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The LEFT parliamentary group today voted unanimously against a prolongation of the German army mission in Afghanistan and a further build-up of German troops. Before the vote a scandal took place in the Parliament: Bundestag President Norbert Lammert threw the entire parliamentary group out of the hemicycle after they, in silent protest, had held up posters bearing names of Afghans who had fallen victim to the NATO bombardment of two gasoline trucks in Kunduz.
Preliminary remark of the questioner: On 13 November 2009, the Saharawi human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, was arrested at the airport of Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara, and denied entry into the occupied territories of Western Sahara, having refused to sign a declaration stating that she was a Moroccan citizen. Mrs Haidar was returning from the USA where she had received a human rights award. Her passport was seized and she was forced against her will to board an airplane bound for the Canary Islands. There she was assured by the Spanish authorities that she would be able to take the next flight home where her two children were waiting for her, whereupon she agreed to leave the airplane.
BILD: Ms. Wagenknecht, THE LEFT in spite of the continued financial crisis does not seem able to score in the super-electoral year. Is your party chairman Oskar Lafontaine so nervous for that reason? Sahra Wagenknecht: Oskar Lafontaine only puts to a head what is undisputable. The media frequently ignore our political contents. That gets on our nerves. Yet it doesn't cause us a nervous breakdown.
The fact that ever more corporations steer into bankruptcy is owed last but not least to the policy of the federal government. It has failed to link the rescue of rotten banks to strict conditions. The consequence is that banks pocket tax monies in the hundreds of billions, but do not waste a single thought to handing these on to businesses in the form of credits. The result of this policy is a worsened credit crunch that is hurting mainly the small and medium-sized enterprises. Yet the insolvency of the Arcandor Group also has to do with the obstinate attitude of the creditor banks that simply refused to provide sufficient credits for the restructuring of the enterprise.
Property creates an obligation“, it says in Article 14 of the German Basic Law. Roughly 27 percent of the shares of the Arcandor Group are in the hands of the Schickedanz family. It has profited for decades of the often badly paid work of the sales clerks – women and men – and as owner bears the responsibility for the management mistakes that now threaten 50,000 employees with social annihilation. This billionaire family needs to be taken to task so as to thwart an insolvency and to secure the jobs at Arcandor in the long term.
It seems as if the greatest gamblers were to get out unscathed by the crisis. While millions of people fear for their jobs and need to accept significant income losses due to short work, German companies pay yields in the tens of billions of Euros. Even Deutsche Bank which has played a central role in the trade with toxic scrap values, will reward its shareholders today with a yield of 0.50 Euro per share.
Wall Street is in shambles. The once so mighty US American investment banks are no longer; they were sold, went bankrupt or were transformed into commercial banks. The market failure became obvious in summer 2007, when by interbank trade, there was hit an important nerve of the global financial system. Since then, banks around the globe have been fighting with enormous losses which threatened to eat up their basic capital. And since then, "rescue packages have been fastened" around the globe – for the banks. After it had been told for many years that there was no money for hospitals, schools or an increase in unemployment allowance, it shows itself now that record sums can be mobilized within the briefest period for the support of big banks.
Wahnsinn mit Methode – Finanzcrash und Weltwirtschaft
"Bundesregierung auf wirtschaftspolitischem Crashkurs in die nächste große Krise"