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polly7
polly7's Journal
polly7's Journal
May 21, 2015
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/05/20/hundreds-tech-companies-congress-tpp-and-fast-track-harms-digital-innovation-and
Hundreds of Tech Companies to Congress: TPP and Fast Track Harms Digital Innovation and Users’ Right
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, May 20, 2015 - 12:30pm
Electronic Frontier Foundation
WASHINGTON - In a joint letter to Congress released today, more than 250 technology companies and user rights organizations say that the extreme level of secrecy surrounding trade negotiations have led to provisions in agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that threaten digital innovation, free speech, and access to knowledge online, and the letter calls on Congress to come out against the Fast Track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), bill for legitimizing this secretive process. Its signatories include AVG Technologies, DreamHost, Namecheap, Mediafire, Imgur, Internet Archive, BoingBoing, Piwik, Private Internet Access, and many others.
The letter specifically identifies the TPP's threats based on leaked texts of the agreement—how it threatens fair use, could lead to more costly forms of online copyright enforcement, criminalize whistleblowing and investigative journalism, and create investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts that would further jeopardize user protections in domestic laws. The Fast Track bill, the companies write, would legitimize the exclusive process that has led to these and other provisions, as well as undermine lawmakers' efforts towards striking the right balance between the interests of copyright holders and those of innovators and users.
“We simply cannot allow our policymakers to use secret trade negotiations to make digital policy for the 21st century,” said Maira Sutton, global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Leaks of the TPP agreement have revealed time and time again that this opaque process has led to provisions that undermine our rights to free speech, privacy, and innovation online. The TPP is a huge threat to the Internet and its users. Full stop.”
“The future of the Internet is simply too important to be decided behind closed doors,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future. “The Fast Track / Trade Promotion Authority process actively silences the voices of Internet users, startups, and small tech companies while giving the biggest players even more power to set policy that benefits a few select companies while undermining the health of the entire Web.”
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/05/20/hundreds-tech-companies-congress-tpp-and-fast-track-harms-digital-innovation-and
May 21, 2015
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/20/women-and-biodiversity-feed-world-not-corporations-and-gmos
Women and Biodiversity Feed the World, Not Corporations and GMOs
Published on Wednesday, May 20, 2015
by Common Dreams
Biodiverse ecological agriculture in women's hands is a solution not just to the malnutrition crisis, but also the climate crisis.
by Vandana Shiva
?itok=NyJeCLy8
'Women have been the primary growers of food and nutrition throughout history,' writes Dr. Vandana Shiva, 'but today, food is being taken out of our hands and substituted for toxic commodities controlled by global corporations.' (Photos: Georgina Smith/CIAT)
Excerpt:
Having destroyed our sources of nutrition by destroying biodiversity—and creating vitamin A, iron and other deficiencies—the same companies who created the crisis are promising a miracle solution: GMOs. Genetically engineered Golden Rice and GMO Bananas are being proposed by corporations hiding behind the cloak of academia as a solution to hunger and malnutrition in the Global South. But these are false miracles.
Indigenous biodiverse varieties of food grown by women provide far more nutrition than the commodities produced by industrial agriculture. Since 1985 the false miracle of Golden Rice is being offered as a solution to vitamin A deficiency. But Golden rice is still under development. Billions of dollars have been wasted on a hoax.
On 20th of April, the White house gave an award to Syngenta which had tried to pirate India’s rice diversity, and owns most of the 80 patents related to Golden Rice. This is reminiscient of the Emperor who had no clothes. Golden Rice is 350% less efficient in providing vitanim A than the biodiversity alternatives that women grow. GMO ‘iron-rich’ Bananas have 3000% less iron than turmeric and 2000% less iron than amchur (mango powder). Apart from being nutritionally empty, GMOs are part of an industrial system of agriculture that is destroying the planet, depleting our water sources, increasing green houses gases, and driving farmers into debt and suicide through a greater dependence on chemical inputs. Moreover, these corporate-led industrial monocultures are destroying biodiversity, and we are losing access to the food systems that have sustained us throughout time. Biodiverse ecological agriculture in women’s hands is a solution not just to the malnutrition crisis, but also the climate crisis.
