Europe – Page 23 – praag.org

Netherlands struggling to get politically correct as to Black Pete

In this town named after Saint Nicholas, Yuletide cheer is being clouded by controversy over the good saint’s helpers.

Across the Netherlands and Belgium, celebrations in which Saint Nicholas rolls into town surrounded by a host of “Black Petes” have come under increasing pressure year by year from complaints about racism. Pete is usually played by a white person who paints his face pitch black, dons a frizzy wig and gives himself bright red lips — stereotypes that disappeared from most countries decades ago.

A Black Pete taking part in the festivities

Sint-Niklaas with a church and statue honoring the saint has long been one of the focal points of the celebrations. A grand entrance this Sunday is expected to bring tens of thousands of kids flocking to the “home of the saint.”

Yet even in this bastion of saintly tradition, questions are starting to be asked about Black Pete.

Wouter Van Bellingen remembers how, as a black kid growing up in mostly white Sint-Niklaas, he used to be taunted with chants of: “Look, there goes Black Pete.”

“Kids can be hard when it comes to that,” said the former Sint-Niklaas alderman and current director of the region’s Minorities Forum. “I retorted with ‘there goes White Pete.’ I always had my answer.”

Around this time of year, Saint Nicholas visits hundreds of villages in Belgium and Holland, arriving by steamer or on his white horse to the delight of shrieking kids across the two countries. The Black Petes do everything from carrying presents to throwing sweets at the kids and generally prancing about until Saint Nicholas day on Dec. 6.

The Dutch cheese capital of Gouda has come up with a strategy for reconciliation. Black Petes will walk side-by-side with yellow-colored “Cheese Petes,” a nod to the city’s most famous products but also a concession to critics of Black Pete. In another sign of changing times, the daily Dutch children’s television report on Saint Nicholas’ travels also featured White Petes on Thursday night.

Black Pete has evolved over the years. A quarter century ago, Black Pete was a scary character, carrying a big bag to hold naughty kids and a whip to punish the disobedient. Promoting him in recent years as a happy-go-lucky sidekick full of quirky madness has helped him to compete in popularity with Saint Nicholas himself.

“The last few years, Pete is at least as popular. Kids cling to him, ask him questions, hold his hand,” said Raf Rumes, the secretary of the Flanders Saint Nicholas Guild.

In another new touch, almost half of the Petes greeting kids in this town’s Saint Nicholas “mansion” — a yearly holiday attraction — are played by women. At the fun house, which reopened this week for a month-long run, children squealed as female Petes showed them Saint Nicholas’ dining room and sleeping quarters for all of the Petes.

But efforts at softening Pete’s image have failed to subdue bad blood between the pro- and anti-Black Pete camps in the Netherlands, where resentments over immigration have simmered for years. Liberals want to abolish the tradition, while the right-wing firebrand Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration Freedom Party have proposed legislation that would keep Pete black — by law.

“There is a war underway against Black Pete,” said Martin Bosma, the party’s culture spokesman. “Ministers and mayors are working to give this loyal helper another color. That must not happen. Our culture should not be damaged from on high. This law must protect Black Pete.”

Last year, more than 2 million people endorsed a Facebook petition to keep Zwarte Piet’s image unchanged. That’s nearly one-eighth of the entire Dutch population, indicating the depth of emotion over the issue.

But Van Bellingen insists democracy is not about numbers alone.

“It is about the will of the majority and the rights of the minority,” he said. “As a majority you have to be sensitive and show empathy for things that are hurtful to a minority.”

Van Bellingen agrees with Rumes that children should take center stage in the festivities — just without Black Pete.

“Saint Nicolas is a great celebration in itself,” he said. “Only, I think you need to get rid of Black Pete to turn it into a party for everyone.” – AP

Revolt against ECB brewing in Italy

Next week, Italy’s Beppe Grillo – the leader of the Italian Five Star Movement – will start collecting signatures with the aim of getting a referendum in Italy on leaving the euro “as soon as possible,” just as was done in 1989.

