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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions

Posted by RockParkMan on Sun Mar 24 08:09:53 2013, in response to (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Mar 24 02:28:12 2013.

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(EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by German CONSERVATIVES' decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pen

Posted by RockParkMan on Sun Mar 24 08:12:53 2013, in response to (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Mar 24 02:28:12 2013.

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Mar 31 14:44:53 2013, in response to (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by German CONSERVATIVES' decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pen, posted by RockParkMan on Sun Mar 24 08:12:53 2013.

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(EUEUEUEUEU) France becoming crueler to gays

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Mar 31 14:49:35 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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Homophobia in France: Homeless for being gay

By Charlotte Boitiaux / Rachel Holman
Latest update: 31/03/2013

Two years ago, Antoine was forced to leave his home in a town in the northern French region of Picardy after coming out as gay. He was 17 at the time. The young man remembers the night when his stepfather looked at his mother, and gave her the ultimatum, “It’s him or me”.

At the time, Antoine (not his real name) did not see his stepfather’s words as a reason for concern. Up until then, everything at home was “going well”. "What’s more", Antoine said, “They had been seeing each other for barely three months, and I was her son.”

But the revelation that Antoine was gay came as an unwelcome shock to his parents. Although the young man had always known that he was gay, he had taken pains to hide it, explaining that in Picardy “people are not as forward-thinking as they are in [the capital] Paris”.

“It was better to hide the fact that you were gay,” Antoine said, “because it wouldn’t have been well viewed”.

From the moment his mother confided in her partner that her son was gay, though, everything changed.

“My stepfather wouldn’t speak to me anymore, the atmosphere became very strained,” Antoine said. His daily interactions with his mother’s companion were peppered with insults, whether it was during a cigarette break or at the dinner table.

“One day, I touched his fork. He yelled ‘Don’t touch that!’ as though I were contagious,” remembered Antoine. “There were lots of other insults. Lots...”

Then, one morning, the young man’s mother made up her mind. Antoine had to go.

“As time passed, I realised that my days at home were numbered,” he said, explaining that somehow, he had known for some time that he would be the one to leave, and not his stepfather. “The worst part of it all was that I have two younger brothers who I knew I would never see again.”

Cries for help amid debate over same-sex marriage

Since a bill legalising same-sex marriage and adoption in France was introduced last year, organisations like SOS Homophobie and Le Refuge, which provide support to victims of homophobia, have noticed a significant hike in cries for help from young people like Antoine.

According to SOS Homophobie’s president, Elisabeth Ronzier, the organisation has received a 30 percent increase in calls during the year 2012 – a number she said has only continued to grow since the beginning of 2013.

“During the debate we received calls from people who told us they just couldn’t take it anymore, but then we also got calls from people who had never been victims of homophobia before in their lives because they had always been accepted by their communities. The debate was the first time they had ever felt it,” Ronzier told FRANCE 24.

Le Refuge, which gives housing to victims of homophobia between the ages of 18 and 25 who have been kicked out of their homes, has experienced a similar influx of demand for their services. Clio Léonard, who runs the organisation’s programme in Paris, said that they received 200 calls in the month of December alone, or six times the monthly average.

“In Paris, we have 21 places and they’ve always been full, but we now have a waitlist for the first time,” Léonard told France 24.

‘I didn’t know where to go’

Like so many of those who have called SOS Homophobie or Le Refuge in recent months, Antoine said he too just couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t imagine that his situation could possibly get any worse.

After being forced from his mother’s home, Antoine headed to Paris where he said he discovered “a little earlier than most,” the harsh realities of living on your own. There was finding a place to stay, food to purchase and rent to pay... After struggling to get by for several months, the young man decided to turn to his father, who also lived in Picardy.

“He welcomed me with open arms,” Antoine remembered. The transition to living with his father went smoothly, and Antoine began to take comfort in the thought that the worst was behind him. Then, suddenly, it all came crashing down around him.

