Oil Pipeline, Tanker Spills Not a 'Risk' But a Certainty
by Rafe Mair - The Canadian.org
Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. It looks like the gods are doing just that with the Premier and her government.
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Dry Run Cyprus: "Confiscation" Plans in the Works for US/UK Bank Depositors Too
- Created on Thursday, 28 March 2013 16:50
- Written by Ellen Hodgson Brown
The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors
Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.
New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed in my last article here, indicating that this isn’t just an emergency measure for troubled Eurozone countries. New Zealand’s Voxy reported on March 19th:
The National Government [is] pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts . . . .
Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.
Can They Do That?
Add a comment Read more: Dry Run Cyprus: "Confiscation" Plans in the Works for US/UK Bank Depositors Too
Vancouver PD: Making Dangerous Arrests
- Created on Thursday, 28 March 2013 16:36
- Written by Creative Commons
VPD Arrests "Dangerous" Cyclist
Liberal Zionism and the Other Occupied Palestine Zone
- Created on Thursday, 28 March 2013 16:27
- Written by Gilad Atzmon
Is Palestinian Solidarity an Occupied Zone?
by Gilad Atzmon - CounterPunch
Once involved with Palestinian Solidarity you have to accept that Jews are special and so is their suffering; Jews are like no other people, their Holocaust is like no other genocide and anti Semitism, is the most vile form of racism the world has ever known and so on and so forth.
But when it comes to the Palestinians, the exact opposite is the case.
For some reason we are expected to believe that the Palestinians are not special at all - they are just like everyone else. Palestinians have not been subject to a unique, racist, nationalist and expansionist Jewish nationalist movement, instead, we must all agree that, just like the Indians and the Africans, the Palestinian ordeal results from run-of-the-mill 19th century colonialism – just more of the same old boring Apartheid.
The Price of Moral Cowardice: American Milestones of a Young Century
- Created on Thursday, 28 March 2013 16:22
- Written by Tom Engelhardt
American Anniversaries from Hell - What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
by Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch
Does it, now? Is that what you recall? Bush the environmentalist?
As usual, there was no mention of the role of the corporate media as a leading cause of why 'green fatigue' has supposedly set in. No mention of the media's shameful failure to explore root causes of the climate crisis, not least the elite-serving corporate globalisation that has taken humanity to the brink of disaster.
It’s true that, last week, few in Congress cared to discuss, no less memorialize, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Nonetheless, two anniversaries of American disasters and crimes abroad -- the “mission accomplished” debacle of 2003 and the 45th anniversary of the My Lai massacre -- were at least noted in passing in our world. In my hometown paper, the New York Times, the Iraq anniversary was memorialized with a lead op-ed by a former advisor to General David Petraeus who, amid the rubble, went in search of all-American “silver linings.”
Still, in our post-9/11 world, there are so many other anniversaries from hell whose silver linings don’t get noticed.
Take this April. It will be the ninth anniversary of the widespread release of the now infamous photos of torture, abuse, and humiliation from Abu Ghraib. In case you’ve forgotten, that was Saddam Hussein’s old prison where the U.S. military taught the fallen Iraqi dictator a trick or two about the destruction of human beings. Shouldn’t there be an anniversary of some note there? I mean, how many cultures have turned dog collars (and the dogs that go with them), thumbs-up signs over dead bodies, and a mockery of the crucified Christ into screensavers?
Or to pick another not-to-be-missed anniversary that, strangely enough, goes uncelebrated here, consider the passage of the USA Patriot Act, that ten-letter acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”?
Oil: Mapping the Certainty of an Impending West Coast Disaster
- Created on Wednesday, 27 March 2013 22:09
- Written by Rafe Mair
What I’ve seen the past several weeks forces me to ask, Madame Premier: Is that thing on your shoulders just for photo-ops?
For starters. Is the Kitsilano Research and Rescue Centre really a bargaining chip with the federal government over the Enbridge pipeline proposal? Do you really believe that David Black’s proposed refinery is going to make things better? That 3 pipelines carrying bitumen are safer than two?
I’ve got to say it, Premier: you don’t know a damned thing about pipelines and tankers.
Do you not understand that the rupture of a pipeline or "accident" with a tanker is mathematically inevitable? That we’re not talking risks but certainties? Your friends in the business community like to call these things “risks” in order to convince people that they’re not likely to happen.
Think on this, Premier – if an accident is not going to happen, why make multimillion dollar facilities to clean them up?
The theorem is not that something can be an “acceptable risk” but that an “ongoing risk” is a certainty waiting to happen. You simply must understand this, Premier, or you are selling out the Province. As they say, shit happens.
