Veolia sells its shares in the Jerusalem Light Rail and completes withdrawal from the Israeli market
Who Profits | August 2015
More than a decade after winning the tender for the construction and operation of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), Veolia Environnement’s subsidiary, Transdev, has sold all of its holdings in the JLR to a group of Israeli investors.
The approval of the deal by the Israeli authorities and the completion of the ownership transfer, earlier this month, mark an end to Veolia’s operations in the Israeli market in general and to its involvement in the controversial JLR project in particular.
Israeli authorities’ approval and ownership transfer
Until August 2015, Trasndev, a Veolia Environnement subsidiary, held a minority interest (5%) in CityPass, a consortium tendered by the Israeli government to build the JLR, as well as full ownership (100%) of the train’s operator – Connex Jerusalem. The JLR was designed to connect the western part of Jerusalem with the illegal settlements surrounding the city. Operational since December 2011, the JLR crosses the Green Line and passes through the Palestinian neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina.
On September 2nd 2014, Transdev (formerly: Veolia Transdev) signed a contract with the CityPass consortium for the sale of Connex Jerusalem and Transdev’s remaining 5% share in CityPass. The buyer, CityPass consortium, consists of three Israeli shareholders: The Ashtrom Group, IIF – Israel Infrastructure Fund and Harel Insurance.
Recent findings by Who Profits Research Center indicate that after almost a year- long negotiations between the companies, the Israeli authorities and the funding banks, the September deal was fulfilled and that the sale of Connex Jerusalem together with the 5% of CityPass shares reached completion.
On August 6th 2015, the Ashtrom Group – one of the buyers and a shareholder in CityPass, reported to the Israeli Stock Exchange that all conditions precedent in the JLR sale agreement with Transdev were fulfilled and that the agreement was completed. Ashtrom’s report also mentioned that on the same date, 1% of CityPass shares’ was passed into Ashtrom’s possession. For further information on the deal and necessary approvals, see Who Profits’ update from February 2014.
Later that month, on August 18th 2015, and according to the Israeli Companies’ Registrar, 100% of Connex Jerusalem shares’ were transferred from Transdev to an Israeli holding company jointly owned by the Ashtrom Group, IIF and Harel Insurance. According to the Registrar however, Transdev 5% share in CityPass still remained.
The Israeli financial newspaper – the Marker – has also confirmed the completion of the deal on August 2015. In an article (available in Hebrew), published on August 20th 2015, it was reported that Transdev received NIS 100 million for Connex Jerusalem. Contrary to Ashtrom’s report to the Israeli Stock Exchange and to the unaltered status of CityPass ownership in the Israeli Companies’ Registrar, The Marker reported that Trandev’s 5% share in CityPass was fully sold to IIF. Who Profits will continue to monitor the publications around the sale in order to determine which company is the current owner of Transdev’s former 5% share in CityPass.
Finally, Who Profits findings and analysis strongly suggest that the sale has been completed and that the formal ownership transfer of CityPass shares will soon show on public record.
The final step in a gradual withdrawal
The sale of the JLR is the final step in Veolia’s gradual withdrawal from the Israeli market and several illegal operations in the occupied Palestinian territory. Through its various Israeli subsidiaries, the company has engaged in multiple sectors of the local economy, including transportation, water, waste management and energy. Since the Israeli private sector, much like the Israeli government, considers the settlements as a legitimate part of Israel, Veolia’s Israeli subsidiaries operated freely beyond the Green Line. Their activities included the provision of public bus services to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the operation of a landfill in the occupied Jordan Valley, wastewater treatment facility for settlements’ sewage, and finally the construction and operation of the controversial JLR.
In the last few years, Veolia Environnement sold its Israeli subsidiaries piecemeal. In September 2013, the company sold its local bus services subsidiary to Afikim Company and in April 2015, water, waste and energy activities in Israel were also sold to the US-based investment firm Oaktree Capital Management. At the same time, Veolia tried to distance itself from the JLR by decreasing its holdings in Veolia Transportation – the multinational’s transport services division. In 2011, Veolia Transportation was merged with Transdev UK, leaving Veolia with a 50% share in the new company. To further blur Veolia’s involvement in the JLR, the new subsidiary – Veolia Transdev, changed its name to Transdev.