“One day, I was on the phone with my boyfriend when my father interrupted our conversation,” Antoine said. The young man tried in vain to explain the situation, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, Antoine remembered him shouting, “You have five minutes to get your things and get out!”

Another door slammed in his face, Antoine found himself in the streets once again.

“I had to sleep outside, it was really hard. I didn’t know where to go,” he said.

A slow recovery

The young man turned to his boyfriend, Tim (not his real name), who entreated him to return to Paris where he was staying at one of Le Refuge’s sites. By “complete chance”, the organisation had an extra space free at an apartment in the city’s central 2nd arrondissement, where Tim just happened to be living.

After all he had lived through in recent months, however, Antoine was severely depressed.

“I thought about committing suicide. It’s true, I just couldn’t do it anymore,” the young man said. “If I didn’t have my boyfriend at my side, I wouldn’t be here anymore.”

While Antoine, who is still living at Le Refuge, knows that the organisation is only a temporary solution for now, he sees it as key to his survival.

“Things are going a little bit better these days even if, paradoxically, I miss my mom and my brother the most now,” he said. “I will not go back, but I’ve learned to forgive. I am no longer angry with my family or society. It’s the way things are. Anger has never helped anyone move forward.”

When speaking of the future, Antoine expressed hope about the upcoming vote on same-sex marriage and adoption, which is due to go to the Senate floor on April 4.

“The law on same-sex marriage is a good thing,” he said. “One day I would like to get married too. And have children. My boyfriend and I joke around about it, but I would really like to.”

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) France becoming crueler to gays

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) France becoming crueler to gays

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions

Posted by orange blossom special on Mon Apr 1 17:47:42 2013, in response to (EUEUEUEUEU) Israel angered by Germany's decision to cut off Jewish ghetto laborers' pensions, posted by Olog-hai on Sun Mar 24 02:28:12 2013.

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EUEUEUEUEU putting millions of euros into groups calling for state control of the press

Posted by Olog-hai on Fri Apr 19 08:21:53 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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EU pours millions into groups seeking state control of press

By Andrew Gilligan
8:30AM BST 14 Apr 2013

The European Union is quietly pouring millions of pounds into initiatives and groups seeking state-backed regulation of the press, including key allies of the controversial Hacked Off campaign.

Angered by the British media’s coverage of Brussels, the European Commission says it wants to be a “moral compass” against press misconduct, seeking new national and Europe-wide regulatory powers over journalists.

The EU has spent £2.3 million (US$3.5 million) on the previously unpublicized “Mediadem” project to “reclaim a free and independent media”. In a “policy brief” co-authored by its lead British researcher, Rachael Craufurd Smith, Mediadem says it is “simplistic” to “see state influence [over the press] as inherently stifling”.

Dr. Craufurd Smith, an Edinburgh University academic, said that it was also “simplistic” to believe that “market-driven media” were now “free and independent”.

Mediadem recently produced “recommendations for the UK” demanding the “imposition of sanctions beyond an apology or correction” on errant media outlets and the “co-ordination of the journalistic profession at the European level”.

The recommendations call for the press to be controlled by the same body and on the same basis as broadcasters, who are currently tightly regulated with statutory “balance” obligations that do not apply to newspapers.

Mediadem’s report pays tribute to the part played in its work by the Media Standards Trust and the Coordinating Committee for Media Reform (CCMR), the two key constituents of Hacked Off, whose late-night “deal” with politicians for a regulated press has sparked a fierce backlash among organisations campaigning for free speech.

CCMR, run by Left-wing academics at Goldsmith’s College, London, believes that concerns about the media “should not be confined only to individual abuses” and regulation should not simply be about the “social-worker mediation of grievances”.

The group wants a new media regulator to correct the “national conversation” which it says has been “distorted” by right-wing newspapers and to change the “terms of public debate” by “imposing public-service duties” on the press. Hacked Off is closely intertwined with CCMR. Prof. Natalie Fenton, one of Hacked Off’s directors and spokesmen, is a key figure in CCMR and the book about the media written by its co-founder and former chair, Prof. James Curran, is described as “the Bible” by Brian Cathcart, Hacked Off’s executive director.