Women have been the primary growers of food and nutrition throughout history, but today, food is being taken out of our hands and substituted for toxic commodities controlled by global corporations. Monoculture industrial farming has taken the quality, taste and nutrition out of our food.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/20/women-and-biodiversity-feed-world-not-corporations-and-gmos
May 20, 2015
A young boy sits outside his home, which was destroyed when Saudi-led forces targeted his neighborhood Dhamar, 90 kilometers from the capital. Photo by Alhussain Albukhaiti, taken on April 14, 2015. Copyright Demotix.
Electricity, Food and Fuel Shortages Increase Suffering of Yemenis as Saudi-Coalition Bombs Continue to Fall
Yemen's Humanitarian Crisis Exacerbated By War
http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/ceasefire-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-war-battered-yemen/
Humanitarian Crisis in War-Battered Yemen
A young boy sits outside his home, which was destroyed when Saudi-led forces targeted his neighborhood Dhamar, 90 kilometers from the capital. Photo by Alhussain Albukhaiti, taken on April 14, 2015. Copyright Demotix.
More than 1,800 people — mostly civilians — have died and another 500, 000 people have been displaced in fighting so far.
Power plants, fixed line and mobile telecommunications networks are out of service in many cities in Yemen. The country is being forced to ration oil. In multiple areas, this has meant cutting all electricity, and telecommunication services, including the Internet.
Read more: Under a Shaky Ceasefire, Yemenis Struggle to Stay Connected to the World
The five-day truce took effect close to midnight on Tuesday, May 12. Aid agencies are sending in food, fuel and other supplies for civilians. But millions are in need in the Arab world's poorest country, where the UN has warned a humanitarian disaster is unfolding.
Electricity, Food and Fuel Shortages Increase Suffering of Yemenis as Saudi-Coalition Bombs Continue to Fall
Yemen's Humanitarian Crisis Exacerbated By War
According to UNICEF, children in Yemen are more at risk of dying from hunger and poor health care than bombs and bullets.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/ceasefire-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-war-battered-yemen/
May 20, 2015
?1431904416
?1431904450
Bargaining:...........
McDonald’s counter-attack:..........
Government under pressure:.........
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/how-unite-took-on-the-fast-food-companies-over-zero-hour-contracts-and-won/
How Unite Took On The Fast Food Companies Over Zero Hour Contracts And Won
Workers in the fast food industry in New Zealand scored a spectacular victory over what has been dubbed “zero hour contracts” during a collective agreement bargaining round over the course of March and April this year.
?1431904416
?1431904450
Bargaining:...........
McDonald’s counter-attack:..........
Government under pressure:.........
“Zero-hour contracts are common in the fast-food and service industries. Companies like McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s still use them. Young and vulnerable workers are particularly affected. Probably among these are the offspring of National Party voters who are working in fast-food outlets while, say, in tertiary study. A message about the implicit unfairness of their lot will have reached the Beehive.
“Mr Woodhouse insisted initially that there should be no rush to reform because zero-hour contracts could be valid in certain circumstances. That may be so with casual agreements involving university students, where it suits either party to be able to say yes or no to work. In that situation, the balance is equitable. But this can hardly be used as a justification for maintaining the practice in circumstances where the balance is clearly unfair.
“Already, the minister has indicated change will occur in two areas. First, restraint of trade provisions that stop employees working for a competing business if their employer does not provide their desired hours of work will be outlawed. Second, shifts will no longer be able to be cancelled at short notice. The restraint of trade is especially unfair. It prevents workers taking on extra part-time work to provide far greater income certainty.
“Mr Woodhouse must not stop there, however. The Restaurant Brands employees won a guaranteed number of hours of work. That must also be part of the Government’s changes. The law must specify that workers paid at an hourly rate are assured an agreed weekly minimum number of hours. Employees will derive a benefit in terms of certainty and security. Workers, for their part, demonstrate far greater loyalty to employers if they feel they are being treated fairly. As with the best workplace law, advantages will flow to both sides.”
“Mr Woodhouse insisted initially that there should be no rush to reform because zero-hour contracts could be valid in certain circumstances. That may be so with casual agreements involving university students, where it suits either party to be able to say yes or no to work. In that situation, the balance is equitable. But this can hardly be used as a justification for maintaining the practice in circumstances where the balance is clearly unfair.
“Already, the minister has indicated change will occur in two areas. First, restraint of trade provisions that stop employees working for a competing business if their employer does not provide their desired hours of work will be outlawed. Second, shifts will no longer be able to be cancelled at short notice. The restraint of trade is especially unfair. It prevents workers taking on extra part-time work to provide far greater income certainty.
