of violence at the fringes of an otherwise peaceful demo spoiled it for those who had something to say besides just "fuck you":

Continue reading "I am a wild party" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guenther has something he needs to come clean about...

BTW, the song he putters around to is by Heino, Germany's #1 Schlager-singer. Translated, it means:

The prettiest in the world is my Barbara;

What I like best about her is her black hair.

She has such heaven-heaven-heavenly blue eyes,

And a scarlet-red mouth.

Yes, yes, the prettiest in the world is my Barbara,

What I like best about her is her black hair.

Yes, yes, she is so wonderful,

Is my Barbara...

And that yellow wig? That's Heino's hair.

I just want you to know I feel incredibly schmutzig for even knowing who Heino is.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Just so's you know: in English you call cowards "chicken", but in German, it's Angsthase--literally, "scaredy-rabbit".

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hanky, Panky--nothing like a Bush Spanky!

Seen at the Rose Monday parade in the famed carnival city of Mainz, Germany.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think I may have to start holding up my German head again.

This might just make up for 12 DISASTROUS years of Nazism--and certainly tells me that someone has learned history's lessons well:

Donald Rumsfeld, who quit as US defence secretary this week, may face criminal charges in Germany for alleged abuses in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.

A complaint has been launched by the US-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, representing a Saudi detained in Cuba and 11 Iraqis held in Baghdad.

German law allows the pursuit of cases originating anywhere in the world.

Continue reading "Germany wants a piece of Rummy" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A great German author, outspokenly anti-Nazi, has something he's long wanted to get off his chest. Let's hear him out:

Nobel Prize-winning German writer Guenther Grass, author of the great anti-Nazi novel The Tin Drum, has admitted serving in the Waffen-SS.

He told a German newspaper he had been recruited at the age of 17 into an SS tank division and served in Dresden.

Previously it was only known he had served as a soldier and was wounded and taken prisoner by US forces.

Speaking before the publication of his war memoirs, he said his silence over the years had "weighed" upon him.

Continue reading "A sad but unsurprising revelation" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Don't believe me? I have proof.

First of all, a very lame German trio singing (???) "Where are you, my sunshine?" With a lisp that makes me cringe.

Then, the hilarious rebuttal.

Continue reading "Boy bands suck in any language" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 04:39 PM | Permalink