Simultaneously, Veolia negotiated with the Israeli Ministry of Transportation its way out of Jerusalem. In 2010, the Ministry has effectively blocked Veolia’s attempts to sell its holdings in the light rail to the local Egged Company. It did so by demanding previous international experience form the replacing operator. Due to the controversy surrounding the light rail, it appeared that international companies were hesitant to take on Veolia’s role, additionally with an unexperienced local transportation sector, Veolia was unable to sell Connex Jerusalem and its minority share in CityPass for years. Apparently, negotiations have now ended with the removal of the Israeli government’s objection to an unexperienced buyer and the acceptance of the CityPass consortium as capable rail operator.
Aftermath
As of August 2015, Veolia Environnement is no longer active in the Israeli market and in the occupied Palestinian territory. Nevertheless, the company has left behind irreversible facts on the ground. The construction of the railway involved the expropriation of occupied land that was not done for the benefit of the occupied population, and hence contradicts international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The JLR continues to serve the Jewish settlement neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem and passes daily through the Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat, by doing so it will play a substantial role in the reinforcement of Israeli sovereignty over occupied East Jerusalem for years to come.
Only after a final determination of the owner of Transdev’s former 5% share in CityPass, Who Profits Research Center will remove the profiles of Veolia Environnement, Transdev and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations(CDC) from its database.
Japan Bank: US Sanctions Could Lead to Direct Ruble-Yen Swaps
Sputnik – 03.09.2015
VLADIVOSTOK – The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) is turning to currency swaps as using the US dollar in transactions is difficult because of the Western anti-Russia sanctions, the bank’s senior managing director said answering a question from Sputnik.
“We’re now studying that [the effects of ruble devaluation]. We need some of the swap arrangements with the local banks. We are elaborating opportunities with Russian banks such as Gazprombank, VTB, VEB… Because of the US sanctions, we cannot use the US dollar anymore, we have to switch to other currencies,” Tadashi Maeda said on Thursday, speaking after a conference at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
Commenting on the usage of the ruble in swaps, he noted that its interest rate is very high at the moment and this could “hinder” the swaps.
China launched swaps and forwards between the yuan and the Russian ruble in December 2014, making the ruble the 11th currency in the yuan swaps trading.
In October of last year, the Bank of Russia and the People’s Bank of China reached a three-year agreement on currency swaps worth more than $2.4 billion.
In April, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that he expected the overall trade turnover between China and Russia to reach $100 billion in 2015.
Russia is currently holding the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in the city of Vladivostok.
This is the first time that Russia has decided to hold a forum in the Far East since the introduction of Western sanctions over Moscow’s alleged involvement in Ukraine’s internal conflict, something that Russia has repeatedly denied.
China is sending an official government delegation and members of its business community to the EEF.
Growing Doubt: a Scientist’s Experience of GMOs
By Jonathan R. Latham, PhD | Independent Science News | August 31, 2015
By training, I am a plant biologist. In the early 1990s I was busy making genetically modified plants (often called GMOs for Genetically Modified Organisms) as part of the research that led to my PhD. Into these plants we were putting DNA from various foreign organisms, such as viruses and bacteria.
I was not, at the outset, concerned about the possible effects of GM plants on human health or the environment. One reason for this lack of concern was that I was still a very young scientist, feeling my way in the complex world of biology and of scientific research. Another reason was that we hardly imagined that GMOs like ours would be grown or eaten. So far as I was concerned, all GMOs were for research purposes only.
Gradually, however, it became clear that certain companies thought differently. Some of my older colleagues shared their skepticism with me that commercial interests were running far ahead of scientific knowledge. I listened carefully and I didn’t disagree. Today, over twenty years later, GMO crops, especially soybeans, corn, papaya, canola and cotton, are commercially grown in numerous parts of the world.
