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Doris Lessing's MI5 File: Was She a Threat to the State?

Lara Feigel The Guardian
The security services set out to ensnare Lessing. But they weren't sure where she lived, why she went to Communist party meetings or even whether her nickname was Tigger or Trigger. M15 spied on Doris Lessing for 20 years, declassified documents reveal. Lara Feigel interrogates the secret archives.

Theater Review: "Cuckooed" True Story by British Comic And Activist of How Arms Company Spied on Him

Lucy Komisar The Komisar Scoop
True story about BAE Systems, the UK's largest aerospace and weapons company. BAE is the major bad guy in the play, as well as a major bad guy among arms traders. (In 2010, BAE pled guilty in the U.S. to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with an arms sale to Saudi Arabia. The issue was bribery to get a Saudi contract. British Prime Minister Tony Blair quashed an investigation there, as he wanted the contract.)

Europe’s Perpetual Crisis

Conn M. Hallinan International Policy Digest
Why, given the failure of austerity economics, haven't we seen a policy shift to stimulation of the economy?...the push for yet greater austerity has less to do with a deep concern by Europe’s elites over debt—it is high but manageable—than as part of a stealth campaign aimed at dismantling rules and regulations that protect worker rights, unions, and the environment. Meanwhile Washington is concerned with the effect of the economic crisis on the viability of NATO.
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