ND Congress - Samaras Talks Development, ERT & Then Suffers Meltdown (VIDEOS)

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told delegates at the New Democracy congress in Athens on Friday night that Greece is going to attract more investments sooner than expected, while he defended his recent decision to shut down the state public broadcaster ERT. Unfrotunately the premier had to interrupt his speech briefly to sit down, shocking all participants, because his unstoppable and relentless schedule over the past few days got the best of him. Other press reports claim that the PM is also suffering from a severe stomach virus.

Buoyed by the confirmation earlier in the day that the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) would pass through Greece, Samaras said that the deal proved that the “prophets of doom” were wrong. The Greek premier noted that gas provider DEPA, whose privatization was abandoned earlier this month, would also be sold soon.

On ERT, Antonis Samaras confessed that the conservative New Democracy and the PASOK party damaged the broadcaster by making political appointments but he emphasized that in either way most of the appointees were leftists. He even said that the decision to shut the TV and radio service down was the only way to deal with its “sinful” past.

      “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs,” he told some 4,000 delegates, adding a warning for ERT employees that continue to broadcast from its headquarters that “sit-ins” would not be tolerated.

Samaras is due to give the closing speech at the congress on Sunday.

   
Speaking about ERT, almost a week after his party pulled out of the ruling coalition following a dispute over Prime Samaras’s unilateral decision to close down ERT, Democratic Left (DIMAR) leader Fotis Kouvelis slammed his former partners and appealed to the broader center-left to bolster his beleaguered party.

In a speech to his party’s central committee on Saturday, and while referring to the ERT closure, and other unilateral decisions by Samaras, the leader of DIMAR accused the Samaras of “despotism,” noting that his tactics had not promoted reform but the opposite. At the same time he indirectly accused PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos of exploiting the ERT debacle for his own party’s gain.

Questioned about Kouvelis in an interview with Sunday’s Kathimerini, veteran socialist and former Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos is rumored to have noted that Kouvelis “proved to be useless in the government and was not even capable of provoking a major political crisis.”

     “Kouvelis and his cadres didn’t want anyone to be fired from the public sector, ever,” Pangalos said. “That was their basic problem.”

Kouvelis called on “reformist, progressive, ecological, leftist and democratic forces” to come together in an alliance that would seek a “democratic and just Greece.” At the same time, he rebuffed speculation about DIMAR cooperating with the main leftist opposition SYRIZA, which he accused of following “dead-end policies”.

(Combined Reports - Kathimerini)

Cypriot Photographers Awarded At Int'l Competition

Cypriot photographers are among some of the most talented photographers on the globe, and were awarded at a recent international photographic competition. The exhibition was organised by The Meeting Point, which is an initiative supported by the Representation of the European Commission in Cyprus and operated by the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR).

According to the Cyprus news agency more than 400 photographs participated in the competition, from countries such as India, Bangladesh, Canada, the U.S., Qatar, Hungary, Finland, U.K. etc., and the Cyprus team stood out. 

Dynastic Power, The Rothschilds, The Rockefellers & Corporatocracy

Dynastic power, embedded in the institution of “family,” has been with humanity for as long as empire: ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, the European empires and beyond. With the rise of capitalism, finance and corporations, formal political dynasties became less relevant to the expansion and maintenance of power and empire. Instead, dynastic power was and remains largely wielded in the corporate and financial sectors.

Andrew Gavin Marshall,
boilingfrogspost.com
In Europe, the Rothschild banking dynasty was the unparalleled family power of the 19th century, and has continued as a major influence in Britain, France and elsewhere well into the 20th and 21st centuries. Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, considered to be the “world’s richest Rothschild today,” told the Israeli publication Ha’aretz in 2010, “We have an obligation to continue the dynasty.” And indeed, the Rothschild banks and family are doing well. It recently decided to bring together the French and British banking assets under one roof, and the dynasty has even been expanding its influence in merchant banking in London. The Rothschild bank was also seeking to extend its presence in the United States, “to take advantage of the growing demand for independent advice from companies globally.”

