Revolving door between arms dealers & govt exposed
RT | February 16, 2015
Arms manufacturers currently have dozens of employees seconded to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other British government agencies, an investigation has discovered.
The revelations highlight the close relationship between business and government, especially in highly lucrative industries such as the arms trade.
Employees from BAE Systems (manufacturers of the Eurofighter Typhoon), MBDA (makers of missiles), Babcock (defense contractor working on Trident nuclear submarine replacement), and MSI (gunnery systems producer) have all taken senior level roles within the MoD.
BAE systems, the second largest arms company in the world, has had more than 10 executives seconded to the MoD and the arms sales unit of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) in the last year.
The MoD’s Equipment and Support Branch, which has a £14 billion annual budget to buy equipment for the armed forces, hosted nine BAE executives in senior positions, the investigation by the Guardian found.
UKTI Defence and Security Organisation, another government department, had four secondments from BAE, two from MBDA, and two from Detica, a cyber-security specialist acquired by BAE in 2010.
While on secondment, salaries are paid by the company and not by the government department they join.
Personnel exchange between business and government works in the opposite direction as well, with 13 civil servants having been seconded from the MoD to outside organizations, including cyber-security company Templar Executives, Lloyds Banking group, arms firm QinetiQ, defense think tank the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies (ISRS) and the BBC.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) described the arrangement as “totally inappropriate.”
Speaking to the Guardian, Andrew Smith of CAAT said, “Arms companies already enjoy a significant and totally disproportionate level of government support, and these kinds of secondments only make it more so.
“It is totally inappropriate for arms companies that will be lobbying for extra military spending to be working for departments that buy their wares.”
Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green Party, said the British government’s relationship with arms manufacturers was “uncomfortably close.”
“All too often we’ve seen the government’s actions aligned with the interests of big business, which is particularly concerning when the businesses involved produce weapons,” she told the Guardian.
“For many years, the British government has had an uncomfortably close relationship with arms manufacturers and a shady record of arming dictatorships to match.”
“Secondments like these cast a shadow of doubt over the integrity over the actions of both the MoD and UKTI when it comes to their dealings with arms manufacturers. Our policies should serve the common good and must be free from the influence of vested interests like arms companies.”
The Guardian’s revelations come in the wake of the HSBC tax avoidance scandal in which the revolving door between financial institutions and government has also faced scrutiny.
Lord Green, the former head of HSBC, came under the spotlight for having taken the role of Minister of State for Trade and Investment immediately after leaving the bank.
Leaked documents allege that during Green’s tenure as Chairman of HSBC from 2006 to 2010, he oversaw the orchestration of industrial scale tax evasion for drug dealers, international criminals, dictators and terrorists.
Lord Green stood down from a senior position in the banking lobby group The City UK on Saturday.
RELATED: Pregnant activist crashes glitzy arms industry dinner, urges guests ‘consider career change’
Peña Nieto Wants to Keep Oil Privatization Deals Secret
teleSUR | February 14, 2015
The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has proposed changing a key transparency law that would allow the state to keep key information secret over controversial energy reform plans.
According to a document presented before the Congress by the ruling party PRI and its ally the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), there would be 82 changes to the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Public Government Information.
The recommendations made by the legal adviser to the Presidency of the Republic propose removing the requirement to disclose contracts, permits, alliances and partnerships that the State signed with national and foreign companies on oil exploration.
Last year President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a package of so-called secondary laws to the country’s controversial energy reform approved in 2013. The reform opens Mexico’s public energy sector to private competition for the first time in 76 years after the former populist president, Lazaro Cardenas, nationalized the sector in 1938.
Opposition senators Dolores Padierna and Alejandro Encinas, from the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), rejected the proposal saying Mexicans deserve to know what will happen with hydrocarbons, a key economic sector, especially as the reforms will see profits going to foreign oil companies.
Padierna added that the energy sector should be forced to provide information about its operation and activity, and that decisions taken during the process of liberalization and privatization should respond to the transparency law.
EU and Russia: No option but peace and coexistence
The BRICS Post | February 13, 2015
At the moment of writing, the ink on the second Minsk agreement has not yet dried.
On February 15, fighting is supposed to come to an end in Ukraine. What are the chances for success of this agreement and what’s in it for the EU and Russia?
Are we on the path to a new peace or to a new cold/hot war? That is the question that will be on the minds of many in the days to come.
There are too many uncertain factors to reliably predict what will happen. The EU and the US have different agendas, and one can even make a case that they have conflicting interests.
For Russia, a peaceful resolution to the conflict means ending the sanctions and facilitating closer economic cooperation with the EU.
But tighter economic relations with Russia, the natural hinterland of Europe, goes against the core of the transatlantic NATO alliance. This has been a nightmare scenario for the Washington elite since 1945.
Pointedly, neither the US nor the UK were involved in the Minsk negotiations, so for Washington all options are still on the table. Considering the warmongering majority in the US Congress, that is not a good omen for peace.
Then there is the matter of the government in Kiev. Hardly ever mentioned in the news, it is far from stable. Extremist militias who do not bother to hide their fascist ideologies have been integrated into the Ukrainian army.
Considering their behaviour on the battlefield so far, it is very doubtful that Kiev will be able to make them abide by the ceasefire conditions.