Writing on the “New Left Project” website, Prof. Fenton attacked the “excessively liberalized press” and the “naïve pluralism” of “assuming that the more news we have, the more democratic our societies are”.

Mediadem closely follows CCMR’s interventionist agenda. In the policy brief co-authored by Dr Craufurd Smith, it said: “Liberal conceptions of media freedom focus on editorial freedom for government interference.... [however] states may also be required to take positive measures to curtail the influence of powerful economic or political groups.... this entails that neither the media, nor those individuals who own or work for the media, enjoy an absolute right to freedom of expression.”

Asked whether the Mediadem initiative had been prompted by the EU’s belief that the press treats it unfairly, Dr. Craufurd Smith said: “I think there might be an element of that. Citizens have a new expectation to obtain reliable information about what’s going on in Europe.”

She said that Mediadem’s recommendations were about “helping to protect the press from inappropriate commercial pressures and potential political pressures”. “People should not see this as being a threat.”

Dr. Craufurd Smith said that discussions with the Media Standards Trust and CCMR had helped to inform Mediadem’s conclusions. A Hacked Off director, Professor Steven Barnett, was at the Brussels meeting in February where Mediadem launched its recommendations.

Mediadem is only one of at least five concerted and coordinated initiatives being pursued by Brussels to increase its powers over the media dramatically. Another EU programme, MediaAcT, has channelled about £100,000 of European cash directly to a key Hacked Off ally, the Mediawise campaign group.

Mediawise was created by Clive Soley, the then Labour MP, who was one of the first politicians in the recent era to attempt to introduce state regulation of the press. It advises victims of media abuse and campaigns for regulation. Its EU money does not appear in its published accounts, but the grant and its amount was confirmed by Mediawise’s director, Mike Jempson, a lecturer at the University of the West of England. “The money is paid via the university, where we are based,” he said. The EU payments appear to account for almost all of Mediawise’s recent income.

Mr. Jempson says his group is “associated with” Hacked Off and he writes on its website, most recently on March 20, two days after Hacked Off’s “deal” to establish a new state-backed press regulator under a royal charter.

MediaAcT is calling for the kind of “media accountability” favored by Hacked Off and other such groups. In one of its papers, “Mapping media accountability in Europe and beyond,” Mr. Jempson calls for press regulation on the grounds that it will “ensure that minority views and voices are heard”.

The actor Hugh Grant, a director and prominent supporter of Hacked Off, has been closely involved in EU-backed press regulation initiatives. Last June he spoke at an event in Brussels organized by the “Center for Media Freedom and Media Pluralism,” a third new EU-funded project for “media accountability” established last year and based at the European University Institute in Florence. His fellow Hacked Off director, Prof Barnett, was on the event’s advisory committee and is a regular attendee at the center’s meetings and summer school in Italy.

The EU media regulation initiatives are being led by Neelie Kroes, the vice-president of the European Commission.

Mr. Grant said: “I had a very useful meeting with Ms. Kroes. I think there is an appetite to do something about it [media regulation] and I think the EU is potentially uniquely placed to do something about this because many member state governments are effectively captured by the media. The EU is perhaps less biddable and we have more chance of getting something done at this level.”

Last month, Prof. Barnett and Mr. Grant were due to speak at the launch in the House of Lords of a fourth EU-related project, a “European Initiative for Media Pluralism” calling for tighter pan-European media regulation.

A fifth EU initiative, the “High Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism”, recently delivered a report to Ms. Kroes, calling for “a more extensive competence of the EU” in the field of media regulation. All EU countries, the report said, should be forced to have “media councils” exercising draconian controls over the press, including the power to ban people from working as journalists.

The “media councils,” the report said, should have “real enforcement powers, such as the imposition of fines, orders for printed or broadcast apologies, or removal of journalistic status”. They should “follow a set of European-wide standards” and be “monitored by the commission to ensure that they comply with European values”.

