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Doom from the depths

By Lawrence Wittner | International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War | July 7, 2014

Ever since the horrors of submarine warfare became a key issue during World War I, submarines have had a sinister reputation. And the building of new, immensely costly, nuclear-armed submarines by the US government and others may soon raise the level of earlier anxiety to a nuclear nightmare.

This spring, the US government continued its steady escalation of research and development funding for the replacement of its current nuclear submarine fleet through one of the most expensive shipbuilding undertakings in American history — the phasing-in, starting in 2031, of 12 new SSBN(X) submarines. Each of these nuclear-powered vessels, the largest submarines the Navy has ever built, will carry up to 16 Trident ballistic missiles fitted with multiple nuclear warheads. All in all, this new submarine fleet is expected to deploy about 1,000 nuclear warheads — 70 percent of US government’s strategic nuclear weapons.

From the standpoint of the US military, nuclear-armed submarines are very attractive. Capable of being placed in hidden locations around the world and remaining submerged for months at a time, they are less vulnerable to attack than are ground-launched or air-launched nuclear weapons, the other two legs of the “nuclear triad.” Moreover, they can wreak massive death and destruction upon “enemy” nations quite rapidly. The Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review of 2014 explained that the US Navy’s future fleet would “deliver the required presence and capabilities and address the most important war-fighting scenarios.”

From the standpoint of civilians, the new Trident submarine fleet is somewhat less appealing. Strategic nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons in world history, and the use of only one of them over a large city could annihilate millions of people instantly. If the thousands of such weapons available to the US government and other governments were employed in war, they would incinerate most of the planet, reducing it to charred rubble. Thereafter, radioactivity, disease, nuclear winter, and starvation would end most remaining life on earth.

Of course, even in an accident, such weapons could do incredible damage. And, over the years, nuclear-armed submarines have been in numerous accidents. In February 2009, a British and a French submarine, both nuclear-powered and armed with nuclear missiles, collided underwater in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the two vessels were fitted with state-or-the-art detection equipment, neither spotted the other until it was too late to avert their collision. Fortunately, they were moving very slowly at the time, and the damage was limited (though enormously expensive to repair). But a sharper collision could have released vast quantities of radioactive fuel and flung their deadly nuclear warheads across the ocean floor.

In addition, when the dangers are so immense, it is worth keeping in mind that people, like the high-tech nuclear submarines, are not always infallible or reliable. Submarine crews — living in cramped quarters, bored, and isolated for months at a time — could well be as plagued by the poor morale, dishonesty, drug use, and incompetence found among their counterparts at land-based nuclear missile facilities.

Taxpayers, particularly, might be concerned about the unprecedented expense of this new submarine fleet. According to most estimates, building the 12 SSBN(X) submarines will cost about $100 billion. And there will be additional expenditures for the missiles, nuclear warheads, and yearly maintenance, bringing the total tab to what the Pentagon estimated, three years ago, at $347 billion. The expected cost is so astronomical, in fact, that the Navy, frightened that this expenditure will prevent it from paying for other portions of its shipbuilding program, has insisted that the money come from a special fund outside of its budget. This spring, Congress took preliminary steps along these lines.

People might be forgiven for feeling some bewilderment at this immense US government investment in a new nuclear weapons system — one slated to last well into the 2070s. After all, back in April 2009, amid much fanfare, President Barack Obama proclaimed “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” This was followed by a similar commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world made by the members of the UN Security Council, including five nuclear-armed nations, among them the United States. But, as this nuclear weapons buildup indicates, such commitments seem to have been tossed down the memory hole.

In arguing for the new Trident submarine fleet, US military leaders have pointed to the fact that other nations are maintaining or building nuclear-armed submarines. And they are correct about that. France and Britain are maintaining their current fleets, although Britain is on the verge of beginning the construction of a new one with US assistance; Israel reportedly possesses one; China is apparently ready to launch one in 2014; India is set to launch its own in 2015; and Pakistan might be working to develop one. Meanwhile, Russia is modernizing its own submarine ballistic missile fleet.

Even so, the current US nuclear-armed submarine fleet is considerably larger than any developed or being developed by other nations. Also, the US government’s new Trident fleet, now on the drawing boards, is slated to be 50 percent larger than the new, modernized Russian fleet and, in addition, far superior technologically. Indeed, other nations currently turning out nuclear-armed submarines – like China and Russia — are reportedly launching clunkers.

In this context, there is an obvious alternative to the current race to deploy the world’s deadliest weapons in the ocean depths. The nuclear powers could halt their building of nuclear-armed submarines and eliminate their present nuclear-armed submarine fleets. This action would not only honor their professed commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world, but would save their nations from making enormous expenditures and from the possibility of experiencing a catastrophe of unparalleled magnitude.