Depending on which country you live in, GMOs may be unlabeled and therefore unknowingly abundant in your diet. Processed foods (e.g. chips, breakfast cereals, sodas) are likely to contain ingredients from GMO crops, because they are often made from corn or soy. Most agricultural crops, however, are still non-GMO, including rice, wheat, barley, oats, tomatoes, grapes and beans.
For meat eaters the nature of GMO consumption is different. There are no GMO animals used in farming (although GM salmon has been pending FDA approval since 1993); however, animal feed, especially in factory farms or for fish farming, is likely to be GMO corn and GMO soybeans. In which case the labeling issue, and potential for impacts on your health, are complicated.
I now believe, as a much more experienced scientist, that GMO crops still run far ahead of our understanding of their risks. In broad outline, the reasons for this belief are quite simple. I have become much more appreciative of the complexity of biological organisms and their capacity for benefits and harms. As a scientist I have become much more humble about the capacity of science to do more than scratch the surface in its understanding of the deep complexity and diversity of the natural world. To paraphrase a cliché, I more and more appreciate that as scientists we understand less and less.
The Flawed Processes of GMO Risk Assessment
Some of my concerns with GMOs are “just” practical ones. I have read numerous GMO risk assessment applications. These are the documents that governments rely on to ‘prove’ their safety. Though these documents are quite long and quite complex, their length is misleading in that they primarily ask (and answer) trivial questions. Furthermore, the experiments described within them are often very inadequate and sloppily executed. Scientific controls are often missing, procedures and reagents are badly described, and the results are often ambiguous or uninterpretable. I do not believe that this ambiguity and apparent incompetence is accidental. It is common, for example, for multinational corporations, whose labs have the latest equipment, to use outdated methodologies. When the results show what the applicants want, nothing is said. But when the results are inconvenient, and raise red flags, they blame the limitations of the antiquated method. This bulletproof logic, in which applicants claim safety no matter what the data shows, or how badly the experiment was performed, is routine in formal GMO risk assessment.
To any honest observer, reading these applications is bound to raise profound and disturbing questions: about the trustworthiness of the applicants and equally of the regulators. They are impossible to reconcile with a functional regulatory system capable of protecting the public.
The Dangers of GMOs
Aside from grave doubts about the quality and integrity of risk assessments, I also have specific science-based concerns over GMOs. I emphasise the ones below because they are important but are not on the lists that GMO critics often make.
Many GMO plants are engineered to contain their own insecticides. These GMOs, which include maize, cotton and soybeans, are called Bt plants. Bt plants get their name because they incorporate a transgene that makes a protein-based toxin (usually called the Cry toxin) from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. Many Bt crops are “stacked,” meaning they contain a multiplicity of these Cry toxins. Their makers believe each of these Bt toxins is insect-specific and safe. However, there are multiple reasons to doubt both safety and specificity. One concern is that Bacillus thuringiensis is all but indistinguishable from the well known anthrax bacterium (Bacillus anthracis). Another reason is that Bt insecticides share structural similarities with ricin. Ricin is a famously dangerous plant toxin, a tiny amount of which was used to assassinate the Bulgarian writer and defector Georgi Markov in 1978. A third reason for concern is that the mode of action of Bt proteins is not understood (Vachon et al 2012); yet, it is axiomatic in science that effective risk assessment requires a clear understanding of the mechanism of action of any GMO transgene. This is so that appropriate experiments can be devised to affirm or refute safety. These red flags are doubly troubling because some Cry proteins are known to be toxic towards isolated human cells (Mizuki et al., 1999). Yet we put them in our food crops.
A second concern follows from GMOs being often resistant to herbicides. This resistance is an invitation to farmers to spray large quantities of herbicides, and many do. As research recently showed, commercial soybeans routinely contain quantities of the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) that its maker, Monsanto, once described as “extreme” (Bøhn et al 2014).
