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US Senate votes to prevent boycotting Israel

Press TV | June 25, 2015

The US Senate has passed a controversial trade bill that contains provisions opposing the growing international boycott movement against Israel.

The Senate passed the measure as part of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation. The legislation was already passed by the House of Representatives and can now be signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The bill was passed under massive pressure from the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States.

The provisions require US negotiators to oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel during the ongoing free trade negotiations with the European Union.

The BDS campaign seeks to increase economic and political pressure on Israel until the regime ends the occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands and respect the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

“Today, for the first time in nearly four decades, Congress sent legislation to the president’s desk to combat efforts to isolate and delegitimize the ‘state’ of Israel,” US Representative Peter Roskam wrote in a statement released shortly after the Senate vote.

“After today, discouraging economic warfare against Israel will be central to our free trade negotiations with the European Union,” said Roskam, one of the lawmakers who sponsored the provisions.

This comes as several groups and organizations in the European states have already supported the campaign against Israel.

The boycott campaign against Israel began in July 2005 by 171 Palestinian organizations, calling for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”

In 2013, two US academic groups — the American Studies Association and the Association for Asian American Studies — supported the boycott.

June 25, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

There is no renewables revolution in China. Here are the numbers that show this

By Robert Wilson | Carbon Counter | June 17, 2015

Last year China installed more new wind and solar capacity than any country in history. This is a fact, and it has led some to talk of China being a “renewables powerhouse” and of there being a “renewables revolution”.

But out of context this fact can be much less impressive than it really is.

Let me put it into context using the most recent data from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

Over the last decade China’s primary energy consumption grew by 1398 million tonnes of equivalent (Mtoe). Though, if history is a guide this figure will eventually be revised upwards.

The annual average increase then was 140 Mtoe. For a comparison, Britain’s annual primary energy consumption was 188 Mtoe last year.

China’s growth rate was actually higher in the early 2010s, but has slowed recently (probably due to a worsening economic situation.

But that’s the context for judging the growth of wind and solar in China: 140 Mtoe of (mostly coal) energy added per year for the last decade.

How does China’s world leading wind and solar build out compare with this?

In total, China got 42.4 Mtoe from wind and solar in 2014. In other words, the total production of energy from wind and solar energy is less than one third of a year’s of growth in primary energy consumption.

When you look at annual growth things are even clearer. Wind and solar grew by 6.97 Mtoe last year. This is a mere 5% of the average total growth in primary energy.

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There is no renewables revolution in China. So, as always, I recommend that people spend some time with data sources such as the BP Statistical Review of World Energy and less time reading pundits and the instant experts of Twitter.

June 22, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Bolivia’s New Oil Discovery Triples Reserves

teleSUR | June 19, 2015

Bolivia has tripled its oil reserves, President Evo Morales announced Thursday, after state-owned energy company YPFB made a significant oil discovery in the eastern department of Santa Cruz.

“This oil reserve marks the first new discovery in 23 years. This is an example of the positive outcomes from nationalization. With this reserve we now have 44 million barrels of oil reserves,” announced Morales.

During his speech, the Bolivian leader went on to criticize foreign nongovernmental organizations that aim to obstruct natural resource exploration projects. “It is unacceptable to me that there are NGOs and foundations operating under the pretext of defending the indigenous movement. I want to make it clear that NGOs and foundations that obstruct natural resource exploration must leave Bolivia,” Morales stated.

According to company officials, YPFB is planning to invest a total of US$3 billion in Bolivia from 2015-2019 towards oil exploration projects.

Due to increased revenues from gas and oil exports, the Bolivian government has since 2006 dramatically increased social spending in the area of health, education, pensions, and poverty alleviation programs by 45 percent.

June 19, 2015 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Global conflict cost world $14.3 trillion in 2014: Report

Press TV | June 18, 2015

The cost of global war in the year 2014 reached $14.3 trillion, or 13.4 percent of the global gross domestic product, a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace says.

Last year, the cost of global conflict equaled the combined economies of Britain, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada, and Spain, according to a recent report by the Australia-based group.

The statistics mark a 15.3-percent spike in the cost of conflicts since 2008 when the financial impact was recorded as $12.4 trillion, the report notes.