Attending the Dedication of the Bush "Lie Bury"
- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 22:44
- Written by David Swanson
Why I'm Attending the Dedication of the Bush Lie Bury
by David Swanson - War is a Crime
On April 25th the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and General Rehabilitation Project will be dedicated in Dallas, Texas. It takes up 23 acres at Southern Methodist University, 23 acres that neither humanity nor any other species may ever reclaim for anything decent or good.
I'll be there, joining in the people's response (http://ThePeoplesResponse.org) with those who fear that this library will amount to a Lie Bury.
"The Bush Center's surrounding native Texas landscape," the center's PR office says, "including trees from the Bush family's Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas, continues President and Mrs. Bush's longstanding commitment to land and water conservation and energy efficiency."
Does it, now? Is that what you recall? Bush the environmentalist?
Awful Revelation: Gitmo as Exemplar of Modern American Mores
- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 16:22
- Written by Finian Cunningham
Guantanamo Exposes Reality of US Fascism
by Finian Cunningham - Press TV
They are essentially dead men who just happen to breathe. That is the grim assessment of the legal representative for the inmates in the American concentration camp, otherwise known as Guantanamo Bay.
More than 11 years after this penal colony was opened on the American-occupied territory of Cuba, there remains some 166 prisoners who live in a nightmarish world of indefinite detention. Hundreds of others have been ground through the machine, spewed out like human waste.
More than 11 years after this penal colony was opened on the American-occupied territory of Cuba, there remains some 166 prisoners who live in a nightmarish world of indefinite detention. Hundreds of others have been ground through the machine, spewed out like human waste.
Denial of human freedom is torture; denial of any sense of when that torture ends adds a whole new barbarous dimension of cruelty.
American vanity likes to indulge in berating other countries for human rights violations: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are paraded in the American media as pariah states, accused of failing international legal standards. In the past, the Soviet Union and its system of gulags was a particular favourite feature for Americans to contrast their supposed freedoms. How the ‘high and mighty’ self-proclaimed moral titans now stand exposed as hypocrites, charlatans and low-life perverts.
American vanity likes to indulge in berating other countries for human rights violations: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are paraded in the American media as pariah states, accused of failing international legal standards. In the past, the Soviet Union and its system of gulags was a particular favourite feature for Americans to contrast their supposed freedoms. How the ‘high and mighty’ self-proclaimed moral titans now stand exposed as hypocrites, charlatans and low-life perverts.
Israeli Police Pull a "Settler," Invading Al Aqsa to Uproot Trees
- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 16:11
- Written by Creative Commons
Israeli police uproot trees; right-wing settlers attempt to infiltrate Al Aqsa mosque
In two separate incidents over the weekend, the third holiest site in Islam, the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, came under siege from Israelis – once, on Thursday, when Israeli police entered the mosque compound and began uprooting trees, and a second time on Saturday when a group of right-wing Jewish Israeli settlers sneaked into the mosque via rooftop.
The mosque has faced increased pressure from right-wing Israelis in recent years, and was the site of the incident that sparked the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) in September 2000, when then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon entered the mosque with a phalanx of soldiers, after having publicly stated that the mosque should be removed to make a place for a Jewish temple to be built in its place.
Several times Israeli groups and individuals have attempted to blow up the mosque, and ongoing excavations under the mosque by an Israeli government-sanctioned project threaten to collapse the holy site from below.
In the first of the two incidents this weekend, Israeli police invaded the mosque area and began uprooting trees. The Islamic Waqf Foundation responded on Saturday with a strong condemnation of the action, stating in part;
On Saturday, a group of Israeli right-wing settlers invaded the mosque by rooftop, allegedly entering by way of buildings in the Bab Al-Silsela and Qatanin areas, according to a Hamas-affiliated website.
The four settlers were arrested by the mosque security, who took them into custody and removed them from the premises. The motive for their invasion is unknown, although right wing settlers have frequently tried to enter the mosque to pray and conduct rituals asking God to destroy the mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple.
Members of the same right-wing settler groups as the supplicants have made multiple attempts in the past to blow up the mosque or attack its infrastructure or worshipers.
Several times Israeli groups and individuals have attempted to blow up the mosque, and ongoing excavations under the mosque by an Israeli government-sanctioned project threaten to collapse the holy site from below.
In the first of the two incidents this weekend, Israeli police invaded the mosque area and began uprooting trees. The Islamic Waqf Foundation responded on Saturday with a strong condemnation of the action, stating in part;
“The plazas are an integral part of the holy Aqsa Mosque and the uprooting of trees the day before yesterday by the occupation police is unacceptable, reprehensible and an assault on the Aqsa Mosque. The maintenance and Islamic waqf committee of the Aqsa Mosque is the one authorized to make repairs, plant trees and do other things without permission from the Israeli police which have no authority or jurisdiction over the management of the Aqsa Mosque.”
