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Greece: a (basket) case study in savage globalization

As Greeks look inward, they see a country that produces nothing of value and is inferior to the rest of the world - despite evidence to the contrary. The country has been mentally colonized, with outside powers convincing the Greeks that they can do no better. by Michael Nevradakis Part 1 Oscar López Rivera, the Puerto Rican activist, and advocate for independence whose 70-year prison sentence was commuted earlier this year, resulting in his release after serving 35 years, once had this to say about patriotism and colonialism: “ To love the homeland costs nothing, what would be costly is if we lose it… As Puerto Ricans we have to accept the fact Puerto Rico is a colony… If we accept this truth then we must be ready and prepared to kickstart a decolonization process. ” For Rivera, this process begins with the decolonization of the mind: “ Let’s face the problem of our colonial status. Let’s work to find a solution for it. Let’s decolonize our minds

The rise of the "megafarm": How British meat is made

Part 2 - High demand for low-cost meat The rise in intensive farming has been fuelled by Britain’s demand for cheap meat, especially chicken. Close to a billion birds are slaughtered each year, almost all of them intensively-farmed. The majority of the UK’s megafarms are poultry units. Growing free-range and organic chickens requires a lot of space - about four square metres per animal for organic birds. Intensive farms typically have about 15 chickens per square metre, or an area about the size of an A4 sheet of paper for each bird. Intensive farming also allows farms to carefully control the temperature and humidity of chicken units, and give just the right amount of additive-boosted feed and chlorinated water for optimal growth in a short time. The lifespan of an average intensively-farmed chicken is 35 days. The efficiency of the system is illustrated in the product prices. A review of five major supermarket chickens shows basic, value or own brand chicken – ra

Imperial

WikiLeaks Today, July 27th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Imperial project of the CIA. Achilles is a capability that provides an operator the ability to trojan an OS X disk image (.dmg) installer with one or more desired operator specified executables for a one-time execution. Aeris is an automated implant written in C that supports a number of POSIX-based systems (Debian, RHEL, Solaris, FreeBSD, CentOS). It supports automated file exfiltration, configurable beacon interval and jitter, standalone and Collide-based HTTPS LP support and SMTP protocol support - all with TLS encrypted communications with mutual authentication. It is compatible with the NOD Cryptographic Specification and provides structured command and control that is similar to that used by several Windows implants. SeaPea is an OS X Rootkit that provides stealth and tool launching capabilities. It hides files/directories, socket connections and/or processes. It runs on Ma

The rise of the "megafarm": How British meat is made

Part 1 In Herefordshire the river Wye curls through market towns, forests of oak and yellow fields tall with rapeseed. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty - walkers come to the area to traverse Offa’s Dyke, go fishing or catch a glimpse of herons, bats or polecats. Which makes the sight just down the road from the church in one small village somewhat unexpected. A short walk along a public footpath a few miles from the river brings you to a field where large white polyethene tunnels stretch dozens of metres down a hill. They are met at the bottom by five mammoth sheds - each as long as a football pitch. Tall metal silos rise up from between the imposing units. It looks like something out of a sci-fi film - but it is in fact a typical modern UK farm. Inside the warehouse walls, nearly 800,000 chickens are being bred for slaughter at any one time. This facility is one of nearly 1,700 intensive poultry and pig farms licensed by the Environment Agency.

US and UK ally Saudi Arabia moves to behead 14 for protest

The condemned includes a young student named Mujtaba al-Suweyket, who was only 17 at the time of his sentencing and was about to study in a U.S. university. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf kingdom ruled by an absolute monarchy and key United States ally, is planning to behead 14 men for participating in anti-government protests after what Amnesty international called a “grossly unfair mass trial.” “ By confirming these sentences Saudi Arabia's authorities have displayed their ruthless commitment to the use of the death penalty as a weapon to crush dissent and neutralize political opponents, ” Samah Hadid of Amnesty International said. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Saudi Arabia decided to uphold the sentences, and the 14 men were transferred to Riyadh, indicating that the beheadings could occur anytime. “ King Salman's signature is now all that stands between them and their execution, ” Hadid said. According to Amnesty International, th

The politics of the forgotten humanitarian crises in Yemen and Gaza

Millions of Yemenis are starving as Saudi Arabia continues to bomb the country, while the people of Gaza lack electricity and medical supplies due to a 10-year Israeli blockade. Both conflicts and the crises they have unleashed are tied to the U.S.’ arms industry’s unending pursuit of profit. by Whitney Webb Part 4 - Quiet hands behind the crises in Yemen, Gaza In considering the enormity of the crises in both Yemen and Gaza, it is unusual that the international community has taken little action to stop governments from directly fomenting these humanitarian catastrophes, especially given how vocal so many top global organizations have been in recent months. But while unusual, the fact that both crises are being forgotten by the international community and the international mainstream media is not surprising, as the perpetrators of both – Saudi Arabia and Israel – are both major U.S. allies and major beneficiaries of U.S. arms sales and military aid. I