Ms. Kroes’s spokesman, Ryan Heath, said the report showed that the commission should act as a “moral compass” on good journalistic practice. “We need to take decisive action to ensure the freedom and pluralism of our media in future,” he said. The commission has now launched a consultation on whether to implement the proposals in the report.

The report was co-authored by Ben Hammersley, who holds an official Government appointment as the Prime Minister’s “ambassador to Tech City”, the new media and technology cluster around the so-called “Silicon Roundabout” in East London.

Mr. Hammersley is closely connected to Goldsmiths College, home base of the Coordinating Committee for Media Reform. He is “innovator in residence” at Goldsmiths’ Center for Creative and Social Technologies, a cross-disciplinary center at the college that covers courses in journalism.

Hacked Off said last night that it had not received money from the EU. However, the Media Standards Trust has received money from the EU’s European Social Fund for a study into local news.

The Media Standards Trust is also closely connected to a charity for training “future leaders” called Common Purpose, accused by its opponents of being a political front for pro-Brussels values, which it denies. Common Purpose was paid at least £1.4 million (US$2.2 million) in EU grants in 2011, according to the EU financial transparency system database.

“The proposals emanating from Brussels make the Leveson Inquiry look like a Sunday afternoon picnic,” said the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage. “The EU’s attempts to win positive coverage by state regulation is reminiscent of the days of Soviet Russia.”

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(EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Apr 27 03:29:52 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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Upstart Grillo demands 'German invasion' of Italy

Published: 23 Apr 13 12:55 CET

Italian protest party leader Beppe Grillo on Tuesday said he wanted a "German invasion" of Italy to ensure "honest, competent" politicians.

"In our parliaments there are still 30 MPs who have been convicted of serious offenses. I'd also like honest, competent and professional people in the right positions," Grillo, 64, told Bild newspaper.

"In this respect, I would be glad about a German invasion of Italy," the ex-comedian quipped.

Grillo, who leads the anti-establishment Five Star Movement party, has shaken up Italian politics after winning a quarter of the vote in February elections.

Sparring politicians in the recession-ravaged country have been at loggerheads for two months since the vote that left no clear winner and revealed growing social unease.

Grillo is seen as a guru-like figure by his supporters but has been heavily criticized for populist rhetoric and a brash style against dissidents within his own movement.

He has in the past also had harsh words for Germany, accusing the country of getting rich at the expense of Italy and other eurozone members.

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Fascist Beppe Grillo wants Germany to invade Italy

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Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Germany could spark another war . . .

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun Apr 28 01:41:45 2013, in response to Re: (EUEUEUEUEU) Germany could spark another war . . ., posted by RockParkMan on Sun Mar 17 17:12:04 2013.

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EUEUEUEUEU predicts Eurozone recession will continue through 2013 (and even 2014)

Posted by Olog-hai on Fri May 3 10:50:58 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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May 3, 2013 10:30 AM EDT

EU predicts eurozone recession to continue in 2013

By Raf Casert
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe will take longer to recover from its economic crisis as it tackles a worse-than-expected recession in the eurozone and unemployment at record levels, the European Union warned Friday.

In its spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 member countries that use the euro will shrink by 0.4 percent this year, better than the 0.6 percent contraction in 2012 but 0.1 percentage points worse than the EU had forecast back in February.

The report also had bad news for the wider 27-country EU: it now expects the region's economy to shrink by 0.1 percent in 2013, against a forecast of 0.1 percent growth in February.

"Grappling with the aftermath of a profound financial and economic crisis, the EU economy is set to pick up speed only very slowly in the course of this year," the report said.

The grim outlook even forced EU Commissioner Olli Rehn to raise the specter that France, the bloc's second biggest economy, may be given two extra years to bring its deficit within the target 3 percent of gross domestic product needed for a sustainable future.

