Archive for June 2010
Dumbing Down Society Part I: Foods, Beverages and Meds
June 30, 2010 | 
Author Is there a deliberate effort by the government to dumb down the masses? The statement is hard to prove but there exists a great amount of data proving that the ruling elite not only tolerates, but effectively introduces policies that have a detrimental effect on the physical and mental health of the population. This series of articles looks at the many ways the modern man is being dumbed down. Part I looks at the poisons found in everyday foods, beverages and medications.
- Image by deesillustration.com
The theme of dumbing-down and dehumanizing the masses are often discussed in articles on The Vigilant Citizen. The presence of those concepts in popular culture are, however, only the outward and symbolic expression of the profound transformation happening in our society. Scientific data has been proving for years that governments around the world are tolerating the selling of many products which have a direct and negative effect on cognitive and physical health. As we will see in this article many everyday products cause brain damage, impaired judgment and even a lower IQ.
Posted in 
Global markets on ‘cliff edge’ amid fears over European banks
There are concerns over a crucial repayment on a €442m ECB loan to European banks which is due on Thursday. Photograph AP/Getty Images
Fears that government austerity packages will hinder global growth have combined with fresh anxiety about the health of European banks to hammer investor confidence.
Shares on both sides of the Atlantic dropped heavily amid warnings that markets were on a “cliff edge”.
In jittery trading ahead of a crucial repayment by Europe’s banks of a €442bn (£362bn) European Central Bank loan on Thursday the rates at which banks lend to each other in euros rose to their highest levels in eight months as rumours swirled that some banks were finding it difficult to raise funds in the money markets.
The FTSE 100 has now fallen 14% since its April peak after losing 157.46 points to close at 4914.22, a 3% decline on the day and its lowest level since September last year. French and German markets lost about 3%. Wall Street was down 235 points by the time London closed, about 100 points below the 10,000 level.
Warning Of War
Discovering The Truth In Time
(Taken from CubaDebate)
By Fidel Castro
June 29, 2010 “Granma” — WHEN I was writing one of my previous reflections, as a disaster for humanity was rapidly approaching, my greatest concern was to fulfill the elemental duty of informing our people.
Today I feel calmer than 26 days ago. As things continue happening in the short term, I can reiterate and enrich information to national and international public opinion.
Obama promised to attend the quarter-final game on July 2 if his country won in the second round. He must know, more than anybody, that those quarter finals could not take place if extremely grave events should happen beforehand, or at least he should know that.
Last Friday, June 25, an international news agency of known attention to detail in the information that it provides, published statements from “…the naval commander of the elite corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, General Ali Fadavi…” warning that “… if the United States and its allies inspect Iranian ships in international waters ‘they will receive a response in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.’”
The information was taken from the national Mehr news agency of Iran.
That agency, according to the cable, communicated: “Fadawi added that ‘the Navy of the Revolutionary Guard currently has hundreds of vessels fitted with missile launchers.’”
The information, written almost at the same time as the one published in Granma, or perhaps before, seemed at certain points a carbon copy of the paragraphs of the Reflection written on Thursday, June 24 and published in that newspaper on Friday 25th.
The coincidence can be explained by the elemental use of logical reasoning that I always apply. I was not aware of one word of what was published by the national Iranian agency.
I do not harbor the slightest doubt that as soon as the warships of the United States and Israel take up their positions – together with the rest of the U.S. military vessels located in the vicinity of the Iranian coasts – and attempt to inspect that country’s first merchant ship, a rain of missiles will be unleashed in both directions. That will be the precise moment when that terrible war will begin. It is not possible to foresee how many ships will be sunk nor of what ensign.
U.S. Media and Israel: Flotilla Cover-up: The New York Times Accused
Flotilla Cover-up: The New York Times Accused
by David Morris on June 28, 2010
For the past month, the alternative media have sought concrete evidence that the mainstream U.S. media, including the New York Times, willfully aided Israel’s cover-up of information about their Gaza flotilla attack.
Prima facie evidence of their complicity is abundant.
The Times’ role in the cover-up ranged from suppression of facts and failure to follow leads that might (and did) contradict Israel’s version of the massacre, to serving as a shameless conduit for Israeli propaganda. The Times persisted in publishing and republishing the official line of Israel and became a virtual bulletin board for crackpot opinions and commentary. A prime example is Michael Oren’s “An Assault on Israel, Cloaked in Peace,” arguing delusionally that this humanitarian effort was an “act of aggression” that threatened the very nation of Israel.
[more...]
Pope slams cardinal who exposed abuse cover-up
(06-29) 04:00 PDT Vatican City –
Osservatore Romano / Associated Press
Pope Benedict XVI (left) with Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, whom he admonished for accusing an official of blocking inquiries.