Besides the extremists in their own ranks, the Kiev government faces another problem – young Ukrainian men in the west are bitterly resisting military conscription. This is not to say that they sympathize with their compatriots in the east – they just do not want to die fighting them.
Furthermore, there is the inner political struggle for power.
While President Petro Poroshenko is more than willing to find a pragmatic solution to the conflict, his prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, however, is a fanatic Ukrainian nationalist, who is not a man of compromise.
He wants total victory and would be more then happy to replace his president.
Then there are the rebels in Eastern Ukraine, the so-called ‘pro-Russian separatists’.
Western media make it look like they are mere pawns in Putin’s hands, but that is hardly the case.
Nobody denies that Russia is giving them ample logistic support, but the leaders of the resistance are very unreliable. Will they accept the ceasefire? Hard to tell.
First step toward peace
Yet, despite all these challenges, history shows that worse situations have led to lasting peace.
The second Minsk agreement might just work. It is only a first step, and a peaceful long-term resolution of the conflict is still to be negotiated, but it is the only way out for the EU, Russia and Ukraine.
One of the reasons it might just work is precisely that the EU alone brokered it, or rather Germany and France, and not the US. That might seem contradictory given the different variables mentioned above, but it’s not. It all depends on who and what will prevail.
The real issues are still on the table – disarmament and federalization of the country. If the EU really wants it, Brussels has the financial leverage to force Kiev’s hand in accepting a new constitution granting the eastern regions meaningful autonomy.
The EU has experience with forging complex compromise solutions. After all, the EU itself is a permanent compromise.
What is really at stake is much more than just an end to an internal conflict stoked by outside forces. A resumption of violence carries with it the risk of an all out war between nuclear powers.
This is about a possible major war on European soil.
Border control
Hence, peace is the only option for Europe and Russia.
Personally, I consider one of the last paragraphs in the Minsk agreement, which focuses on control of the border, the most difficult one.
Kiev wants to regain full control of the border between the eastern provinces and Russia. This may at first appear to be a technicality, but it isn’t. Control of the border is highly symbolic, for all parties involved.
Kiev’s control of the border would impede Russia’s direct influence on the ground; for the rebels it would symbolize a partial surrender. The only party that stands to gain from this paragraph in the agreement is Kiev, which would have been delivered a highly symbolic victory.
A reasonable option would be to deploy UN troops on the border. Russia has proposed it, but apparently it was not on the negotiating table in Minsk.
While the Cold War has prevented Europe and Moscow from peaceful coexistence on their common continent, peace in Ukraine might just open up the whole Russian hinterland to the European economy.
At the end, it boils down to two options: The renewal of the old transatlantic pact with the ally overseas leading to a new Cold War (that could turn very nasty), or peace and coexistence with Russia.
Big Sugar’s scandalous sweetheart deal with public health experts exposed
RT | February 12, 2015
British public health experts issuing guidance on obesity receive hundreds of thousands of pounds from the sugar industry, an investigation has found.
Funding from companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé has flowed into scientific research bodies such as the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) for over a decade.
Scientists whose work was at least partly funded and sometimes fully funded by the sugar industry include Professor Susan Jebb, the government’s obesity tsar.
Leading scientists blamed the government’s funding cuts for forcing researchers into the arms of Big Sugar, while one doctor told RT the findings were “disturbing.”
The report comes at a time when medical experts say daily guidelines on sugar intake are misleading, with the average Briton consuming two to three times the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended limit.
According to the BMJ’s investigation, one government-funded organization, the MRC’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge, received an average of £250,000 a year for the past decade from Big Sugar.
Other scientists received consultancy fees from Boots, Coca-Cola, Mars, Cereal Partners UK and Unilever. They have also sat on advisory boards for Coca-Cola, the Food and Drink Federation and the Institute of Grocery Distributors, the report claims.
Nutrition scientist Susan Jebb, who is the UK government’s adviser on obesity, received £1.37 million in industry funding between 2004 and 2015, according to the investigation.
This money came from food and retail companies including Cereal Partners UK, which operates under the Nestlé brand, Rank Hovis McDougal, Sainsbury’s, Coca-Cola’s Beverage Institute for Health and Wellbeing and Unilever.
In a statement published via the Science Media Centre, Jebb rejected the BMJ’s investigation.
“It refers to a series of studies in which I was involved which included funding from industry. None of these involve research into the effects of sugar on health,” she said.
“I have received no personal remuneration from any of these projects. All have been conducted according to all the MRC governance arrangements for working with industry and the industry involvement has been declared.”
Dr Aseem Malholtra, a cardiologist and Science Director at the medically led Action on Sugar, told RT the findings were “disturbing.”
“I think it’s quite disturbing. I think the public would be appalled that the people advising them on what they eat are receiving money from the food industry.”
“We know that biased funding for research is one of the root causes of problems within healthcare at the moment. Whether it’s food industry funding or pharmaceutical funding.”
Malholtra said the average UK citizen consumes 2-3 times the WHO’s recommended sugar intake.
“The labeling of sugar remains extremely misleading. The guidelines’ daily amount doesn’t distinguish between added sugars and what’s intrinsic to the product,” he said.
“The current sugar labeling suggests one could consume 22 teaspoons of sugar a day as part of your daily amount. The WHO advice is for 6 teaspoons per day.”
“My question is: what are the scientists doing turning a blind eye?”