In the United States, the 19th century saw the rise of multiple corporate and financial dynasties, though the most lasting and still the most influential is the Rockefeller family. Initially through the Standard Oil empire, which was broken up into corporations we now know as ExxonMobil, Chevron and others, Rockefeller influence was prominent in universities (notably the University of Chicago and Harvard), in finance, with Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase), in the creation and maintenance of major foundations (Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund) and in the establishment and leadership of major think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg), all of which created access to political and social power that shaped institutions, ideologies and individuals on a vast scale.

James Wolfensohn, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was formerly president of the World Bank, a long time member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, and a trustee of the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation. Wolfensohn’s father served as an advisor to the Rothschilds and taught the young Wolfensohn how to “cultivate mentors, friends and contacts of influence.” Upon the event of David Rockefeller’s 90th birthday, celebrated at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2005, Wolfensohn described the Rockefeller patriarch as “the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally,” and added: “In fact, it’s fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller’s in the whole issue of globalization.”

In Canada, the Desmarais family, which owns Power Corporation, exists as the country’s most influential dynasty with significant business and family ties to Canada’s political elite. Through their participation, organization and leadership in prominent think tanks and industry associations, the Desmarais have become a powerful influence in shaping not only Canada but the process of globalization itself in recent decades.

There are, of course, parallel corporate and financial dynasties in countries all over the world, such as the Agnellis in Italy, the Wallenbergs in Sweden, and the still-existing monarchs in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and beyond, who despite their “symbolic” political power wield significant financial and corporate influence. It should be no surprise that these powerful financial and corporate dynasties have substantial interaction and integration with one other. Bilderberg meetings act as a forum which very often represents dynastic influence from the Atlantic community, including the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Desmarais, Wallenbergs, Agnellis and the Dutch, Belgian and Spanish monarchies, among others. It should also be no surprise that the two arguably most influential dynasties – Rothschild and Rockefeller – have been steadily increasing their connections, both formal and informal.

In fact, as the Financial Times reported in May of 2012, “Two of the best-known business dynasties in Europe and the US will come together after Lord Jacob Rothschild’s listed investment trust and Rockefeller Financial Services agreed to form a strategic partnership,” with the Rothschild-owned RIT Capital Partners purchasing a 37% stake in the Rockefeller family’s “wealth advisory and asset management group.” This “transatlantic union,” noted the Financial Times, “brings together David Rockefeller, 96, and Lord Rothschild, 76 – two family patriarchs whose personal relationship spans five decades.”

To understand the kind of influence and power we’re talking about, it is helpful to briefly examine the biography — dare we refer to it as a CV — of one of the global patriarchs himself, David Rockefeller. Rockefeller was Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank from 1969 to 1980, after which he remained Chairman of the International Advisory Committee of Chase Manhattan, from 1981 to 1999, and subsequently a member of the International Advisory Council (2000-2005) when the bank merged into JPMorgan Chase.

Rockefeller was a founding member of the Bilderberg Meetings and he still holds an exclusive position on the Steering Committee’s Member Advisory Group. He was the Chairman of Rockefeller Group, Inc. from 1981 to 1995, and Chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, Inc. Trust from 1996 to 2001. David Rockefeller was also a Chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where he remains as an advisory trustee; Chairman and Life Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art; and former Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, from 1970 to 1985, where he remains as Honorary Chairman.