As Grillo explains to the BBC, they “will leave the Euro and bring down this system of bankers, of scum.”

With two-thirds of Parliament apparently behind the plan, Grillo exclaims “we are dying, we need a Plan B to this Europe that has become a nightmare – and we are implementing it,” raging that “we are not at war with ISIS or Russia! We are at war with the European Central Bank,” that has stripped us of our sovereignty.”

Beppe rages against the ECB:

It is high time for me and for the Italian people, to do something that should have been done a long time ago: to put an end to your sitting in this place, you who have dishonoured and substituted the governments and the democracies without any right. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? A crumb of humanity? Is there one vice you do not possess? Gold and the “spread” are your gods. GDP is you golden calf.
We’ll send you packing at the same time as Italy leaves the Euro. It can be done! You well know that the M5S will collect the signatures for the popular initiative law – and then – thanks to our presence in parliament, we will set up an advisory referendum as happened for the entry into the Euro in 1989. It can be done! I know that you are terrified about this. You will collapse like a house of cards. You will smash into tiny fragments like a crystal vase. Without Italy in the Euro, there’ll be an end to this expropriation of national sovereignty all over Europe. Sovereignty belongs to the people not to the ECB and nor does it belong to the Troika or the Bundesbank. National budgets and currencies have to be returned to State control. They should not be controlled by commercial banks. We will not allow our economy to be strangled and Italian workers to become slaves to pay exorbitant interest rates to European banks.

The Euro is destroying the Italian economy. Since 1997, when Italy adjusted the value of the lira to connect it to the ECU (a condition imposed on us so that we could come into the euro), Italian industrial production has gone down by 25%. Hundreds of Italian companies have been sold abroad. These are the companies that have made our history and the image of “Made in Italy”.

Russia stockpiles gold

Russia has taken advantage of lower gold prices to pack the vaults of its central bank with bullion as it prepares for the possibility of a long, drawn-out economic war with the West.

The latest research from the World Gold Council reveals that the Kremlin snapped up 55 tonnes of the precious metal – far more than any other nation – in the three months to the end of September as prices began to weaken.

Vladimir Putin’s government is understood to be hoarding vast quantities of gold, having tripled stocks to around 1,150 tonnes in the last decade. These reserves could provide the Kremlin with vital firepower to try and offset the sharp declines in the rouble.

Russia’s currency has come under intense pressure since US and European sanctions and falling oil prices started to hurt the economy.

Revenues from the sale of oil and gas account for about 45pc of the Russian government’s budget receipts.

The biggest buyers of gold after Russia are other countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States, led by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

In total, central banks around the world bought 93 tonnes of the precious metal in the third quarter, marking it the 15th consecutive quarter of net purchases. In its report, the World Gold Council said this was down to a combination of geopolitical tensions and attempts by countries to diversify their reserves away from the US dollar.

By the end of the year, central banks will have acquired up to 500 tonnes of gold during the latest buying spell, according to Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the World Gold Council.

“Central banks have been consistently adding to their gold holdings since 2009,” Mr Hewitt told the Telegraph. In the case of Russia, Mr Hewitt said that the recent increases in its gold holdings could be a sign of greater geopolitical risk that has arisen since it seized Crimea sparking a dispute with Ukraine and the West.

Overall, the World Gold Council said that global demand for gold was down 2pc year-on-year to 929 tonnes in the third quarter amid signs that buying in China, one of the main markets, had tailed off. Jewellery demand in the quarter ending in September was down 39pc to 147 tonnes, signalling weaker consumer sentiment in the world’s second-largest economy.

However, demand for gold in India has rebounded sharply since the election earlier this year of prime minister Narendra Modi. Demand for jewellery in the world’s most populous democracy grew by 60pc year-on-year to 183 tonnes in the third quarter.

Gold prices have fallen about 7pc since October to trade at around $1,160 per ounce and the asset class is expected to post its second straight yearly loss. The precious metal has bounced since hitting a four-year low at the beginning of the week but sentiment remains weak despite the World Gold Council’s latest outlook.

