A real crime is being committed over the past months in Europe. Thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries are trying to flee wars that others have caused in their countries and reach Europe in search of a better life. Hundreds of them have been washed up dead on the Greek islands. Although the European governments talk about a “humanitarian crisis” and pretend they take relief measur ...

On Saturday 10 October the far-right movement of Pegida held a rally in Utrecht. Many organizations and groups of the Dutch and international Left and Anarchy decided to demonstrate in order to prevent the fascist poison from spreading. The demonstration was first held at Janskerkhof, then the most determined demonstrators attempted to stop the rally of the fascists. A considerable number of anti-fascists j ...

The Dutch media, the EU officials and the Greek government cheer about a supposed success of austerity policies in Greece. They present that after 4 harsh years, the economy is going back in track and that the state is now functional to support the people. Similar stories flood occasionally the media on other austerity-hit countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland. In the Netherlands, similar austerity ...

Michael Roberts looks at the impact of climate change across the world The world is experiencing extreme weather.  In the US, California’s drought is the worst in 100-years while the East Coast faced a massive snowstorm with freezing temperatures. On the other side of the world, Australia continues to deal with intense summer heat and droughts, causing major bush fires. There has been severe winter flooding ...

Worried by the current crisis affecting the Eurozone and many other parts of the world, we also sometimes feel disempowered by our lack of deeper understanding of the mechanisms that have triggered such devastating developments. Some time back, Allegra started to explore the financial world (here),  the current transformations of Universities (here and here) as well as the power and failures of bureaucracie ...

Source Link from ProAsyl The present report focuses on the barriers to accessing the territory of the European Union for people seeking international protection, and particularly on the prevailing situation at the EU land and sea borders in Greece. It describes and analyzes the fatal consequences of the closing of the land border in the Evros region, which has led to a shift in flight routes to the Aegean s ...

By Magda Stoczkiewicz BRUSSELS - One of the worrying issues that emerged from last week’s European Council in Brussels is the ‘cut red tape’ initiative promoted by UK Prime Minister David Cameron. The proposal, which was welcomed by other EU leaders, is cause for alarm and threatens the protection of European citizens and the environment. The initiative is based on a report prepared by a UK Business Task Fo ...

By Peter Stanford As Roma families are accused of abducting children in Greece and Ireland, we should beware of persecuting an ancient people A Roma girl at a migrants’ encampment near Paris. The Third Reich regarded Roma as racially impure; an estimated one million died in concentration camps Photo: Reuters It is a measure of the sensitivity of a topic that any nomenclature you use risks causing offence. S ...

Almost 60% of experts sitting on the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) panels have direct or indirect links with industries regulated by the agency, according to an independent screening performed by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and freelance journalist Stéphane Horel. The report “Unhappy Meal. The European Food Safety Authority's independence problem”identifies major loopholes in EFSA's indepen ...

After her re-election, Angela Merkel will again propose to the EU that the German economic model — thrift, probity, austerity and a formal partnership between employers and workers — should be the norm for all Europe. But that partnership, once  admired for its fairness, is failing. Now employers revel in local and global inequality. ...