Morocco & Spain pedophile pardon scandal "closed": pardon revoked and Galván arrested

Closed? We'll see. But it seems that the scandal was just too big for the power structures to manage. So yesterday, in an unprecedented decision Mohamed VI revoked the pardon to the pedophile under the (probably false) identity of Daniel Galván Viña. He did so in TV in order to calm down the mass protests that his decision had caused. 

However the child rapist and probable former spy was already in Spanish territory (questions arise about how his passport was issued so quickly). According to some last news, he has been arrested.

But many questions remain. As I reported recently, it seems that both Spanish and Moroccan secret services were directly involved in getting Galván's royal pardon. Even Galván's true identity is not known: a story speculates, on his own declarations, that he could be Iraqi but his fluency in the Moroccan dialect of Arabic (as well as other languages) make every scenario possible. He could even be Moroccan after all. 

Whatever the case, what seems clear is that he is an important former spy or similar, sufficiently connected and protected to get a new identity from the Spanish military secret service (CNI) and even to have them getting him pardoned by a back door. 

There are Moroccan top-level spies involved, the whole Spanish secret service is involved since the beginning and it is very likely that higher level imperial (NATO) agencies are involved as well, probably some from Washington, especially if Iraq is in the background after all. 

Will these details ever be known? Will the spy agencies be purged on this most outrageous scandal? Will "Galván" serve his full 30 years' term or will he get away by some other back door soon? Many questions. The focus in any case has moved from Morocco to Spain.

Greece: police close social centers and free radio in Patras, 16 arrested

From Contra Info:

On August 5th, 2013, at about 6.30am, uniformed and plainclothes cops raided and evicted three squatted spaces in Patras, namely Parartima squat on the corner of Corinthou and Aratou streets, Maragopouleio squat on Gounari street, and the Self-managed Hangout inside the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Patras. All three squatted spaces were evicted and sealed off by police.

The repressive forces, aided by municipal authorities, confiscated various materials from the squats (including the equipment of the Patras free radio station Radio-Katalipsi 93.7FM), and even sealed up the entrance of Parartima squat with bricks.

A total of 16 comrades were detained: 5 squatters who resisted the raid from the rooftop of Maragopouleio squat, as well as 11 solidarians who tried to approach the squat while the eviction was underway. Soon thereafter, the 11 solidarians were released, but the 5 squatters from Maragopouleio are facing charges and were kept in custody at the police headquarters on Ermou street, where comrades held a solidarity gathering earlier in the morning. Also, at midday, a counter-information gathering took place at Olgas square.

Later the 5 arrestees appeared before public prosecutor and were all released, scheduled to appear in court on August 6th.

Greece: shooting down the immigrants

On July 27, it was known by means of a survivor that three Pakistani immigrants were murdered by Greek border police agents, who shot them down when they tried to cross the border from Turkey. Four others were injured. The media remains silent. 

From Samaa (via I Can't Relax In Greece):

Three Pakistani migrants were killed and four others wounded as they came under fire from Greek border guards.

According to reports, the Pakistani nationals were illegally trying to sneak into Greece from Turkey when they were spotted by border security forces, who opened fire. As a result, three Pakistanis were killed and four others were injured.

Family of Zafar, a resident of Mandi Bahauddin, who was among the dead, called upon Pakistani authorities to bring back the body of his son.

The aggrieved family says that it was informed about the attack by another Pakistani, who too was trying to enter Greece.

Japan's first astronaut on Fukushima catastrophe

Japan Times has an extensive interview with Toyohiro Akihama, the first ever Japanese astronaut, who was also the first journalist in space. Some time after his adventure, he moved to the countryside to experience the agricultural life, with the bad luck of ending up just 60 km from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The whole interview is of interest but he has something to say in particular about the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and how Japan mismanages it:

In the world of engineering, you can’t have “absolute safety” — that’s why the “nuclear village” engineers can’t be trusted. How can they say nuclear power plants are absolutely safe? That’s not possible. Experts who call something safe when it can’t possibly be safe are living in a world of religion, not science.

(...)

I had reported on the fifth anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (in present-day Ukraine) and the Three Mile Island accident (in Pennsylvania in 1979), so I knew all too well what the governments of the U.S. and Russia had done. 

I had read books on how the Japanese government has dealt with nuclear accidents in the past. When there’s an emergency, what the authorities try to do is to maintain “law and order.” What is order? It’s protecting the system presiding at the time. (...) What does maintaining order mean to them? To maintain the order of the existing “nuclear village.”

(...)

What gave me the best pointer was the fact that President Barack Obama ordered all Americans to evacuate from within a 50-mile (80 km) radius (of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant). There was no better message than that. The government was bound to lie.

(...)

In Kyoto (where he now lives) we had a welcoming outcome (in July 21′s Upper House elections), with a member of the (antinuclear) Japanese Communist Party winning a seat. I don’t particularly like the JCP and I’m not a communist — if anything, I’d be more black than red (laugh). But when I read the statements by all the candidates running for the Upper House from Kyoto, nobody except for the JCP candidate said they were clearly opposed to the restart of nuclear reactors.

So the antinuclear voice was clearly expressed in the election. But the mass media failed to inform the voters. They treated the nuclear-power issue almost like a good luck charm. And Tepco only announced after the election that radioactive water from the Fukushima plant had seeped into the groundwater and flowed into the sea — but they should’ve known that already! Isn’t this media control? So my biggest theme at the moment is to stop the restart of nuclear reactors in Japan.

Kabylia: hundreds break Ramadan fasting imposition

Hundreds of Kabyles joined into a public lunch at Tizi-Ouzud, not far from Algiers, to protest the religious dictatorship of Algeria, where people can be arrested and charged on the accusation of "anti-islamic activities" for not fasting during the Muslim month-long Ramadan festivity. 

The defiant act of disobedience was organized after Algerian police harassed three young Kabyles who were ignoring the religious imposition. Local nationalist leader Bouaziz Ait Chebib said:

We called this gathering to denounce the inquisition and persecution of citizens who, because of their beliefs, refuse to observe the fast. 

The authorities decided to ignore the protest this time.

Source: Al-Jazeera.

USA: nuclear plant alert at Alabama

An alert has been issued for Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Generation Station in Alabama (border with Georgia, not far from Florida). According to the latest report:

Plant Farley continues to operate at full capacity, as safety teams on site determine what caused a carbon dioxide release in an auxiliary building.

Around 5:20 Saturday morning, the facility went on Alert as a standard precaution. The Alert status will be lifted as soon as plant personnel confirm a safe level of oxygen in the hallway. The carbon dioxide did come from a fire retardant system, although there is no evidence of any fire.

All site personnel have been accounted for and there are no accidents or injuries reported.

An alert is the second least serious of four nuclear plant emergency classifications assigned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There is no danger to the public. Appropriate federal, state and local officials have been notified.

Additional details will be announced as they become available. Members of the public should stay tuned to their radio and television for the latest information. Information is also available by calling 1-800-367-4020 and at the Alabama Power Website.

Via Energy News.

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.