The Vatican on Monday issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups.
The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children.
FACEBOOK HAS DELETED BOYCOTT BP, LEAVING ALMOST 800,000 FANS HANGING
This group was created with the intent of sending a clear and strong message to BP and to Washington that what has happened in the Gulf has to stop everywhere.
People from all over the world shared video clips, pictures, and frustration over what has been seen incredibly slow process to an ever growing economic and environmental disaster.
Boycott BP and it’s creator, Lee Perkins, have been focused in several interviews recently, one of which was done with Diane Sawyer. To say he has made a large impact in a short amount of time is an understatement.
Billions Missing, Lies Mounting
by Abby Zimet
In Congress on Monday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich told it straight on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: billions of dollars “gone missing,” as in stolen, by warlords, drug lords, corrupt government officials “underwritten by the lives of our troops.” While people at home lose jobs, homes, savings, schooling, pensions, hope.
“In a little more than a year the United States flew $12 billion in cash to Iraq, much of it in $100 bills, shrink wrapped and loaded onto pallets. Vanity Fair reported in 2004 that “at least $9 billion” of the cash had “gone missing, unaccounted for.” $9 billion. Today, we learned that suitcases of $3 billion in cash have openly moved through the Kabul airport.
Obama and Cameron pledge to defend BP profits
US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron met this weekend during the G20 summit in Canada to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the BP oil spill. The goal of the meeting, however, was not to coordinate cleanup and recovery efforts, but to once again give a US and UK government guarantee of the profits of BP.
A statement on the meeting released by Cameron’s office on Sunday reports that Obama and Cameron “agreed that BP should meet its obligations to cap the leak, clean up the damage and meet legitimate compensation claims. They also agreed that it was to both countries’ advantage for BP to remain a strong and stable company.”
Obama Is Deliberately Protracting Gulf Oil Disaster
If you were the President of the United States and you see that Gulf wildlife are dying and fishermen and tourist businesses are suffering from the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, wouldn’t you do EVERYTHING humanly possible to help? I would. I would be down on the beach with my sleeves rolled up to help with the cleanup, picking up tarballs and cleaning off oil from seabirds.
Instead, Obama has turned down 13 countries’ offers to help clean up the BP oil spill. The Dutch were the first to offer assistance that, if accepted, would have cleaned up the spill in a matter of weeks.
Frustrated by the federal government’s inaction and BP’s ineffectiveness, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal took action and got oil-fighting vacuum barges to remove the oil. But then the Coast Guard shut down all 16 barges last Wednesday, claiming their operations needed to be halted until inspections and certifications could be done.
U.S. Stocks Drop on New Jitters About Global Growth
This looks like a long, hot summer for Wall Street.
Fears that the global economy will worsen gripped the financial markets again Tuesday. Downbeat economic news that investors might have shrugged off in calmer times sent the broad stock market tumbling to its lowest level this year.
The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index sank 3.1 percent. Amid the sell-off, anxious investors fled for traditional havens like United States Treasury securities.
But it was really just another bad day in a bad month, a bad quarter, a bad year. With 2010 now almost half over, stock investors are glumly tallying their losses — and wondering when this pain will stop. Tuesday’s swoon left the S.& P. 500 down nearly 7 percent this year.
Given that showing, some analysts are writing off 2010 as a lost year. The stock market is mired in a deepening correction — a sort of mini-bear market typically characterized by a 10 percent decline over a short period. The question on everyone’s mind is whether this correction will grow into a full-blown bear market. Since late April, when the market reached its high for the year, the S.& P. 500 has lost 14.5 percent. A 20 percent decline would signal a bear market is here.
I’d rather stick my hand in a bag of amphetamine-injected rattlesnakes than put my trust in tonight’s BBC Panorama documentary on ‘Global Warming’
Let’s just remind ourselves, shall we, why the BBC is constitutionally incapable of reporting on global warming in a fair, balanced or indeed honest way. On 26 January 2006, the BBC’s not-notably-sceptical Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin organised a conference at BBC TV Centre called Climate Change – The Challenge To Broadcasting. (Hat tip: Nick Mabbs)
Perhaps it should really have been called The Challenge To Impartiality. It was co-hosted by the director of television Jana Bennett, the director of news Helen Boaden and held under the auspices of the BBC and two environmental lobby groups – The International Broadcasting Trust and the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme. The keynote speaker was the fanatically warmist ex-Royal Society President, Robert May, who proceded to assure the audience of around 30 key BBC staff and 30 invited guests, most of them environmental activists, that – as Bob Carter puts it in his superb Climate: The Counter Consensus – “the science supporting global warming was so certain that it was the BBC’s public duty to cease providing airtime to alternative viewpoints.” The BBC has been hideously biased in its coverage of AGW ever since.