“Large increases in costs are due to the increases in deaths from internal conflict, increases for IDP (internally displaced person) and refugee support, and GDP losses from conflict, with the latter accounting for 38 percent of the increase since 2008,” the report stated.

Since 2008, the cost of supporting IDPs and refugees has increased by 267 percent and the number of people forced to relocate by war has reached its highest since the Second World War, the report noted.

It also described the Middle East and North Africa as the most violent regions in the world and Europe as the most peaceful, adding that Saudi Arabia’s ongoing aggression against Yemen has dragged down the overall outlook for the Middle East.

According to the report, Syria, which has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011, was world’s least peaceful country, followed by Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

June 18, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

German Lawmakers Call for End to Subsidies as Nuclear Failures Continue

Sputnik | 17.06.2015

Lawmakers in Germany have been told that an EU agreement for a $25 billion state subsidy by the UK to build a nuclear power station is illegal and should be annulled, in another twist in Europe’s nuclear energy farce.

The German Bundestag’s Economic and Energy Committee took evidence on the European Commission’s approval of $25 billion worth of state aid for the construction of a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, southwest England. The hearing followed recent claims by German energy cooperative Greenpeace Energy that the EU state aid approval contravenes competition rules. In October 2014, the European Commission approved the state aid for the construction of Hinkley Point C, which allows the UK government to assure the future operator a fixed electricity price over a period of 35 years and to guarantee inflation surcharges and credit guarantees.

The German Government had informed the European Commission that “political expectations” made it clear that the promotion of renewable energy should not lead to the encouragement of nuclear power plants, according to, the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, Brigitte Zypries.

A political coalition of Alliance 90 and the Greens called for a stop to “subsidies for British nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C and legal action.”

In January, the Austrian government confirmed it is to take the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over the subsidy deal.

New Nuclear in Meltdown Fears

The Hinkley Point C proposal has already been beset by many years of delay — mostly because the reactor it is considering using has been plagued with problems. EDF has chosen the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), a third generation pressurised water reactor (PWR) design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome (now Areva), EDF in France and Siemens in Germany.

However, the first ever EPR nuclear power station under construction in Flamanville, in northwest France, is already massively over budget and seriously delayed. Since construction began in April 2008, the French nuclear safety agency has found that a quarter of the welds inspected in the secondary containment steel liner were abnormal, cracks were found in the concrete base and it also ordered a suspension of concrete pouring on the site.

In November 2014, EDF announced that completion of construction was delayed to 2017 due to delays in component delivery by Areva. In the same month, Areva issued a profit warning and said it would suspend future profit predictions because of problems on a similar EPR power station project at Olkiluoto in Finland.

And in June 2015, the French nuclear safety watchdog says it has found “multiple failure modes” that carry “grave consequences” on crucial safety relief valves on the Flamanville nuclear plant in northern France, which could lead to meltdown.

Areva and EDF have been hit by the global backlash against nuclear plants since the Fukushima accident in 2011. Following the incident, Germany accelerated plans to close its nuclear power reactors, Italy voted in a referendum against the government’s plan to build new nuclear power plants and French President Francois Hollande announced the intention of his government to reduce nuclear usage by one third.

Read more:

Fallout over Floundering UK Nuke Site – ‘Illegal’ and Overpriced

June 17, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

Cycles of Oppression, Cycles of Liberation: The Nasa People of Colombia Are Dispossessed Once Again

By Natalia Fajardo | Toward Freedom | June 8, 2015

An intense struggle for dignity and the right to land is being waged right now in the green mountains of south western Colombia, and chances are, you haven´t heard of it. While the scant mainstream media coverage of the country focuses on soccer or peace talks between government and armed guerrilla groups, it ignores that same government’s attacks against communities defending their territory.

On May 28th, one thousand riot police officers entered a sugar cane plantation called La Emperatriz in the municipality of Caloto, in the state of Cauca, to evict nearly 300 members of the Nasa indigenous people. The indigenous community members had peacefully replaced the sugar monocrop for beans and corn, as part of the process they call the Liberation of Mother Earth. This follows other recent evictions in the nearby town of Corinto, which left many civilians wounded, and clashes since February that resulted in the killing of Nasa youth Guillermo Pavi.

These confrontations occur in the midst of the community’s historic effort to defend their right to a dignified life by recovering land stolen from them – land which has been falsely promised to be returned.

Why Liberation? Why These Lands?