Glyphosate has been in the news recently because the World Health Organisation no longer considers it a relatively harmless chemical, but there are other herbicides applied to GMOs which are easily of equal concern. The herbicide Glufosinate (phosphinothricin, made by Bayer) kills plants because it inhibits the important plant enzyme glutamine synthetase. This enzyme is ubiquitous, however, it is found also in fungi, bacteria and animals. Consequently, Glufosinate is toxic to most organisms. Glufosinate is also a neurotoxin of mammals that doesn’t easily break down in the environment (Lantz et al. 2014). Glufosinate is thus a “herbicide” in name only.
Thus, even in conventional agriculture, the use of glufosinate is hazardous; but With GMO plants the situation is worse yet. With GMOs, glufosinate is sprayed on to the crop but its degradation in the plant is blocked by the transgene, which chemically modifies it slightly. This is why the GMO plant is resistant to it; but the other consequence is that when you eat Bayers’ Glufosinate-resistant GMO maize or canola, even weeks or months later, glufosinate, though slightly modified, is probably still there (Droge et al., 1992). Nevertheless, though the health hazard of glufosinate is much greater with GMOs, the implications of this science have been ignored in GMO risk assessments of Glufosinate-tolerant GMO crops.
A yet further reason to be concerned about GMOs is that most of them contain a viral sequence called the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) promoter (or they contain the similar figwort mosaic virus (FMV) promoter). Two years ago, the GMO safety agency of the European Union (EFSA) discovered that both the CaMV promoter and the FMV promoter had wrongly been assumed by them (for almost 20 years) not to encode any proteins. In fact, the two promoters encode a large part of a small multifunctional viral protein that misdirects all normal gene expression and that also turns off a key plant defence against pathogens. EFSA tried to bury their discovery. Unfortunately for them, we spotted their findings in an obscure scientific journal. This revelation forced EFSA and other regulators to explain why they had overlooked the probability that consumers were eating an untested viral protein.
This list of significant scientific concerns about GMOs is by no means exhaustive. For example, there are novel GMOs coming on the market, such as those using double stranded RNAs (dsRNAs), that have the potential for even greater risks (Latham and Wilson 2015).
The True Purpose of GMOs
Science is not the only grounds on which GMOs should be judged. The commercial purpose of GMOs is not to feed the world or improve farming. Rather, they exist to gain intellectual property (i.e. patent rights) over seeds and plant breeding and to drive agriculture in directions that benefit agribusiness. This drive is occurring at the expense of farmers, consumers and the natural world. US Farmers, for example, have seen seed costs nearly quadruple and seed choices greatly narrow since the introduction of GMOs. The fight over GMOs is not of narrow importance. It affects us all.
Nevertheless, specific scientific concerns are crucial to the debate. I left science in large part because it seemed impossible to do research while also providing the unvarnished public scepticism that I believed the public, as ultimate funder and risk-taker of that science, was entitled to.
Criticism of science and technology remains very difficult. Even though many academics benefit from tenure and a large salary, the sceptical process in much of science is largely lacking. This is why risk assessment of GMOs has been short-circuited and public concerns about them are growing. Until the damaged scientific ethos is rectified, both scientists and the public are correct to doubt that GMOs should ever have been let out of any lab.
References
Bøhn, T, Cuhra, M, Traavik, T, Sanden, M, Fagan, J and Primicerio, R (2014) Compositional differences in soybeans on the market: Glyphosate accumulates in Roundup Ready GM soybeans. Food Chemistry 153: 207-215.
Droge W, Broer I, and Puhler A. (1992) Transgenic plants containing the phosphinothricin-N-acetyltransferase gene metabolize the herbicide L-phosphinothricin (glufosinate) differently from untransformed plants. Planta 187: 142-151.
Lantz S et al., (2014) Glufosinate binds N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors and increases neuronal network activity in vitro. Neurotoxicology 45: 38-47.