Source: The Telegraph

German business leaders abandoning Merkel

German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is under pressure from leading industrialists to roll back sanctions against Russia, as some of her backers switch their support to her party’s Eurosceptic rival, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Merkel’s aides say she has been “annoyed” by phone calls from chief executives of large companies, demanding a relaxation of Germany’s stance towards the Kremlin in order to preserve £59bn a year in trade with Russia.

However, senior business figures, including Heinrich Weiss, head of the supervisory board of SMS, an engineering company with 13,000 employees, have switched their support from Merkel’s Christian Democrats to the AfD, which opposes sanctions.

SMS is heavily involved in both Russia and Ukraine, where a deal worth up to £118m was jeopardised by as US-led putsch.

Weiss, 72, was chairman of the Christian Democrats’ economic advisory council under Merkel’s predecessor Helmut Kohl.

“The sanctions policy is irrational because it will never influence Russian actions in Ukraine, but it is doing lasting damage to German businesses and jobs,” a senior SMS executive told The Sunday Times.

Another prominent businessman to join the AfD is Hans Wall, founder of a street furniture and outdoor advertising company, who has various business interests in Russia. He was formerly a supporter of the Free Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition partners.

Merkel faced another setback last month when the heads of several German multinationals — including the pharmaceuticals group Bayer, BASF chemicals and the energy giant Eon — travelled to Moscow with other western businessmen to meet Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister.

That was seen as a slap in the face for Merkel’s policy. “The last thing we need is a parallel foreign policy by industry,” one of her aides told Der Spiegel magazine.

About 300,000 jobs in Germany are believed to depend on trade with Russia.

Merkel last week rejected any lifting of sanctions and called for them to be extended.

But some of her neighbours are wavering: Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus have all indicated they would not support further sanctions because of trade with Moscow or dependence on Russian gas.

Pussy Riot is porn and oligarch a swindler, says Czech president

The President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman said not everyone being called political prisoners had this status.

President Miloš Zeman has responded in a rather unusual way to the call of the son of civil rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya to voice his opinion on human rights issues in Russia. Today, he said in the Talks in Lany interview on Czech Radio that not everyone being called political prisoners had this status, referring to disgraced Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

President Zeman considers Khodorkovsky a swindler, and he called the Russian female punk band Pussy Riot a porno group.

Zeman said he proceeded from the Soviet-era definition of political prisoners, when those people were called prisoners of conscience.

He believes that such people end up in prison for their political views, but that Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot do not fit into this category.

“They say that in the 1990s, Mr. Khodorkovsky carried plastic bags filled with millions of rubles, and that he obtained some assets just like Mr. Kožený, Mr. Krejcir, Mr. Pir and others did,” Zeman noted.

The Czech president says he has no reason so far to consider Khodorkovsky a political prisoner, although this is a wonderful pretext for cleansing oneself. He instead believes that Khodorkovsky was a swindler. The only thing that Zeman does not like about the Putin regime is that Putin did not imprison other oligarchs together with Khodorkovsky.

The president also lashed out against the Pussy Riot band. As he sees it, this porno band has, at least, been convicted by a criminal court for committing outrages at an Orthodox Church cathedral, although one of its members was in the last stage of pregnancy.

Moreover, the president sarcastically called them ideal political prisoners and commented on the band’s name. The English word “pussy” is a vulgar term denoting a female organ, and the word “riot” means an uprising. The word “pussy” can be found in every one of their songs, he said.

He said that when he comes to Russia for negotiations, he would be ready to defend all real political prisoners.

Mistral mix-up continues

France hasn’t yet fixed a date for delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia (scheduled for November 14), the French defense minister said. If France doesn’t deliver due to US and NATO pressure, it will have to pay a huge forfeit.

“No delivery date can be fixed at this stage,” Jean-Yves Le Drian, the country’s defense minister told the National Assembly, the lower house of France’s Parliament.