The Nasa people inhabited a large portion of southwestern Colombia long before the Spanish invasion. However, over decades of deceit and violence, the most fertile areas were taken over by wealthy landowners and the Nasa were displaced to higher elevations. Seferino Zapata, an elder from Caloto, explains, “We were taken to the mountain, but we fought. I took part in the struggles in the 80s, when we had to pay to work the land for food. We recovered this very land where I now sit.”

But these land takeovers have cost lives. According to Arcadio Mestizo, a leader of the indigenous reserve Huellas Caloto, on a night in 1991 the police and paramilitaries carried out the massacre known as El Nilo, killing 20 adults and children. While the slaughter occurred about 4 kilometers from the plantation, it was planned the night before at La Emperatriz.

The largehacienda of La Emperatriz, once used to raise livestock and grow rice, now hosts the exclusive cultivation of sugarcane by the transnational company Incauca, owned by the millionaire emporium Ardila Lule and currently under investigation for price fixing. Cane production has significant environmental impacts, such as biodiversity loss and toxic residues. La Emperatriz is just a sample of the economic reality of a region which has been transformed into a ‘green desert’ where sugarcane grown to produce biofuels replaced subsistence crops that fed thousands.

Following a ruling in 2000 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Colombian state accepted its responsibility in the 1991 El Nilo massacre and agreed to transfer 15,600 hectares of land, including La Emperatriz, to the Huellas Caloto indigenous community. Trusting the agreement, the Nasa people suspended land takeovers. But time went by and the land promised by the government did not come through.

The Huellas Caloto indigenous leader Arcadio Mestizo explained, “In 2005, we re-started this struggle, now calling it Liberation of Mother Earth, and we began with La Emperatriz.”

Although in 2010 the government completed the transfer of the number of hectares of land promised, they are not the lands agreed upon, and much of it is not suitable for agriculture. So the Nasa vowed to “liberate” La Emperatriz hacienda.

The latest wave of liberation began in March, with the Nasa occupation of land, cultivation of maize, beans and cassava, and the construction of basic structures.

However, community leader Emer Pinzón said that in the morning this past May 28, the owner of La Emperatriz ordered their removal: “Riot police came in with their full war machinery ” and encountered 300 Nasa members armed with courage, shovels and stones to defend their efforts and dreams.

“The police brought, tanks, tractors and tear gas, and in four hours destroyed over two months of work,” Pinzón added. In addition to the constant threats by paramilitary groups, Pinzón reported that, during the eviction, riot police warned through megaphones, “this one will be worse than El Nilo.”

Mestizo added, “There is the 1991 precedent, and now we see us going in circles, but today the oppression happens in broad daylight, and fully institutionalized. [A massacre] can certainly happen again.”

This violence against civilians comes amid peace negotiations between the government and the FARC guerrillas.

Constanza Cuetia, a member of the Nasa community´s communications team, reflected, “The war is very much present in our communities. Targeted assassinations and recruitment of civilians continued during the ceasefire. In addition, the peace talks do not get to the heart of the conflict. The government’s delegate to the talks said that the [neoliberal] economic model will not be challenged in the negotiations.” Indeed, the government has justified the violent evictions defending the right to private property of a few, while ignoring the right of many for a dignified life.

However, resistance is strong. “These lands, as taught by our grandparents, belonged to our ancestors,” Pinzón said. “We will take it back for our youth, at any cost.”

Liberation as a Cure

The spokespeople of this community make it clear that the main reason for the liberations is not unfulfilled land agreements; this is only one ingredient in the recipe of reasons for why the Nasa struggle. “We do this to reclaim our land, but also to defend our social rights,” Mestizo explained.

Abel Coicué, a community leader, added, “we liberate these lands, both of the mountains and the lowlands, because they are ancestral and we have a right to them.”

‘’Everything done on the land sickens the earth further, and this disease is treated [by] liberating Mother Earth,” Paulina, a Nasa leader from nearby Corinto, noted. “It is about sowing spaces of freedom and life that allow us to live in balance and harmony.”

This strategy of liberation becomes even more urgent in light of the many “diseases” these territories face. “We have a major threat coming: mining, for which we must prepare,” Mestizo said. “Mining creeps in more quietly than sugarcane, and sometimes the community does not see it, but we have learned that mining companies, such as [South African] Anglogold Ashanti, have requested mining permits over our land, regardless if it is on a protected area or an indigenous reserve.’’

