Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his peaceful new religion. "Austrian National Arrested For Planning Bundestag Attack."
An Austrian national was arrested in Vienna and charged with terrorism. Detectives believe he was planning to crash a plane into the Bundestag, German parliament headquarters in Berlin.
The suspect, 25-year-old Thomas al-J., is a young man who has converted to Islam. He was arrested Wednesday in his apartment in the Austrian capital and has also been accused of recruiting terrorists in order to send them to jihad training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of funding terrorist organizations.....
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[Iran Press TV] Spain's public debt in the first three months of 2011 has risen to 970 billion dollars, the highest level in 13 years, Bank of Spain figures show.
Spain's accumulated public debt amounted to 679.78 billion euros ($970 billion) or 63.6 percent of annual gross domestic product, at the end of March, the central bank data released on Friday showed.
Spanish savings banks' public offerings must go ahead as planned for the financial sector and the country as a whole to recover markets' confidence, Rooters reported the Bank of Spain's deputy governor as saying.
Bank of Spain said on Friday that the banking sector's bad loan rate rose in April to 6.36 percent, the highest since June 1995. The rate had fallen in March for the first time in five months.
According to Bank of Spain, the rate among loans made to real estate promoters stood at a record 15.24 percent.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... unemployment has gone up over 21 percent in the first quarter, the highest rate of joblessness in the industrialized world.
Spain is struggling to recover from nearly two years of recession triggered in large part by the collapse of an overheated real estate sector.
The latest figures come against the backdrop of recent protests against the Spanish political establishment. The protesters recently held days of rallies against their country's political system, calling for fundamental political and economic reforms.
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63.6% of debt vs GDP (most likely much higher since governments fudge)
21% Unemployment
40% Unemployment for youth and college graduates
Population still wanting socialist bennies.
You know, I think it is time for us all to agree we are all fucking broke and bankrupt and zero everything out and stop the welfare train.
However, with most of the population of the world being selfish twats and will riot if they actually have to fucking work for their retirement this won't happen. Let's hear it for global anarchy and war! Starvation and dark ages baby! w00t!!!
[Al Jazeera] Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain to march against the mishandling of the country's economic crisis.
Protesters came out in force throughout the day on Sunday in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville.
If they had gone to work in force they could begin to get their country out of this mess.
The demonstrators have largely concentrated on the "Euro Pact", agreed by euro zone politicians to stimulate competitiveness across the bloc, which has prompted reforms to give Spanish companies greater power to hire and fire.
In Madrid, Spain's capital city, marches began at six locations around the city. One at 6am (0400 GMT) from Leganes, 13km from the city's centre later convened at the Neptune plaza in front of the Prado art museum, a stone's throw from the parliament building, where demonstrators were met by various forms of police resistance, including 12 vans blocking several major roads.
At 1200 GMT, police put estimates in Madrid at between 35,000 and 45,000 protesters, with no reports of violence, according to national radio.
Later on, an estimated 50,000 people in Barcelona shouted, "The street is ours. We are not going to pay for their crisis," as they marched through Spain's second largest city.
Earlier in the day, Barcelona demonstrators posted warnings on the organising group's Facebook page, saying that government infiltrators may try to incite violence in the protests.
'Not our fault'
Demonstrations first began before the May 22 regional elections in response to the perceived failure of politicians to represent the electorate, and activists have taken to the streets regularly since then.
Protester Antonio Cortes, 58, said Spain's workers were being asked to bear the brunt of the financial crisis. ''This crisis was created by the capitalist financial system and we are paying for it. All the cuts shouldn't be aimed at the working class,'' he said.
"I'm here because this is a con," said Juanjo Montiel, 26, one of four blind protesters in Madrid who works in Information Technology for around 1,000 euros a month.
"I'm lucky enough to have a job, but many don't and have no chance. And on top of that, the politicians want to make more cuts. This is not our fault - it's the system."
Protesters call themselves the "indignados", meaning the "indignant" or "outraged".
The politicians of the euro zone's fourth largest economy have worked hard to convince investors the country will not follow Greece, Portugal and Ireland in needing a bailout.
Greece has seen major festivities with police over unpopular austerity measures, and protesters have kept up demonstrations for months, while the president has announced a government restructuring amid calls for stepping down.
Spaniards say that while politicians distance their approach from Greece's, their own worries are being ignored.
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[Al Jazeera] The prime minister of Greece has urged his people to support deeply unpopular austerity reforms in order to avoid a "catastrophic" bankruptcy.
George Papandreou made the appeal in an address to parliament on Sunday, at the beginning of three days of debate leading up to a crucial parliamentary confidence vote on his new cabinet.
Papandreou said the country's problems would not be solved by asking the International Monetary Fund to leave.
He said the country needed to be united on this issue, and called on the opposition to "stop fighting in these critical times, stop sending the image that the country is being torn apart".
"Showing that we are split is not helping us at all," he said.
Opposition calls
Antonis Samaras, the main opposition leader, has called on Papandreou to step down to pave the way for elections and renegotiation of the bailout.
"Why is the government insisting on us supporting the mistake? It does not want consensus but complicity," Samaras said.
The cabinet hopes to push the reforms through by the end of June, but weeks of anti-austerity rallies on the steps of parliament have created political uncertainty and spooked investors who fear public rage may weaken the government's resolve.
Papandreou said the new Greek government would "correct injustices" that he said emerged with the implementation of the bailout deal, adding that he was ready to talk to the opposition regarding the issue of taxes.
He confirmed that the country was in talks for a new bailout package that would be "roughly equal" to the first package of $155bn, which was agreed to in May.
He also called for a referendum to be held in the autumn on constitutional changes.
"We won't pay"
Outside parliament, protests continued for the 29th day against the proposed austerity measures. More than 10,000 people gathered on Sunday, chanting "We won't pay! We won't pay!"
Al Jizz's Tim Friend, reporting from the capital, Athens, said: "The anger is deep and (protesters) resent having to pay the price for the mistakes of others as they see it, the mistakes of banks and financiers."
"The problem for the politicians here is they're being dictated to by the International Monetary Fund and events now taking place elsewhere in Europe with the euro zone finance ministers," our correspondent said.
"They are the ones now calling the shots. The Greeks really are having to simply comply and do what they say."
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Posted by: Fred ||
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See also WAFF > [YouTube] CIA FEARS COUP IN ATHENS | US INTEL CHIEFS DO NOT RULE OUT MARTIAL LAW IN GREECE.
and
* VARIOUS > IMF CHIEF: GREECE DEFAULT THREATENS STABILITY OF EU [EuroZone], GLOBAL ECONOMY.
HMMMM, HMMMMM, iff China decides to use its $$$ surplus to prop up the ailing US + EU, what will it demand in return, espec as per Asia-Pacific Milbases???
#3
Jerry Pournelle emphasizes the key issue with Greece, and with US: Of course no one questions the sanity or morality of those who loaned Greece that much money, or the people who got rich on commissions pushing those loans; but then that could be said of California's debts, too. All kinds of people got rich on California bond sales commissions as we raised $3 billion for Stem Cell Research (at a cost of $6 billion!) for which we have, so far, got nothing, and for which, I suspect, we will never get anything. All kinds of people get rich rolling California's debts around. They got rich losing a good half of the money put into the California pensions funds...
#5
TPTB have too much energy invested in the European Union to allow it to fail. Greece will be kept in, no matter what it takes. Austerity measures will be imposed upon it, so that the Greeks have no future except poverty and emigration.
As the song Hotel California says; "you check out any time you like but you can never leave"
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