“The president of the Republic has said that a definitive decision will come at the right moment, taking into account all the responsibilities that come with this decision, which is not a simple one,” he added.

On Thursday, reports emerged that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin will not attend the ceremony where France hands over the first Mistral ship to Russia at the Saint-Nazaire shipyards. On October 29, he said that Moscow had received an invitation to take delivery.

DCNS, a French industrial group specializing in naval defense and energy, sent the invitations to the ceremony of the ship delivery scheduled November 14, France’s Le Nouvel Observateur magazine wrote on Wednesday. However, the event was canceled.

The outlet managed to take a screenshot of the letter which was sent to a French official.

“When I opened my mail, I fell off my chair,” the official told the magazine on condition of anonymity.

The chief of DCNS would not confirm whether this letter, signed by the export manager, was authentic. The official line is that these invitations were issued by mistake and the project manager was subsequently fired, RT reported.

CNN withdraws from Russia

CNN International withdraws from Russian cable networks from December 31, 2014, according to a letter from Turner Broadcasting System Europe (CNN owner) TASS learnt about on Monday.

CNN is broadcast by operators of paid cable and satellite television, including Akado, Vimpelcom, NTV+, and others.

A copy of the letter available to TASS notifies Russian paid TV operators that Turner stops broadcasting CNN International in Russia from December 31, 2014. No reasons behind the move are provided.

Turner Broadcasting System’s director general in the CIS, Tatiana Kalita, refused to comment.

Akado and Vimpelcom confirmed they had received such a notification. “Yes, we have received such notification. We hope next year the channel will be back in Russia,” Vimpelcom’s press service said.

German Foreign Ministry blasts media reports on MH17

The German Foreign Ministry says the media interpretation of an October statement by the president of national intelligence agency on the MH17 disaster in Ukraine was incomplete and taken out of context.

The Russian embassy in Berlin received an official response to note #3693 from October 27 regarding Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND intelligence agency) President Gerhard Schindler’s allegations that local militia in eastern Ukraine shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight in July.

“The media interpretation of the report of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) president delivered to the Bundestag Committee overseeing intelligence activities on October 8 is incomplete and arbitrarily taken out of context,” the note says.

The ministry stressed that according to the decision of the International Civil Aviation Association (ICAA), investigation of the MH17 flight crash was handed over to Dutch authorities, authorized to exclusively deliver all information on the issue.

According to information made public by Germany’s Der Spiegel daily on October 19, Schindler delivered a statement in Bundestag on October 8 in which he claimed the militia in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region fired a rocket from a BUK defense missile system which it had captured from a Ukrainian base. It shot down the Malaysian Boeing as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met on Monday with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on the sidelines of an APEC summit in China, has also spoken on the issue of flight MH17.

Having expressed condolences to the families of the perished passengers and Malaysian state, Vladimir Putin confirmed that Moscow insists on a complete and objective international investigation of the MH17 catastrophe in accordance with the corresponding UN resolution.

At the same time Putin disagreed with the Malaysian PM, who demanded greater access to the crash site “fully controlled by the local militia.”

“The reference that the crash site is fully controlled by so-called pro-Russian separatists is absolutely inconsistent, because it is not them, but the opposite side that is constantly shelling that territory,” Putin said. He noted that it is this shelling that prevents investigators from working properly at the crash site.

He welcomed the fact that Malaysian experts have finally got access to fully-fledged participation in the investigation.

“I’m sure your experts will contribute the necessary to the adequate investigation off this tragedy,” Putin told Razak.

An international team of investigators managed to recover more human remains from the MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine, the Dutch prime minister announced in late October.

Still, investigators are intending to continue with the search operation and hire local contractors to collect plane debris beyond their reach, Reuters reported last week.

Russia, China abandoning dollar

Russia and China plan to use more actively rubles and yuan in mutual settlements, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in the Chinese capital on Monday.

“Within cooperation with that country (China) we plan to use national currencies more actively in settlements,” the Russian leader said, recalling that first deals are already paid in rubles and yuan.