“Mr Woodhouse must not stop there, however. The Restaurant Brands employees won a guaranteed number of hours of work. That must also be part of the Government’s changes. The law must specify that workers paid at an hourly rate are assured an agreed weekly minimum number of hours. Employees will derive a benefit in terms of certainty and security. Workers, for their part, demonstrate far greater loyalty to employers if they feel they are being treated fairly. As with the best workplace law, advantages will flow to both sides.”
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/how-unite-took-on-the-fast-food-companies-over-zero-hour-contracts-and-won/
May 19, 2015
http://fpif.org/nafta_is_starving_mexico/
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt
By EDELO, Creative Time Reports
The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty (with Video)
December 30, 2013
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-nafta-drove-mexicans-poverty-and-sparked-zapatista-revolt?akid=11347.44541.RWB6aQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=19
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
snip~
snip~
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
More: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023210314
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
And what about what's already been done to Mexico and Canada?
These agreements are garbage, and I have no idea why our gov'ts keep creating new ones that allow overruling laws, except that corporations must be valued above all else. People are just tools now to keep them running.
NAFTA Is Starving Mexico
Free trade has starved Mexico and stuffed transnational corporations.
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became the law of the land, millions of Mexicans have joined the ranks of the hungry. Malnutrition is highest among the country’s farm families, who used to produce enough food to feed the nation.
As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in “food poverty” (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.
About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food.
As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in “food poverty” (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.
About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food.
Seventeen years after NAFTA, some two million farmers have been forced off their land by low prices and the dismantling of government supports. They did not find jobs in industry. Instead most of them became part of a mass exodus as the number of Mexican migrants to the United States rose to half a million a year. In the first few years of NAFTA, corn imports tripled and the producer price fell by half.
Take the case of Corn Products International (CPI). The transnational filed a NAFTA claim against the Mexican government in 2003, claiming a loss to its business due to a tax levied on high fructose corn syrup in beverages. Mexico’s reason for imposing the tax was to save a sugarcane industry that provided jobs for thousands of citizens and played a crucial economic role in many regions. The government was also frustrated by its failure under NAFTA to access the highly protected U.S. sugar market.
A 2008 NAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico had to pay $58.4 million to CPI. The government paid up on January 25, 2011. CPI posted $3.7 billion dollars in net sales the year of the decision. The fine paid by the Mexican government could have provided a year’s worth of the basic food basket to more than 50,000 poor families.
A 2008 NAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico had to pay $58.4 million to CPI. The government paid up on January 25, 2011. CPI posted $3.7 billion dollars in net sales the year of the decision. The fine paid by the Mexican government could have provided a year’s worth of the basic food basket to more than 50,000 poor families.
http://fpif.org/nafta_is_starving_mexico/
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt
By EDELO, Creative Time Reports
The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty (with Video)
December 30, 2013
Mexico was said to be one step away from entering the “First World.” It was December 1992, and Mexico’s then-president, Carlos Salinas, signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The global treaty came with major promises of economic development, driven by increased farm production and foreign investment, that would end emigration and eliminate poverty. But, as the environmentalist Gustavo Castro attests in our video, the results have been the complete opposite—increased emigration, hunger and poverty.
While the world was entertaining the idea of the end of times supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar, on December 21, 2012, over 40,000 Mayan Zapatis . tas took to the streets to make their presence known in a March of Silence. The indigenous communities of Chiapas—Tzeltales, Tzotziles, Tojolobales, Choles, Zoques and Mames—began their mobilization from their five centers of government, which are called Caracoles. In silence they entered the fog of a December winter and occupied the same squares, in the same cities, that they had descended upon as ill-equipped rebels on January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA came into effect.
In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTA’s implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.
Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexico’s natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: “What is it that we do want?” The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible
In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTA’s implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.
Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexico’s natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: “What is it that we do want?” The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-nafta-drove-mexicans-poverty-and-sparked-zapatista-revolt?akid=11347.44541.RWB6aQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=19
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the country’s environmental laws, according to a new study.
The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per cent of claims since 2005 have been brought against Canada, and the number of challenges under a controversial settlement clause is rising sharply.
snip~
“Thanks to NAFTA chapter 11, Canada has now been sued more times through investor-state dispute settlement than any other developed country in the world,” said Scott Sinclair, who authored the study.
snip~
There are currently eight cases against the Canadian government asking for a total of $6 billion in damages. All of them were brought by U.S. companies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
The study notes that although NAFTA proponents claimed that ISDS was needed to address concerns about corruption in the Mexican court system, most investor-state challenges involve public policy and regulatory matters. Sixty three per cent of claims against Canada involve challenges to environmental protection or resource management measures.