The international usurers return to the crime scene called Greece!

globinfo freexchange The paranoia we live in, seems to have no limits. The international usurers, some of the largest vampire banks that drink the blood of societies, are returning to the crime scene called Greece. The country that has been destroyed by the memorandums, 'begged' for some money from the parasites of the global financial mafia, with the usurious 4.6% interest rate! Yet, the country was sacrificed to rescue some of these parasites, while others have played a dirty role in leading Greece to bankruptcy! Thus, the international usurers will make even more money over the Greek corpse, and the 'leftist' government has celebrated the fact much more than the local neoliberal regime! At the same time, the top executive of the European Financial Dictatorship , Pierre Moscovici, launched the usual indirect threat, not only against Greece, but also against Europe, saying that “ Confidence in Greece is really coming back, but we

Οι διεθνείς τοκογλύφοι επιστρέφουν στον τόπο του εγκλήματος που λέγεται Ελλάδα!

globinfo freexchange Η παράνοια που ζούμε φαίνεται να μην έχει όρια. Οι διεθνείς τοκογλύφοι, δηλαδή μερικές από τις μεγαλύτερες τράπεζες-βαμπίρ που πίνουν το αίμα των κοινωνιών, ξαναγυρνάν στον τόπο του εγκλήματος που λέγεται Ελλάδα. Η κατεστραμμένη από τα μνημόνια χώρα 'παρακάλεσε' τα τοκογλυφικά παράσιτα της διεθνούς χρηματοπιστωτικής μαφίας να της δανείσουν λεφτά με το τοκογλυφικό επιτόκιο 4.6%! Κι όμως, η χώρα θυσιάστηκε για να διασωθούν κάποια από αυτά τα παράσιτα, ενώ κάποια άλλα, έπαιξαν βρόμικο ρόλο στο να οδηγήσουν την Ελλάδα στη χρεοκοπία! Έτσι, οι διεθνείς τοκογλύφοι θα βγάλουν ακόμα πιο πολλά λεφτά πάνω από το Ελληνικό πτώμα και η 'Αριστερή' κυβέρνηση το πανηγύρισε δεόντως, πιο πολύ και από το εγχώριο νεοφιλελεύθερο καθεστώς! Την ίδια ώρα, το ανώτερο στέλεχος της Ευρωπαϊκής Χρηματοπιστωτικής Δικτατορίας , Πιερ Μοσκοβισί , έστελνε το γνωστό σήμα στους Έλληνες υποτελείς με περισσό θράσος και μια έμμεση απειλή: “ Αν η Ελ

How social media loops lead to cultural stagnation

Τhis is a terrifying picture of a culture that is trapped in powerful vicious circles and loops that lead to further cultural stagnation and make cultural progress more and more difficult globinfo freexchange In another interesting interview to Russell Brand, Adam Curtis describes a certain phenomenon in social media. He speaks about how the web and the social media are creating loops that actually isolate certain groups of individuals with common characteristics and interests. Curtis supports that this is a form of power which essentially prevents real progress. As he says: If you have something like Facebook, which in its news feeds increasingly gives you what it knows you like and what you hear is what you like, then that's incredibly powerful. Those who run social media will say 'this is efficient'. They are not ideologists. They are not saying we must tell them this, and in fact it's the algorithms that are doing that. Of course they desi

Βενεζουέλα: Στην τελική ευθεία για εκλογές… ή πραξικόπημα;

του Άρη Χατζηστεφάνου Κάθε απόγευμα μια μυστηριώδης πομπή από θωρακισμένα οχήματα κάνει την εμφάνισή της στο Τσακάο, μια από τις πιο πλούσιες περιοχές του Καράκας, στη Βενεζουέλα. Δεν πρόκειται για οχήματα του στρατού ή της αστυνομίας αλλά, όπως εξηγούσε ο απεσταλμένος του δικτύου Μπλούμπεργκ, για τους κατοίκους της περιοχής που βγαίνουν για τη νυχτερινή τους έξοδο σε ορισμένα από τα πιο ακριβά κλαμπ της λατινικής Αμερικής. Η ίδια περιοχή που το πρωί αποτελεί επίκεντρο των συγκρούσεων με τις κυβερνητικές δυνάμεις, το βράδυ μετατρέπεται σε ένα «μικρό Μανχάταν» καθώς συρρέουν αθλητές, αστέρες της τηλεόρασης και επιχειρηματίες. «Το πρωί είμαι στις διαδηλώσεις και τα χαρακώματα» εξηγούσε μια 24χρονη κάτοικος της περιοχής «αλλά το απόγευμα γυρίζω σπίτι, κάνω ένα μπάνιο και στέλνω μήνυμα στους φίλους μου για να δω τί θα κάνουμε το βράδυ. Είναι πλέον μια ρουτίνα». Χωρίς ίσως να το καταλάβει, το Μπλούμπεργκ επιβεβαίωσε με το ρεπορτάζ του τη «ρουτίνα» του ταξ