Putin recalled that settlements in national currency are particularly planned in oil trade. “Our experts are studying such possibilities,” the Russian president said.

Payments in national currencies of such countries as China and Russia will allow influencing financial and energy markets, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the APEC summit.

“Payments in national currencies between such partners as China and Russia — a very promising direction of our cooperation. It will allow broadening our possibilities in mutual trade and substantially influencing world financial and energy markets,” the president said.
On Sunday, Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping particularly discussed possible settlements in national currency.

The presidents of the two countries “focused on mutual settlements in yuan in different spheres, including such sensitive spheres as military-technical co-operation that will strengthen yuan as a reserve regional currency,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said after the meeting of the two leaders.

Russia, China sign second mega deal

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping have discussed the possibility of using the yuan in mutual transactions in different fields of cooperation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

“Much attention has been paid to the topic of mutual payments in diverse fields … in yuans which will help to strengthen the yuan as the region’s reserve currency,” Peskov said commenting on the meeting held between Putin and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing, RIANovosti reported.

On October 13, Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev announced that Russia was considering Chinese market to partially substitute access to the financial resources of the European Union and the United States.

The European Union and the United States have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, a claim Moscow has repeatedly denied. The restrictions prohibit major Russian companies from seeking financing on western capital markets.

Since the deterioration of Russia’s relations with the West, Moscow has increased its economic cooperation with the BRICS, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum taking place this weekend in Beijing, Russia and China signed 17 documents on Sunday, greenlighting a second “mega” Russian natural gas to China via the so-called “western” or “Altay” route, which as previously reported, would supply 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year to China.

Among the documents signed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping were the memorandum on the delivery of Russian natural gas to China via the western route, the framework agreement on gas supplies between Russia’s Gazprom and China’s CNPC and the memorandum of understanding between the Russian energy giant and the Chinese state-owned oil and gas corporation.

“We have reached an understanding in principle concerning the opening of the western route,” Putin said. “We have already agreed on many technical and commercial aspects of this project, laying a good basis for reaching final arrangements.”

With the increase of deliveries via the western route, the total volume of Russian gas deliveries to China may exceed the current levels of export to Europe in the medium-term perspective.

China has now eclipsed Europe as Russia’s biggest, and most strategic natural gas client.

Hungary breaks ranks with EU

Hajra, magyarok! Hajra Magyarorszag! Hungary has broken ranks with the European Union and may it’s spirited defiance continue.

Not long ago Hungary was being toasted in the West for opening its border with Austria to East Germans. This bold move led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But Western elites are not happy with the independently minded Budapest any longer. But bullying Hungary does not make many headlines because it’s so-called “democratic” Westerners doing the bullying.

The Hungarian parliament approved a law to build the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia without the approval of the European Union, and the ruling Fidesz Party largely ignoring enraged foreign owned banks and energy companies.

The refusal of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fidesz to join the new US and EU Cold War against Russia has been met with anger and rage in Washington and Brussels.

Hungarian officials have been banned from entering the US, while the European Commission is trying to pressure the authorities on South Stream with legal action against the Hungarian government for its law restricting the rights of foreigners to buy agricultural land.

Viktor Orban is a nationalist and a conservative but that doesn’t really matter. Only obsequious servility to Uncle Sam and the Euro-elites matter, all in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”

Fidesz returned to power in 2010. The previous Socialist administration was hugely popular in the West because it played lapdog to Washington and Brussels and the international banks, even taking out an unnecessary IMF loan.

Fidesz and its coalition allies, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, (KDNP) rather introduced a $855m bank tax, the highest in Europe, leaving the financial elite foaming at the mouth.

Orban clashed with the IMF too, with his government rejecting new loan terms in 2012, and paying off early a loan taken out by the previous government, to reduce interest payments.

Russia is Hungary’s third biggest trading partner and ties between the two countries have strengthened in the last couple of years, to the consternation of western Russophobes. In April, a deal was struck for Moscow to loan Hungary €10 billion to help upgrade its nuclear plant at Paks.