The Nasa people invite us to understand that their struggle is everyone’s struggle, and to take our part in it. ‘’This is not an issue for indigenous people in Cauca, Colombia, but it is a fundamental issue for all of humanity, whose main battlefield is here,” Mestizo explained. “We must understand and own this struggle, putting pressure on the capitalist who dispossess and abuses, and on the government that supports it.”

Click here to view a slideshow of this community and its struggle

June 16, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Race to Economic (and Moral) Bankruptcy

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | June 16, 2015

Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself.

The Rand Corporation’s research shows that Israel could lose $250 billion over the next decade if it fails to make peace with the Palestinians and violence escalates. Ending the occupation, on the other hand, could bring a dividend of more than $120 billion to the nation’s coffers.

Meanwhile, the Israeli finance ministry predicts an even more dismal future unless Israel reinvents itself. It is likely to be bankrupt within a few decades, the finance ministry report says, because of the rapid growth of two groups who are not productive.

By 2059, half the population will be either ultra-Orthodox Jews, who prefer prayer to work, or members of Israel’s Palestinian minority, most of whom are failed by their separate education system and then excluded from much of the economy.

Both reports should be generating a tidal wave of concern in Israel but have caused barely a ripple. The status quo – of occupation and endemic racism – still seems preferable to most Israelis.

The explanation requires a much deeper analysis than either the Rand Corporation or Israel’s finance ministry appears capable of.

The finance ministry report points out that with a growing population not properly prepared for a modern, global economy, the tax burden is falling increasingly heavily on a shrinking middle class.

The fear is that this will rapidly create a vicious cycle. Wealthier Israelis tend to have second passports. Overwhelmed by the need to make up the revenue shortfall, they will leave, plunging Israel into irreversible debt.

Despite this doomsday scenario, Israel seems far from ready to undertake the urgent restructuring needed to salvage its economy. Zionism, Israel’s official ideology, is predicated on core principles of ethnic separation, Judaisation of territory and Hebrew labour. It has always depended on the marginalisation at best, exclusion at worst, of non-Jews.

Any effort to dismantle the scaffolding of a Jewish state would create a political crisis. Reforms may happen, but they are likely to take place too slowly and incrementally to make much difference.

The Rand report also raises the alarm. It notes that both peoples would benefit from peace, though the incentive is stronger for Palestinians. Integration into the Middle East would see average wages rise by only 5 per cent for Israelis, compared to 36 per cent for Palestinians.

But, while its economists may have found it easy to quantify the benefits of ending the occupation, it is much harder to assess the costs in shekels and dollars.

Over the past six decades, an economic elite has emerged in Israel whose prestige, power and wealth depends on the occupation. Career military officers earn large salaries and retire in their early forties on generous pensions. Nowadays many of these officers live in the settlements.

The army top brass are the ultimate pressure group and will not release their grip on the occupied territories without a fight, one they are well placed to win.

Backing them will be those in the hi-tech sector who have become the engine of the Israeli economy. Many are former soldiers who realised the occupied territories were the ideal laboratory for developing and testing military hardware and software.

Israel’s excellence in weaponry, surveillance systems, containment strategies, biometric data collection, crowd control, and psychological warfare are all marketable. Israeli know-how has become indispensable to the global appetite for “homeland security”.

That expertise was on show this month at a Tel Aviv armaments expo that attracted thousands of security officials from around the world, drawn by the selling point that the systems on offer were “combat proven”.

To end the occupation would be to sacrifice all this and revert to the status of a tiny anonymous state with no resources or notable exports.

And finally the settlers are among the most ideologically committed and entitled sector of Israel’s population. Were they moved out, they would bring their group cohesion and profound resentments back into Israel.

No Israeli leader wants to unleash a civil war that could rip apart the already-fragile sense of unity among the Jewish population.

The reality is that most Israelis’ perception of their national interests, both as a Jewish state and as military superpower, are intimately tied to a permanent occupation and the exclusion of Israel’s Palestinian minority from true citizenship.

If there is a conclusion to be drawn from these two reports it may be a pessimistic one.

Israel’s internal economy is likely to grow gradually weaker, as the ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian labour forces are under-utilised. As a result, the focus of Israel’s economic interests and activity is likely to shift even more towards the occupied territories.

