Impressions from 25 years fall of the wall anniversary. I've been to Bernauer Straße on the former death strip. In Berlin there were 8000 balloons along the former course of the wall, released the moment the wall came down 25 years ago ...

This wall came down, but there is a new wall that surrounds the EU and seals off against the rest of Europe and Africa in particular with hundreds and thousands of refugees dying in the Mediterranean on their deperate voyages hoping for a better world. The Polical Beauty organisation did a really great action which can be found here, http://www.politicalbeauty.de/mauerfall.html. They snitched the white wall remembrance crosses for the victims of GDR times, people that died trying to break away from the eastern socialist state, and brought them to the border of the EU to point out this way of blocking refugees out is a new human injustice that has to end.

Let's tear this wall down as well!

KIKI

Protesters and clothes swapping initiative in front of the new Primark store at Alexanderplatz

Today the second Primark branch in Berlin and the 13th in Germany opened. Primark is a budget clothes and home products manufacturer from Ireland. Its prices are scandalously low with T-Shirts often for no more than 2 €. The company is hugely successful in Europe and people go crazy about the stuff. The clothes can also be described as fast fashion, produced to be thrown away after wearing them once. Was it only about wasting resources like water, land or chemicals and polluting the environment it would be bad enough but it's also about exploiting workers who earn so little that they can't afford a living, working in unsafe factories that burn down or collapse from time to time, like in Bangladesh last year, where about 1.000 garment workers died. And people are often exposed to toxic chemicals as well. All those facts make the products of brands like Primark, KiK or Mango so bad, terrible yet lethal.

As long as the companies refuse to improve working conditions along the production chain and develop an environmentally friendly attitude the only effective thing to do is to stop buying them. There were a lot of people today at Alexanderplatz to protest against Primark and the Inkota network organized some good initiatives, here, like the clothes swapping booth. And there was lots of media with some articles also about the protests here and here. If you have a facebook account you can see the pictures of BUND here, or check out the Lebenskleidung page, here, they covered it very well, too.

By the way, if you need new underwear or basic shirts, check out the ethical clothes by NIKOLAIKIKI,

here. You can also have a look at how we produce, I documented the production in Izmir, Turkey, here.

Happy considered shopping!

KIKI

Marktkauf supermarket, Wilhelmshaven, Germany (click on the image to view big)

15 meters of meat packed in plastic. This is our world.

KIKI

Here are interesting articles and videos from this last week:

Let's start with the World Cup. I will boycott it. Why? John Oliver from HBO has some explanations here. Watch how Brasilian government forces use tear gas against the protesters, from today, here.

Protests on Taksim square in Istanbul have led to brutal police acts. Amnesty set up a support page to solidarise with the peaceful protesters. It's here.

A very interesting video that explains the very awkward story behind Julian Assange and him being trapped in the Equadorian embassy in London, here.

A video about the US EPA regulations and the consequences for the environment, here.

This is an interesting German article about the team behind Edward Snowden, here.

I really enjoyed the interview of Abby Martin with Noam Chomsky about war and imperialism, here.

Some interesting German information about the GMO industry and their strategy to occupy Europe, here.

This is a really good German article about what the TTIP would also mean, here. I have little hope it can be overturned.

If you want to do something against the plans of the Bundesregierung to advance Fracking in Germany you can sign this petition here.

Three years ago Fukushima shocked the world. Today nobody speaks about it anymore. Tons of radioactive water still seap into the Pacific every single day for the last three years and their are no signs it's going to change. The consequences for people in the region and the generations after are very bleak. Watch this!

If you're interested what real scientists have to say about the financial situation, crisis and the consequenses of debts for us and future societies, this blog site is really good.

And one amazing interview with a German professor about the emancipation from abundance in a post growth economy, it's here. It has three parts and is over two hours long but well worth it.

Now something beautiful for last, crazy flowers that look like humans, ghosts or animals, here.

See you later!

KIKI

I decided to collect interesting articles and post them into the blog roll instead of just sharing them on facebook so that everybody who may be interested can read them. This is only kind of a news ticker instead of an individual article that contributes to the flood of information we are exposed to. Some articles are German, most of them are English.

First there is an article about protests of McDonald's workers for higher wages, it's here,

then I found what Noam Chomsky has to say on class warfare, it's here.

An article about China lambasting US spying tactics, here.

I collected some articles about the protests in Brasil against the World Cup, one is here, another one here. There are also German ones here and here. This article about graffiti art expressing the problems related to the World Cup, here, is nice, too. There is an interesting German documentary about the doubtful event, here. I will boycott the games by the way, there are too many terrible things related to them, one being the deforestation of rain forest to build absurdly expensive stadiums for only four World Cup games and charge entrance fees that the normal Brasilian population could never afford. Bad!

Although I'm still not quite sure how serious this news site is, this German article about the weapon industry and how it benefits from the World Cup makes perfect sense, it's here.

I found this article about Americas relation to Nigeria interesting, here.

This is an article about global obesity, here.

By the way, there is an interesting article about cooking shows, here.

I liked this article about a woman who got rid of the general obsessional washing, here.

I also liked what Gregor Gysi had to say about the approach of the Federal German Bar regarding the US mass surveillance: "Die Bundesanwaltschaft leitet wegen der NSA-Ausspähaffäre offenbar kein Ermittlungsverfahren ein, weil sie keine Möglichkeit sähe, an belastbares Material über die Aktivitäten der NSA und des britischen Geheimdienstes GCHQ zu kommen. Das ist merkwürdig, weil wegen Diebstahls oder Mordes noch nie ein Ermittlungsverfahren mit der Begründung abgelehnt wurde, dass man nicht an Beweise herankäme. Ob dies gelingt oder nicht, stellt man erst im Ermittlungsverfahren fest. Wann hört die Hörigkeit der Bundesregierung, unserer Geheimdienste und anderer Behörden gegenüber der US-Administration endlich auf?" Gregor Gysi

Interesting to see what those responsible at the web summit in Stockholm had to say about why Edward Snowden and other whistleblower were blacklisted from the event, here.

And finally I liked those drawings and paintings about environmental and political issues, here.

I am collecting new articles already for the next news post.

Happy reading!

KIKI