US & European Labour Markets

European job market has strengths the US doesn’t WASHINGTON – Compare unemployment rates, and America’s job market looks much stronger than Europe’s. The U.S. rate for August is near normal at about 6 percent. In the 18 countries that use the euro currency, by contrast, it’s a collective 11.5 percent. Yet by some measures, Europe is doing better. It’s been more successful in keeping people working, letting the disabled stay on the job and boosting the proportion of women in the workforce. And Europeans in their prime working years — ages 25 to 54 — are more likely to be employed than Americans are. Fewer than 77 percent of prime-age Americans have jobs, compared with 80 percent in Belgium, 81 percent in France and 82 percent in the Netherlands, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Though the eurozone’s overall unemployment rate is 11.5 percent, individual countries include low-rate nations like Germany and Austria (4.9 percent) as well as some with much higher unemployment than the United States: Portugal (14 percent), Italy (12.6 percent), France (10.3 percent), Belgium (8.5 percent). Yet Josh Bivens, research director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, says America’s relatively low “headline unemployment rate is painting too rosy a picture of how the U.S. labor market is doing.” The fall in the U.S. unemployment rate has been exaggerated by rising numbers of adults neither working nor looking for work. The government counts people as unemployed only if they’re looking for a job. When many stop looking, the unemployment rate can fall even if few people are hired. No single reason explains why prime-age employment and workforce participation trends are weaker in the United States. But among the factors: • American workers get laid off. Europe better protects prime-age workers. “There’s nowhere in Europe where you can just fire a worker,” says Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. By contrast, says Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics: “It’s very easy for companies to fire workers in the U.S.” • Disabled Europeans still work. The U.S. disability program forces many ailing Americans to choose between working and collecting disability. The number receiving disability payments from Social Security has gone from 7.1 million at the end of 2007 to 8.9 million. “The U.S. system has a strong bias that insists (on) looking at disability as a static or permanent condition,” says Ilene Zeitzer, a former Social Security Administration official. “Either the person is so disabled (he or she) cannot work, or they are not that disabled and thus they are denied benefits.” In European countries such as Sweden, by contrast, workers can take sick leave and then transfer if necessary to temporary disability. • Older European women are working more. Though American and European women are similarly likely to be working or seeking work, in Europe the percentage is climbing. In the United States, it’s falling. Kirkegaard says one reason could be the need to care for aging parents. That need “is a lot less prevalent in Europe” because such services are more likely to be paid for by government programs, he says. Such generous social programs are supported by Europe’s higher tax rates. • European reforms bring part-timers and temps. Spain, France, Germany and Italy have eased rules that had made it hard for companies to hire part-time and temporary workers. The loosened rules have enabled more Europeans to find work. Beginning in 2003, Germany cut the duration of unemployment benefits, raised the retirement age and eased restrictions on temporary staffing agencies. It also required the unemployed to actively seek work to receive benefits. Likewise, Spain cut unemployment benefits and made it easier for companies to hire part-timers and temps. And in 2012, Italy made it easier to hire workers on short-term contracts. http://www.desertsun.com/story/money/business/career/2014/09/06/europe-job-market-american/15228205/

Some valuable information here about the labour markets.

Good for getting a feel for the economies & moods of different countries.

Appears there's a trend of workers' rights being eroded.

Latest

The Latest Looks like Novorossiya's been won. Ceasefire at the moment. But it could be some dirty trick, judging by Ukraine government past lies and underhand manoeuvres. All those people killed when they could have just accepted the south going its own way. The conflict coming to a close should curb my Twitter mania somewhat.   Keeping up with all the other news I'd like to keep tabs on is impossible for one person. To do the US justice, you'd have to keep tabs on what's going on in 50 states -- or figure out if there's key states to watch. And then there's the various European players, India, China, the Middle East, Japan and so on. It's a massive amount of information to cover and there's no way of closely following things as a whole, but it's politics on a global scale that interests me. Maybe you just have to be satisfied with snippets from here and there until you build a picture to work from. Been overdoing it, I think.  Really stuffed. If you want to lose weight get an internet mania happening.  The weight loss is good, but keeping weird vampire hours is likely to become a problem. Nothing really stands out as a big news item.   Netherlands, Germany and Italy do a lot of trade with Indonesia -- or it seems a lot to me. Obama's deferring dealing with the immigration until after the election, so the Democrats don't upset pro-immigration voters. Can't think. I can hardly keep my eyes open.  Need to crash.