Former SACN chair Alan Jackson blamed the government’s research funding cuts for pushing scientist towards industry money.
Universities are estimated to have lost over £460 million in government research funding between 2009-10 and 2012-13, a financial burden which has seen them turn to business for over £2 billion over the past decade.
Jackson said scientists were encouraged by the government to develop a “mixed portfolio of support” for their research which explicitly included help from industry.
“So most, if not all, researchers will have some form of industry support and funding and hence have potential conflicts of interest,” he told the BMJ.
“By the very nature of its complex roots and wide interdisciplinary engagement nutrition has particular vulnerabilities in this regard, but it is by no means unique to nutrition.”
READ MORE: Child obesity looms large, with 1/3 of European teenagers overweight
IMF announces new $17.5bn bailout package for Ukraine
RT | February 12, 2015
The International Monetary Fund announced a new $17.5 billion lifeline for Ukraine, which would bring the total bailout package to $40 billion. The new sum would be a four-year program.
Lagarde will propose the $17.5 billion expansion program to the IMF by the end of the month.
“The program is not yet approved by the governing council. I hope to offer it for approval by the end of February,” she said Thursday.
“This new four-year arrangement would support immediate economic stabilization in Ukraine as well as a set of bold policy reforms aimed at restoring robust growth over the medium term and improving living standards for the Ukrainian people,” Lagarde said in a statement.
In return Ukraine will have to present a “program of deep economic reforms,” which includes the whole economy and a plan to transform Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state oil and gas company.
“It’s a large program, it’s a longer-term program than the previous one, which was a traditional SBA [Stand-By Arrangement] for two years,” the IMF chief said.
“It’s ambitious, it’s not without risk, but we believe it is a realistic set of macroeconomic framework, ambitious reforms, but reforms the authorities feel confident they can deliver,” Lagarde said.
IMF head Christine Lagarde didn’t answer the question as to whether the four-year international bailout program for Ukraine included credits from Russia.
“The sum includes funds from the IMF and the EU, and also bilateral and multilateral loans.”
Earlier this month, the US promised Ukraine as much as $2 billion in loan guarantees, while the EU said it would disburse €1.8 billion ($2.1 billion).
Boon to Ukraine’s economy
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk stressed that the new bailout program would open sources for Ukraine to get help from other international organizations and partners, making the total sum thus $25 billion.
He confirmed the commitment to reforms that will stabilize Ukraine’s economy and finance. The country’s game plan includes fighting corruption, settling the energy sector, as well as cutting and optimizing state expenditure and increasing investment to 3 percent of the GDP, Yatsenyuk explained.
“Stabilization of the banking system and the exchange rate are also the goals of the program,” Yatsenyuk said.
“Recovery in confidence in Ukraine through the adoption of the 4–year program will be a major factor in the stabilization of the exchange rate, and an objective and strong banking system of Ukraine that will give the opportunity for Ukraine’s economy to develop,” he added.
Yatsenyuk said the government is also going to provide extensive assistance to low-income households. By the end of the year he expects it to include income indexation linked to the level of price rises. He also said the IMF program will provide $500 million for low-income families to help pay for increased energy bills.
READ MORE: IMF gives green light for $17 bn Ukraine aid package
Obama the War President
By Dave Lindorff | This Can’t Be Happening! | February 6, 2015
The Nobel Peace Laureate President Barack Obama, the guy who once campaigned claiming one US war — the one against Iraq — was a “bad” one, and the other — against Afghanistan — was a “good” one, turns out to be a man who, once anointed commander-in-chief, can’t seem to find a war he doesn’t consider to be a “good” idea.
Obama turned out, on taking office, to have a hard time saying good-bye to the occupation of Iraq, only leaving when he was forced out by an Iraqi government that refused to continue giving US forces legal immunity for killing Iraqi civilians. In Afghanistan, he decided to copy the same “surge” — a massive increase in targeted assassinations and violence — that he had once condemned in Iraq. Then he stepped up drone-launched rocket attacks and bombings in seven other countries.
More recently he has begun an air war against Syria (okay, he says it’s against the so-called Islamic State, but the whole world, with the exception of a lot of ill-informed US citizens, knows it’s ultimately against the Syrian government), and now his Secretary of Defense (sic) Ashton Carter and his Secretary of State John Kerry are pushing for sending heavy arms and, inevitably, US “advisors” to Ukraine to escalate US involvement in the civil war there. What makes that latest war particularly dangerous is that all the while, Peace Laureate Obama makes it clear that the “enemy” is Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military.
Never mind that it is the US that originally orchestrated and encouraged the fascist coup that overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, setting in motion a huge pogrom against ethnic Russians in the east of that country and provoking the current armed conflict, and never mind that Russian concern about the Ukraine stems from a decades long history of the US pushing NATO ever closer to Russia’s western border, with Ukraine kind of the last straw.
Anyone looking objectively at the warmaking and war-promotion of this administration would have to conclude that President Obama is one of the most bellicose Chief Executives in the history of the United States.
If you don’t believe me, just look at the US military budget President Obama has proposed for FY2016. At $585.3 billion, it would if approved by Congress represent an increase in spending of $24.9 billion, or about 4%, over the 2015 budget, and that is despite a decline in what, since the Bush/Cheney years, has euphemistically been called Overseas Contingency Operations spending, or spending on actual wars. The proposed OCO budget for 2016 in this “peace” president’s budget is “just” $50.9 billion, down about $13.3 billion from 2015 thanks to what the president, in one whopper offered during his State of the Union address, called the “end of combat” in Afghanistan (that war is actually continuing, with some 12,000 US troops expected to remain stationed in that country indefinitely).