Why not act now, before this arms race to disaster goes any further?

July 7, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

No ‘gold rush’: Germany keeps reserves in the US

RT | July 7, 2014

Germany’s plan to bring back the nation’s gold reserves to Frankfurt by 2020 has fizzled, and instead has for now decided to leave $635 billion of gold in US vaults.

Home to the world’s second largest gold reserves, worth $141 billion, Germany only keeps about one third of its gold ‘at home’, the rest is abroad. 45 percent is in the US Federal Reserve in New York, 13 percent in London, 11 percent in Paris, and only 31 percent in the Bundesbank in Frankfurt.

“The Americans are taking good care of our gold, we have no reasons for mistrust,” Nobert Barthle, the German Parliament Budget spokesman, told RT.

Critics of the slow progress disagree.

“Why we haven’t been allowed to inspect escapes me, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but the Bundesbank should be able to audit the gold once a year like it does with reserves in Frankfurt,” Hans Olaf Henkel, German member of the European Parliament, told RT.

At the end of June for the first time a German delegation traveled to New York to check up on their gold holdings, the first in the last 10 years. The lack of inspection has led some to question whether it’s still there.

The movement to ‘bring the gold home’ was largely led by euroskeptics who campaigned to repatriate all the country’s precious metal by 2020. So far, they’ve only managed to bring back 10 percent, or 300 tons. Another 374 tons from the Banque de France is set to be returned to Germany in the near future.

“We are still missing for example published bar number lists, even though the US Federal reserve publishes this list for their own gold,” says Peter Boehringer, Founder of Repatriate our Gold Campaign.

However, auditors last week said they were pleased with the US continuing to look after Germany’s treasures. The delegation said there is no rush to bring it home, and that keeping it there even offers an advantage, as it can be used for emergency currency for gold swaps.

After World War II, Germany bought gold from the US Federal Reserve, but decided to keep in overseas instead of back to the Bundesbank. During the Cold War, fear of a Soviet invasion made overseas storage a safer option.

Recently, the Bundesbank has been criticised for not holding its reserves in Frankfurt, so it has decided that some should be brought back to Germany.

Transporting the gold will be a high security operation. When France transferred its reserves in 1966 it used a submarine.

July 7, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

New Russian law bans citizens’ personal data being held on foreign servers

RT | July 5, 2014

All internet companies collecting personal information from Russian citizens are obliged to store that data inside the country, according to a new law. Its supporters cite security reasons, while opponents see it as an infringement of freedoms.

The law, passed Friday by the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, would come into force Sept. 1, 2016. The authors of the legislation believe that it gives both foreign and domestic internet companies enough time to create data-storage facilities in Russia.

The bill was proposed after some Russian MPs deemed it unwise that the bulk of Russians’ online personal data is held on foreign servers, mostly in the US.

“In this way foreign states possess full information, correspondence, photographs of not only our individuals, but companies as well,” one of the authors of the bill, Vadim Dengin of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) told Itar-Tass. “All of the [internet] companies, including the foreign ones, you are welcome to store that information, but please create data centers in Russia so that it can be controlled by Roscomnadzor (the Federal Communications Supervisory Service) and there would be a guarantee from the state that [the data] isn’t going anywhere.”

Russian MPs believe the new law is in tune with the current European policy of trying to legally protect online personal data. Deputy chairman of the Duma’s committee on information policy, Leonid Levin, said the Russian law serves goals similar to those of the recent decision by European Court of Justice, which endorsed the so-called “right to be forgotten,” obliging Google to remove upon request links to personal data.

“The security of Russians’ personal data is one of the basic rights that should be protected, legally and otherwise,” Levin said, Russian Forbes reported.

Websites that don’t comply with the law will find themselves blacklisted by Roscomnadzor, which will then have the right to limit access to them.

Critics of the law believe it could be used by authorities for censorship, however.

“The aim of this law is to create … [another] quasi-legal pretext to close Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and all other services,” Internet expert and blogger Anton Nossik told Reuters.

Some are afraid two years could be not enough for certain companies to have their online data storage organized in Russia. Particular concern has been voiced in relation to online hotel and plane ticket booking services.

Leading Russian airlines Aeroflot and Transaero, for example, use the same GDS system for online ticket sales as most of the other airlines in the world. Developing the Russian system might take longer than the law allows.

“If the law is passed in its current version, then Russians won’t be able to take a plane not only to Europe, they won’t even be able to by an online ticket from Moscow to St Petersburg,” director general of internet payment provider ChronoPay, Aleksey Kovyrshin, said previously to RBC.

The Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), an NGO focused on Russian internet issues, has warned of the potential economic losses the law might entail.

“The law puts under question cross-border transmission of personal data,” RAEC said in a statement. “Passing similar laws on the localization of personal data in other countries has led to withdrawal of global services and substantial economic losses.”