And it doesn’t stop there. The senior Rockefeller is founder of the David Rockefeller Fund; Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago; former President of the Harvard College Board of Overseers; Honorary Chairman of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP); and he was co-founder of the Global Philanthropists Circle. Rockefeller was also the founder and former North American Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, from 1973-1991, and remains Honorary Chairman. He was the founder of the Partnership for New York City, founder and Honorary Chairman of the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas, and he currently sits as Honorary Chairman and Life Trustee and Chairman Emeritus of the Rockefeller University Council. He is an honorary director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The past and present affiliations held by this one individual span the largest bank in the United States, the most prominent national think tank, highly influential transnational think tanks and policy boards, foundations and universities. This one individual has a network of influence that includes: JPMorgan Chase, the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, University of Chicago, Rockefeller University, Harvard, and many other prominent institutions. The fact that he has held – or currently holds – leadership positions in these institutions, and often for several decades, is an example of the significant networks of influence that go far beyond his identity as a “banker” or “former CEO of Chase Manhattan.”

When we place David Rockefeller in the context of his dynastic family’s broad array of institutional engagement, and the power that his past and present family members wield, the influence becomes much greater. Dynastic power again, like class power, should not be confused with “conspiracy theory,” as it does not function as a conspiracy but rather as a network of institutions, corporations, banks, think tanks and foundations with indirect political influence. They are more opportunistic than omnipotent, and are perhaps better thought of not as a few obscure families running the world but more akin to organized crime families – the Mafia – operating on a much larger scale.

Empire does not just happen, nor, for that matter, does “capitalism.” Society is made, constructed, shaped, directed, organized and engineered. Ideas are embedded in institutions, which establish ideologies, indoctrinate individuals and implement objectives. But they are not omnipotent; they must respond to changes in the population, in public opinion and will, in the cultural evolution of humanity, in resistance to war, tyranny, oppression and impoverishment. Institutions and ideologies must adapt to changing circumstances, to technological and cultural developments, or they will become obsolete.

The population, however, must also adapt to a changing environment, technological developments, cultural attitudes, economic and social disasters, and political engagement. The population – the people, both nationally and globally – must work to adapt their thinking, their perspective and their understanding of power, of ideas and institutions, of the way in which society functions and the ways in which it could function.

The purpose of the Global Power Project is to provide a lens through which to view and understand power more directly – not as abstract concepts of “democracy” or “capitalism,” liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic, but as a complex relationship between power and people. This research seeks to identify the individuals and institutions that wield significant power over society, nationally and globally, to help us understand who specifically has shaped and is continuing to shape the world we all live in.

Starting next week, the Global Power Project will reveal extensive research on one or more institutions at a time, selecting them based upon known or perceived influence, and examining the individuals who serve in leadership, board membership and advisory roles at those institutions, answering the questions: what are their backgrounds, what other institutions have they worked for, what other boards do they sit on, what organizations are they members of? And importantly: how is their power connected?

Stay tuned next week, as we find out.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, with a focus on studying the ideas, institutions, and individuals of power and resistance across a wide spectrum of social, political, economic, and historical spheres. He has been published in AlterNet, CounterPunch, Occupy.com, Truth-Out, RoarMag, and a number of other alternative media groups, and regularly does radio, Internet, and television interviews with both alternative and mainstream news outlets. He is Project Manager of The People’s Book Project and has a weekly podcast show with BoilingFrogsPost..

Croatia Joins the European Union

Exactly 99 years ago, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Austrian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. The killing in Sarajevo didn't really start the war in the Balkans, which had been going on for some years as Ottoman control over its over-extended empire collapsed, but it managed to spark a much larger fight across Europe and gave birth to the "short 20th Century." After that ended in 1989-1991, Yugoslavia collapsed for the second time into five and then six and seven countries, hundreds of thousands of people died, and towns were ethnically cleansed before NATO operations brought a tenuous peace. Since then, the countries of the Western Balkans have watched as their neighbors to the north, including former Yugoslav Slovenia, joined the European Union, with all the economic advantages it brings, in 2004, followed by Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.