Latham JR and Wilson AK (2015) Off - target Effects of Plant Transgenic RNAi: Three Mechanisms Lead to Distinct Toxicological and Environmental Hazards.
Mizuki, E, Et Al., (1999) Unique activity associated with non-insecticidal Bacillus thuringiensis parasporal inclusions: in vitro cell- killing action on human cancer cells. J. Appl. Microbiol. 86: 477–486.
Vachon V, Laprade R, Schwartz JL (2012) Current models of the mode of action of Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal crystal proteins: a critical review. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 111: 1–12.
Cheap Oil Always Boosts Economic Growth – UK Economist
Sputnik – 30.08.2015
The history of global economic ups and down indicates that falling oil prices always lead to faster global growth and, conversely, every global recession in the past 50 years has been preceded by a sharp increase in oil prices, a leading British economist wrote on Friday.
The current drop in oil prices will inevitably trigger a worldwide economic uptick, Anatole Kaletsky, chief economist and co-chairman of Gavekal Dragonomics think tank, wrote in an article, carried by the Project Syndicate news service.
Falling oil prices have never correctly predicted an economic downturn. On all recent occasions when the price of oil was halved – 1982-1983, 1985-1986, 1992-1993, 1997-1998, and 2001-2002 – faster global growth followed.
Conversely, every global recession in the past 50 years has been preceded by a sharp increase in oil prices. Most recently, the price of oil almost tripled, from $50 to $140, in the year leading up to the 2008 crash; it then plunged to $40 in the six months immediately before the economic recovery that started in April 2009, Kaletsky wrote.
A powerful economic mechanism underlies the inverse correlation between oil prices and global growth. Because the world burns 34 billion barrels of oil every year, a $10 fall in the price of oil shifts $340 billion from oil producers to consumers.
Thus, the $60 price decline since last August will redistribute more than $2 trillion annually to oil consumers, providing a bigger income boost than the combined US and Chinese fiscal stimulus in 2009.
So, if you want to understand falling oil prices forget about Chinese consumption and focus on Middle East production. And if you want to understand the world economy, forget about stock markets and focus on the fact that cheap oil always boosts global growth, Anatole Kaletsky concluded.
Eni discovers ‘largest-ever’ gas field in Mediterranean Sea off Egypt
RT | August 30, 2015
Italian energy giant Eni has announced on its website that it has found a “supergiant” gas field at their Zohr Prospect in the deep waters of Egypt in the Mediterranean, claiming it “could become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds.”
It added that this is “an important day” for the company, as well as for Italy and Egypt, as it could fuel Italy’s economic development and “will be able to ensure satisfying Egypt’s natural gas demand for decades.”
“It’s a very important day for Eni and its people. This historic discovery will be able to transform the energy scenario of Egypt,” Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Eni, said in a statement.
The field is located about 80 miles (129 kilometers) off the Egyptian coast, 1,450 meters below the surface.
According to Eni’s press-release, the discovered gas field, which covers an area of around 100 square kilometers, could contain about “30 trillion cubic feet of lean gas” (849 billion cubic meters of gas or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent).
Even more oil could be found at the field during the course of further exploration, potentially amounting up to 40 trillion cubic feet (1.1 trillion cubic meters), Claudio Descalzi told Financial Times.
“I think we can discover more,” he said.
In June, Eni struck a $ 2 billion deal with the Egyptian oil ministry allowing it to carry out exploration in Sinai, the Gulf of Suez, the Mediterranean and areas in the Nile Delta.
Claudio Descalzi stressed that “Egypt still has great potential” in the energy field.”
“Important synergies with the existing [Egyptian] infrastructures can be exploited, allowing us a fast production startup,” he added.
The Leviathan gas field near the Israeli coast had been the largest discovered in the Mediterranean Sea before Eni found the “supergiant” field in Zahr. This new find is one of Eni’s biggest, although it is still smaller than a gas field being developed by the company near the coast of Mozambique.