July 5, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Price Tag Of Renewables, Part 2

By Willis Eschenbach | Watts Up With That? | July 3, 2014

Anthony Watts has posted a story about a laughable analysis of the cost of propping up renewables through subsidies. And long-time WUWT contributor KD helpfully pointed me to the document itself. Now that I have the actual document, here’s what they say about subsidies (all emphasis mine).

First, they point out that the cost of shifting to renewables will be on the order of $800 billion dollars per year. Overall, they say the cost will be $45,000,000,000,000 ($45 trillion dollars) by 2050, and could be as high as $70 trillion.

In other words, a substantial “clean-energy investment gap” of some $800 billion/yr exists – notably on the same order of magnitude as present-day subsidies for fossil energy and electricity worldwide ($523 billion). Unless the gap is filled rather quickly, the 2°C target could potentially become out of reach.

Now, a trillion is an unimaginable amount of money. Here’s a way to grasp it. If I started a business in the year zero AD, and my business was so bad that I lost a million dollars a day, not a million a year but a million dollars a day, how many trillion dollars would I have lost by now?

Well, I wouldn’t have lost even one trillion by now, only about $735 billion dollars … in other words, less than the estimated PER-YEAR cost of switching to renewables.

Then they go on to claim that hey, $800 billion per year is no big deal, because fossil fuel subsidies are nearly that large.

While the clean-energy investment gaps (globally and by region) may indeed appear quite sizeable at first glance, a comparison to present-day energy subsidy levels helps to put them into context. According to estimates by the International Monetary Fund and International Energy Agency, global “pre-tax” (or direct) subsidies for fossil energy and fossil electricity totaled $480–523 billion/yr in 2011 (IEA 2012b; IMF 2013). This corresponds to an increase of almost 30% from 2010 and was six times more than the total amount of subsidies for renewables at that time. Oil-exporting countries were responsible for approximately two-thirds of total fossil subsidies, while greater than 95% of all direct subsidies occurred in developing countries.

Now, this is a most interesting and revealing paragraph.

First, despite what people have said on the previous thread, they have NOT included taxes in their calculation of subsidies.

Next, to my great surprise an amazing 95% of all subsidies are being paid by developing nations. This underscores the crucial importance of energy for the poor.

In addition, they say that most of the money used to pay the fossil fuel subsidies comes from … wait for it … the sale of fossil fuels.

Next, it means that nothing that the developed world does will free up much money. Only 5% of the subsidies are in developed nations, they could go to zero and it wouldn’t change the big picture.

It also means that since these subsidies are not going to drivers in Iowa and Oslo, but are propping up the poorest of the global poor, we cannot stop paying them without a huge cost in the form of impoverishment, hardship, and deaths.

Finally, unless we shift the fuel subsidy from fossil fuels to renewables, which obviously we cannot do, the comparison is meaningless—we will still need nearly a trillion dollars per year in additional subsidies to get renewables off of the ground, over and above the assistance currently given to the poor … where do the authors think that money would come from?

I fear that like the pathetically bad Stern Report, this analysis is just another batch of bogus claims trying to prop up the war on carbon, which is and always has been a war on development and human progress, and whose “collateral damages” fall almost entirely on the poor.

And at the end of the day, despite their vain efforts to minimize the cost, even these proponents of renewables say it will cost up to $70 trillion dollars to make the switch, with no guarantee that it will work.

Sigh …

[UPDATE] 

I see that in the study they make much of the disparity between fossil fuel subsidies ($523 billion annually) and renewables subsidies, which they proudly state are only about a sixth of that ($88 billion annually).

However, things look very different when we compare the subsidies on the basis of the energy consumed from those sources. To do that, I use the data in the BP 2014 Statistical Review of World Energy spreadsheet in the common unit, which is “TOE”, or “Tonnes of Oil Equivalent”. This expresses everything as the tonnes of oil that are equivalent to that energy. I’ve then converted the results to “Gallons of Oil Equivalent” and “Litres of Oil Equivalent” to put them in prices we can understand. That breakdown looks like this:

Fuel, Subsidy/Gallon, Subsidy/Litre

Fossil fuels – $0.17 per gallon, $0.04 per litre

Renewables – $1.19 per gallon, $0.31 per litre.

So despite the fact that renewable subsidies are only a sixth of the fossil subsidies, per unit of energy they are seven times as large as the fossil subsidies.

This, of course, is extremely bad news for the promoters of the subsidies. It means that to get the amount of energy we currently use, without using fossil fuels and solely from renewables, it would require seven times the current fossil fuel subsidy, or $3.5 TRILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR.

And of course, since there’d be no fossil fuel sales at that point, there’d be little money to pay for the subsidy.

Sometimes, the idiocy of the savants is almost beyond belief.