With a population of more than half a billion people, the EU is world's largest export market. If the region's economy remains stuck in reverse, order books for companies in the U.S. and Asia will be hit. Last week, U.S.-based Ford Motor Co. lost $462 million in Europe and called the outlook there "uncertain," although the company's global earnings rose 15 percent to $1.6 billion.

After the eurozone crisis over too much debt broke in late 2009, the region's governments slashed spending and raised taxes — either to meet conditions for bailout loans, or to reassure jittery bond markets. But austerity has also inflicted severe economic pain. Slashing spending and raising taxes have proved to be less effective at reducing deficits than initially thought. As economies shrink, so do their tax revenues, potentially making it harder to close budget gaps.

The impact of the eurozone's austerity measures and recession are being felt even in the region's more prosperous countries. The EU report forecasts GDP growth in Germany, Europe's largest economy, will fall from 0.7 percent in 2102 to 0.4 percent this year as demand from other parts of Europe falls. France, meanwhile, is expected to fall into negative territory in 2013, with GDP dropping 0.1 percent.

Against such a depressing background, Rehn chided France for the "persistent deterioration of French competitiveness" and called for "substantial structural reforms in the labor market."

Instead of moving toward a safe 3 percent deficit, France is forecast to have a deficit of 3.9 percent this year and 4.2 percent next year. The French government said that new legislation is already in the pipeline to cut spending and increase the fight against fiscal fraud to bring its deficit down.

Indications that the eurozone's economy is getting no better could force the European Central Bank into further action. The ECB cut its benchmark interest rate a quarter-point Thursday to a record low of 0.50 percent. Speaking to reporters after the ECB's policy-setting meeting Thursday, bank President Mario Draghi said that the bank was prepared to flex its muscles further, saying it stood "ready to act if needed." But Draghi also implored Europe's governments to do more to stimulate economic growth and, in doing so, generate jobs.

Unemployment across the eurozone is expected to hit an average of 12.2 percent this year, up from 11.4 percent in 2012. In both Greece and Spain it is expected to peak at 27 percent.

Rehn said that "in view of the protracted recession, we must do whatever it takes to overcome the unemployment crisis."

There are currently 19.2 million people out of work in the eurozone, leaving EU leaders with an uphill battle to turn the economy around while making sure the population continues to back the austerity measures aimed at whipping public finances back in shape.

Rehn insisted that after the 2012 recession, GDP growth is expected to start picking up again in the second half of 2013. He added that, under the assumption of unchanged policies, GDP would even rise by 1.2 percent in 2014.

But overall, the news remained bleak as the report said that "the recovery of economic activity is expected to be too slow to reduce joblessness."

Not much improvement in unemployment is expected in 2014 and "differences across member states are expected to remain very large."

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Re: EUEUEUEUEU predicts Eurozone recession will continue through 2013 (and even 2014)

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Re: EUEUEUEUEU predicts Eurozone recession will continue through 2013 (and even 2014)

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Re: EUEUEUEUEU predicts Eurozone recession will continue through 2013 (and even 2014)

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(EUEUEUEUEU) New bio alleges Merkel's closeness to East German communism

Posted by Olog-hai on Tue May 14 16:18:06 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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New Biography Causes Stir: How Close Was Merkel to the Communist System?

May 14, 2013 – 04:04 PM

A biography focusing on Chancellor Angela Merkel's time growing up in East Germany is making headlines because it suggests she was closer to the communist system than hitherto known. Her spokesman has denied she has covered anything up.

A new biography covering Chancellor Angela Merkel's life in East Germany has caused a stir by suggesting she was closer to the communist apparatus and its ideology than previously thought.

Published this week and written by journalists Günther Lachmann and Ralf Georg Reuth, the book quotes Gunter Walther, a former colleague of hers at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin, as saying she had been secretary for "Agitation and Propaganda" in the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) youth organization at the institute. Merkel, a trained physicist, worked at the academy from 1978 until 1989.

