A People’s Tribunal in he Dutch Capital, The Hague
Activists staging a mock trial of Monsanto for Crimes Against Humanity in the Hague have successfully garnered world attention, forcing the company to release a statement and Forbes Magazine to run an article on the situation. The objectives of the mock trial are to test the legal strength of such a case thereby building a framework for hearing charges of ecocide. Monsanto point to misinformation about GMO products as proof that the activists are simply fear mongering. They do not address the charges of undermining food security by forcing small farmers to become dependent on their patented seed products.
Monsanto Goes on Trial for Ecocide
A people’s tribunal against Monsanto began Friday in The Hague, with representatives from hundreds of organizations coming together to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and ecocide. “If Mother Earth could speak, Monsanto ought to be in jail long before now,”
The first war crime committed in any war of aggression is against the truth Michael Parenti
In 2015 the US imposed penalties on Volkswagen for emission violations of more than $13b. In revenge the EU imposed a $14.5b fine on Apple for unpaid taxes. The US now seeks penalties of $14b against Deutsche Bank for its part in the 2008 bubble. Shuttlecock? David Hungerford
As the Philippines braces for its second major typhoon in five days, a Canadian glacier spawns a giant iceberg and eastern Australia mops up from a record wet spell, climate scientists can pick from a world of weird weather for the evidence that global warming is under way. Peter Hannam
HOW CLOSE IS WAR? Each item indicates escalating and deliberate provocation by the US.
Pics of US jets painted in Russian colours
Photos showing US jets being painted Russian colours suggest plans to conduct false flag attacks in Syria and blame them on Moscow.
Obama to discuss bombing Syrian military positions
Direct US military action in Syria, including airstrikes on Syrian military, radar and anti-aircraft bases, as well as arms depots, striking Syrian government forces could result in a direct confrontation between the US and Russia. Is Obama totally out of control?
RAF Pilots Ordered To Shoot Down “Hostile” Russian Jets Over Syria
As the US officially enters the Yemen military campaign, the UK appears willing to precipiate a catalytic event from which there is no going back. With relations between Russia and the West at post-Cold War lows and deteriorating fast, RAF pilots have been given the go-ahead to shoot Russian military jets when flying over Syria and Iraq, if they are endangered by them. The development comes with warnings that the UK and Russia are now “one step closer” to being at war. The Syrian government invited the Russians, but not the British – well!!!
As US politicians and pundits have fun talking tough about Russia and demonizing President Putin, they are missing signs that Moscow isn’t amused and is preparing for actual conflict,
Putin Throws Out the Old Nuclear Rules, Rattling Washington
Washington and Moscow used to keep arms control separate from other crises around the world. But that era is over and the next president will have to decide how to deal with it.
War between US and Russia Could Be Sooner than Later
Barely noticed in a virtual media blackout are at least a half dozen significant developments that all indicate a nuclear war at any time. In response Russia has been preparing its citizens for potential nuclear war. 40 million Russian citizens, that’s near one-third of the nation’s total population, just completed an unprecedented nuclear war defence drill. Moscow ordered all Russian citizens, diplomats and students traveling, working or studying abroad to immediately return home. Members of Russia’s diplomatic corps were threatened with career demotions should they refuse to comply.
As tensions between Russia and the US have spiked over Syria, relations between Moscow and Washington – already at their lowest since the Cold War over the Ukraine conflict – have soured further in recent days as the US pulled the plug on Syria talks and accused Russia of hacking attacks. The Kremlin meanwhile has suspended a series of nuclear pacts, including a symbolic cooperation deal to cut stocks of weapons-grade plutonium.
Washington has escalated its global economic war against major economic rivals and no longer confines itself to peripheral economic countries, but has declared trade wars against world powers that include Russia, China, Germany, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba and the Donbas region of Ukraine. There is an increasingly thinner distinction between military and economic warfare.
NSA whistleblower says DNC hack was not done by Russia, but by US intelligence
The motivation of the hacker was concern over Hillary Clinton’s disregard of national security secrets when she used a personal email and consistently lied about it. NSA has all of Clinton’s deleted emails, and the FBI could gain access to them. No need for Trump to ask the Russians for those emails, he can just call on the FBI or NSA to hand them over.