Far from Israelis rethinking their oppressive policies towards the Palestinians, the ideological blinkers imposed by Zionism could push them to pursue the benefits of the occupation even more aggressively.

If the watching world really wants peace, economic wishful thinking will not suffice. It is past the time simply for carrots. Sticks are needed too.

June 16, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

BP and Rosneft to make $700mn deal despite sanctions – FT

RT | June 15, 2015

Russian oil major Rosneft and BP are close to signing a $700 million deal for BP to acquire a 20 percent stake in the Taas-Yuriakh Siberian oilfield, reports the FT. The deal could be announced this week at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The introduction of EU sanctions against Russia hasn’t scared off the largest European companies, working in the fuel and energy sector, according to the Financial Times.

Besides BP, Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Statoil have already received governmental approval to continue working on joint projects with Rosneft. Shell continues to work with Gazprom Neft over the Salym project in the Siberian Khanty-Mansiysk area and is seeking Dutch government approval for other joint ventures.

The news comes as the G7 claimed they are ready to extend sanctions last week. The announcement was also made just days prior to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, dubbed the ‘Russian Davos’.

The heads of BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total will visit the event which starts on Thursday. America’s Boston Consulting and Ernst & Young are also expected to attend, which could be a sign Washington and Brussels want dialogue with Moscow.

As EU sanctions are not so diehard as American, European companies with pre-existing contracts have a possibility to even expand their activities in Russia and don’t want to miss the opportunity, says James Henderson, senior fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

“European companies are finding ways and are certainly freer to do business than their US counterparts… US companies are going to be hugely disadvantaged as we go forward because EU sanctions are not retroactive and US ones are,” Henderson told the FT.

“We stay out of the politics… We have a lot of experience in Russia … our commitment is to remain,” BP CEO Bob Dudley told CNBC this month.

Statoil is planning to drill two wells with Rosneft at the onshore Siberian North Komsomolskoye field this summer, and two wells in the Okhotsk Sea on the edge of the Pacific in summer 2016.

Eni has not disclosed any plans, but the FT, referring to sources familiar with the situation, assume the Italians may continue work on a Black Sea license with Rosneft.

June 15, 2015 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Not Over Yet: Some Tough Votes Ahead on Fast Track

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers | Flush the TPP | June 13, 2015

While we all cheered the failure (TAA) to pass Trade Adjustment Assistance in the hope that its defeat would stop Fast Track, the House quickly voted to pass Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) with 219 votes (218 is a majority but there were some abstentions). This situation means that the House and Senate have not passed identical versions of Fast Track (because the Senate version includes TAA) so Fast Track cannot go to the President’s desk yet to be signed into law. There are several possible scenarios ahead that leave the outcome of the fight against Fast Track uncertain.

While much of the media described today’s votes as a complete victory for those who oppose Fast Track and the Obama trade agenda, the fact is that we have some difficult challenges ahead. We won an important battle, and it was a tremendous victory especially when it is considered that President Obama did all he could including a special trip to the Congress for a private meeting with the Democratic leadership and the entire Democratic Caucus.

But, it is not over. Speaker Boehner called for reconsideration of TAA and a re-vote is supposed to happen within two legislative days so there may be another vote as early as Monday afternoon.  We need to hold the line on TAA to prevent any form of TAA from passing the House and prepare for a vote in the Senate if a new form of TAA passes or if the TPA bill passed in the House goes back to the Senate without TAA.

Possibilities in the House

Since we won by a large majority on TAA in the House with a vote tally of 302 to 126 (76 vote difference), it is unlikely (but not impossible) that the current form of TAA would pass in a re-vote. No doubt this weekend President Obama is working overtime to convince Democrats to change their vote and Majority Leader Boehner is looking for Republicans to go against their views and vote for TAA. One Member told us after today’s vote that it is now a game of numbers. Politico does the numbers:

House Republican leaders say they have 100 votes for TAA, and Democrats would need to provide 118 if another vote happens. On Friday, Democrats provided 40 votes for TAA, while 86 Republicans supported it. In other words, Democrats would need to essentially triple their vote total to pass the measure.