Currently, Canada faces nine active ISDS claims challenging a wide range of government measures that allegedly interfere with the expected profitability of foreign investments. Foreign investors are seeking over $6 billion in damages from the Canadian government.
These include challenges to a ban on fracking by the Quebec provincial government (Lone Pine); a decision by a Canadian federal court to invalidate a pharmaceutical patent on the basis that it was not sufficiently innovative or useful (Eli Lilly); provisions to promote the rapid adoption of renewable energies (Mesa); a moratorium on offshore wind projects in Lake Ontario (Windstream); and the decision to block a controversial mega-quarry in Nova Scotia (Clayton/Bilcon).
Canada has already lost or settled six claims, paid out damages totaling over $170 million and incurred tens of millions more in legal costs. Mexico has lost five cases and paid damages of US$204 million. The U.S. has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.
More: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023210314
Even though Canada enjoyed a healthy and mutually beneficial free trade with the US, Mulroney was duped into the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, later to become NAFTA. In the wink of an eye Canada went from being a branch plant economy to a captive economy and resource slave to the US. NAFTA has really nothing to do with free trade. It is really a constitutional bill of rights for corporate exploitation. It was a huge step forward in formalizing the corporate welfare state and marked the death knell of the social welfare state. While many Canadians saw from the outset the NAFTA was an economic Trojan horse, Americans on their side of the border were only later to have similar concerns.
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
FOUR REASONS WHY NAFTA IS A BAD DEAL FOR CANADA:
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
May 19, 2015
I'm still disgusted (sorry!) by how she helped spread the 'Viagra and mass rape' lies.
I thought it was absolutely horrible to use rape as a propaganda weapon for war, while ignoring the reality of it for all those brutalized, raped and some, murdered by the NATO supported 'rebels' - just one example of their many atrocities.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2174087
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/08/26/lies-war-and-empire-nato’s-“humanitarian-imperialism”-in-libya
In early March of 2011, news headlines in Western nations reported that Gaddafi would kill half a million people.
<1> On March 18, as the UN agreed to launch air strikes on Libya, it was reported that Gaddafi had begun an assault against the rebel-held town of Benghazi. The Daily Mail reported that Gaddafi had threatened to send in his African mercenaries to crush the rebellion.<2> Reports of Libyan government tanks sitting outside Benghazi poised for an invasion were propagated in the Western media.<3> In the lead-up to the United Nations imposing a no-fly zone, reports spread rapidly through the media of Libyan government jets bombing the rebels.<4> Even in February, the New York Times – the sacred temple for the ‘stenographers of power’ we call “journalists” – reported that Gaddafi was amassing “thousands of mercenaries” to defend Tripoli and crush the rebels.<5>
Italy’s Foreign Minister declared that over 1,000 people were killed in the fighting in February, citing the number as “credible.”<6> Even a top official with Human Rights Watch declared the rebels to be “peaceful protesters” who “are nice, sincere people who want a better future for Libya.”<7> The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that “thousands” of people were likely killed by Gaddafi, “and called for international intervention to protect civilians.”<8> In April, reports spread near and far at lightning speed of Gaddafi’s forces using rape as a weapon of war, with the first sentence in a Daily Mail article declaring, “Children as young as eight are being raped in front of their families by Gaddafi’s forces in Libya,” with Gaddafi handing out Viagra to his troops in a planned and organized effort to promote rape.<9>
As it turned out, these claims – as posterity notes – turned out to be largely false and contrived. Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International both investigated the claims of rape, and “have found no first-hand evidence in Libya that rapes are systematic and being used as part of war strategy,” and their investigations in Eastern Libya “have not turned up significant hard evidence supporting allegations of rapes by Qaddafi’s forces.” Yet, just as these reports came out, Hillary Clinton declared that the U.S. is “deeply concerned by reports of wide-scale rape” in Libya.<10> Even U.S. military and intelligence officials had to admit that, “there is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas”; at the same time Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, “told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti-impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.”<
Untrue, says US
US says Gadhafi troops issued Viagra, raping victims
Allegation suggests troops encouraged to turn to sexual violence, envoys say
By Louis Charbonneau
updated 4/28/2011 9:31:26 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. envoy to the United Nations told the Security Council Thursday that troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were increasingly engaging in sexual violence and some had been issued the impotency drug Viagra, diplomats said.
