Greece: residential squat forcibly evicted by police in Thessaloniki

Police raided and forcibly evicted the Orfanotrofio squat in Thessaloniki, which had been the home of many people for many years. Seven people were arrested for just being there. 

Hundreds marched in a solidarity demonstration soon after the sad news spread.

Sources: From the Greek Streets, Contra Info.

Spain: IMF wants to slash salaries another 10%

Cristina Lagarta, oops, I mean Christine Lagarde, IMF top boss and former right hand of fascist French President Sarkozy, wants Spain to slash salaries another 10% (a 7% was already cut last year to all public officers, excepted MPs).

Not just that Lagarde also wants a reduction of 1.7% in social security fees, along a substantial increase in the time needed to be entitled to a pension (from 25 to 35 years) and an undetermined further increase in the VAT tax (already dramatically increased). 

She also wants impossibles such as to to reach "a credible social pact".

On the other hand her forecasts are gloomy, even in the event of acceptance of her stupid demands: private consume would fall initially on these changes (of course) and unemployment would remain extreme even in 2017 (26% forecast).

In spite of rising the VAT and demolishing the social fabric, Lagarde imagines that prices would drop. 

Source: Gara[es].

Lagarde is a retard, reality instead

This woman is plain stupid (or rather a criminal and compulsive liar): salaries simply cannot fall under the living costs and she is not proposing any such measures other than hallucinating with a hypothetical price drop based on nothing. 

Real effective measures would be to force the housing market to adjust prices downwards dramatically and brutally increase the availability of cheap public housing (and/or allowing squatting of speculators' idle property). The extremely high (and anti-market) costs of housing are surely the main barrier to salary drop. You just can't work for less that it costs you to live. 

Another key barrier are the totally unjustified high prices of electricity bills, which have grown more than 50% in the last few years and more than 100% in the last decade. Spain now has the most expensive electricity bills in all the Eurozone, excepted Cyprus and Ireland.

If Spanish salaries have to fall, living costs have to fall first and foremost. And that means hurting the banks and the energy monopolies.

Neither Lagarde nor Barroso nor Rajoy will do that. But is the only logical thing to do other than outright communism.

Bilbao: empty building occupied for homes

The number 13th of Ribera Street (pictured), abandoned for years, was occupied yesterday by people in need of a home.

The building is located in the Old Quarter (Alde Zarra) of Bilbao, Basque Country. 

In their communication, the squatters denounced the city model, oriented to tourism and big companies, what pushes most people to precariousness (temporary jobs, no collective agreements, low salaries) and the near-impossibility to have a decent home (or a living in general). 

They denounce the speculators and the corrupt politicians, who push the people to joblessness, homelessness and even lack of a decent education.

We are tired of getting just the crumbs, they say. And, after recalling the long European squatter tradition, they declare:

We cannot waste any more time, we have to take the future in our hands. We have occupied this building with a clear intention: to create a space for all the people and with open doors to learn how to take the reins of our own lives. 

Sources[es/eu]: Borroka Garaia Da!, Elkartzen.

Italy: march for housing rights brutally repressed

From Struggles in Italy:

Demo for the right to housing in Rome ends in clashes, one injured

Posted on 2013/07/03 by Struggles in Italy

 

A 20-year old young woman lying on the ground with her face covered in blood: this happened yesterday in Rome, when a rally demanding more public housing was brutally charged by the police.

The movement for the right to affordable housing is very active in Rome, with hundreds of occupations, rallies and assemblies to prevent evictions, and public initiatives calling for affordable housing. On July 1, associations and collectives called a demo in the city center, demanding a moratorium on house evictions, which affect the weakest and the poorest in times of economic hardship.

The rally was not authorized to enter Piazza del Campidoglio, home of the Mayoral Office, allegedly because of a planned concert; however, a rally of the ultra-right wing formation La Destra had been authorized to take place in the very same square. Anti-riot police blocked the path of the demonstrators as soon as they reached Piazza Venezia, before they could approach the area in question.

The police charges were very violent, with batons used on unarmed and defenseless protesters. One of them, Stefania Giorioso, had to seek medical help and needed 15 stitches in her forehead. She has since publicly denounced the brutality of police on national television. Mayor Marino later visited her in the hospital, as a gesture of public reconciliation.

Following the episode in Naples earlier in May, this is the second time under the new cabinet that police have attacked left-wing protesters in order to protect far-right activists.