Tonight’s Panorama is a case in point. Here is a blog by the programme’s producer Mike Rudin describing the piece of glib Warmist propaganda he is foisting on the licence-fee paying public this evening.
Russia sending armored vehicles to WB
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that Moscow will supply Palestinians with fifty Russian-made armored vehicles within days.
“We have sent the Palestinians 50 armored vehicles, they have arrived in Jordan, and we hope that they will arrive here in the next few days,” Lavrov told reporters in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The Russian official’s remark came after meetings with acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Earlier in 2008, Israel allowed the Russian Defense Ministry to supply the vehicles in two shipments of 25 each, AFP reported.
However, the delivery has so far been delayed as Israel argued that the shipment could fall into the hands of the Palestinian Resistance Movement of Hamas.
Hamas, which won the 2006 parliamentary elections, was forced to limit its rule to the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after foiling an alleged coup plot against Ismail Haniyeh, the democratically Palestinian elected prime minister.
[PressTV]
Conventional doctor’s faith in Big Pharma shattered after Glaxo’s latest scams
(NaturalNews) Writing in Forbes magazine, Yale cardiologist Harlan Krumholz notes that in spite of his desire to believe in the good intentions of the pharmaceutical industry, the actions of companies such as GlaxoSmithKline continue to disappoint him.
“I want to believe in America’s pharmaceutical companies,” Krumholz wrote on Feb.25. “I want to believe that people in these companies believe that the best strategy for success is to do what is best for patients. I want to believe that they are interested in scientific truth and eager to know of any safety issues and ready to share that information with the public.
“This week I was disappointed again.”
Treachery In The Gulf
By Robbi Skye Campbell
What has happened in the Gulf of Mexico was not by accident. It was most likely a design to support an agenda. What that agenda is we do not know exactly but I will try to connect the dots. We may soon know the true extent of its nature by the “solutions” our government imposes on the people in the Gulf area.
There are some major problems:
The Obama administration allowed BP to drill at an unstable site (highly over pressured) in 5,000 feet of water;
BP CEO Tony Hayward dumped his BP stock 2 months before the spill;
The well was kicking since they drilled into the production zone, so the drilling fluid or mud was underbalanced (mud weight not quite heavy enough for the upward pressure of the gas);
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of BP stock and went short on Transocean stock the day before the spill;
Third US carrier, 4,000 Marines augment US armada opposite Iran
USS Nassau: More US naval-air-marine muscle off Iran
debkafile’s military sources report that Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran’s shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.
The USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, tasked with supporting the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet area of operations, is cruising around the Bab al-Mandeb Straits where the Gulf of Aden flows into the Red Sea. Its presence there accounts for Tehran announcing Sunday, June 27 that its “aid ship for Gaza” had been called off, for fear an American military boarding party would intercept the vessel and search it. This would be permissible under the latest UN sanctions punishing the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.
The third US carrier group to reach waters around Iran consists of three vessels:
California Notified Of Gulf Evacuation Plans
Wayne Madsen Report
June 28, 2010
A well-placed source in California told WMR that the California Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) has been briefed by its counterpart agencies in the Gulf coast states that there are plans to conduct a mass evacuation of millions of Gulf coast residents due to the catastrophic environmental and public health effects of the BP oil disaster.
CEMA officials have been briefed on the planned evacuations by counterparts in the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
The Gulf states’ emergency planners stressed to their California counterparts that they are dealing with a disaster of unprecedented proportions and that contingency plans are being constantly updated and revised on ways to deal with the transformation of the Gulf of Mexico into a deadly “toxic soup” of oil and Corexit 9500 oil dispersants and the atmosphere into a dangerous mixture of hydrocarbon gases.
CEMA was briefed on the impending mass evacuation since California would be expected to absorb a large number of evacuees from the Gulf states. CEMA officials did not say how the state of California, which is virtually bankrupt, would pay for the influx of hundreds of thousands and perhaps greater numbers of evacuees from the Gulf coastal region.
Economic tsunami looming for West
York Times columnist Paul Krugman
A distinguished economist has warned that the world is in for a third economic depression, arguing spending cutbacks are coming at the worst possible time for the economy.
“Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline – on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses,” economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in a piece published on the American daily’s website on June 27.
“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost – to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs – will nonetheless be immense,” added Krugman.
Disappointed by the G-20′s commitment of deficit reduction, Krugman underlined “this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy.”