Pentagon wants eternal Global War on Terror - NATO long-term survival assured by "unifying threat". Translation: Russia.

Sep 5, '14 THE ROVING EYE Will NATO liberate Jihadistan? By Pepe Escobar Drive your cart and your plow Over the bones of the dead …      - William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Caliph Ibrahim, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-declared leader of Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, really sports a mean PR vein. When the show seemed scheduled for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to save Ukraine and Western Civilization - at least rhetorically - from that Evil Empire remixed, Russia, The Caliph, accessing his expensive watch wisdom, intervened with - what else - yet another "off with their heads" special. Eyebrows were properly raised until the United States' intel alphabet soup solemnly concluded that Islamic State (IS) really beheaded yet another American journalist on video (US President Barack Obama: "An horrific act of violence"). And then, out of the blue, The Caliph doubled down, proclaiming to the whole world his next target is none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Was he channeling the recently ostracized Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush? In thesis, everything would be settled. The Caliph becomes a contractor to NATO (well, he’s been on to it, sort of). The Caliph beheads Putin. The Caliph liberates Chechnya - fast; not the usual, deeply embarrassing NATO quagmire in Afghanistan. The Caliph, on a roll, attacks the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The Caliph becomes NATO’s shadow secretary-general. And Obama finally stops complaining that his calls to Putin always end up on voicemail. Ah, if geopolitics was as simple as a Marvel Comics blockbuster. Instead, The Caliph should know - even as he is largely a Made-in-the-West product, with substantial input from Gulf Cooperation Council petrodollar cash - that NATO never promised him a rose garden. So, predictably, those ungrateful Obama and David Cameron, the British Prime Minister - oh yes, because the "special relationship" is all that matters in NATO, the others are mere extras - have vowed to go after him with a broad (well, not that broad) "coalition of the willing" with the usual GCC suspects plus Turkey and Jordan, bombing Iraqi Kurdistan, parts of Sunni Iraq and even Syria. After all, Syrian President "Bashar al-Assad must go", rather "Assad brutality" in Cameron’s formulation, is the real culprit for The Caliph’s actions. And all in the name of the Enduring Freedom Forever-style Global War on Terror. Now get me that Slavic Caliph NATO’s outgoing secretary-general Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen was somehow rattled. After all, this was supposed to be the "crucial moment", at the NATO summit in Wales, when NATO would be at its Cold War 2.0 best, rescuing "the allies", all 28 of them, from the dark gloom of insecurity. One just had to look at the replica of a glorious Eurofighter Typhoon deployed in front of the NATO summit hotel in the southern Welsh town of Newport. To round it all off, that evil Slavic Caliph, Vlad Putin himself, designed a seven-point peace plan to solve the Ukrainian quagmire - just as Kiev’s appalling army has been reduced to strogonoff by the federalists and/or separatists in the Donbass. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko - who until virtually yesterday was screaming "Invasion!" at the top of his lungs - breathed long sighs of relief. And as an aside, he disclosed Kiev was receiving high-precision weapons from an unnamed country that could only be the US, the UK or Poland. The whole thing posed a problem, though. What is NATO to defend Western Civilization from when all that threat embodied by "Russian aggression" dissolves into a road map to peace? No wonder the 60 heads of state and government with their Ministers of Defense and Foreign Relations who performed a soft invasion/breaching of the "ring of steel" protecting Newport from protesting hordes were also somehow dazed an confused. Over 11 years after Shock and Awe, we are still living in a Rumsfeldian world. It was the former Pentagon head David Rumsfeld under George "Dubya" Bush who conceptualized "Old Europe" and "New Europe". "Old" were Venusian sissies; "New" were vigorous Martians. "New" totally supported Shock and Awe, and the subsequent invasion/occupation of Iraq. Now they support, in fact beg, for NATO to stare down Russia. "Old", for its part, was trying at least to save a negotiating space with Putin. And in the end dear prudence, especially by Berlin, was rewarded with the Putin peace plan. Just in case, not to rattle the Empire of Chaos too much, Paris announced it won’t deliver the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier battleships to Moscow according to schedule. And of course NATO strongly condemned Russia on Ukraine, and the European Union followed up with yet more sanctions. As for Fogh of War, predictably, he kept juggling his "Mars Attacks!" rhetoric (see Asia Times Online, September 3, 2014). It was all Moscow’s fault. NATO is nothing but an innocent force of appeasement - powerful and solid. At the same time, NATO would not be foolish to start depicting Russia as an enemy outright. So, as Asia Times Online reported, NATO at best will help train Kiev’s forces; the Donbass performance showed they badly need it. But there will be no Ukraine "integration" - for all the hysteria deployed by Kiev and well as Poland and the Baltic states calling for permanent bases. The new element will be the remixed NATO Response Force (NRF) which, by the way, was never used before. NRF even comes with a catchy slogan: "Travel light and strike hard". An 800-strong battalion will be able to strike in two days, and a 5,000-strong brigade between five and seven days. Well, by those "travel light" standards it would hardly be enough to prevent The Caliph from annexing larger parts of Jihadistan with his gleaming white Toyota combo. As for "strike hard", ask Pashtuns in the Hindu Kush for an informed opinion. So Wales yielded NRF; permanent "rotation" and permanent forward bases to "protect" Central and Eastern Europe; and everybody shelling out more cash (no less than 2% of their GDP each, for all 28 members, from here to 2025). All this in the middle of the third European recession in five years. Now compare the astonishing combined NATO military budget of US$900 billion (75% of all expenses monopolized by the US) with only $80 billion for Russia. Yet Moscow is the "threat". Needless to add, even under so much sound and fury, Wales did not yield NATO sitting on a Freudian divan - analyzing in an endless monologue its abject failure in both Afghanistan and Libya. In Afghanistan, the Taliban basically run rings around NATO’s bases and "strike hard" movements, demoralizing them to oblivion. That was NATO in GWOT mode. And in Libya, NATO created a failed state ravaged by militias and called it "peace". That was NATO in "Responsibility To Protect" mode. NATO liberating Jihadistan? The Pentagon couldn’t care less. The Pentagon wants eternal GWOT. US Think Tankland is ecstatic at NATO finding a "renewed purpose" and its long-term survival now assured by a "unifying threat". Translation: Russia. So The Caliph is not exactly quaking in his Made-in-USA desert boots. He’s even dreaming of taking on the Slavic Caliph himself. How come Marvel Comics never thought about that? Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-03-050914.html