Orban’s policy of improving trade and business links with Russia, while staying a member of the EU and NATO, has however been put under increasing strain by the new hostile policy towards Moscow from Washington and Brussels.

Orban also spoke up for rights of the 200,000 strong Hungarian community living in Ukraine.”Ukraine can neither be stable, nor democratic, if it does not give its minorities, including Hungarians, their due. That is dual citizenship, collective rights and autonomy.”

Hungary’s Ambassador was immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Kiev. Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland – the US’s most obedient servant in Eastern Europe – quickly called Orban’s comments “unfortunate and disturbing” in order to impress his masters. Little did it matter that it was strictly none of Tusk’s business.

In August, Orban accurately described the sanctions policy of the West towards Russia as like “shooting oneself in the foot.”

In October, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also questioned the sanctions on Russia, revealing that his country is losing 50 million forints a day due to the policy.

Hungary has made its position clear, but for daring to question EU and US policy, and for its rapprochement with Moscow, the country has been punished.

It’s democratically elected civilian government which enjoys high levels of public support, has ludicrously – and obscenely – been likened to military governments which have massacred their opponents. “From Hungary to Egypt, endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society,” declared US President Barack Obama in September.

Last month there was another salvo fired at Hungary – it was announced that the US had banned six unnamed Hungarian government officials from entering America, citing concerns over corruption- without the US providing any proof of the corruption.

“At a certain point, the situation, if it continues this way, will deteriorate to the extent where it is impossible to work together as an ally,” warned the Charge D’Affaires of the US Embassy in Budapest, Andre Goodfriend.

The failure to provide any evidence, understandably caused outrage in Hungary. “The government of Hungary is somewhat baffled at the events that have unfolded because this is not the way friends deal with issues,” said Janos Lazar, Orban‘s chief of staff.

“I am inclined to think that it is a punishment for the fact that we talk to Russia,” said Gabor Stier, the head foreign policy editor of the leading Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet.

“America thinks that we are corrupt, but we are a sovereign state, and it is our business. Many people in the United States do not like that Viktor Orban is very independent…..Corruption is just an excuse.”

The 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, reveals that Latvia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina are all below Hungary, as indeed is Italy. Yet it’s Hungarian officials that the US is banning.

‘Is Hungary, the EU’s only dictatorship?’ asked Bloomberg View in April. The BBC ran a hostile piece on Orban and Fidesz in October entitled ‘Cracks Emerge in leading party’.

The piece looked forward to the end of Fidesz rule.

While earlier this week, the New York Times published an OpEd by Kati Marton, whose late husband Richard Holbrooke, was a leading US diplomat, entitled ‘Hungary’s Authoritarian Descent’.

You’d never guess that the Hungarian government wasn’t the flavor of the month in the West would you?

Will Hungary be the next country to be the target of a US/EU sponsored regime change?

Attacks on Orban and his government are sure to intensify but the more the West attacks, the more popular Orban becomes as the defender of Hungary’s national interests.

Hungary gave the West everything it wanted in 1989, and its “reformist” leadership was richly rewarded. But it seems that for the West it’s never enough.

Germans abandon major news sites in anger over manipulation

Triggered by reader disaffection, internet traffic has collapsed for half a dozen major German media websites

What’s going on in the German media is huge. The US and UK media have been hugely biased in their coverage of Russia, but German media has been far, far, worse, to the point which strains credulity.

Now it turns out that part of the reason is CIA fiddling with German media outlets. Coming on the heels of the Snowden revelations, this has Germans seriously ticked-off.

They call it the Ulfkotte-effect. And it’s beginning to resemble an avalanche.

Since the publication of Udo Ulfkotte’s “Gekaufte Journalisten“ in September – now a #1 Amazon bestseller, in which he charges that the CIA regularly bribes top German journalists, himself included, – German readers’ disaffection towards their mainstream media appears to have crossed a point of no return.