Excerpts from the book, "The First Life of Angela M.," were published in the newsmagazine Focus on Monday. The mass-circulation Bild newspaper has also given the book prominent coverage in recent days.

The book explores Merkel's life growing up in German Democratic Republic (GDR), where her father Horst Kasner was a Protestant pastor and a committed socialist. He moved to East Germany from West Germany in 1954.

Merkel has said in the past that her FDJ role at the academy was more that of a cultural secretary and that her duties included buying theater tickets and organizing book readings.

'Closeness to the System'

But former German Transport Minister Günther Krause — an eastern German politician who worked with her in the final months of the GDR and as a fellow minister in the government ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl in the early 1990s — contradicts her in the book and says she propagated Marxism-Leninism.

"With Agitation and Propaganda you're responsible for brainwashing in the sense of Marxism," he said. "That was her task and that wasn't cultural work. Agitation and Propaganda, that was the group that was meant to fill people's brains with everything you were supposed to believe in the GDR, with all the ideological tricks. And what annoys me about this woman is simply the fact that she doesn't admit to a closeness to the system in the GDR. From a scientific standpoint she wasn't indispensable at the Academy of Sciences. But she was useful as a pastor's daughter in terms of Marxism-Leninism. And she's denying that. But it's the truth."

On Sunday evening, Merkel said she hadn't covered up anything about her past. "I can only rely on my memory," she said at a public screening of her favorite movie, a popular love film made in East Germany, on Sunday night. "If something turns out to be different, I can live with that."

Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, denied on Monday that the chancellor had ever covered up political aspects of her life in East Germany. "The chancellor has been making statements about her life in the GDR for years in books and interviews," he said. "She always answered questions openly and based on her honest memories."

The book adds that Merkel and her father refused all attempts by the Ministry for State Security or Stasi, the feared secret police, to recruit them as informants.

A Latecomer to the East German Reform Movement

Merkel, who speaks good Russian, was well informed about Perestroika and the distancing of the Soviet government from the East German regime, the book says. She read Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's speeches in the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, and made contacts with East German reform groups only a few months before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.

The book says she and her father and brother Marcus discussed political developments with other people on September 1989. For them, the biography says, German unification was still inconceivable at that point "not just because it wouldn't have fitted into the bipolar world but because they strictly rejected the Western system of society."

It quotes Merkel as having said at the time: "If we reform the GDR, it won't be in terms of the Federal Republic."

Merkel's political ascent after that is well documented. She joined the opposition political movement Demokratischer Aufbruch (Democratic Awakening) in December 1989, became deputy spokeswoman of the democratically elected transitional East German government after the May 1990 election and joined the staunchly conservative Christian Democratic Union party in 1990s — a surprising move given her apparent previous political leanings.

'Not Many Know What She's Really Thinking'

The chancellor at the time, Helmut Kohl, spotted her potential and made her family affairs minister in his cabinet after the November 1990 German election. The rest is history.

"Only Angela Merkel herself can answer how much of her old life is still in her," Focus magazine wrote.

Her past may have contributed to making her inscrutable. Focus quotes Werner Schulz, a member of the European Parliament for the Greens who grew up in East Germany, as saying: "Her secrecy is a legacy of the GDR, I think. At the time you had to be careful about blurting out your opinions without thinking first. (…) Even today not many people know what she's really thinking."

In power since 2005, Merkel is running for a third term in a September general election. She is widely expected to win. Her inscrutability and political shrewdness are legendary. She has sidelined every potential rival in the male-dominated, largely Catholic CDU. There's no obvious successor to her in her party and she's far more popular than her challenger from the center-left Social Democratic Party, Peer Steinbrück.

Critic: Book Spreads Spurious Conspiracy Theory

According to Spiegel journalist Stefan Berg, the book hasn't really shed any new light on the first 35 years of Merkel's life. Instead, he writes, it has thrown a fresh veil over it — a veil of supposed conspiracy. "A disproportionate amount of mistrust runs through this book," writes Berg, who was born in East Berlin in 1964. "While Merkel's own declarations are eagerly called into question, intelligence reports are taken at face value and Socialist phrases are taken more seriously than they were in GDR times."