Several U.N. diplomats who attended a closed-door Security Council meeting on Libya told Reuters that U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice raised the Viagra issue in the context of increasing reports of sexual violence by Gadhafi's troops.
"Rice raised that in the meeting but no one responded," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The allegation was first reported by a British newspaper.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42809612/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa#.TqXeG96ImU8
US intel: No evidence of Viagra as weapon in Libya
http://www.msnbc .msn.com/id/42824884/ns/world_news-mide...
UN Ambassador Rice reportedly had said drug was being used in systematic rapes
NBC News and news services updated 4/29/2011 1:52:00 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS — There is no evidence that Libyan military forces are being given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas, US military and intelligence officials told NBC News on Friday.
Diplomats said Thursday that US Ambassador Susan Rice told a closed-door meeting of officials at the UN that the Libyan military is using rape as a weapon in the war with the rebels and some had been issued the anti- impotency drug. She reportedly offered no evidence to backup the claim.
While rape has been a weapon of choice in many other African conflicts, the US officials say they've seen no such reports out of Libya.
May 19, 2015
BBM.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/salvadorans-warn-canadians-about-world-banks-kangaroo-court/
Sorry, Duplicate. Salvadorans Warn Canadians about World Bank’s Kangaroo Court
Please see prior thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110840771
By Rene Guerra
Source: teleSUR English
May 19, 2015
In anticipation of an imminent ruling from the World Bank’s little known investor-state arbitration tribunal that could force El Salvador to pay Canadian mining firm OceanaGold US$301 million, a Salvadoran delegation is in Canada to discuss how this arbitration process threatens democratic decision making, public health and the environment here and beyond.
“As United Nations expert Alfred de Zayas recently expressed, the impact that investor-state arbitrations have already had and will have on human rights is very worrisome,” warned Yanira Cortez, Deputy Attorney for the Environment for El Salvador’s Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, at an event in Ottawa this week. “We know that just the threat of these lawsuits can force governments in the Global South – and even here in Canada – to go against the public interest when it comes to health and environmental protections.”
Since May 11, Cortez and Marcos Gálvez, President of the Association for the Development of El Salvador, have been sharing how their country’s sovereign decision to halt large-scale mining on environmental grounds could be punished any day now by the secretive International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, DC. Gálvez’s organization is also a founding member of the country’s National Roundtable against Metal Mining.
They have also been reminding Canadians of the dangers they face through investor provisions in existing and proposed free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada and European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
OceanaGold (originally Pacific Rim) is suing El Salvador for an amount equivalent to the country’s 3-year budget for health, education, and public security for not having granted it a permit to put a gold mine into operation, despite its project not having met regulatory requirements and despite a broad-based consensus in El Salvador rejecting large-scale mining. Filed in 2009, this ICSID suit is taking place in an undemocratic, closed door arbitration tribunal and could undermine El Salvador’s sovereignty and right to legislate social and environmental policies in the public’s interests. For example, a proposed legislative ban on mining has been stalled in the Salvadoran legislature for years, partly due to government fears of further suits in response.
“As United Nations expert Alfred de Zayas recently expressed, the impact that investor-state arbitrations have already had and will have on human rights is very worrisome,” warned Yanira Cortez, Deputy Attorney for the Environment for El Salvador’s Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, at an event in Ottawa this week. “We know that just the threat of these lawsuits can force governments in the Global South – and even here in Canada – to go against the public interest when it comes to health and environmental protections.”
Since May 11, Cortez and Marcos Gálvez, President of the Association for the Development of El Salvador, have been sharing how their country’s sovereign decision to halt large-scale mining on environmental grounds could be punished any day now by the secretive International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, DC. Gálvez’s organization is also a founding member of the country’s National Roundtable against Metal Mining.
They have also been reminding Canadians of the dangers they face through investor provisions in existing and proposed free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada and European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
OceanaGold (originally Pacific Rim) is suing El Salvador for an amount equivalent to the country’s 3-year budget for health, education, and public security for not having granted it a permit to put a gold mine into operation, despite its project not having met regulatory requirements and despite a broad-based consensus in El Salvador rejecting large-scale mining. Filed in 2009, this ICSID suit is taking place in an undemocratic, closed door arbitration tribunal and could undermine El Salvador’s sovereignty and right to legislate social and environmental policies in the public’s interests. For example, a proposed legislative ban on mining has been stalled in the Salvadoran legislature for years, partly due to government fears of further suits in response.