The thing about OCO funding is that it is really not predictive of anything. It could soar way beyond that $50.9-billion level, for example, in a flash if the US follows through and escalates the war in Ukraine — especially if Russian troops are drawn directly into that conflict and the US responds by upping its own involvement.
In fact, the OCO part of the budget has been used by the Pentagon and the administration over the last few years to get around the constraints of an ongoing Congressional “sequestration” requirement that cuts so-called discretionary spending, both military and non-military. Congress, ever mindful and solicitous of the country’s imperial ambitions, provided an exemption for ongoing military conflicts, and the Pentagon has since been deceptively slipping all kinds of other spending under the OCO heading now ever since the loophole was created.
But the Obama administration’s warmongering stance, in terms of the budget, isn’t told just by looking at the official Pentagon budget. There is much more spending that is really all about war. Not included in that $585.3 billion figure is $70.2 billion in discretionary spending for Veterans Affairs (that’s in addition to $90 billion in mandated spending). This is money to pay for the damages of the nation’s warmaking — the injured or ailing veterans who served or are now serving in the nation’s armed forces. Then there’s the intelligence agencies’ budgets — the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the DIA, the DEA, the ATF and Homeland Security, etc. — most of which is really part of part of the war machine, thanks to the so-called “War on Terror,” which has re-defined the US itself as part of a global war zone. While much of that intelligence budget is concealed from the public on the spurious grounds of “national security,” it is known to exceed $100 billion a year. Add to that the $24-billion share of the Department of Energy budget that is weapons and war related, and you have a real military budget for 2016 of $707 billion. That’s out of a $1.2 trillion total discretionary spending budget (the rest of the $4 trillion proposed 2016 budget is called mandatory because it is debt repayment or spending on mandated things like Social Security and Medicare, which are funded by dedicated payroll taxes, not income taxes and other federal taxes, and which are promised to recipients like retirees and the sick.
What this means is that when you look closely, some 59% of the entire discretionary budget of the federal government – things that are funded each year by money that Congress has to appropriate — is being spent on the military. Given that the total amount of taxes collected by the federal government (income, corporate profits, exist, inheritance, etc.) also comes in at about $1.2 trillion, we’re saying that taxpayers this coming year will be pouring not just $707 billion, but 59 cents of every tax dollar in to war, planning for war, or paying for war. But it’s actually worse than that because actually the US government operates at a deficit, and doesn’t ever finance its wars on a pay-as-you-go basis. Instead, it borrows the money and then pays interest on that debt. Every year that interest comes to about $240 billion, and roughly half that is for borrowing to pay for past wars and past and current military spending. So add $120 billion to the $707 total and it become $827 billion.
In other words, it’s really 68.9% of every tax dollar you pay this April 15 that’s going to pay for America’s wars and its obsession with militarism.
No wonder our schools and universities, our parks, our roads, our once-vaunted global scientific leadership, our environment, our health and safety, our family budgets and even our life expectancy, have been going to hell! The only thing that’s really getting funded in this country is war.
By the way, the reason you may not have realized how much you are paying for war out of your taxes is that the government, and the corporate media, carefully avoid letting you know. They do this by sleight of hand. You see, they never really break out just the “discretionary” budget, or point out the parts of the budget that are outside the Pentagon but that are still really military-related, like spending on nuclear weapons and weapons development, nuclear research and cleanup, decommissioning of nuclear processing plants, and of course veterans affairs and benefits. They also do it by lumping the huge outlays for Social Security benefits and Medicare into the overall spending budget, though actually those benefits are funded not by income taxes but by a Trust fund of some $1.7 trillion that was created over the years by specially-dedicated payroll taxes separately paid by workers and their employers over the working life of each person. Adding those items into the national budget, while leaving out things like spending on veterans, nukes and war debt, appears to reduce military spending to a much less troubling 6.8% of the budget.
But it’s a fraud.
If we want to revitalize the US, the only way to do it is to end militarism and war, and to generously fund human needs.
To do that, we need a real peace president and a peace congress, not the Nobel Laureate warmonger we have now in the White House, and the bi-partisan war chorus we have in the Congress.
FDA fails to report fraud in clinical trials – study
RT | February 10, 2015
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) routinely fails to report evidence of fraud or misconduct when it inspects the way researchers conduct clinical trials, leaving the public unaware of which research is credible and which isn’t.
Researchers at New York University found that in dozens of published papers where the FDA had uncovered faults in clinical trials, only three ever indicated that violations occurred. In a stem cell trial, for example, all patients were said to have experienced improvement – despite one having a foot amputated.
The New York University study examined 57 clinical trials that received a notice of violation from the FDA for poor record keeping, false information, and poor patient study. Researchers found that findings from those clinical trials were used in 78 published papers – but only in three instances were the faults in the clinical trials mentioned in the papers.
In the other cases, none of the published papers containing data from faulty trials were corrected or retracted.
“These are major things,” Professor Charles Seife, the study’s author, told Reuters. “No one really knows unless you go through these documents that anyone is question the integrity of the trials.”