The final investment decision, which is still to be made, could be taken later this year, while drilling could be initiated in 2016, with peak output reaching about 65-80 million cubic meters per day, the Financial Times reports, citing Claudio Descalzi.
“We will fast track this project and production will begin as soon as possible,” he said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
The announcement of the discovery came a day after a Cairo meeting between the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, according to the president’s office.
Eni is Egypt’s main oil and gas producer. It has been operating in the country since 1954 through its IEOC subsidiary, with equity production reaching 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Mada Masr:
… Sunday’s announcement also casts doubt on the future of export deals that called for connecting Egypt to pipelines from Cyprus and Israel to supply Egypt’s local demand and to make use of Egypt’s dormant export facilities to reach the global market. …
Stunning poll results showing Ukrainians’ dissatisfied with government, economy and war
New Cold War | August 26, 2015
The International Republican Institute in the United States has published results of polling of attitudes of Ukrainians on the key issues facing the country. The polling was conducted in the latter two weeks of July 2015 by Rating Group Ukraine on behalf of the IRI.
The poll provides more evidence of deepgoing and growing political dissatisfaction and alienation in Ukraine. Absolute or relative majorities of Ukrainians now express unfavorable views of all major government leaders and politicians from major parties in Ukraine.
The people of the rebel region of Donbas are not included in the poll, which means that the levels of dissatisfaction of Ukrainian residents are even higher than what is reported by the IRI.
The poll results are unlikely to be reported in Western mainstream media, even though the poll is commissioned and published by a right-wing U.S. institute. That’s because the results fly in the face of the “news” and editorial opinions peddled by Western media. It proves that media is lying to its readers and grossly misleading them when it inaccurately presents the war in eastern Ukraine as a virtuous war against an aggressive Russia that is supported by the majority of the Ukrainian people.
Media also chooses to be silent about the profound economic crisis that is wracking Ukraine as a result of the Kyiv regime’s turn to austerity association with the European Union, and about the massive human rights violations accompanying the civil war of the Kyiv regime against the people in the eastern and southern regions of the country. The IRI poll shows extremely high levels of dissatisfaction with the economic crisis and the war.
The poll will also be ignored by the Russophobes in the governments and mainstream political parties in the NATO member countries who decry “Russian aggression” and “Russian imperialism” in Ukraine, and by the many pseudo-lefts in the international arena who are acting as echo chambers of that messaging.
Similarly stunning results of polling of the Crimean people in late 2014 and early 2015 were ignored by the same constellation of forces. That polling showed extraordinarily high levels of satisfaction with the democratic decision of Crimeans in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine. The polls contradict the ongoing stories of Russian “annexation” of Crimea.
The 71-page report International Republican Institute polling report can be read here. Enclosed below are 11 selected charts from the poll:
Ukrainian State Oppression Against Protests Triples After Coup – Monitor
Sputnik | August 26, 2015
According to a group which monitors protests in Ukraine, repressions against protests in Ukraine more than tripled compared to the time period before the protests which led to Ukraine’s 2014 coup.
State repressions against protests in Ukraine more than tripled compared to the period before Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests and the February 2014 coup, a Ukrainian protest monitor said in a release.
According to the Kiev-based Center for Social and Labor Research (CLSR), the number of violent protests in the 11 months prior to the 2013 Euromaidan and the 11 months after August 2014 more than tripled. The monitor found that the peak of government repressions against protests peaked between April and June 2015, with 57 out of every 100 protest facing government violence.
“Worrying is the high frequency of repressions against protests with government critics and demand for lustration, against protests with socio-economic and political demands,” the release said.
The percentage of violent protests also more than doubled in the compared time periods, according to the monitor. At the same time, oppression against what the monitor called “anti-communist” protests decrease while violence at the protests more than doubled. The monitor also found that even without protests that it labeled “separatist,” the number of negative government reactions to protests more than doubled in 2015.
Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ Statement on the Protest Movement in Ecuador
COHA – August 24, 2015
In response to President Rafael Correa’s proposed inheritance tax, a far right coalition in Ecuador has launched a campaign of anti-government protest in the country. This movement is being joined by some forces on the green and Indigenous left, long opposed to Correa’s economic strategy of neo-extractivism, that is, the exploitation of Ecuador’s rich deposits of oil to fuel the economy as well as providing the majority of government revenue. Correa’s economic approach has been to aggressively push forward oil operations, even in environmentally sensitive areas, and then use the proceeds to pay for poverty reduction programs. The various Eco-Indigenous groups have legitimate concerns about the sustainability of the neo-extractivist approach, but it is a fact that since Correa came into office in 2007 one million Ecuadorians have been lifted out of poverty. In 2007 4 of 10 Ecuadorians lived in poverty. Today less than a quarter of the population does.
COHA calls for an end to the violence that has accompanied the protests, with over 100 police and military now having suffered injuries, including grave ones. COHA supports dialogue between the various opposition sectors and the government, and the continuation of the positive trend in Ecuador of settling political differences by democratic procedures, not golpismo.
By Larry Birns, Director of COHA and Senior Research Fellows: Jim A. Baer, Nicholas Birns, William Camacaro, Lynn Holland, Frederick B. Mills, Ronn Pineo.
Destructive Global Dependencies
By Ralph Nader | August 21, 2015
Do you have your savings in a mutual fund? Does your pension fund invest in stocks, just as mutual funds do? If so, you may want to know this has been a bad week for U.S. stock markets. The Dow and Nasdaq indices have plummeted big time, but not because of the U.S. economy which is showing signs of revival. It is, as the Wall Street Journal reports, mostly because of the woes in China plus the shakiness of the depressed Greek economy and weaknesses of the economies in other larger emerging nations such as Brazil and Turkey.
Welcome to the world of extreme dependency by the U.S., the world’s biggest economy, on the instabilities of small and large nations overseas. This dependency is exactly what the giant corporations further by pushing globalization, often to misname it “free trade” in order to boost Congressional and White House support for the “global economy”.
Although big business won’t go so far as to advocate U.S. dependence-inducing globalized markets for oil, they are pushing for trade agreements that make the U.S. more dependent even on essentials like food and medicines.
For example, 80 percent of our seafood is now imported, often through dubiously treated fish farms from China. Eighty percent of the ingredients in the medicines you take come from China and India where there are very few inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration, assuming they can gain entry visas.
The 2014 report to Congress from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission describes the recent casualties and looming dangers to the health of the American people from uninspected or counterfeit drugs.
U.S. companies and importers are working hand-in-hand with these exporters to increase their markups and lower costs by displacing U.S. domestic production. Corporations and patriotism are rarely associated.
How often have you been told that trade agreements like NAFTA, GATT and the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are “win-win” deals for all signatory countries? But are you told that the U.S. has been buying more abroad than it is selling abroad, leading to huge trade deficits for more than three decades?
China shipped “nearly four dollars’ worth of goods to the United States for every dollar’s worth of imports it purchased from the United States” (according to the above-noted Report) for a deficit exceeding $300 billion and growing each year.
These regular trade deficits mean we’re exporting millions of jobs. When chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was asked over fifteen years ago at a Congressional hearing whether he was worried about these annual trade deficits, he replied that he would be concerned only if they continue unabated. Mr. Greenspan has not been heard from since on his projected worries.
Dogmatic free traders don’t recognize any evidence that disproves their “win-win” secular religion. Whole industries are taken from the U.S. and lost to dictatorial countries with poorly paid workers that daily violate human rights. Still, the “free-traders” don’t budge.
Of course the ultimate, latter stage dependency created by corporate globalization is when our own health, safety, labor and legal/democratic standards are pulled down by the combination of fleeing U.S. corporate giants in cahoots with fascist regimes overseas.