July 4, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

PhRMA Wants US To Use TAFTA/TTIP To Stop EU Releasing Basic Drug Safety Information

By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | July 3, 2014

Back in February, we reported that PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, was pushing to have the EU put on the US’s ‘Priority Watch List’ for its plans to disclose basic safety information about drugs. Now a letter from PhRMA obtained by the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel shows that US pharmaceutical companies are trying to use TAFTA/TTIP to undermine the new EU rules on making clinical trial data available (original in German):

A letter from the U.S. pharmaceutical association (PhRMA) to the TTIP chief negotiator for the United States, Douglas Bell, states: “The disclosure of confidential data from clinical and pre-clinical study files and patient data puts at risk the health system and the well-being of patients.” Why more transparency should harm the health systems, the lobby group doesn’t explain, but it makes clear to the negotiator how he should conduct the negotiations with the EU: the publication of commercially-sensitive data from a market authorization, the PhRMA letter said threateningly, is not only contrary to the rules of the American FDA, but also to the internationally-accepted intellectual property rights of the World Trade Organization, the so-called TRIPS Agreement. “PhRMA and its members call on the U.S. government to influence the EU at all levels in order to eliminate this problem.”

It’s hard to see how the problem can be “eliminated.” Back in April, the European Parliament adopted the Clinical Trials Regulation by a huge majority. Effective from 2016, it states that information from clinical study files “should not generally be considered commercially confidential” and must be made publicly available — exactly what PhRMA is lobbying against.

What’s worrying is that there’s already been one attempt to water down these requirements. Der Tagesspiegel suggests this may have been as a result of pressure from the European Commission, concerned about US reaction to them. It will be interesting to see how the Commission reconciles any US demands during the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations to remove the requirement to publish drug safety information with the new EU regulation that requires it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

July 3, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU Publishers Present Their ‘Vision’ For Copyright: A Permission-Based Internet Where Licensing Is Required For Everything

By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | July 2, 2014

For too many years, the copyright industries fought hard against the changes being wrought by the rise of the Internet and the epochal shift from analog to digital. Somewhat belatedly, most of those working in these sectors have finally accepted that this is not a passing phase, but a new world that requires new thinking in their businesses, as in many other spheres. A recent attempt to codify that thinking can be found in a publication from the European Publishers Council (EPC). “Copyright Enabled on the Network” (pdf) — subtitled “From vision to reality: Copyright, technology and practical solutions enabling the media & publishing ecosystem” — that is refreshingly honest about the group’s aims:

Since 1991, Members [of the EPC] have worked to review the impact of proposed European legislation on the press, and then express an opinion to legislators, politicians and opinion-formers with a view to influencing the content of final regulations. The objective has always been to encourage good law-making for the media industry.

The new report is part of that, and is equally frank about what lies at the heart of the EPC’s vision — licensing:

A thread which runs through this paper is the proliferation of ‘direct to user’ licensing by publishers and other rights owners. Powered by ubiquitous data standards, to identify works and those who have rights in those works, licensing will continue to innovate exponentially so that eventually the cost of serving a licence is close to zero. The role of technology is to make this process seamless and effective from the user’s perspective, whether that user is the end consumer or another party in the digital content supply chain.

Seamless licensing will be made possible through the roll-out of ubiquitous Digital Rights Statements (DRS) containing information about identity, rights and — you guessed it — licenses:

The key point about a DRS is that once it exists, it can be searched, read and actioned by any other machine connected to the Internet. And once the DRS is indexed by a search engine, through the machine readable IDs contained in the DRS it will always be possible to find the person or entity who owns or administers the rights and the rights associated with it. From there, it will be possible to link to the service from which the rights can be obtained and the content accessed and, if applicable, paid for.

Furthermore, this infrastructure is well suited to a world of ‘mash-ups’ where one work will incorporate parts or elements of other works, because the relevant IDs can identify the whole of a work or granular elements of it.

As that makes clear, the EPS vision includes being able to pin down every single “granular” part of a mash-up, so that the rights can be checked and — of course — licensed. Call it the NSA approach to copyright: total control through total surveillance. The paper helpfully explores how that would work out in various specific situations encountered today. For example, the European publishers want to be able to use licensing to restrict access even to material on the open Internet:

Legal clarification is needed about the relationship between hyperlinks and licence terms on the websites (or other platforms) to which they link. It must be clear that rights owners may by their licence terms to “restrict” access to content on an “open website” to a specific category of “the public” (e.g. users who visit the site directly), whether or not accompanied by technical protection measures.

So licenses would be able to forbid the use of hyperlinks to jump directly to pages, even though the latter were not locked down by DRM. The EPC is also worried about an “overbroad” interpretation of a general right to browse copyright material without needing an explicit license:

Whilst the general proposition that Internet browsing does not require a licence is reasonable, there remains a risk that an overbroad interpretation could mean that activities which ought properly to be licensable (e.g. the consumption of press cuttings) might cease to be so.