In one case, an entire clinical trial was considered unreliable by the FDA, but the published paper didn’t mention the violation at all. In another trial, researchers covered up a patient’s death.
Of the 57 published clinical trials, 39 percent had evidence of false information, 25 percent reported adverse events, 61 percent had record keeping problems, and 35 percent failed to protect the safety of the patient or had issues with oversight or informed consent.
“The FDA has repeatedly hidden evidence of scientific fraud not just from the public, but also from its most trusted scientific advisers, even as they were deciding whether or not a new drug should be allowed on the market,” Seife wrote at Slate. “For an agency devoted to protecting the public from bogus medical science, the FDA seems to be spending an awful lot of effort protecting the perpetrators of bogus science from the public.”
Seife said his team could have uncovered even more instances from the 600 clinical trials mentioned in the documents, but most of the documents obtained from the FDA were heavily redacted. “In some cases, you can’t even tell which drug is being tested,” he said.
Every year, the FDA inspects several hundred clinical sites performing biomedical research on human participants and occasionally finds evidence of violations of good clinical practices and misconduct. The study said, however, that the FDA has no systematic method for communicating these findings to the scientific community, and its findings go unremarked in peer-reviewed literature.
In a statement to Reuters, the FDA said it is “committed to increasing the transparency of compliance and enforcement activities with the goal of enhancing the public’s understanding of the FDA’s decision, promoting the accountability of the FDA, and fostering an understanding among regulated industry about the need for consistently safe and high-quality products.”
READ MORE:
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EU lost billions over Russia bans: Spain
Press TV – February 9, 2015
Spain has warned that the European Union has lost billions of euros as a result of the sanctions the bloc has imposed against Russia over Moscow’s alleged role in Ukraine’s crisis.
“Sanctions have had a heavy cost for us all,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in Brussels on Monday.
Spain’s top diplomat added that “the EU has so far lost 21 billion euros ($23.7 billion). In Spain we have been badly hit in terms of agriculture and tourism.”
The figure represented the first account of the monetary loss caused to the EU due to the tough economic sanctions it has been progressively imposing on Russia since July 2014.
On Sunday, nearly 200 farmers went on strike in Spain and abandoned their products in the middle of a road in Catalonia to protest against Western-imposed sanctions against Russia. The farmers dumped their citrus fruits on the road to express their anger at the European Union for its ban on fruit exports to Russia.
The Western powers have been accusing Moscow of playing a role in the deadly crisis in eastern Ukraine, which erupted when Kiev launched military operations in April last year to silence pro-Russia protests. The Kremlin denies the accusation.
Russia has, in return, imposed a full year-long ban of European Union, US, Australian, Canadian, and Norwegian food exports to the country.
Amid fear on the part of some EU members for their trade ties with Moscow, the bloc has agreed to postpone new sanctions against Russia to give time to see if a four-way Ukraine peace summit on February 11 makes progress.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, “The principle of the sanctions will be kept, but their implementation will depend on the situation on the ground.”
He was referring to a January 29 decision by the foreign ministers of the 28-nation union to add 19 people, including five Russians, to a list of those facing travel bans and asset freezes after an upsurge in fighting in eastern Ukraine.
“We will assess the situation again next Monday,” said the French top diplomat.
The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture
By Frédéric Mousseau | IPS | January 27, 2015
OAKLAND, CA – At the same time as the United States, Canada and the European Union announced a set of new sanctions against Russia in mid-December last year, Ukraine received 350 million dollars in U.S. military aid, coming on top of a one billion dollar aid package approved by the U.S. Congress in March 2014.
Western governments’ further involvement in the Ukraine conflict signals their confidence in the cabinet appointed by the new government earlier in December 2014. This new government is unique given that three of its most important ministries were granted to foreign-born individuals who received Ukrainian citizenship just hours before their appointment.
The Ministry of Finance went to Natalie Jaresko, a U.S.-born and educated businesswoman who has been working in Ukraine since the mid-1990s, overseeing a private equity fund established by the U.S. government to invest in the country. Jaresko is also the CEO of Horizon Capital, an investment firm that administers various Western investments in the country.
As unusual as it may seem, this appointment is consistent with what looks more like a takeover of the Ukrainian economy by Western interests. In two reports – The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture and Walking on the West Side: The World Bank and the IMF in the Ukraine Conflict – the Oakland Institute has documented this takeover, particularly in the agricultural sector.
A major factor in the crisis that led to deadly protests and eventually to president Viktor Yanukovych’s removal from office in February 2014 was his rejection of a European Union (EU) Association agreement aimed at expanding trade and integrating Ukraine with the EU – an agreement that was tied to a 17 billion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
After the president’s departure and the installation of a pro-Western government, the IMF initiated a reform programme that was a condition of its loan with the goal of increasing private investment in the country.
The package of measures includes reforming the public provision of water and energy, and, more important, attempts to address what the World Bank identified as the “structural roots” of the current economic crisis in Ukraine, notably the high cost of doing business in the country.
The Ukrainian agricultural sector has been a prime target for foreign private investment and is logically seen by the IMF and World Bank as a priority sector for reform. Both institutions praise the new government’s readiness to follow their advice.
For example, the foreign-driven agricultural reform roadmap provided to Ukraine includes facilitating the acquisition of agricultural land, cutting food and plant regulations and controls, and reducing corporate taxes and custom duties.