To be first or best with labor rights, environmental or safety standards for our people is to be accused of imposing “non-tariff trade barriers” against imports from countries that treat badly their consumers, workers and environment. So, for example, our being first with an auto safety standard, a food labelling requirement or a ban on a toxic chemical here lets exporting countries sue the U.S. in secret tribunals in Geneva, Switzerland whose decisions by corporate lawyers (temporarily sitting as trade judges) are final.
If we disobey these secret rulings, countries that win can collect billions of dollars in fines from you the taxpayers. Did you know that international trade could impose its profiteering zeal on your daily health and safety and get its way, not in our courts, but in kangaroo courts closed to the public?
You’re entitled to ask whether you ever agreed to this corporatism when you voted for your Senators, Representatives and Presidents.
Meanwhile, better take a last look at the country-of-origin label on the meat packages sold in your neighborhood supermarkets. Brazil and Mexico beat the U.S. in a secret tribunal in Geneva and were ready to charge us billions of dollars because of these labels. So, the Congress is rushing to repeal its own country-of-origin labelling law—supported by just about every American—to avoid being fined. Isn’t that crazy?
Isn’t it time for us to bear down on our corporatist politicians and export them out of our legislatures?
For more information to quicken your resolve, see http://www.citizen.org/trade/.
After Decades of Denial National Cancer Institute Finally Admits that “Cannabis Kills Cancer”
By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project | August 21, 2015
After decades of claiming that cannabis has no medicinal value, the U.S. government is finally admitting that cannabis can kill cancer cells.
Although still claiming, “there is not enough evidence to recommend that patients inhale or ingest cannabis as a treatment for cancer-related symptoms or side effects of cancer therapy,” the admission that “cannabis has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory,” highlights a rapidly changing perspective on medicinal cannabis treatments.
In the most recent update to the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) website included a listing of studies, which indicated anti-tumor effects of cannabis treatment.
Preclinical studies of cannabinoids have investigated the following activities:
Antitumor activity
• Studies in mice and rats have shown that cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. Laboratory and animal studies have shown that cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.
• A study in mice showed that cannabinoids may protect against inflammation of the colon and may have potential in reducing the risk of colon cancer, and possibly in its treatment.
• A laboratory study of delta-9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed that it damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in mouse models of liver cancer showed that it had antitumor effects. Delta-9-THC has been shown to cause these effects by acting on molecules that may also be found in non-small cell lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells showed that it caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells. Studies in mouse models of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in human glioma cells showed that when given along with chemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies in mouse models of cancer showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC may make chemotherapy such as temozolomide more effective.
The NCI, part of the U.S. Department of Health, advises that ‘cannabinoids may be useful in treating the side effects of cancer and cancer treatment’ by smoking, eating it in baked products, drinking herbal teas or even spraying it under the tongue.
The site goes on to list other beneficial uses, which include: anti-inflammatory activity, blocking cell growth, preventing the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors, antiviral activity and relieving muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis.
Several scientific studies have given indications of these beneficial properties in the past, and this past April the US government’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) revised their publications to suggest cannabis could shrink brain tumors by killing off cancer cells, stating, “marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others.”
“Evidence from one animal study suggests that extracts from whole-plant marijuana can shrink one of the most serious types of brain tumors,” the NIDA said. “Research in mice showed that these extracts, when used with radiation, increased the cancer-killing effects of the radiation.”
Research on marijuana’s potential as a medicine has been stifled for decades by federal restrictions, even though nearly half of the states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana in some form.
Although cannabis has been increasingly legalized by states, the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug — along with heroin and ecstasy — defining it as having no medical benefits and a potential for abuse.
The vast majority of the $1.4 billion spent on marijuana research, by the National Institute of Health, absurdly involves the study of abuse and addiction, with only $297 million being spent researching potential medical benefits.
Judging by the spending levels, it seems the feds have a vested interest in keeping public opinion of cannabis negative. Perhaps “Big Pharma” is utilizing their financial influence over politicians in an effort to maintain a stranglehold on the medical treatment market.
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From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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