To tackle that, the EPC wants (pdf) “a new limited neighbouring right to stop unlicensed use of snippets,” and also, for good measure, “[h]yperlinking to illegal copies to be treated as an infringement.” Given this relentless focus on creating a permission-based Internet, it will come as no surprise that the EPC hates the idea of introducing fair use in Europe:

this is an issue which would require considerable evidence-based research in order to make a reasoned evaluation of the benefits of introducing a fair dealing exception compared with the uncertainty and other risks which would be caused by its introduction.

That call for “considerable evidence-based research” is rather rich, given the complete absence of it for all the recent changes to European copyright law in favor of publishers. Indeed, as Techdirt has frequently discussed, there is plenty of research to support reducing copyright’s term and reach, but when this is brought up, publishers are strangely uninterested in evidence-based policy making, preferring to stick with the dogma-based kind. Naturally, the EPC thinks that instead of fair use, what people really need is more licensing:

Europe would be better positioned to reach a dynamic flexibility for increased uses by providing incentives to small scale licensing, both B2B and B2C, and automated licensing solutions.

Part IV of the report is entitled “Meeting users’ needs in the new media & publishing ecosystem.” That’s a welcome emphasis, since it finally recognizes that the users are not just some passive recipient of what the publishers decide to throw at them. However, the section’s focus is still resolutely on seeking permission for every possible use of copyright material.

For example, one of the areas where publishers are fighting fiercely against granting new copyright exceptions is for text and data mining. The refusal to contemplate anything but licensing as an option led to a group of researchers, SMEs, civil society organizations and open access publishers pulling out of the European Commission’s “Licensing for Europe” fiasco. Here’s what EPC has to say on the matter:

A new exception for text and data mining at EU level carries a huge risk from ‘the law of unintended consequences’. A key theme running through our paper is the enabling role of technology in managing copyright. Given the increasing automation of rights management, the full potential of which we have yet to realise, including in the area of specific permissions, access to and use of content, we urge the European Commission to look at practical solutions first for serving the genuine needs of the research community before legislation.

Scare-mongering about an exception for text and data mining is bad enough, but it gets worse. In this same section, we read the following concerning the copyright needs of users with a disability:

There are undoubted challenges faced by this user group in being able to access digital content although publishers have been investing in voluntary solutions, including via ePub3 and voice-enabled services online.

The report then goes on immediately to mention:

The Marrakech Treaty is a recent exemplar. It provides a legal framework to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled.

That gives the impression that the Marrakech Treaty was something that publishers backed strongly as a fair way of helping those with disabilities. In fact, quite the reverse is true. To have that hard-won treaty for the visually impaired presented here as an example of how publishers can be relied on to do the right thing by the public is not just misleading but morally repugnant. It shows that despite some fair words in the rest of the “vision” document, in important ways European publishers are just as selfish and cynical as ever.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Ecostream campaign victorious

By Tom Anderson | Corporate Watch | July 1, 2014

Ecostreamclosure-225x300Brighton’s Ecostream store has closed down after a two year campaign of demonstrations, street actions and direct action.

Ecostream issued the following statement this morning: “SodaStream confirms that the EcoStream store, located on Western Road in Brighton, closed earlier this week. Following the two year test period, the company has decided to focus its business efforts on other channels, specifically on retail distribution partnerships.”

John Lewis have also informed Corporate Watch today that they will no longer be stocking Sodastream products. According to John Lewis’ Senior Press officer: “John Lewis has stocked Sodastream for the past four years but in light of declining sales we’ve taken the decision to no longer stock the range”. Campaigners have demonstrated repeatedly outside John Lewis stores calling for the chain to discontinue its Sodastream range and for consumers to boycott Sodastream products.

The background

In 2012, Israeli company Soda Club, which owns the Sodastream brandname, opened a new store called Ecostream on Western Road in Brighton.

Sodastream, a manufacturer of machines and refills for making fizzy drinks at home, has a factory in the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone. Mishor Adumim is an industrial area attached to the residential settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, East of Jerusalem in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

In 2013, Corporate Watch conducted interviews with Palestinian Bedouin who had been displaced from their land to make way for Mishor Adumim. One of them told us:

“We are not allowed to go near them [the factories]. They took our livelihood to build them and we got evacuated for them to build their factories. After they built them there were no resources to live from for us. The gains are nothing compared to what was lost. They destroyed our lives and then gave a few people a job. It is nothing”.