The stakes around Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector – the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat – could not be higher. Ukraine is known for its ample fields of rich black soil, and the country boasts more than 32 million hectares of fertile, arable land – the equivalent of one-third of the entire arable land in the European Union.
The manoeuvring for control over the country’s agricultural system is a pivotal factor in the struggle that has been taking place over the last year in the greatest East-West confrontation since the Cold War.
The presence of foreign corporations in Ukrainian agriculture is growing quickly, with more than 1.6 million hectares signed over to foreign companies for agricultural purposes in recent years. While Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont have been in Ukraine for quite some time, their investments in the country have grown significantly over the past few years.
Cargill is involved in the sale of pesticides, seeds and fertilisers and has recently expanded its agricultural investments to include grain storage, animal nutrition and a stake in UkrLandFarming, the largest agribusiness in the country.
Similarly, Monsanto has been in Ukraine for years but has doubled the size of its team over the last three years. In March 2014, just weeks after Yanukovych was deposed, the company invested 140 million dollars in building a new seed plant in Ukraine.
DuPont has also expanded its investments and announced in June 2013 that it too would be investing in a new seed plant in the country.
Western corporations have not just taken control of certain profitable agribusinesses and agricultural activities, they have now initiated a vertical integration of the agricultural sector and extended their grip on infrastructure and shipping.
For instance, Cargill now owns at least four grain elevators and two sunflower seed processing plants used for the production of sunflower oil. In December 2013, the company bought a “25% +1 share” in a grain terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk with a capacity of 3.5 million tons of grain per year.
All aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural supply chain – from the production of seeds and other agricultural inputs to the actual shipment of commodities out of the country – are thus increasingly controlled by Western firms.
European institutions and the U.S. government have actively promoted this expansion. It started with the push for a change of government at a time when president Yanukovych was seen as pro-Russian interests. This was further pushed, starting in February 2014, through the promotion of a “pro-business” reform agenda, as described by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker when she met with Prime Minister Arsenly Yatsenyuk in October 2014.
The European Union and the United States are working hand in hand in the takeover of Ukrainian agriculture. Although Ukraine does not allow the production of genetically modified (GM) crops, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, which ignited the conflict that ousted Yanukovych, includes a clause (Article 404) that commits both parties to cooperate to “extend the use of biotechnologies” within the country.
This clause is surprising given that most European consumers reject GM crops. However, it creates an opening to bring GM products into Europe, an opportunity sought after by large agro-seed companies such as Monsanto.
Opening up Ukraine to the cultivation of GM crops would go against the will of European citizens, and it is unclear how the change would benefit Ukrainians.
It is similarly unclear how Ukrainians will benefit from this wave of foreign investment in their agriculture, and what impact these investments will have on the seven million local farmers.
Once they eventually look away from the conflict in the Eastern “pro-Russian” part of the country, Ukrainians may wonder what remains of their country’s ability to control its food supply and manage the economy to their own benefit.
As for U.S. and European citizens, will they eventually awaken from the headlines and grand rhetoric about Russian aggression and human rights abuses and question their governments’ involvement in the Ukraine conflict?
Frédéric Mousseau is the Policy Director at the Oakland Institute.
Israel Aerospace Industries: a company profile
By Tom Anderson | Corporate Watch | February 5, 2015
Israel Aerospace Industries is one of Israel’s biggest arms companies. Founded in 1953 as Bedek, IAI has long been at the forefront of Israel’s arms production and export. It also develops systems for commercial aircraft. In 2013, 73% of IAI’s sales revenues came from exports.
IAI and Israel’s drone wars
IAI was one of the earliest developers of drone technology and launched its first surveillance drone, the IAI Scout, in 1979. Since then the company has launched a number of drone models (see below). Drone development is handled by IAIs MALAT divisions. IAI describes its unmanned aerial systems as ‘combat proven’ and writes on its website of its drones’ “unsurpassed track record of over 1,200,000 operational flight hours for over 50 users on five continents”. According to Drone Wars UK, IAI has exported their UAVs, sometimes through joint venture agreements, to various European countries as well as South America, Australia, Canada and India and the company has a growing market in Africa.
IAI and Gaza
Most of IAI’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) are surveillance drones, but the Heron 1 and Heron TP both have strike capabilities and have been used in Gaza. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW),i the Heron can fly up to 40 hours and can carry four Spike missiles. It is also used for surveillance and to identify targets on the ground.
Drone Wars UKii reports that Israel was deploying armed Heron 1 drones during the Operation Summer Rains attack in Gaza in 2006.
The IAI Heron TP is Israel’s biggest drone, with a wing span of 26 metres. It was first used during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza during 2008-2009.iii When the Heron TP is marketed as ‘combat proven’ it means that it has been tried out on the people of Gaza with fatal consequences.
Attacks on Lebanon:
IAI’s Searcher and Scout drones were both used for surveillance in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is believed that armed Heron drones were used in the assault on Lebanon in 2006iv
IAI and the US:v
During the first Gulf War, IAI Pioneer drones were used by the US navy to guide shells fired from battleships.
Industry:
A ‘defence’ company which develops and produces a variety of products for both military and commercial markets in Israel and around the world, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fighter jets and naval and ground defence systems. In 2013, military equipment accounted for 73% of the company’s sales, with only 27% going to commercial markets.vi
Traded on: TASE
Revenues/Assets/Sales: In 2013 the company reported an operating income of $84 million, the company recorded total assets of over $5 billion and net sales of over $3.5 billion – to view the company accounts click here.
