Europas Schuld

“Natürlich kann Europa nicht jeden Krieg verhindern und jeden gescheiterten Staat aufbauen. Doch Europa muss für instabile und Not leidende Staaten bei Weitem mehr tun als bisher. Ansonsten darf es sich nicht wundern, wenn deren verzweifelte Bewohner in Richtung Hoffnung aufbrechen—und sich weder von Meeren noch von Zäunen aufhalten lassen.” Markus Becker sieht eine klare Mitverantwortung Europas für das Flüchtlingsdrama. Pflichtlektüre.

www.spiegel.de

David Cameron used swarm instead of plague in case it implied that God had sent the migrants

“There has to be something wrong with a world where the best employment option for a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t being a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, but crossing the Mediterranean on a punctured lilo, only to spend days dangling under a lorry so that he can end up selling lollipops in a nightclub toilet. Our indifference is staggering.”
Frankie Boyle

www.theguardian.com

Meet Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat, the Turkish couple who spent their wedding day feeding 4,000 Syrian refugees.

How did Germany become the new champion of Europe?

“Would he ever consider buying a foreign car? Too polite to say no, Schlüter gave a slightly apologetic smile. After decades of industrial neglect and regional decline, Britain has a long way to go before such popular pride in homegrown products goes without saying”, Julian Coman reports. This story captures some of what it should mean to be German.

www.theguardian.com

However, given the current state of the Eurozone, Germany’s outlook might not be so bright after all.

God save the British Economy

“Our options, he argues, can be divided into three general categories: austerity, stimulus and doing nothing. He, like an increasing number of mainstream economists, believes we can now scratch austerity off the list.” Adam Davidson talks to Adam Posen, until recently a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, about ways to fix the UK’s economy.

www.nytimes.com

The eurozone, the ant and the grasshopper

“When the ants and the grasshoppers are distributed across the division separating surplus from deficit nations within a badly designed monetary union, the stage is set for a depression that sets all against all in a vicious spiral from which only losers can emerge.” Yanis Varoufakis explains why he thinks that countries in the euro zone can neither bail out nor be bailed out of the current crisis.

www.channel4.com

The curse of TINA

“Think Tanks surround politics today and are the very things that are supposed to generate new ideas. But if you go back and look at how they rose up—at who invented them and why—you discover they are not quite what they seem.” Adam Curtis looks at the history of the Think Tank in the UK and asks why modern politics, for all its Think Tanks, seems so paradoxically short of new ideas.

www.bbc.co.uk

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