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The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Who Really Runs the Middle East? Sat Sep 25, 2021 22:36 | amarynth
By Cynthia Chung for the Saker Blog Afghanistan is on many people?s minds lately, though the sentiment is rather mixed. Some think of it as a cause for celebration, others

offsite link Russian Federation ? Minister of Foreign Affairs Addresses United Nations General Debate Sat Sep 25, 2021 22:25 | amarynth
English #UN Charter is our rules.   Russian

offsite link Eurasian consolidation ends the US unipolar moment ? Part 2 of 2 Fri Sep 24, 2021 18:32 | amarynth
By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times Part 1 is here The 20th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, enshrined

offsite link Political Declaration adopted during the first ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends in Defens... Fri Sep 24, 2021 17:49 | amarynth
https://www.mid.ru/en/forei... 1. We, representatives of Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, the Lao People?s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, the State

offsite link China in Action ? Carbon Neutral by 2050 Fri Sep 24, 2021 11:13 | amarynth
By Peter Koenig for the Saker Blog Transcript of a presentation at a Webinar sponsored by the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing 23 September 2021 An early priority for

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link How Can a Book About Science Denialism Ignore the Most Pervasive Forms of Science Denialism? Sun Sep 26, 2021 14:58 | Toby Young
We're introducing a new section to the Daily Sceptic today: Reviews. We're also publishing our first ever book review in which Dr. Bo Winegard writes about How to Talk to a Science Denier by Lee McIntyre. It's a stinker!
The post How Can a Book About Science Denialism Ignore the Most Pervasive Forms of Science Denialism? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Lancet?s Panel Investigating Covid Origins Disbanded Because of Ties to Peter Daszak Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:45 | Michael Curzon
A panel of scientists affiliated to the Lancet which has been investigating the origins of Covid has been disbanded because of its ties to Peter Daszak, the President of EcoHealth Alliance.
The post Lancet?s Panel Investigating Covid Origins Disbanded Because of Ties to Peter Daszak appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Does COVID-19 Have a Hidden Helper That Sometimes Makes it Deadly? Sun Sep 26, 2021 07:00 | Will Jones
The Spanish flu and Swine flu are both made much worse when a particular bacterium is present at the same time. Could Covid behave similarly?
The post Does COVID-19 Have a Hidden Helper That Sometimes Makes it Deadly? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Sun Sep 26, 2021 00:01 | Michael Curzon
A summary of all the most interesting stories that have appeared about politicians? efforts to control the virus ? and other acts of hubris and folly ? not just in Britain, but around the world.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Dutch Protest Against Vaccine Passports Sat Sep 25, 2021 22:12 | Michael Curzon
People have gathered in The Hague, Netherlands, to protest against the "medical apartheid" barring those who haven't been vaccinated or tested for Covid from bars, restaurants and theatres.
The post Dutch Protest Against Vaccine Passports appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Photographers can fool the best experts Sat Sep 25, 2021 06:14 | en

offsite link Joe Biden might call off war against North Korea Fri Sep 24, 2021 20:36 | en

offsite link General boycott of Covid-19 Global Summit Fri Sep 24, 2021 20:11 | en

offsite link Ahmad Massoud has fled Afghanistan Fri Sep 24, 2021 08:00 | en

offsite link Another stab at the "two-state solution" Fri Sep 24, 2021 07:46 | en

Voltaire Network >>

The Greek Wildfire Catastrophe – Climate Change And Austerity Combine

category international | environment | opinion/analysis author Monday July 30, 2018 23:04author by pbp - People Before ProfitReport this post to the editors

The wildfires that struck Rafina, north east of Athens, have now claimed at least 80 lives with the number set to rise as many are still missing. This terrible catastrophe shows the interaction of climate change and austerity, both the result of a society that puts people before profit.

The fires in Greece take place in the context of an intense heat wave that is global in scale and has produced fires not only in Greece but in Northern Sweden above the Arctic Circle. Brid Smith TD visiting her sister in Sweden reports temperatures of 32C in the shade and 40C in the sun. In hotter parts of the world such as Algeria and Iran they are soaring well over 40C and approaching the limits of human habitability.

Fires, floods , droughts and intense storms – extreme weather in all its different forms – is what climate change means, not just rising sea levels in the future, and they are happening now.
greecefires.jpg

The world’s governments have known this was coming for at least 30 years, since the establishment in 1987 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if not before. But because of the commitment to short term profit and hence to the oil and gas industries and to fossil fuels, they have chosen to fiddle while the planet burns and now we are starting, only starting , to reap the whirlwind.

But there is another crucially important factor in the Greek disaster – the crushing austerity programmes imposed on the Greek people by the EU and slavishly implemented by the Syriza government.

As a result the fire service budget has been cut by over €100 million since 2007. And this in a country where wildfires are a regular phenomenon. 4000 fulltime fire fighting posts have been cut since 2011. At the same time 700 firefighters have been made available for privatised airports and roads.

This criminal social vandalism is just part of a much wider cuts programme that has decimated all the social services to which victims of the fires will now have to turn.

Another feature of the catastrophe worth mentioning is the fact that migrant community organisations have issued calls to their members to rally round and come to people’s aid, and among the heroes of the rescue operations, lifting people from fire threatened beeches were Egyptian fishermen. These are precisely the people who have been targeted by the Golden Dawn fascists, some of whom are currently on trial for the murder of an Egyptian fisherman.

At the same time the Turkish Firefighters Union has issued a statement of solidarity and offered assistance – an important stand in a situation where Turkey is the traditional ‘nationalist’ enemy.

Finally the parallels with Grenfell are all too obvious.

All these things- the refusal to tackle climate change, the decimation and privatisation of public services, the disproportionate impact on working class communities – have a common root in the capitalist system’s relentless pursuit of profit over the needs of ordinary people.

Related Link: http://www.pbp.ie/the-greek-wildfire-catastrophe-climate-change-and-austerity-combine/
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