Employees: 16,000
Subsidiaries:
ELTA Systems Ltd (Israel)
ELTA North America (based in Maryland, US)
European Advanced Technology (EAT)
Addresses:
Website: www.iai.co.il
Head quarters: Ben Gurion International Airport, 70100, Israel. Phone: 00972-3-9353111 Email: corpmkg@iai.co.il
Representatives: The company has representatives around the world, including in Asia, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Korea, North America and Russia.
Ownership: IAI is fully owned by the Israeli state. It is the largest state owned defence and aerospace company in Israel.
Drones manufactured by IAIvii
IAI Scout, Bird Eye 400, Mini Panther, Mosquito 1, Mosquito 1.5, Panther, Harpy, Searcher I, I-View-150, Searcher II, Searcher III, B-Hunter, Heron 1 (Shoval), Heron TP (Eitan).
Countries IAI has exported to:viii
Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United States, UK.
Resistance:
In 2011 a Palestinian civil society call demanded a two way embargo on arms sales to and from the Israeli state and Israeli companies.
In October 2014, activists from London Palestine Action occupied the London offices of Airbus over its involvement with IAI. The two companies are working together on the Harfang drone for the French Air Force. The Harfang drone is based on the IAI Heron.
Background
The battlefields of Israel’s militarism and occupation have proved effective testing grounds for new types of weaponry. Israel’s constant state of warfare has ensured a reliable marketplace for Israeli arms manufacturers. According to Drone Wars UK, surveillance drones were first used in Egypt in the lead up to the Yom Kippur War. The first recorded use of an Israeli drone to help piloted warplanes bomb targets (target acquisition) was in 1982 in the run up to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. According to the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, the first recorded use of an armed drone by Israel was in 2004. The experience gleaned during years of military repression has made Israel the largest exporter of drone technology in the world. Israeli arms companies have sold drones to over 50 countries.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW): “the missile fired from a drone has its own cameras that allow the operator to observe the target from the moment of firing. The optics on both the drone and missiles include imaging infrared cameras that allow operators to see individuals at night as well as during the day. With these visual capabilities, drone operators should have been able to tell the difference between fighters and others directly participating in hostilities, who are legitimate targets, and civilians, who are immune from attack, and to hold fire if that determination could not be made. If a last-second doubt arises about a target, the drone operator can use the missile’s remote guidance system to divert the fired missile, steering the missile away from the target with a joystick.”
Despite this, the number of deaths (as a proportion of total deaths) caused by drone strikes has been increasing. During our 2013 visit to Gaza, Corporate Watch interviewed several survivors of Israeli drone attacks who had not involved in any fighting before they were targeted, many of those killed by drone attacks are children. The Gaza based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights provided Corporate Watch with these shocking figures for the years 2000-2012:
| Year |
Total recorded number of people killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza |
Number of people killed by Israeli drones in Gaza (% of total) |
| 2000 |
123 |
0 (0%) |
| 2001 |
243 |
0 (0%) |
| 2002 |
472 |
0 (0%) |
| 2003 |
398 |
0 (0%) |
| 2004 |
646 |
2 (0.3%) |
| 2005 |
99 |
0 (0%) |
| 2006 |
534 |
91 (17%) |
| 2007 |
281 |
98 (34.9%) |
| 2008 |
769 |
172 (22.4%) |
| 2009 |
1058 |
461 (43.6%) |
| 2010 |
72 |
19 (26.4%) |
| 2011 |
112 |
58 (51.8%) |
| 2012 |
255 |
201 (78.8%) |
Israeli drone strikes are carried out from the Palmachin and Tel Nof air force bases.xxii
Endnotes:
i Human Rights Watch (2009), Section 4
iiDrone Wars UK (2014), page 10
iiiT. Goldenburg, Huffington Post, Israel Unveils New Drone Fleet that can reach Iran (2010)
ivDrone Wars UK (2014), page 10
vDrone Wars UK (2014), page 7
viIAI – http://www.iai.co.il/Shared/UserControls/Print/PopUp.aspx?lang=en&docid=45888
viiDrone Wars UK (2014), page 7
viiiDrone Wars UK (2014), page 19
Syriza-led Greek parliament ‘will never ratify TTIP’
At an anti-TTIP demonstration in Berlin last month. (Photo: Uwe Hiksch/flickr/cc)
By Sarantis Michalopoulos | EurActiv | February 2, 2015
The newly-elected government in Athens has always been suspicious of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and will use its Parliament majority to sink the EU-US trade pact, claims a former Syriza MEP now turned minister.
After making its voice heard in the debate over sanctions on Russia, the new government in Athens is now making its opposition known to the EU-US trade deal, TTIP.
Georgios Katrougkalos, a former influential Syriza MEP who quit his European Parliament seat to become deputy minister for administrative reform in the leftist Greek government, said the new leadership in Athens will use its veto to kill the proposed trade pact – at least in its current form.
Just before the January elections, he told EurActiv Greece that a Syriza-dominated Greek parliament would never ratify the EU-USA trade deal.