The book makes the "perfidious" suggestion that secret powers aided Merkel's path into politics, that she is some kind of Soviet plant, writes Berg.

"Those who lived in the GDR can recall that everything was in disarray in the autumn of 1989, when careeers ended and new ones opened up — a lot of it by chance, unintended, surprising. But coincidence is the enemy of journalists who — firstly — weren't there and — secondly — often see spies or other concealed forces at work. When they find no clues or can't interpret the clues they find, they see that as further evidence of their theory."

The book, writes Berg, paints a scenario in which "only naïve people can believe that Merkel wasn't steered by unknown forces." In fact, it doesn't present significant new facts, he adds.

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EUEUEUEUEU to ban glass olive oil jugs at restaurant tables, to "protect customers"

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat May 18 01:09:49 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants

By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
5:52PM BST 17 May 2013

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain's top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers.

The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week.

From next year, olive oil "presented at a restaurant table" must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in line with EU industrial standards.

The use of classic refillable glass jugs or glazed terracotta dipping bowls, and the choice of a restaurateur to buy olive oil from a small artisan producer or family business, will be outlawed.

Sam Clark, the food writer, chef and proprietor of the award winning Moro restaurant in London, told The Daily Telegraph that the ban would stop him serving his customers specially selected Spanish olive oil in dipping bowls with bread when they are seated at their table. "This will affect us. It is about choice and freedom of choice. We buy our oil, which we have selected from a farm in Spain, to serve our customers," he said. "Yet more packaging is not going to be eco-friendly and will limit choice to more mass produced products."

Clark attacked the regulation as one that would kill off artisan producers and accelerate the demise in Europe of traditional ways of making and serving food in favor of large industrial producers. "It is very upsetting. Haven't they already done enough damage to artisan products?" he said.

The European Commission's justification for the ban, under special Common Agriculture Policy regulations, is "hygiene" and to protect the "image of olive oil" with a measure that will benefit struggling industrial producers in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

From the beginning of next year, Britain, which abstained during a vote of national food experts on the issues on Tuesday, must enforce the ban via local authority food inspections of restaurants.

Officials defended the ban as a protection for consumers who would know that they were getting a safe, guaranteed product with proper labeling of its origin and with tamper-proof, hygienic dispensers. "This is to guarantee the quality and authenticity of the olive oil put at the disposal of consumers. The aim is to better inform and protect consumer. We also expect hygiene to be improved too," said an official.

The idea that restaurant customers, who want to eat olive oil with their bread or to dress their food, could not distinguish between a fake product and the real thing was dismissed as patronizing by Clark. "Customers aren't stupid — they would be the first to know if someone was being dishonest," he said.

The decision, which will be automatically adopted by the commission in next few days, has dismayed many officials who are concerned that a ban crafted to help industry will damage the reputation of the EU at a time of growing hostility to Brussels bureaucrats.

"This is sort of thing that gets the EU a deservedly bad name. I shouldn't say so, but I hope people disobey this ban," said an official. "It will seem bonkers that olive oil jugs must go while vinegar bottles or refillable wine jugs can stay."

Responding to the ban, Martin Callanan MEP, the leader of the European Conservative and Reformist group, asked: "Is it April 1^st? With the euro crisis, a collapse in confidence in the EU, and a faltering economy surely the commission has more important things to worry about than banning refillable olive oil bottles? They should be seeking to reduce unnecessary packaging."

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EUEUEUEUEU is utterly anti-Israel and working to dismantle the Jewish state

Posted by Olog-hai on Sun May 19 13:48:25 2013, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.

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How Did 150,000,000 Europeans Come to Hate Israel?

George Orwell, in "1984", described the “Two Minute Hate”. It has come to pass — against Jews.