If increased Democratic support cannot be achieved, passage would very likely require a mixture of Republicans voting for TAA in order to pass Fast Track and Democrats changing their position because they do not want to embarrass the president. Today, many of the “no” votes came after TAA failed to get a majority and everybody knew it would fail so they voted “no” or switched their vote to “no”. How firm are the votes of those who joined in after it had already failed? If the current TAA is not amended and it passes in the re-vote, there would be no need for any further action in the Senate and Fast Track would become law.

If the re-vote fails, a second possibility is for TAA to be re-written and voted on as a new bill in order to gain majority support. There were three problems with the current form of TAA: (1) Funding TAA by Medicare cuts; (2) Too small a budget; and (3) Failure to cover all workers, especially public workers.

The Medicare cuts were most significant in that almost no Democrat wants to be on record voting against Medicare. Prior to the vote, leadership of both parties came up with an alternative source of revenue (tax enforcement revenue). If this were written into a new TAA, the Medicare problem could be solved.  It is not clear how real these tax enforcement dollars are so House leadership could also expand the budget for TAA and solve the budget problem as well. These two changes alone might be enough to gain a lot of Democratic votes.  These changes would probably not lose a lot of Republican votes; in fact, Republican leadership still might be able to convince a group of Republicans to vote for TAA in order to get Fast Track passed.

The third problem is a significant one especially since under the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA) public workers will be threatened. For example, TISA could result in privatizing the US Postal Service which is the nation’s second-largest civilian employer after Wal-Mart with about 536,000 career workers. Adding public workers to TAA would require additional funding since more workers would be covered and this might be unpopular with Republicans.

If TAA is amended and passed in the House, the Senate would have to vote again – the House bill could either go to the Senate and be voted on as an original bill; or it could go to a conference committee where differences would be ironed out and then both chambers (House and Senate) would have to hold a re-vote.

We want our allies in the House to vote “no” on TAA no matter what kind of amendments are made to the bill. Now that TPA has passed, stopping TAA is critical for stopping Fast Track. The House TPA (Fast Track) without TAA would be much more difficult to pass in the Senate.  Our goal in the House is for TAA bill to be defeated.

The Senate

When TPA came before the Senate, it was bundled together as one bill with TAA. It took a 62-38 vote to end debate on the bill and allow it to move forward.  Other than Senators Collins (R-ME), Lee (R-UT), Paul (R-KY), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL) and Enzi (R-WY) (who did not vote), all Republicans voted for the bill. In order to stop TPA in the Senate on a re-vote, three additional votes would be needed to prevent the new bill from reaching 60 votes and passing.

One possible scenario is that the House fails to pass TAA and sends a TPA bill to the Senate without TAA. This would be the most likely scenario that would lead to failure in the Senate. There were many Senators who insisted on TAA being included, indeed, some wanted a larger TAA. In addition, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) was promised that the Export – Import Bank would be renewed in order to get her vote, that promise was not fulfilled so she is a possible “no” vote if this returns to the Senate.

The other possibility is that the House passes TAA in its present form or a new version. This would make it very difficult to stop TPA in the Senate. Other than Cantwell, it is hard to see who would change their vote. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) had insisted that currency manipulation be included in the TPA. It wasn’t but he voted for the TPA anyway. Perhaps now that he is running for president, he might vote against TPA.

Our Task

The immediate task is to pressure Members of the House of Representatives to oppose any form of TAA.

Once again the Congress needs to be flooded with phone calls from across the political spectrum. The populist rebellion that has been taking place, especially during the last week, needs to continue so that Members of Congress know that they are risking their future election if TPA becomes law and rigged corporate trade agreements are given an easy path to becoming law.

It is also important to remind Members while they are home this weekend that you want them to vote “no” on TAA. Here is a link to a list of those Members who voted “no.” Thank your Member if she or he voted “no” and tell her or him to stay strong and not to compromise. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to reach her or him at a public event this weekend.

The Rigged Trade Rebellion was outside the Capitol all week. Once the vote was announced on Wednesday it became a 24 hour a day encampment until the vote on Friday.

The Popular Resistance Rapid Response Team will return to Capitol Hill on Monday to continue the Rigged Trade Rebellion. If you are able to make it to DC, we encourage you to come. This is a critical time to make the opposition to Fast Track highly visible. We have been staying at the corner of Independence Ave and New Jersey Ave SE so that we can speak to Members as they walk back and forth between their offices and the Capitol for votes.