A few years ago, some optimists in Serbia were hoping to join the EU on the centenary of the assassination. That won't happen, but on Monday, Croatia will become the Union's 28th member in the first enlargement since 2007, before I started my serious study of European political affairs. Enlargement has been Brussels' most effective foreign policy and the accession process is hugely helpful for the European countries still outside the Union. But the policy has looked moribund for a few years, between well-known blockages of candidates Turkey and Macedonia, the EU's extremely serious problems, and the lack of progress on reforms across the region. Today, things are looking up. The EU has just agreed to open accession talks with Serbia, a candidate country since 2011-12, in December or January. It will finally open talks on a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Kosovo, a first step. Even more significantly (since those decisions were based on prior progress) Albania just had a breakthrough election with a peaceful transfer of power to former Tirana mayor Edi Rama and his Socialist Party, a needed solidification of Tirana's democratic credentials which should lead to candidate status.

Croatia will be the last new member for several years, but it must not be the last. During the break-up of Yugoslavia, newly reunified Germany made its first bold unilateral and slightly alarming foreign policy move in recognizing the Western Christian breakaway republics, Slovenia and Croatia, ahead of the rest of the EU and international community. The EU has four Orthodox countries as members, but its signalling about who can belong to Europe has often been daft, for example when it granted visa free travel to everyone in the Balkans except Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo, the three countries with Muslim pluralities. Turkey has been granted candidate status and indeed Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus are granted at least potential candidacy by the Treaty of Rome, which states "Any European State may apply to become a member of the Community." Particularly in a multi-speed European Union, which appears to be destined by developments in the euro crisis response and the Europhobia of the British public, there should be room for any geographically European country which meets the political and economic accession criteria. A revival of the accession process for Turkey is the most effective way outsiders can check the autocratic tendencies of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and support the aspirations of Turks for a democracy that goes deeper than elections. An accession prospect for Ukraine is the only way in the long term to keep Kyiv from slipping into the Eurasian Union which Vladimir Putin is constructing.

Meanwhile in the Western Balkans, tiny Montenegro should lead the pack and Albania is also a relatively straightforward case, both simply need to follow the path to readiness that Croatia took, toughened after many thought Bulgaria and Romania were let in too early. Albania is already a member of NATO (which for the moment also has 28 member states, 22 in common with the EU), which has traditionally come first, Montenegro is likeliest to become NATO's 29th member. Macedonia has been stuck at the starting gate since 2005 over its stupid name dispute with Greece, and it has become more of a basket case, bingeing on the construction of monuments summoning a glorious past rather than reforming for a future in the EU; the name problem must be solved for the country to have a future that is anything but dim. Bosnia and Herzegovina has serious constitutional problems and must transform politically into a more unified state at some point, hopefully peacefully; it will not get into the EU with the present state of affairs. Serbia is the most attractive member in the Western Balkans after Croatia for the EU because of its size and transport opportunities along the Danube Valley and it is also in many ways the most ready in terms of reform; it is also the most repulsive because of its crimes in the 1990s, the persistence of an ugly nationalism, and the Kosovo problem, which has not yet been solved despite progress. Kosovo itself, hobbled by a limbo status of recognition by only half the world, is years behind Serbia in readiness, but they should only join the EU together, with Belgrade along with Madrid, Athens, Bucharest, Bratislava and Nicosia recognizing the full sovereignty of Prishtina. The Germans, thankfully, seem to understand this and they also seem to be leading Brussels' Balkan policy and doing it more responsibly these days. When all six countries have joined the EU, it will be a great accomplishment for the peoples of the region and for Europe as a whole. Until then, congratulations to Croatia.

Oh, and out in the north Atlantic, candidate country Iceland isn't going to join. The euro looks less attractive to them these days and Beijing, interested in increasing its footholds in the Arctic, is waving too much money around.

treinert

Millions of Computers Blocked From Viewing Alternative News Sites

After the initial surge of web traffic to alternative news websites following The Guardian breaking the NSA spying story, traffic has slowed considerably despite the continued interest in the NSA story as well as other alternative headlines. This dramatic drop in traffic may be due to broad censorship by the Department of Defense on "millions of computers".