The campaign

Since the store opened there have been demonstrations outside its doors on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Activists from Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, local trade unionists, university students from Palestine solidarity groups and more joined together with the aim of closing the shop down. As well as the weekly pickets, campaigners took the oppurtunity to use the space outside the store to highlight the daily aggression against Palestinians. They talked to the public about Israeli house demolitions, the illegal apartheid wall erected on Palestinian land and Israel’s use of drones to attack people in Gaza.

Mass marches have been held in Brighton against the store. During an Israeli attack on Gaza in 2012 one activist locked himself to the doors of the shop forcing them to close. Last week activists unfurled a huge ‘Free Palestine’ on the wall opposite the shop.

It soon became clear that the pressure was taking its toll and the store remained largely empty even on the busiest of shopping days.

The demonstrations against the store led the Israeli embassy to contact Sussex Police asking them to take measures against the demonstrators. A group called Sussex Friends of Israel formed and has been holding a counter-picket every Saturday. The Zionist and Christian Zionist demonstrators regularly shouted racial abuse at Muslim, Palestinian and Jewish activists opposing the shop. They regularly chanted that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” and called Jewish activists “self-hating Jews”. In short, SFI used bullying tactics to intimidate people who attended the demonstrations. Their antics caused chaos outside the store every weekend and made it even less likely that people would do their shopping there.

The closure of the Ecostream store is a victory for people power against a corporation profiting from human suffering and shows that the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid, militarism and occupation is continuing to gather momentum.

Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign today issued the following statement:

“This campaign has taken the message about human rights abuses in occupied Palestine to the people of Brighton, and their response has been fantastic. They have made it clear that they do not want businesses from illegal Israeli settlements trading in their town. The closure of SodaStream’s so-called flagship UK store in Brighton is just one step in a campaign to send a clear message to the Israeli government and the international community that, at the grassroots level, people of conscience are taking action to force Israel to comply with international law and to bring about justice for the Palestinian people. We give notice to the other stockists of SodaStream products in the city that we will continue to take the message about SodaStream to the people of Brighton on behalf of the Palestinian people. Congratulations to the people of Brighton and Hove, who can tell the difference between ethical and unethical.”

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tony Blair ‘to advise’ Egyptian dictatorship

RT | July 2, 2014

Tony Blair has reportedly agreed to advise coup-appointed Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as part of a United Arab Emirates-funded program which promises lucrative “business opportunities” to those involved.

Blair is set to give Sisi advise on economic reform in tandem with a UAE financed taskforce in Cairo, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. According to the daily, the taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The group hopes to attract foreign direct investment to Egypt’s crisis racked economy at an upcoming Egypt donors’ conference, which is being sponsored by oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The former prime minister and Middle East peace envoy supported the coup against Egypt’s democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi last July and continues to generate controversy with his complicated dealings in the region.

A spokeswoman for Blair told the Guardian that his attempts to garner support for Egypt from the international community were not being done “for any personal gain whatsoever.”

“He is giving advice, he will have meetings, that’s all,” she said, stressing that neither Blair nor any organizations associated with him would make money out of Egypt.

She added that he believes the Sisi government “should be supported in its reform agenda and he will help in any way he can, but not as part of a team.”

When pressed on the lucrative “business opportunities” the Egypt project and its Gulf backers promised, she said: “We are not looking at any business opportunities in Egypt.”

A former close political associate, however, told the Guardian that Blair’s role in advising the Egyptian regime would cause “terrible damage to him, the rest of us and New Labour’s legacy.”

The associate said that Blair was able to kill two birds with one stone in Egypt, battling the threat of Islamism while sinking his teeth into “mouth-watering business opportunities” in return for Bush-era advocacy.

He added that it would be a very lucrative business model, but one Blair should not be involving himself with.

“He’s putting himself in hock to a regime that imprisons journalists. He’s digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself and everyone associated with him.”

Alastair Campbell, Blair’s former press secretary who resigned in 2003 over the Iraq Dossier scandal, is also a paid advisor consulting the Sisi government on its public image. When asked by the Guardian on Wednesday if he had been working with Strategy&, Campbell refused to say who he had been working with. Like Blair, Campbell also visited Cairo earlier this year as part of the Gulf-funded program to prop up the regime. Another former Blair employee, Darren Murphy, a so-called special advisor in the Blair government who has traded off the former PM’s name for years, has also been working on the program.

In June, Sisi, Egypt’s former army, won 96.9 percent of the votes in a presidential poll that had all the hallmarks of a dictatorial election.

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the first international leader to congratulate Sisi on his election victory.

King Abdullah hailed Sisi’s ’win as a “historic day” for Egypt, calling for donors a donors conference to help Egypt through its economic troubles.

“To the brothers and friends of Egypt… I invite all to a donors conference… to help it overcome its economic crisis,” he said.

Since the Morsi government was toppled, hundreds of alleged supports of the ex-president and his Muslim Brotherhood movement have been sentenced to death. The persecution of political opponents and crackdown on journalists has pushed US congressional leaders to consider withholding $1.3 billion in military support to Cairo.

Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, Blair and his companies have worked with a variety of repressive and dictatorial regimes across the world. Blair’s Middle East interest appear to be expanding, with aids confirming last month he was considering opening an office in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi. His work in Egypt could be viewed as even more contentious, due to the bloody nature of the coup and his work as a mediator in the region.

In June, retired diplomats and political enemies came together to demand that Blair be fired as the envoy to the Quartet on the Middle East– the UN, US, Russia and EU – after failing to bring Israel and Palestine closer to a peace deal.

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Xi to discuss denuclearization in S. Korea

The BRICS Post | July 2, 2014

South Korea’s senior presidential secretary said on Wednesday that visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye will exchange notes on detailed measures towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during their upcoming summit talks.

Ju Chul-ki, senior foreign affairs and security advisor to Park, told a press briefing on Wednesday that the two leaders will discuss the Trust-Building Process on the Korean Peninsula, a key policy measure of the Park government.

China and South Korea will release a joint cooperation document paper and ink deals in trade, finance, environment and consular affairs during the Chinese President’s state visit.

Xi will make a two-day state visit to Seoul to hold a summit with Park Thursday and meet with National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa and Prime Minister Chung Hong-won Friday.

“The two sides will also exchange views on maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

The upcoming China-South Korea summit talks will aim to empower efforts to solve the Peninsula nuclear issue and deter possible provocations from North Korea, Park’s advisor said.

Xi and Park are also expected to discuss the recent move by the Japanese government to end its post-war pacifist outlook.

The Japanese cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, decided Tuesday to reinterpret its 67-year-old pacifist constitution to allow itself to exercise collective self-defense right.

The revision paved the way for Japanese forces to fight abroad in defense of “countries with close ties.”

Japan also provoked South Korea on June 20 by unveiling the results of its review on the Kono Statement, which acknowledged and apologized for its wartime sex slavery.

The results said Seoul intervened in the wording of the 1993 apology, indicating it was the consequence of closed-door political dealings.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye criticized Japan for attempting to undermine the credibility of its 1993 apology over wartime sexual enslavement of women during World War II, describing the move as an “act that betrayed trust between the nations”, says a Yonhap report.

Xi and Park are also expected to push for speeding up negotiations for the bilateral free trade pact and setting up a market to directly exchange currencies of the two countries.

July 2, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Putin to West: Stop turning world into ‘global barracks,’ dictating rules to others

RT | July 1, 2014

Russia’s president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country’s newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a “global barracks.”

Russia’s president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the ceasefire.

He has stressed that Russia and European partners could not convince Poroshenko to not take the path of violence, which can’t lead to peace.

“Unfortunately, President Poroshenko has made the decision to resume military actions, and we – meaning myself and my colleagues in Europe – could not convince him that the way to reliable, firm and long-term peace can’t lie through war,” Putin said. “So far, Petro Poroshenko had no direct relation to orders to take military action. Now he has taken on this responsibility in full. Not only military, but also political, more importantly.”

On Monday, the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine held a phone call in which Putin stressed the need to prolong the ceasefire and the creation of “a reliable mechanism for monitoring compliance with it and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] should play an active role.”

Russia offered that checkpoints on the Russian side should be monitored by representatives of the Ukrainian Border service as well as OSCE observers for “the joint control of the border.”

As the violent conflict continues in the east of Ukraine and the number of refugees fleeing to Russia grows, Putin vowed to provide help to everyone who needs it.

“Everything that’s going on in Ukraine is of course the internal business of Ukrainian government, but we are painfully sorry that people die, civilians,” Putin said. He added that the killing of journalists was “absolutely unacceptable.”

“In my opinion, there is a deliberate attempt to eliminate representatives of the press going on. It concerns both Russian and foreign journalists,” the president said.

Speaking in front of ambassadors on Tuesday, Putin expressed hope that Western partners will stop imposing their principles on other countries.

“I hope pragmatism will still prevail. The West will get rid of ambitions, pursuits to establish a ‘world barracks’ – to arrange all according to ranks, to impose uniform rules of behavior and life of society,” Putin said.

“I hope the West will start building relations based on equal rights, mutual respect and mutual consideration of interests.”

Putin recalled the situation with France and the delivery of the Mistral-class ships that was agreed between Moscow and Paris, but was jeopardized in March.

“We know about the pressure that our American partners put on the French so that they would not deliver the Mistral [ships] to Russia,” Putin said. “And we know that [they] hinted that if the French don’t deliver Mistral, sanctions on banks will be gradually removed, or at least minimized. What is this, if not blackmail?”

Russia is ready to have dialogue with the US only on the basis of equality, Putin added.