One staffer mentioned to us that Members sometimes decide how they will vote just minutes beforehand. It could be that seeing your sign or speaking with you just prior to a vote could make a difference in what they do.

We still have the possibility of stopping Fast Track. Let’s put it over the edge in the next few weeks. You can follow the work to stop Fast Track at www.FlushtheTPP.org. And contact gro.ecnatsiseRralupoP@eiznekcaM if you have questions or are planning to come to DC.

June 14, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Podemos supported anti-establishment mayors take control of Madrid & Barcelona

RT | June 14, 2015

Left wing party coalition leaders have been sworn in as mayors of Madrid and Barcelona, assuming control of the Spain’s two largest cities. This is yet another case of parts of Spain showing their opposition to the country’s conservative rule.

In the Spanish capital, a 71-year-old former judge, Manuela Carmena has put an end to the 24 years of conservative mayorship. She defeated her rival, 63-year-old Esperanza Aguirre from the People’s Party, in what proved to be a very close race.

The new mayor managed to claim 20 seats in the city chamber during the May 24 vote against Aguirre’s 21. However, Carmena managed to forge an alliance with the main opposition Socialist Party to secure victory. She was officially elected mayor by 29 of the 57 council representatives on Saturday morning.

Carmena, a former communist and rights activist, promised to improve the living conditions for the poor, who have been struggling since the 2008 financial crisis. She also echoed the calls of the massive Indignados (Outraged) protest movement that was formed in 2011 to fight corruption, government spending cuts and evictions.

“We are at the service of the citizens of Madrid. We want to govern by listening. We want them to call us by our first names,” Carmena said after being voted in.

Among her chief promises to the electorate are the development of public transport and increased support for poor families. She has promised to slash her salary by more than half to €45,000 ($51,000).

In Barcelona, 41-year old Ada Colau, an active protest leader, has become the city’s first female mayor. She rose to publicity after helping to organize the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) movement, in Barcelona in 2009, to defend citizens against evictions caused by the collapse of the Spanish property market.

“Thank you for making possible something that had seemed impossible,” said Colau, representing the Barcelona en Comu party, after being elected mayor.

Her administration will now draft a list of 30 measures aimed at creating jobs and fighting corruption. Along with her colleague in Madrid, Colau announced that she will slash her salary from €140,000, down to €35,000.

Both Carmena and Colau secured victory during the May 24 local elections with the support of Pomedos, a new pro-worker and anti-establishment party that emerged last year.

Parties born out of the Indignado protest movement now rule five major Spanish cities: Madrid, Valencia, Zaragoza, Cadiz, and Barcelona.

The latest success of anti-establishment candidates in the two largest Spanish cities shows a major shift in the country’s politics, and erosion of the bipartisan system. The Popular Party and the main opposition Socialist Party together won just over half of the vote on May 24. The rest of the seats at the local elections went to candidates representing smaller populist parties who are demanding change.

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Monsanto and the Subjugation of India

By COLIN TODHUNTER | CounterPunch | June 12, 2015

After a study of GMOs over a four-year plus period, India’s multi-party Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture recommended a ban on GM food crops stating they had no role in a country of small farmers. The Supreme Court appointed a technical expert committee (TEC), which recommended an indefinite moratorium on the field trials of GM crops until the government devised a proper regulatory and safety mechanism. As yet, no such mechanism exists, but open field trials are being given the go ahead. GMO crops approved for field trials include rice, maize, chickpea, sugarcane, and brinjal.

The only commercially grown genetically modified (GM) crop gown in India at this time is Bt cotton. It is hardly the resounding success story the pro-GMO lobby would like us to believe.

Pushpa M Bhargava is founder director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India. Writing in the Hindustan Times, he states that

* Bt cotton is far from having been an unqualified success in India. It has worked only in irrigated areas and not in rain-fed regions that represent two-thirds of the area under cotton cultivation in the country.

* Out of over 270,000 farmers’ suicides, Bt cotton farmers constitute a substantial number.

* In Andhra Pradesh, there have been deaths of thousands of cattle that grazed on the remnants of Bt cotton plants after harvesting of cotton.

* Resistance to pests in Bt cotton has developed over the years. There has also been a marked increase in the number of secondary pests such as mealy bug.

* The soil where Bt cotton has been grown over a prolonged period has become incapable of sustaining any other crop.