Eric Blair
Activist Post

What began as a rumor that the military brass was ordering soldiers not to view news about the whistleblower revelations that the NSA is spying on all Americans has swelled into a confirmed military-wide censorship campaign using a high-tech computer filtering system.

The US News and World Report is reporting that the DoD is blocking access to all articles related to the NSA scandal from all DoD computers. The filter reportedly effects millions of computers and potentially thousands of alternative news websites.

According to U.S. News:

    The Department of Defense is blocking online access to news reports about classified National Security Agency documents made public by Edward Snowden. The blackout affects all of the department's computers and is part of a department-wide directive.
    "Any website that runs information that the Department of Defense still considers classified" is affected, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart told U.S. News in a phone interview.
    According to Pickart, news websites that re-report information first published by The Guardian or other primary sources are also affected.
    "If that particular website runs an article that our filters determine has classified information... the particular content on that website will remain inaccessible," he said.
    Pickart said the blackout affects "millions" of computers on "all Department of Defense networks and systems."

This is perhaps one of the most shocking display of blatant censorship in the history of the United States. The idea that classified information should still be treated as "off limits" to regular military personnel after its broad release to the public makes no sense.

Unless, of course, they don't want soldiers learning the truth about what their government is doing for fear that they may recognize who the true enemies of the Constitution are. Or this may simply be a beta test of the government's technical capability to filter Internet traffic away from certain news stories and the websites that carry them.

In either case, this should be a HUGE story in itself.  Draconian Internet censorship has finally arrived in a big way.

Deep-Fried Food Associated with Prostate Cancer

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Regular consumption of deep-fried foods such as French fries, fried chicken and doughnuts is associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer, and the effect appears to be slightly stronger with regard to more aggressive forms of the disease, according to a study by investigators at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Corresponding author Janet L. Stanford, Ph.D., and colleagues Marni Stott-Miller, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow and Marian Neuhouser, Ph.D., all of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division, have published their findings online in The Prostate.

While previous studies have suggested that eating foods made with high-heat cooking methods, such as grilled meats, may increase the risk of prostate cancer, this is the first study to examine the addition of deep frying to the equation.

From French fries to doughnuts: Eating more than once a week may raise risk

Specifically, Stanford, co-director of the Hutchinson Center's Program in Prostate Cancer Research, and colleagues found that men who reported eating French fries, fried chicken, fried fish and/or doughnuts at least once a week were at an increased risk of prostate cancer as compared to men who said they ate such foods less than once a month.

In particular, men who ate one or more of these foods at least weekly had an increased risk of prostate cancer that ranged from 30 to 37 percent. Weekly consumption of these foods was associated also with a slightly greater risk of more aggressive prostate cancer. The researchers controlled for factors such as age, race, family history of prostate cancer, body-mass index and PSA screening history when calculating the association between eating deep-fried foods and prostate cancer risk.

Deep frying may trigger formation of carcinogens in food

Possible mechanisms behind the increased cancer risk, Stanford hypothesizes, include the fact that when oil is heated to temperatures suitable for deep frying, potentially carcinogenic compounds can form in the fried food. They include acrylamide (found in carbohydrate-rich foods such as French fries), heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (chemicals formed when meat is cooked at high temperatures), aldehyde (an organic compound found in perfume) and acrolein (a chemical found in herbicides). These toxic compounds are increased with re-use of oil and increased length of frying time.

Foods cooked with high heat also contain high levels of advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs, which have been associated with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. Deep-fried foods are among the highest in AGE content. A chicken breast deep fried for 20 minutes contains more than nine times the amount of AGEs as a chicken breast boiled for an hour, for example.

For the study, Stanford and colleagues analyzed data from two prior population-based case-control studies involving a total of 1,549 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,492 age-matched healthy controls. The men were Caucasian and African-American Seattle-area residents and ranged in age from 35 to 74 years. Participants were asked to fill out a dietary questionnaire about their usual food intake, including specific deep-fried foods.