Asked by EurActiv Greece whether the promise still holds now Syriza is in power, Katrougkalos replied:
“I can ensure you that a Parliament where Syriza holds the majority will never ratify the deal. And this will be a big gift not only to the Greek people but to all the European people”.
Double veto power
The leftist Syriza party may not have an absolute majority in Parliament but its junior coalition partner seems to share the same views on the EU-US trade pact.
Syriza, which won a stunning victory at snap elections a week ago (25 January) formed a coalition with the right-wing anti-austerity Independent Greeks party, which is intent on opposing laws seen as too favourable to big business.
The coalition agreement gives the new Greek leadership an effective veto power over TTIP and other deals submitted to Parliament ratification.
Indeed, once the pact is negotiated – a process which may still take over a year –, it will be submitted for a unanimous vote in the European Council, where each of the 28 EU national governments are represented.
This means that one country can use its veto power to influence the negotiations or block the trade deal as a whole, an opportunity Syriza will no doubt use.
And even if the pact makes it past this first stage, it will then be submitted to ratification by all parliaments of the 28 EU Member States, offering opponents a second opportunity to wield a veto.
Welfare state under threat
Like many other leftists and social democrats in Europe, Katrougkalos raised serious concerns about the Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism, or ISDS, contained in the pact.
The mechanism is designed to protect companies’ foreign investments against harmful or illegal rulings in the countries where they operate. It gives them the chance to take legal action against a state whose legislation negatively impacts their economic activity.
Katrougkalos underlined the uncertainty surrounding the ISDS negotiations, saying the European Commission’s precise mandate was unclear.
“An undemocratic practice of lack of transparency has prevailed from the very beginning of the negotiations,” he claimed.
The newly-appointed minister understands that TTIP’s objective was not to reduce tariffs, which are already “very low” but to make an adjustment to the rules governing other sectors. “It contributes to the elimination of some bureaucratic procedures on exports, helping this way the economic efficiency,” he said.
But he made clear that the danger lies in the fact that in most economic fields the regulatory rules are different in the EU and the US. For him, multinational companies stand to benefit the most from lower regulatory barriers, citing banks and brokerage firms, which are subject to weaker supervision in America than in Europe.
“For example we [the EU] don’t permit GMOs, data protection is significantly more important as well as the protection of national health systems,” he said, adding that any consolidation in these rules “will undermine the way the welfare state is organised in the EU.”
Independent Greeks take the same line
Meanwhile, Syriza’s coalition partner, the right-wing anti-austerity Independent Greeks party, takes a similar stance against TTIP.
In a statement issued on 4 November 2014, the then-opposition party said the deal will not live up to its promise of relaunching economic activity.
“It is supposed to be an agreement that will boost the real economy, but its main supporters are international bankers and lobbies,” emphasised Marina Chrysoveloni, a spokesperson for Independent Greeks.
“In simple words, the speculative capital will have even more freedom to move […] in a huge single market with eight hundred million people,” she concluded.
On Syriza’s side, Katrougkalos admitted there was uncertainty about how the talks will conclude but said he was confident that the trade pact “will be approved by the European Parliament”.
“The social democrats have objections on ISDS [investor-state dispute settlement] mechanism but it seems they accept the trade deal’s logic,” Katrougkalos said. In his view, the centre-right European People’s Party and the Liberal ALDE “have a safe majority in Parliament”.
Read:
Ruble slump won’t damage trade with China – ambassador
RT | February 2, 2015
Li Hui, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Russia (RIA Novosti/Andrey Stenin)
China’s ambassador to Moscow Li Hui says even though the ruble has lost more than 17 percent of its value this year it won’t significantly affect China-Russia trade and cooperation.
“It is understandable that the devaluation and volatility of the ruble have a certain influence on Chinese-Russian trade, especially with the considerable exchange rate risks for export companies that have signed agreements in Russian rubles, but the devaluation of the ruble doesn’t have much effect on the large-scale trade partnership between China and Russia,” Li Hui told RIA Novosti in an interview.
The value of the Russian ruble started to slide again after the Central Bank of Russia decided on Friday to cut the key rate by 200 basis points to 15 percent. The currency was trading at 70 against the US dollar on the Moscow Exchange at 2:00PM MSK Monday.
In 2014, the ruble lost almost a half its value against the dollar due to plummeting oil prices and Western economic sanctions.
According to Li, regardless of the devaluation of the ruble and falling oil prices, Russia and China still believe in “growth despite existing trends.”
“I believe that we can contain and increase the volume of our bilateral trade by using the joint efforts of our government organs and businesses,” Li added.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov suggests that after the dramatic depreciation the Russian currency would start recovering soon.
The Chinese ambassador said that trading in yuan is very forward thinking, and Russian businessmen are ready to trade in the Chinese currency.
In late 2014, Russia and China agreed a national currency swap deal to shore up the depreciating ruble and said they are working to increase the number of mutual payments in rubles and yuan.
China is Russia’s second-biggest trading partner after the EU, which hit a record $59 billion in the first half of 2014. The two countries are planning to increase bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2020.
READ MORE:
Russia-China trade hits record $59bn in first half of 2014
Russia’s Central Bank unexpectedly slashes rate to 15%, ruble reels
Ruble-yuan settlements will cut energy sales in US dollars – Putin
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From the Archives
Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam
By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022
There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.
- UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
- UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
- Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
- It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
- UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
- Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable
During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.
Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.
Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue
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