This campaign is driven by a deep and bitter divide: whether to risk war with Russia, or not. Not since 1860 has a presidential election been affected by a basic divide between a War Party that is tremendously strong (Its candidate is Hillary Clinton, with Wall Street and Big Oil among its constituents) while Donald Trump speaks for a faction that sees the risk of war as just too dangerous.
Rodrigo Duterte interview: Death, drugs and diplomacy
“We have three million drug addicts, and it’s growing. So if we do not interdict this problem, the next generation will be having a serious problem. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement. There is nothing wrong in trying to preserve the interest of the next generation.”
Osama bin Laden surely died happy. He devoted the last third of his life to creating animosity between the West and Islam and to driving a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the US. Today, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey are all estranged. And, as an unexpected bonus, so is Israel. The US is making enemies all over the Muslim world. And every day millions pay homage to the memory of Osama as they remove their shoes to pass through metal detectors and are stripped of their dignity by body-imaging devices at airports. Americans are less secure, less prosperous, and less free than as this century began. In life, Osama was transformative. In death, he continues to shape the world he left behind.
US Military Operations Are Biggest Motivation for Homegrown Terrorists
A secret FBI study found that anger over US military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism, and identified no coherent pattern to “radicalization,” concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts.
Hurricane Sandy-level flooding is rising so sharply that it could become normal
The US is already in the grip of significant environmental changes driven by warming temperatures. An analysis of past storms and models of future events as the planet warms has shown that Sandy-like floods have become three times more common in the New York area
Millions Face Hunger by 2030 Without ‘Deep Transformation’ of Agriculture:
Over 120 million people could be forced into extreme poverty by 2030 as a result of climate change on small-scale food producers. Abrupt changes would make adequate adaptation almost impossible with major declines in crop yields and increasingly high and volatile food prices. “In the longer run, unless measures are put in place to halt and reverse climate change, food production could become impossible in large areas of the world.” The report cites diversifying crop production, better integration of farming with the natural habitat, agroecology, and “sustainable intensification” as strategies to help small-scale farmers adapt to a warming world. The report notes that subsidies for fertilizers and pesticides hinder the progress of more sustainable, organic farming.
Spiders can ‘tune’ their webs to sound out plucky potential mates
“They’re able to very closely change the tension of their webs … This means they have a mechanism for directly controlling both the tension and the stiffness of their silk fibres. [These mechanisms] allow them effectively to tune their web’s properties so that they can control how sensory information is getting to them in the middle of the web.”
The hitless of the Empire reads like a catalogue of illustrious world leaders: from Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Sukarno (Indonesia), Juvénal Habyarimana (Rwanda), Salvador Allende (Chile) to Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Al-Basheer (Sudan) and Fidel Castro (Cuba), to name just a few. Some were directly assassinated; others were ‘only’ toppled, while only a handful of ‘marked’ leaders actually managed to survive and to stay in power. There were several grave crimes committed by almost all of them include: defending the vital interests of their nations and people, refusing to allow the unbridled plunder of natural resources by multinational corporations, and standing against the principles of imperialism. Simple criticism of the Empire has also been often punishable by death.
Rodrigo Duterte interview: Death, drugs and diplomacy
“We have three million drug addicts, and it’s growing. So if we do not interdict this problem, the next generation will be having a serious problem. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement. There is nothing wrong in trying to preserve the interest of the next generation.”
One month before the presidential election of 2008, the giant Wall Street bank Citigroup submitted to the Obama campaign a list of its preferred candidates for cabinet positions in an Obama administration. This list corresponds almost exactly to the eventual composition of Barack Obama’s cabinet.
Coral biologist Charlie Veron: the rise and fall of the Great Barrier Reef
Threats caused by humans, accelerated climate change and ocean acidification, have put the reef on the brink of complete collapse. He said, “it is unstoppable. If we wipe out coral we wipe out the life of the oceans”. This is symptomatic of everything we do. Its time to plan for the unthinkable.
