The coffee’s freshly ground, there’s a wide variety of teas and the sticky buns are homemade.

  • “Violence engulfed the area near Greece’s main square last night, with angry protesters chanting “thieves, thieves” and heckling representatives outside the Greek Parliament. The mood was also explosive inside the legislative assembly as lawmakers fiercely debated a bail out package to help save Greece from a disorderly bankruptcy and a potential exit from the eurozone.”
  • “It was the holy grail of investors. The Black-Scholes equation, brainchild of economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, provided a rational way to price a financial contract when it still had time to run. It was like buying or selling a bet on a horse, halfway through the race. It opened up a new world of ever more complex investments, blossoming into a gigantic global industry. But when the sub-prime mortgage market turned sour, the darling of the financial markets became the Black Hole equation, sucking money out of the universe in an unending stream.”
  • “Marine Le Pen yesterday tore up her presidential campaign – or at least her standard stump speech. From now on, she told a cheering audience supporters in Strasbourg, it would be “back to basics”: immigration, immigration, insecurity, love of country and immigration. The far right leader, running a strong third in the polls for this spring’s French presidential, has been campaigning on a bouillabaisse of ultra-nationalist, social and leftist issues.”
  • “The Arab League is calling for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to end the 11-month conflict in Syria. In a resolution seen by the BBC but not yet officially released, it scrapped its observer team, suspended last month, and said it was ending all diplomatic co-operation with Syria. Damascus ‘categorically rejected’ the resolution, a Syrian envoy said.”
  • “The Syrian war cost the life of Mohamed Bathish and he was buried amid volleys of gunfire yesterday in the city where he died – in northern Lebanon.”
  • “Police have ended their strike in a north-eastern Brazilian state, though a similar action in Rio de Janeiro continues days before carnival draws 800,000 tourists. Police in Bahia voted to end a 12-day walkout during which the homicide rate doubled to more than 130 in Salvador, the state capital.”
  • “The name says it all: “The Doner Kebab” murders. From 2000 to 2006, nine men died at the hands of a serial killer across Germany. All of them with foreign heritage, and all but one of Turkish background.”
  • “Concern is growing that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan is no longer stable after temperature readings suggested one of its damaged reactors was reheating. The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said the temperature inside No 2 reactor – one of three that suffered meltdown after last year’s earthquake and tsunami – may have reached 82C on Sunday.”
  • “A Palestinian man has been killed and four others have been wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip last night. Abdel Karim Zatuniya, an elderly security guard working at a barracks in the Zeitun area, south-east of Gaza city, was killed in the attack, the Agence France Presse reported. His adult son was also wounded.”

From Real News:

  • “Tucson Students Stage Walkouts, Teach-Ins Over Suspended Mexican American Studies Program. Students organize school of ethnic studies to teach ‘forbidden’ curriculum.”
  • “Noam Chomsky Q&A: ‘Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours’ (40 minutes)

Marx in the Morning

The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.