“Around the world – most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting – governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending,” he stated.
Krugman has discussed the necessity of continuing stimulus spending at a time when the global economic recovery is weak.
Choosing healthy foods now called a mental disorder
(NaturalNews) In its never-ending attempt to fabricate “mental disorders” out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they’ve invented yet: Healthy eating disorder.
This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you’re “mentally diseased” and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs. The Guardian newspaper reports, “Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder” and goes on to claim this “disease” is called orthorexia nervosa — which is basically just Latin for “nervous about correct eating.”
But they can’t just called it “nervous healthy eating disorder” because that doesn’t sound like they know what they’re talking about. So they translate it into Latin where it sounds smart (even though it isn’t). That’s where most disease names come from: Doctors just describe the symptoms they see with a name like osteoporosis (which means “bones with holes in them”).
RBS tells clients to prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Federal Reserve
As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve.
Entitled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here“, it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy.
The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: “The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”
Bernanke began putting the script into action after the credit system seized up in 2008, purchasing $1.75 trillion of Treasuries, mortgage securities, and agency bonds to shore up the US credit system. He stopped far short of the $5 trillion balance sheet quietly pencilled in by the Fed Board as the upper limit for quantitative easing (QE).
Investors basking in Wall Street’s V-shaped rally had assumed that this bizarre episode was over. So did the Fed, which has been shutting liquidity spigots one by one. But the latest batch of data is disturbing.
The ECRI leading indicator produced by the Economic Cycle Research Institute plummeted yet again last week to -6.9, pointing to contraction in the US by the end of the year. It is dropping faster that at any time in the post-War era.
The latest data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau shows that world trade slid 1.7pc in May, with the biggest fall in Asia. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates on bulk goods has dropped 40pc in a month. This is a volatile index that can be distorted by the supply of new ships, but those who watch it as an early warning signal for China and commodities are nervous.
Parking wardens giving out ‘illegal’ fines to hit targets
Ticket controversy: Some parking wardens are issuing fines simply to reach performance targets
Motorists have been tricked into paying tens of thousands of pounds in ‘illegal’ parking tickets issued so that wardens can meet targets.
Thousands of the wrongful tickets have been paid by drivers who were unaware that they should have been cancelled by the council contractors who dole them out.
The tickets were issued by NSL, formerly NCP, Britain’s biggest parking enforcer, which patrols the streets of 60 local authorities and Heathrow and Gatwick.
The Daily Mail has seen evidence that wardens are issuing the penalty charge notices simply to hit personal targets set by NSL – and even give this reason to management in writing.
In one case, a warden placed a ticket on a vehicle, waited an hour and then issued another for the same offence knowing that this was unlawful.
On the paperwork, seen only by his supervisor, he wrote in poor English: ‘I issued PCN to keep my performance on reasonable level regardless of that it will get spoil as soon as challenge.’
Parking bosses who review the penalty charge notices know the fines – costing £120, or £60 if paid within two weeks – are wrong, but do not tell the drivers and instead wait to see if they pay the fine.
An Open Letter to Politicians and Police
by Mark R. Crovelli
Whenever revolutionary change appears in the world, whether for good or for ill, there are always certain groups of people who fail or refuse to recognize how much things have truly changed. One can find many examples of this phenomenon in the business world, when entrepreneurs who fail to appreciate new market conditions get tossed aside by their competitors before they even know what hit them. By the time they realize that they have made serious forecasting errors, it is often far too late for them to catch up. Similar examples abound in the academic and athletic worlds, where scholars and coaches who fail to appreciate radically new conditions in their disciplines or sports find themselves quickly surpassed by their rivals and colleagues.
A similar situation appears in the realm of law enforcement in the United States, because police officers and their political bosses seem to be oblivious to the fact that the American economic and political landscape has profoundly changed over the last three years. They continue to humiliate, bully, assault, taser, jail, and shoot Americans (and their dogs) as though the American populace will forever tolerate such abuses. Police officers strut around cities and towns barking orders at people as though nothing in the world could ever take away their ability to intimidate and demean. Similarly, politicians and police chiefs continue to defend their officers’ actions, no matter how barbarically or blatantly they may have misbehaved.
Thanks to the Zapatistas
by Hermann Bellinghausen, originally published in Spanish in La Jornada, May 2010
The indigenous peoples of Mexico became visible at last on New Year’s Day 1994, and forced the entire country to listen, thanks to the legendary cry of ‘enough’ from the Zapatistas, when they opened a crack in history, rose up in arms and said ‘here we are’. Never before had the country’s indigenous peoples, their demands and protests, taken centre stage in the national debate. The national civil society now knew that they had much to learn from the indigenous peoples, whether those of Mayan descent or all the others.