As Gálvez and Cortez’s stay in Canada draws to an end, Gálvez draws hope from this growing global concern over these powerful international tribunals. “Salvadorans, Canadians, and many others elsewhere face a common threat. Let’s continue to call on our governments to withdraw from these treaties and provisions that leave us all so vulnerable.”
BBM.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/salvadorans-warn-canadians-about-world-banks-kangaroo-court/
May 19, 2015
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/writing-history-before-it-happens/
Engelhardt - Writing History Before It Happens
By Tom Engelhardt
Source: TomDispatch.com
May 19, 2015
It’s commonplace to speak of “the fog of war,” of what can’t be known in the midst of battle, of the inability of both generals and foot soldiers to foresee developments once fighting is underway. And yet that fog is nothing compared to the murky nature of the future itself, which, you might say, is the fog of human life. As Tomorrowlands at world fairs remind us, despite a human penchant for peering ahead and predicting what our lives will be like, we’re regularly surprised when the future arrives.
Remind me who, even among opponents and critics of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, ever imagined that the decision to take out Saddam Hussein’s regime and occupy the country would lead to a terror caliphate in significant parts of Iraq and Syria that would conquer social media and spread like wildfire. And yet, don’t think that the future is completely unpredictable either.
Remind me who, even among opponents and critics of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, ever imagined that the decision to take out Saddam Hussein’s regime and occupy the country would lead to a terror caliphate in significant parts of Iraq and Syria that would conquer social media and spread like wildfire. And yet, don’t think that the future is completely unpredictable either.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/writing-history-before-it-happens/
May 19, 2015
http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.ca/2011/03/thatcher-reagan-mulroney-and-their.html
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
NAFTA - Mulroney's legacy ....
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
I guess you can tell .......... I can't stand him.
Brian Mulroney, one of the most hated PM's in Canada to many here.
He sold Canadians and our resources down the river - arrogant, pompous and weak.
A great admirer of Reagan and Thatcher, the three families often vacationed together after they had left office.
Thatcher, Reagan & Mulroney - And Their Snake Oil
In my time we were sold the illusion of globalization. We were conned into believing we could abandon those menial, manufacturing jobs and instead embrace the information age, the "knowledge economy" of the future. We were no longer people of thermoses and lunch pails and steel toed boots. Let the developing world have those chores. We would be a society that extracted great wealth through processing and transmitting information. This would be the line by which we maintained the divide between the new world and the old.
And who sold us this nonsense? A big-haired ideologue, a rank opportunist and a borderline senile B-movie star. Thatcher, Mulroney and Reagan. Why did we believe them? What were we thinking? These three tore down vibrant, resilient societies and created a schism that perpetrated a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the ultra-rich. The rich got oh so much richer by outsourcing all those once expensive manufacturing jobs to poor nations with low wages and lax regulations. In their wake they left us with the promise of a glorious future in the knowledge economy.
Fair is fair. We yielded our manufacturing sector. We even dropped our trousers on trade and tariffs and surrendered our markets to ever less than fair competition. And, having done that, having undone ourselves, we waited for our new legacy, the knowledge economy. In the meantime we flipped burgers and kept busy selling each other those runners from Vietnam.
Today it's obvious that Thatcher, Mulroney and Reagan duped us on that knowledge economy business. That too has been outsourced. Most of us have had to deal with those technical service call centres where "Ashley" greets you with a heavy Mumbai accent. Accounting firms use number crunchers oceans away to process tax returns. My telephone company that earns its profits from me and my fellow Canadians outsources its tele-marketing campaign to South Asians.
Peter Wilby, former editor of The Independent and The New Statesman, writes in The Guardian, that, across the West, the middle class decline has only begun and tomorrow is not going to be a better day:
And who sold us this nonsense? A big-haired ideologue, a rank opportunist and a borderline senile B-movie star. Thatcher, Mulroney and Reagan. Why did we believe them? What were we thinking? These three tore down vibrant, resilient societies and created a schism that perpetrated a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the ultra-rich. The rich got oh so much richer by outsourcing all those once expensive manufacturing jobs to poor nations with low wages and lax regulations. In their wake they left us with the promise of a glorious future in the knowledge economy.