By Giulio Meotti
Published: Friday, May 17, 2013 8:44 AM

“The Jewish religion is under attack in Europe”, declared the Conference of European Rabbis president Pinchas Goldschmidt. Many polls (such as the study on behalf of the German Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation) bring an iconic number measuring the disaster: 150,000,000 Europeans have a delegitimizing and demonizing view of the State of Israel and its citizens.

For a large sector of Europe, the cities, skyscrapers, hospitals, cinemas, and schools on that tiny sliver of land named "Israel" are merely real estate that will be restored to Islam once this malefic Jewish form is swept away.

This is a popular mobilization against Israel in the “Raus mit Uns” spirit. 150,000,000 Western citizens believe that Zionism is a misconceived project to be brought to an end as soon as possible. It is the consequence of the Palestinian-Islamic psychological war (note: the European Union has just contributed €20 million to the payment of salaries and pensions for April of nearly 76,000 Palestinian Arabs).

See what happened to Europe’s Jews in little more than a week.

In Hungary, where Adolf Eichmann obsessively hunted down all the Jews, a wave of fascist Judeophobia is poisoning the social cohesion and the head of the Raoul Wallenberg Association was injured in anti-Semitic attack.

A Labour Party member in the UK, Nazir Ahmed, resigned after anti-Jewish remarks made on television.

A scientific genius, Stephen Hawking, embraced the racist boycott of the State of Israel.

The BBC planned a “documentary” claiming that the Jewish exodus from Jerusalem was a myth.

Dozens of French mayors rallied for the liberation of the Palestinian terrorists.

A Scottish Christian document erased the Jewish links with to the holy land.

In the French town of Villeurbanne, a rabbi and his son were stabbed.

It was an ordinary week of anti-Semitism in Europe.

The threat against Israel’s existence has become strategic in Rome, Berlin, London, Paris, Budapest, Amsterdam and Stockholm. Indiscriminate hatred against the Jews pervades European parliaments as much as in the Muslim madrassas. The call for Israel’s destruction echoes through Europe’s schools and mosques, textbooks and newspapers, TV series and pseudo-“documentaries”.

It is today's greatest manipulation of opinion, of the kind immortalized by George Orwell in 1984 as a “Two Minute Hate”: Europe’s publicists, civil servants and educators incite violence directly when they describe Jews as “bloodsuckers”, “colonialists”, and many similar epithets. One step at a time, Europe is subverting the legitimacy of the Jewish people once again.

I have always felt an affinity with European intellectuals. But, it is with pain and surprise that I witness, one lifetime after Hitler’s Holocaust, the willingness of all too many to collaborate in the monstrification of the Jews. This is how Europe built an anti-Semitic public opinion of 150,000,000. This is how Israel has become an expendable myth among the European educated classes.

"Peace" can come only with the recognition in the Middle East of Israel as a national state of the Jewish people; the addition of the State of Israel to all the maps used in schools in the Islamic world; the elimination of the extensive anti-Israeli propaganda campaigns in the Muslim media and schools; the promotion of interactions among scientists, scholars, artists, and athletes; the abandoning of the delegitimization of Israel at the United Nations; the outlawing of terrorist groups devoted to the killing of Israelis and the destruction of Israel; the end of the economic boycott against Israel; the institution of full diplomatic relations with Jerusalem as Israel’s indivisible capital; and last but not least, the proclamation of theological fatwas prohibiting the murder of "infidels".

Europe is working hard to prevent all these necessary steps.

Because according to Europe’s mainstream, “peace” will prevail when Israel is dismantled, just like tranquility will prevail in the “Holy Land” when Zionism has been eliminated.

Europe is witnessing the creation of a majority according to which Israel is a superpower with extraordinary military power and wealth and is a committed and merciless enemy of humanity.

Europe’s public opinion has been persuaded to believe that Israel is a state that ought to be dismantled forthwith. Europe's population count today is 730,000,000 citizens. What would happen if the anti-Semitic worm infected the mind of all of them?

Can Israel really remain immune from that eruption of psychotic anti-Jewish illness?

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