‘Island of despair’: Australia intentionally torturing refugees on Nauru
The cache of evidence details allegations of recurrent self-harm and attempted suicide, children being hit by teachers and threatened with machetes by peers, deficient medical care and persecution akin to that which refugees had fled in their homelands. The offshore processing regime was “explicitly designed to inflict incalculable damage on hundreds of women, men and children” as an act of deterrence, by isolating them “on a remote place from which they cannot leave, with the specific intention that these people should suffer harm”. Amnesty International said it had interviewed 62 refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru, and more than a dozen current or former contract workers who delivered services on behalf of the Australian government,
The Real Purpose Behind the “Liberation” of Mosul?
When Mosul falls, Isis will flee to the safety of Syria. But what then? The entire Isis caliphate army could be directed against the Assad government and its allies – a scenario which might cause some satisfaction in Washington
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Global Cleanup’s photograph of larger items in the Gyre
A sea of plastic garbage larger than Australia is visible from space as it swirls around the Pacific Ocean, trapped by Ocean currents in what is known as a Gyre. The core of the North Pacific Gyre is one million square kilometres in size. That is completely covered by floating plastic, ranging from entire items or garbage to small grains. Even as the plastic breaks down into microparticles it hangs together, creating the so-called dead-zone that is uninhabitable to the vast bulk of lifeforms.
Great Pacific garbage patch’ far bigger than imagined
The heart of the garbage patch is thought to be around 1m sq km, with the periphery spanning a further 3.5m sq km. The dimensions of this morass of waste are continually morphing, caught in one of the ocean’s huge rotating currents. The north Pacific gyre has accumulated a soup of plastic waste, including large items and smaller broken-down micro plastics that can be eaten by fish and enter the food chain. The great Pacific garbage patch is growing so fast that it is visible from space.
The Sierra Club develops technology to empower locals against corporate feudalism
Greece is in turmoil again after the parliament narrowly passed legislation moving the ownership of all public utilities to the nation’s creditors. Unions and advocates of social democracy have protested the move with support of global activists against corporate feudalism.
In separate news, US based activist group the Sierra Club has developed a tool that shows Americans which foreign corporations are profiting from fossil fuels mined in their locality.
One more country to be sold off to big business
Greece approves plan to transfer state utilities to new asset fund
State assets, including water and electricity utilities, are to be transferred to a new asset fund created by international creditors. The plans have sparked demonstrations and public sector strikes across the country.
TTP & TTIP: Map Shows How Trade Deals Would Enable ‘Polluter Power-Grab’
The environmental organization plotted out the coast-to-coast potential threats on a new interactive map. It captures over 400 fossil fuel projects, and “for the first time … gives people a chance to see if toxic trade is in their own backyard. How do the deals enable such a power grab? By way of a corporate-friendly provision included in many trade deals.”
Confiscated ivory at the Thai border reveals the extent of the trade
International poaching organizations have moved 16,000 illegally killed elephants through Laos with the assistance of corrupt officials placed as highly as the office of the Prime Minister. Three major trafficking organisations have been identified as working with corrupt officials to move millions of dollars worth of animal parts out of the country.
A summit of global governments in Africa last week totally banned trade in Pangolins, a scaly anteater that has been slaughtered in millions for the last decade.
Endangered animals are fourth behind human slaves, arms and drugs as the most lucrative trade in the world.
Laos Authorities Help Smuggle Exotic Wildlife for Kickbacks
Thousands of frozen Pangolin carcasses prior to incineration
The office of the Laos prime minister collaborated with three major trafficking organizations to move millions of dollars worth of animal body parts across borders, killing hundreds of tigers and rhinos and more than 16,000 elephants.
Iceland is paying each Icelander from the proceeds of cleaning up the banks.
The Iceland government is paying its citizens from the proceeds of the nationalization of the second largest bank in the wake of its tough reaction to corruption in the banking sector. The Arctic nation jailed its crooked bankers after the Global Financial Crisis instead of bailing them out. It is now distributing the windfall to the citizens as it continues to clean up the banking sector.
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Because Icelanders took control of their government, they effectively own the banks. Iceland remains the only European nation to recover fully from the 2008 crisis. Iceland even managed to pay its outstanding debt to the IMF in full — in advance of the due date. Meanwhile, US banking criminals were rewarded for their fraud and market manipulation with an enormous bailout at the taxpayer’s expense.