Thanks to the Zapatistas, new hope was reborn in the left, demoralised following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Mexico and other countries gave birth to a new generation of activists and social thinkers born out of new ideas of liberation and democracy, and new ways of expressing the old good ideas.
Censored: Indigenous Rattle News and Corporate Cages in Bolivia
The news from the Bolivia Climate Summit is too hot for most newspapers, including those in and around Indian country in the US and Canada
By Brenda Norrell
Photo by Michelle Cook, Navajo
The bottom line of real climate change is that it is being censored and distorted in the news.
I’ve been busy trying to give away articles on the Native American delegations to the Bolivia Climate Conference. As far as I can tell, none of the newspapers in and around Indian country published the articles. This is unusual. Normally newspapers are anxious to publish articles on local people involved in newsworthy events, especially when they have been working diligently with Bolivian President Evo Morales.
There is a reason to take note of this. In the United States, Indian Nations are financially dependent on gouging out Mother Earth’s liver for coal and power plants and depleting natural resources for other exploitative industries.
The words, “Climate Debt” and “International Climate Court of Justice,” have rattled the cages of the governments and corporate polluters of the world.
U.S. GOV can kill ANYONE including YOU without trial COVERTLY !!
Methods used will be poisoning, road traffic accidents, lethal vaccinations, being shot in the head, being abducted and tortured, disappearance and anyway that makes out it was accidental death thus saving on paperwork and inquiries. U.S. intelligence will covertly asses your behavior and movements then base the assassination around your everyday activities. This law will be abused and no one will know.
Ladies and Gentleman, the U.S. Government has just declared war on the general public.
One million protest against Italy’s austerity cuts
Protesters march against the Italian government’s economic measures in Rome yesterday. Union leader Fulvio Mammoni said: “We say No to this budget. It is wrong, unjust, it stunts growth, it does not kick-start production, it doesn’t touch the rich and it punishes workers.” Photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters
The left-leaning CGIL union called the strike in an effort to force prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government to redraft a €25 billion austerity package he says is an essential part of European efforts to save the currency.
The website of the CGIL, Italy’s largest union, said more than one million people took part in various demonstrations in large and small cities around the country.
Panic brews on Gulf coast under suspicions of oil spill media blackout of threats to public safety
A quiet panic is brewing among residents of Florida’s Gulf coast. People are starved for updates and official information, and the lack of them is accelerating conspiracy theories and rumors of a media blackout. Founded or not, to residents they are quite real.
Unconfirmed reports of evacuations have been circling the internet, along with suggestions that they will never be implemented because the scale is too enormous. Why announce a plan that can’t be carried out? That has led to theories that human life is more expendable than political careers and BP’s public image.
Leader of Deathsquads Wins Colombian Election
Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely identified with high crimes against humanity “won” the recent Presidential elections in Colombia, June 2010. The major electronic and print media CNN, FOX News, Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the once liberal Financial Times (FT) hailed Santos election, as a great victory for democracy. According to the FT, “Colombia not Venezuela is (the) best model for Latin America” (FT 6/23/2010 p. 8). Citing Santos “overwhelming” margin – he garnered 69% of the vote, the FT claimed he won a “strong mandate” (FT 6/22/2010). In what has to be one of the most flagrant cover-ups in recent history, the media accounts exclude the most egregious facts about the elections and the profoundly authoritarian policies pursued by Santos over the past decade.
G20 protesters speak: It was chaos, riot cops fired on women
Dan Dicks and Charlie Veitch, G-20 protesters just back from Toronto, give their on-the-ground view of the battles between police and those opposed to the New World Order
Greeks to stage national strike
In May some 50,000 workers marched in Athens to voice their outrage at austerity cuts.
Thousands of public and private sector workers in Greece are set to stage a nationwide strike protesting austerity measures that include pension cuts.
As the economy continues to spiral downward in much of Europe, the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the Civil Servants’ Confederation (ADEDY), which combined represent 2.5 million workers from both public and private sectors, have rallied tens of thousands of people to take part in the fifth national strike since February in the capital city of Athens and other cities.
Tuesday’s 24-hour walkout is protesting unpopular austerity measures introduced by the Greek government that include a public sector freeze until 2014, reforms to the retirement system and a controversial pension reform.
“These measures won’t help. They will only lead to deeper recession and poverty,” said Despina Spanou, a member of the ADEDY union, as quoted by Deutsche Welle TV.
The general strike on Tuesday takes place on the very same day that the parliament is scheduled to put to vote the controversial pension bill, which raises the retirement age to 65 and slashes early pensions for workers.
[more...]