“We are not going to stop our relations with the US. The bilateral relations are not in the best shape, that is true. But this – and I want to emphasize – is not Russia’s fault,” he told diplomats.

Speaking about international relations, Putin stressed that Russia always tried to be “predictable, to do business on an equal basis”, however, in return, its interests were quite often ignored.

July 1, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Delays and More Costs for Plant Vogtle Nuclear Expansion

By Sonal Patel – Power – June 26, 2014

In-service dates for two nuclear units under construction at Plant Vogtle in Georgia have been moved out to December 2017 and December 2018, and the total project cost is now estimated at $6.76 billion—$650 million more than the certified cost—staff from Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) reported this week.

Steven Roetger and GDS Associates consultant William Jacobs, who testified on behalf of the PSC’s public interest advocacy staff on June 20 cited the 9th/10th Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report—which is yet to be made public—when they reported that companies building the project are behind on scheduled milestones.

The consortium building the project had originally projected the first of the two new reactors would be operational in April 2016.

Developers continue to be in litigation with the contractors Westinghouse and Chicago Bridge and Iron per an engineering, procurement, and construction agreement to determine which party is responsible for certain delays in the project schedule. Delays posed several risks, including mounting capital and financing costs, and replacement fuel costs, Roetger and Jacobs told the regulatory commission.

Much progress had been accomplished on the Unit 3 and Unit 4 nuclear islands last year, the staff members noted. But, “The engineering completion schedule identified that hundreds of activities were pushed out past the construction need date due to late engineering which delayed necessary procurement,” they said. “This in turn pushed out the start and end dates of some construction activities.”

Further delays are likely because some components for the AP1000 units have never been built before. The shield building, for example, is a first-of-a-kind design, fabricate, and assemble activity, and the design of the fully digital control system is also a first-of-a-kind activity, staff said. Schedule risks include technical difficulties with development of other key pieces of equipment as well, including the canned rotor coolant pumps, and the squib valves. Meanwhile, startup testing and resolution of problems identified during startup “will take longer than presently planned,” Roetger and Jacobs projected.

Southern Co. this week told the commission in its own monthly report that its “uncompromising focus continues to be on quality and safety of the project as decisions are made concerning schedule and cost.”

Construction of the two AP1000 reactors, each about 1.1 GW, was approved by the Georgia PSC in 2009. Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power, which owns 45.7% of the project with three other entities, received a combined construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February 2012. The Department of Energy finalized a $6.5 billion loan guarantee in February 2014 for two of Vogtle’s owners: Georgia Power and Oglethorpe Power Corp. The DOE is working on the remaining $1.8 billion for the expansion project’s third owner, Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia. … Full article

June 30, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

Rep. Grayson Asks If Keith Alexander Is Selling Classified Information To Get $1 Million Per Month

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | June 27, 2014

We recently noted that former NSA boss Keith Alexander is running around asking for $600k to $1 million per month for his new “cybersecurity” consulting firm. While some people thought that the number was “low” for banks, that doesn’t make any sense. You could hire a lot of really good actual security professionals for that kind of cash. So it made us wonder just what banks thought they were getting for that $1 million. Actual security professional Bruce Schneier wondered that as well, and wondered aloud if the one difference was that… Alexander could give them classified info — such as where he hid the backdoors in their routers.

That statement apparently caught the attention of Rep. Alan Grayson, who has been a vocal opponent of NSA overreach. He’s now sent a letter to the Financial Service Rountable to point out that selling classified info is a crime:

Security expert Bruce Schneier noted that this fee for Alexander’s services is on its face unreasonable. “Think of how much actual security they could buy with that $600k a month. Unless he’s giving them classified information.” Schneier also quoted Recode.net, which headlined this news as: “For another million, I’ll show you the back door we put in your router.”

This arrangement with Mr. Alexander may also include additional work with the shadow regulatory firm The Promontory Group, with whom Alexander apparently will partner “on cybersecurity matters.” According to Promontory spokesman Chris Winans, Mr. Alexander “and a firm he’s forming will work on the technical aspects of these issues, and we on the risk-management compliance and governance elements.”

Disclosing or misusing classified information for profit is, as Mr. Alexander well knows, a felony. I question how Mr. Alexander can provide any of the services he is offering unless he discloses or misuses classified information, including extremely sensitive sources and methods. Without the classified information that he acquired in his former position, he literally would have nothing to offer to you.

Grayson also demands “all information related to your negotiations with Mr. Alexander,” so that Congress can verify whether or not he is selling military or cybersecurity secrets to the financial services industry for personal gain. Sure, it’s a snarky move, but there is a point behind it. Alexander can’t command those sums because of his actual technical expertise. The reality, of course, is that he’s selling his connections to the government. But it certainly raises the question of appearances.

June 28, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics | | Leave a comment

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