Love this guy's article.

Lots of info. & humour. Perfect.

The Rome Statute - International Criminal Court

ꕤ Article SOURCE https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-10&chapter=18&lang=en Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Rome, 17 July 1998 Entry into force:     1 July 2002, in accordance with article 126. Registration    : 1 July 2002, No. 38544 Status              : Signatories : 139.   Parties : 123 The Statute was adopted on 17 July 1998 by the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court.  In accordance with its article 125, the Statute was opened for signature by all States in Rome at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 17 July 1998.  Thereafter, it was opened for signature in Rome at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy until 17 October 1998.  After that date, the Statute was opened for signature in New York, at United Nations Headquarters, where it will be until 31 December 2000. plenipotentiary A person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country. [source] Note Israel & USA not party to Rome Statute ꕤ

ASSANGE - LAB RESULTS

http://assangeinswedenbook.com/2013/07/01/the-lab-results/ The Lab Results These are the lab results presented to Chief Inspector Mats Gehlin on Monday 25 October 2010. Gehlin had submitted two condoms to the state crime lab SKL ...  exactly two months earlier, which was quite the feat, as one came from Sofia Wilén  – even though Chief Inspector Eva Finné, who was in charge of both Sofia Wilén and Anna Ardin’s cases at the time, had demonstratively closed the more serious part relating to Wilén, stating that ‘no crime had been committed’; and she expressly ordered Gehlin to keep his ‘hands off’.  Nonetheless, Gehlin submitted Wilén’s condom under Ardin’s case number. [Chief Inspector Mats Gehlin] had NOT asked the lab to check for DNA, only to see if they could determine how the condoms had been torn. But they did a DNA test anyway, and came up with some rather shattering results, results the Swedish media have done their best to hide from the citizenry ever since. The condom submitted by Anna Ardin showed no traces whatsoever of chromosomal (genomic) DNA – meaning the condom cannot have been used for sex. [ ...] [ FURTHER] SKL A conversation with SKL yielded the following. The condom from the residence of complainant 2 [Ardin] had no traces of DNA. Vaginal swabs from complainant 1 [Wilén] had DNA from complainant 1 [Wilén] and a man.