On Saturday, a group of Israeli right-wing settlers invaded the mosque by rooftop, allegedly entering by way of buildings in the Bab Al-Silsela and Qatanin areas, according to a Hamas-affiliated website.
The four settlers were arrested by the mosque security, who took them into custody and removed them from the premises. The motive for their invasion is unknown, although right wing settlers have frequently tried to enter the mosque to pray and conduct rituals asking God to destroy the mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple.
Members of the same right-wing settler groups as the supplicants have made multiple attempts in the past to blow up the mosque or attack its infrastructure or worshipers.
CETA Deal Sewing North America and EU Economies Together
- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 16:02
- Written by Dana Gabriel
Final Push for a Canada-EU CETA and the Coming NAFTA-EU Free Trade Zone
by Dana Gabriel - Be Your Own Leader
Pressure is mounting on Canada to finish up a long-delayed trade deal with the EU. Despite outstanding issues that still must be settled, there is a final push to try and complete an agreement this summer. If both sides are able to secure a deal, it would lay the groundwork for the proposed U.S.-EU trade pact.
There is the possibility that the U.S.-EU transatlantic trade talks could also include the other NAFTA partners and maybe even other countries. Mexico has already shown interest in joining and if Canada can’t put the final touches on their own agreement with the EU, they might also be part of the negotiations. This would facilitate plans for a coming NAFTA-EU free trade zone and the formation of a transatlantic economic union.
After almost four years, negotiations between Canada and the European Union (EU) on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) are bogged down in the final stages. Both sides have missed numerous deadlines to wrap things up. There is uncertainty when or if CETA will even get done.
After almost four years, negotiations between Canada and the European Union (EU) on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) are bogged down in the final stages. Both sides have missed numerous deadlines to wrap things up. There is uncertainty when or if CETA will even get done.
How Corporate Propaganda Dims Humanity's Future
- Created on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 15:55
- Written by Media Lens
Global Warming, Propaganda-Journalism And The Definition Of Insanity
by David Cromwell - Media Lens
The systematic propaganda of the corporate media - its deep-rooted antipathy towards upholding proper journalistic standards in the public interest - extends to its coverage of human-induced climate change. The Independent recently delivered a masterpiece of headline obfuscation with: 'World cools on global warming as green fatigue sets in.'
The systematic propaganda of the corporate media - its deep-rooted antipathy towards upholding proper journalistic standards in the public interest - extends to its coverage of human-induced climate change. The Independent recently delivered a masterpiece of headline obfuscation with: 'World cools on global warming as green fatigue sets in.'
The news report said:
'Only 49 per cent of people now consider climate change a very serious issue – far fewer than at the beginning of the worldwide financial crisis in 2009.'
As usual, there was no mention of the role of the corporate media as a leading cause of why 'green fatigue' has supposedly set in. No mention of the media's shameful failure to explore root causes of the climate crisis, not least the elite-serving corporate globalisation that has taken humanity to the brink of disaster.
Chris Shaw, a social sciences researcher at the University of Sussex, noted on Twitter that nor was there 'any mention of the work of the merchants of doubt, paid for and acting on the behalf of corporate interests'.
Ironically, science writer Joe Romm of the indispensable Climate Progress blog had exposed the myth of 'green fatigue' in a piece a few days earlier:
'The two greatest myths about global warming communications are 1) constant repetition of doomsday messages has been a major, ongoing strategy and 2) that strategy doesn't work and indeed is actually counterproductive!'
Seeing No Evil at Guantánamo
- Created on Sunday, 24 March 2013 21:39
- Written by Andy Worthington
No Indefinite Detention at Guantánamo,” US Claims, Defying Reality
by Andy Worthington - Future of Freedom Foundation
We live in surreal times. President Obama, who promised “hope and change,” has, instead, proven to be a worthy successor to George W. Bush as a warmonger and a defender of those in positions of power and authority who authorized the use of torture.
In addition, when it comes to another hallmark of Bush-era crimes — indefinite detention without charge or trial, for those that the Bush administration identified as “enemy combatants” — President Obama has gone further than his predecessor.
After the sustained paranoia of the first few years after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush found his policies challenged by the Supreme Court, and subjected to international criticism, and began to back down. Obama, however, having promised to close Guantánamo, but then having discovered that it was politically difficult to do so, has contented himself with finding justifications for continuing to hold the 166 men still at Guantánamo, possibly for the rest of their lives.
This is in spite of the fact that over half of them (86 men in total) were cleared for release by an inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force established in 2009 by President Obama himself, consisting of around 60 officials from the main government departments and the intelligence agencies, who met every week to examine the prisoners’ cases, and to decide who should be released, who should be tried, and — shockingly — who should continue to be held without charge or trial, on the basis that they were too dangerous to release, even though insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial.
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