Fair is fair. We yielded our manufacturing sector. We even dropped our trousers on trade and tariffs and surrendered our markets to ever less than fair competition. And, having done that, having undone ourselves, we waited for our new legacy, the knowledge economy. In the meantime we flipped burgers and kept busy selling each other those runners from Vietnam.
Today it's obvious that Thatcher, Mulroney and Reagan duped us on that knowledge economy business. That too has been outsourced. Most of us have had to deal with those technical service call centres where "Ashley" greets you with a heavy Mumbai accent. Accounting firms use number crunchers oceans away to process tax returns. My telephone company that earns its profits from me and my fellow Canadians outsources its tele-marketing campaign to South Asians.
Peter Wilby, former editor of The Independent and The New Statesman, writes in The Guardian, that, across the West, the middle class decline has only begun and tomorrow is not going to be a better day:
http://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.ca/2011/03/thatcher-reagan-mulroney-and-their.html
Mulroney was a vindictive politician arriving after the Liberals had a long and successful run in power. Finally, Canada’s Progressive Conservatives had acquired a majority government- and not just any majority, the largest ever. Canadians had sent a massage we wanted change and we got it! Mulroney was soon to show that he was not a moderate conservative and maybe even an anti-conservative as he set about to alter the fundamental definition of the country. Being in office was his greatest binge of all, recklessly tampering with both the economy and the constitution.
Even though Canada enjoyed a healthy and mutually beneficial free trade with the US, Mulroney was duped into the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, later to become NAFTA. In the wink of an eye Canada went from being a branch plant economy to a captive economy and resource slave to the US. NAFTA has really nothing to do with free trade. It is really a constitutional bill of rights for corporate exploitation. It was a huge step forward in formalizing the corporate welfare state and marked the death knell of the social welfare state. While many Canadians saw from the outset the NAFTA was an economic Trojan horse, Americans on their side of the border were only later to have similar concerns.
Even though Canada enjoyed a healthy and mutually beneficial free trade with the US, Mulroney was duped into the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, later to become NAFTA. In the wink of an eye Canada went from being a branch plant economy to a captive economy and resource slave to the US. NAFTA has really nothing to do with free trade. It is really a constitutional bill of rights for corporate exploitation. It was a huge step forward in formalizing the corporate welfare state and marked the death knell of the social welfare state. While many Canadians saw from the outset the NAFTA was an economic Trojan horse, Americans on their side of the border were only later to have similar concerns.
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/235930947-the-deplorable-legacy-of-brian-mulroney
NAFTA - Mulroney's legacy ....
FOUR REASONS WHY NAFTA IS A BAD DEAL FOR CANADA:
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.ca/2009/11/nafta-and-teh-selling-of-canada-we-got.html
I guess you can tell .......... I can't stand him.
May 18, 2015
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-kids-arent-all-right/
Yay, war .... and whatever it takes.
The Kids Aren’t All Right
By Nick Turse
Source: TomDispatch.com
May 18, 2015
MALAKAL, South Sudan — I didn’t really think he was going to shoot me. There was no anger in his eyes. His finger may not have been anywhere near the trigger. He didn’t draw a bead on me. Still, he was a boy and he was holding an AK-47 and it was pointed in my direction.
When I was their age, I wasn’t trusted to drive, vote, drink, get married, gamble in a casino, serve on a jury, rent a car, or buy a ticket to an R-rated movie. It was mandatory for me to be in school. The law decreed just how many hours I could work and prohibited my employment in jobs deemed too dangerous for kids — like operating mixing machines in bakeries or repairing elevators. No one, I can say with some certainty, would have thought it a good idea to put an automatic weapon in my hands. But someone thought it was acceptable for them. A lot of someones actually. Their government — the government of South Sudan — apparently thought so. And so did mine, the government of the United States.
There was a reason that boy pointed his weapon my way. A lot of them, in fact. In the most immediate sense, I brought it upon myself. I was doing something I knew could get me in trouble, but I just couldn’t help myself.
I tried to take a picture. Okay, I took a picture. More than one.
I tried to take a picture. Okay, I took a picture. More than one.
By May 2014, UNICEF estimated that 9,000 children had been recruited into the armed forces of both sides in the civil war, despite the fact that under “both international and South Sudanese law, the forcible or voluntary recruitment of persons under the age of 18, whether as a member of a regular army or of an informal militia, is prohibited.” Today, that number is estimated to have grown to 13,000.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-kids-arent-all-right/
Yay, war .... and whatever it takes.
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