* Some 90 percent of the member countries of the United Nations, including almost all countries of Europe, haven’t permitted GM crops or unlabelled GM food.

* There are over 500 research publications by scientists of indisputable integrity, who have no conflict of interest, that establish the harmful effects of GM crops on human, animal and plant health, and on the environment and biodiversity.

* On the other hand, virtually every paper supporting GM crops is by scientists who have a declared conflict of interest or whose credibility and integrity can be doubted.

* The argument that we need GM technology to feed the increasing population of India is fallacious. Even with low productivity, which can be increased, India even now produces sufficient grain in the country to take care of its requirements.

* India can double its food production by using non-GM technologies, such as molecular breeding.

* Few chronic toxicity tests have been done anywhere on GM food crops. Whenever these tests have been done, GM food has been shown to lead to cancer.

Back in 2003, after examining all aspects of GM crops, eminent scientists from various countries who formed the Independent Science Panel concluded:

“GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and the environment. GM crops should be firmly rejected now.”

On a similar note, writing in The Statesman Bharat Dogra quotes Professor Susan Bardocz as saying:

“GM is the first irreversible technology in human history. When a GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) is released it is out of our control; we have no means to call it back….”

Dogra also notes that 17 distinguished scientists from Europe, USA, Canada and New Zealand wrote to the former Indian Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh warning against “the unique risks (of GM crops) to food security, farming systems and bio-safety impacts which are ultimately irreversible.” This letter adds:

“The GM transformation process is highly mutagenic leading to disruptions to host plant genetic structure and function, which in turn leads to disturbances in the biochemistry of the plant. This can lead to novel toxin and allergen production as well as reduced/altered nutrition quality.”

Writing in The Hindu, Aruna Rodrigues states that the consensus on the negative impacts of GMOs in various official reports in India is remarkable.

Yet India seems to be pressing ahead with a pro-GMO agenda regardless. Little surprise then that Bhargava argues that the Central Government departments in India act as peddlers of GM technology, probably in collusion with the transnational corporations which market GM seeds.

There is no ‘probably’ about it and the collusion goes beyond GMOs.

The World Bank/IMF/WTO’s goals on behalf of Big Agritech and the opening up of India to it are well documented. With the help of compliant politicians, transnational companies want farmers’ lands and unmitigated access to Indian markets. This would entail the wholesale ‘restructuring’ of Indian society under the bogus banner of ‘free trade’, which will lead (is leading) to the destruction of the livelihoods of hundreds of millions [see this, this and this].

Moreover, Monsanto, Walmart and other giant US corporations had a seat at the top table when the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture was agreed with the US. Monsanto also dominates the cotton industry in India and is increasingly shaping agri-policy and the knowledge paradigm by funding agricultural research in public universities and institutes: it is the “contemporary East India Company.”

If further evidence were needed in terms of just who is setting the agenda, Vandana Shiva highlights the arm twisting that has gone on in an attempt to force through GMOs into India, with various politicians having been pushed aside until the dotted line for GMO open field testing approval was signed on.

And those like Shiva and Rodrigues who legitimately protest, resist or offer constructive alternatives are demonized by an Intelligence Bureau report whose authors might appear to some as having been sponsored by the very transnational corporations that are seeking to recast India in their own images.

Bhargava states that 64 percent of India’s population derives its sustenance from agriculture-related activities. Therefore, whosoever controls Indian agriculture would control the country. And here lies the crux of the matter. To control Indian agriculture, the bedrock of the country, one needs to control only seeds and agro-chemicals. Monsanto and its backers in the US State Department are well aware of this fact. And to control Indian politicians is to control India.

US foreign policy has almost always rested on the control of agriculture:

“American foreign policy has almost always been based on agricultural exports, not on industrial exports as people might think. It’s by agriculture and control of the food supply that American diplomacy has been able to control most of the Third World. The World Bank’s geopolitical lending strategy has been to turn countries into food deficit areas by convincing them to grow cash crops – plantation export crops – not to feed themselves with their own food crops.” – Professor Michael Hudson

US foreign policy is about power and control: the power to control food, states and entire populations.

Politicians in India and elsewhere continue to ignore the evidence pertaining to the dangers of GMOs. They are handmaidens of US corporate-geopolitical interests. The US relies on compliant politicians in foreign countries. These figures are just as important for furthering US goals in India as much as they are elsewhere.

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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