Granted, sales of newspapers and magazines have fallen everywhere, not just in Germany. But this is different. This is a boycott that is affecting web traffic. Germans are steering clear of mainstream media websites.

Many Germans have not been too shy to announce their intention on social networks. Some have uploaded videos calling for a boycott on YouTube. Others have created groups calling for the same on Facebook.

The other visible result of reader disaffection has been that throughout September the number of unique visitors to six major German newspapers and magazines was falling steadily.

In October, it simply sank.

Yet up until early summer these same websites had been generating a large and stable amount of traffic. This is an unprecedented trend, and one that is wholly distinct from the fall in newspaper sales generally.

The graphs below show Google analytics provided by Alexa, a company that specializes in actionable analytics for the web.

Six different media sites – and they are all going down

The Spiegel’s infamous “Stoppt Putin Jetzt” July 29 cover apparently played a key role in incensing public opinion. An official readers’ complaint against Der Spiegel’s cover was upheld in August by the German Press Council. The latter ruled that the pictures of MH17 victims on the cover had been “instrumentalized in the context of a political statement.”

Germany’s print media was warned even before that, on April 28, when Cicero, a leading German monthly, published a column titled: “Pride after the Fall”. The captions read: “Newspapers die. The reason: they go against their readers. The current Russia reporting is an example. That’s not the way to engage with readers.“

The author, Alexander Kissler wrote: “Every quarter the newspapers sector grieves. This is when plummeting circulation figures are released. The curve travels from top left to bottom right, in fact it is not a curve anymore, but a straight line, unstoppable on its way to Zero.“

German media was quick to go on an offensive against Russia over the Ukraine crisis, but just as quickly found itself on the defensive against its readers.

Now, after a further worsening of circulation figures during the spring, web traffic has declined as well.

And it still looks like just the beginning. Has the time come to print a book titled: “2019: The Last Copy of Der Spiegel?” – if the German print media will survive even until then, that is.

Source: RI

Spain dispatches Civil Guard ahead of Catalan vote

The Spanish government has not specified what legal consequences Catalan leaders, poll workers or voters might face Sunday, when they go to vote. But Madrid has reportedly readied thousands of Civil Guard officers to travel to Catalonia this weekend.

Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia vowed Tuesday to defy both the central government and the country’s highest court and proceed with a much-disputed weekend vote on whether to secede from Spain.

Hours earlier, Spain’s Constitutional Court ordered Catalonia to freeze its plans for an independence vote, scheduled for Sunday. It was the second time the court issued an order siding with Madrid, which considers any Catalan independence vote illegal.

But Catalan leaders said they would not back down.

“Everything is all set for Nov. 9,” Francesc Homs, a spokesman for the Catalan regional government, said at a news conference. “We are maintaining our participatory process. We couldn’t say this any clearer — and we’re doing so regardless of the consequences.

The presence of military convoys on the roads in Catalonia has been steady throughout the day.

Military convoys on the roads to Lleida and Zaragoza and also Panadella and Low Llobreta and Diagonal were noted, with several military helicopters flying sorties over certain Catalan regions.

Georgia resignations trouble US

The United States is concerned about a series of resignations and dismissals in the Georgian government, TASS reported.

The US hopes Georgia will maintain its course towards Euro-Atlantic future, US Department of State’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a written statement circulated on Wednesday.

“The United States notes with concern the Georgian Prime Minister’s dismissal of Defense Minister Alasania and his deputy ministers, and the subsequent resignations of State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Petriashvili and Foreign Minister Panjikidze and her deputy ministers,” the spokesperson said.

“We have greatly appreciated the work of these ministers in service to their country and in partnership with the United States,” Psaki said in a statement.

The dismissal of Defense Minister Irakly Alasania triggered a split in the ruling party coalition and the government of Georgia. On Wednesday, Our Georgia-Free Democrats, the party he founded, announced its withdrawal from the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.

Prior to that, Petriashvili and Panjikidze, who are also members of Our Georgia-Free Democrats, announced their resignation.