COMMENT

This was floating around on Twitter, so I thought I'd check it out.

Wasn't expecting condom pics.  Bonus condom pics @ the link above!  LOL

 

Anyway, 'no traces of DNA' (re Complainant 2 - Ardin) is pretty conclusive.

The Complainant 1 (Wilén) DNA -- re 'a man' is, what?  Could be from anywhere?  But, regardless, this is the matter that was dismissed.

I'm not entirely clear on this stuff, but given that Chief Inspector Eva Finné had:

demonstratively closed the more serious part relating to Wilén, stating that ‘no crime had been committed’

one wonders why Chief Inspector Mats Gehlin would go against express orders of Chief Inspector Eva Finné -- and why the dismissed Complainant 1 (Wilén) matter was even joined to the Complainant 2 (Ardin)  matter (the zero DNA evidence).

The entire thing sounds super dodgy to me.

The justice system in Sweden sounds a complete nightmare.  

Surprising.  Sweden has this image of being a 'human rights' protector - well, it did in my mind.  That's well and truly been dispelled.  Sweden's a violator of human rights by the look of it  (Assange, Warg & populations impacted by oil companies in Africa).

Sweden's screwed Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (Swedish Pirate Bay co-founder).  

Warg's on trial right now in Denmark.  The guy was kidnapped from Cambodia or somewhere on what sounds like trumped up charges of hacking.

Is anybody else creeped out by all this stuff?

USA - CIA press handlers vet news prior to publication

The CIA’s Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories With Agency Before Publication By Ken Silverstein A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times. [ ... EXTRACT ... FULL @ SOURCE ... ] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/04/former-l-times-reporter-cleared-stories-cia-publication/ So the news we get is more like PR than news? If you read the article there's also debunked information re 2012 drone strike killings @ Pakistan. There's a heap of links to documents in support. Read rest @ link provided. ......................................................................... PS Finding it hard to take all of this in. Having a brain explosion.  LOL I like info in really simple terms.  Just a sketch of facts.  That's how I remember stuff. Looks like this is a mark-up for commitment to memory job, because I'm not taking much - Doh!

Holes in NATO’s Cyber Defense Pledge

The Holes in NATO’s Cyber Defense Pledge by William A. Blunden / September 4th, 2014 NATO members are currently meeting in Wales to consider a joint defense agreement which stipulates that a cyberattack on one member would represent an attack on all of them.1 Though the concept of international teamwork may seem appealing at the outset there are at least a couple of issues that officials are [intentionally] neglecting. High-End Anti-Forensics For instance, how can countries mobilize to fend off a cyberattack when they can’t even tell who launched it? Deception is an age-old instrument of spy tradecraft and the Pentagon has been actively working on developing Internet stealth technology for decades. [ ...] Folks, it’s anarchy. Until we mobilize and get our political leaders to outlaw covert ops the government and corporate spies show no sign of letting up. In all probability, as things progress the whole clandestine scene is just going to get worse. This past April Obama openly bragged to China’s leadership that the U.S would be devoting $26 billion to the Pentagon’s cyber trough and expanding the U.S. force to 6,000 so-called “cyberwarriors”.15 Guess where all of that funding goes to? The moral of the story is this: when high-level Pentagon types and think tank pundits start yammering about cyberattacks from Russia or China keep in mind that our security services are neck deep in deception ops directed against their alleged allies. History shows that the American Deep State is constantly in search of new enemies, even if it has to fabricate them,16 and our corporate rulers have no scruples about launching attacks that kill untold thousands of innocent people so that they can boost quarterly profits. [... EXTRACT - FULL @ SOURCE ] http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/09/the-holes-in-natos-cyber-defense-pledge/

This article is a wealth of information.  Everyone gets a mention:

Tor, Ntrepid, WikiLeaks, TAO, GCHQ

Check it out.