Henoko Takes on U.S. Imperialism
By Maya Evans | Dissident Voice | November 7, 2015
OKINAWA, JAPAN — Around one hundred and fifty Japanese protesters gathered to stop construction trucks from entering the U.S. base Camp Schwab, after the Ministry of Land over-ruled the local Governors’ decision to revoke permission for construction plans, criticizing the “mainland-centric” Japanese Government of compromising the environmental, health and safety interests of the Islanders.
Riot police poured out of buses at six a.m., out-numbering protesters four to one, with road sitters systematically picked off in less than an hour to make way for construction vehicles.
All the mayors and government representatives of Okinawa have objected to the construction of the new coastal base, which will landfill one hundred and sixty acres of Oura Bay, for a two hundred and five hectare construction plan which will be part of a military runway.
Marine biologists describe Oura Bay as a critical habitat for the endangered dugong (a species of manatee), which feeds in the area, as well as sea turtles and unique large coral communities.
The bay is particularly special for its extreme rich ecosystem which has developed due to six inland rivers converging into the bay, making the sea levels deep, and ideal from various types of porites coral and dependent creatures.
Camp Schwab is just one of 32 U.S. bases which occupy 17% of the Island, using various areas for military exercises from jungle training to Osprey helicopter training exercises. There are on average 50 Osprey take off and landings every day, many next to housing and built up residential areas, causing disruption to everyday life with extreme noise levels, heat and diesel smell from the engines.
Two days ago there were six arrests outside the base, as well as ‘Kayactivists’ in the sea trying to disrupt the construction. A formidable line of tethered red buoys mark out the area consigned for construction, running from the land to a group of offshore rocks, Nagashima and Hirashima, described by local shamans as the place where dragons (the source of wisdom) originated.
Protesters also have a number of speed boats which take to the waters around the cordoned area; the response of the coast guard is to use the tactic of trying to board these boats after ramming them off course.
The overwhelming feeling of the local people is that the Government on the mainland is willing to sacrifice the wishes of Okinawans in order to pursue its military defense measures against China. Bound by Article 9, Japan has not had an army since world war two, though moves by the Government suggest a desire to scrap the Article and embark on a ‘special relationship’ with the U.S., who is already securing control of the area with over 200 bases, and thus tightening the Asia pivot with control over land and sea trade routes, particularly those routes used by China.
Meanwhile, Japan is footing 75% of the bill for accommodating the U.S., with each soldier costing the Japanese Government 200 million yen per year, that’s $4.4 billion a year for the 53,082 U.S. soldiers currently in Japan, with around half (26,460) based in Okinawa. The new base at Henoko is also expected to cost the Japanese Government a tidy sum with the current price tag calculated to be at least 5 trillion yen.
Okinawa suffered devastating losses during the Second World War, with a quarter of the population killed within the 3-month-long Battle of Okinawa which claimed 200,000 lives in total. Hilltops are said to have changed shape due to the sheer bombardment of ammunition.
Local activist Hiroshi Ashitomi has been protesting at Camp Schwab since the expansion was announced 11 years ago, he said: “We want an island of peace and the ability to make our own decisions, if this doesn’t happen then maybe we might need to start talking about independence.”
Maya Evans coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence UK.
Exploding Radioactive Waste Warning: Keep it Above Ground
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 2, 2015
Early on Sunday Oct. 25, an underground fire caused an explosion in a low-level nuclear waste site in the desert 10 miles from Beatty, Nevada, and 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The explosion and fire followed flash flooding that shut down Beatty’s escape routes: US 95 and State Highway 373. The 80-acre dumping ground, closed since 1992, is run by — get this — “US Ecology.” The private dump consists of 22 trenches up to 800 feet long and 50 feet deep, and its older trenches have radioactive waste within three feet of the surface, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Certain types of radioactive material are known to catch fire when in contact with water, so the flooding that struck prior to the explosion may have been its cause. Unfortunately authorities don’t know what sorts of radioactive isotopes are buried in the trenches there. Nor does anyone know either how the fire started or how much radioactive waste burned.
Rusty Harris-Bishop, spokesman for the US EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco said in a prepared statement, “No gamma radiation has been detected at this time.” This nuanced remark does not indicate that gamma radiation wasn’t detected. It also artfully dodges questions about alpha and beta radiation.
With the EPA, the Nevada National Guard, Nye County officials and Energy Department all involved, highly nuanced public safety assurances are guaranteed. “Radiation wasn’t immediately detected during fly-overs of a burned trench … state and federal officials said Monday,” Oct. 26. But radiation monitoring was initiated well after the plume of smoke and debris from the blast and fire had dispersed. Then, “The Nevada Department of Public Safety said tests of the area around the fire site near Beatty returned negative readings for radiation,” KVVU TV reported. Well, sure. But were any positive readings returned?
Buried Waste Theoretically and Literally Explosive
In February 2014, at a deep underground dump in New Mexico where the Pentagon is burying plutonium-contaminated wastes, at least one barrel “burst after it arrived at the dump, releasing radioactive uranium, plutonium and americium throughout the underground facility,” according to NPR. NPR’s March 26, 2015 update concerned the Energy Department’s 277-page report about the explosion. The report said in part, “Experiments showed that various combinations of nitrate salt, Swheat Scoop® [cat litter], nitric acid, and oxalate self-heat at temperatures below 100°C.” The DOE’s term-of-art for this “self-heat” explosion was “thermal runaway.” This runaway explosion contaminated 22 workers internally, and it has shut down the operation, possibly forever.
In May 1996, a welding spark caused a waste cask explosion at Wisconsin’s Point Beach reactor on Lake Michigan. The blast of hydrogen gas was “powerful enough to up-end the three-ton lid while it was atop a storage cask filled with high-level waste.” The reactor’s owner called that accident merely a “gaseous ignition event,” but was later fined $325,000.
Only 20 miles away from the Beatty Nevada explosion is the now-cancelled Yucca Mountain high-level dump project, where such waste explosions were forecast by expert investigators 20 years ago.
In 1995, government physicists Charles Bowman and Francesco Venneri at Los Alamos National Laboratory predicted that wastes might erupt in a nuclear explosion and scatter radioactivity to the winds or into groundwater, or both. (Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1998; New York Times, Mar. 5, 1995.) Bowman and Venneri found that the explosion dangers will arise thousands of years from now — after steel waste containers dissolve and plutonium begins to disperse into surrounding rock. Former Energy Dept. geologist Jerry Szymanski said, “You’re talking about an unimaginable catastrophe. Chernobyl would be small potatoes.” (Joby Warrick, “At Nevada Nuclear Waste Site: The Issue is One of Liquidity,” Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1998)
In expert hearings held in southern Ontario in Sept. 2014, Dr. Frank Greening made identical warnings about the potential explosiveness of Canadian radioactive waste if they were to be buried next to Lake Huron under plans made by Ontario Power Generation.
October’s waste explosion and fire shows we don’t have to wait thousands of years for disaster to strike. Nevada’s “self-heating” radioactive “thermal runaway” is just the latest warning not to bury radioactive waste. Putting the deadly stuff out-of-sight and out-of-mind won’t keep us (or the water) safe. For radioactive waste, only above-ground, monitored, hardened, retrievable storage can come close to that goal. Ceasing nuclear waste production is the only path to potential sustainable solutions.
Extra 136,500 sonobuoys US wants pose threat to whales
RT | October 28, 2015
The US Navy continues to cover the oceans with tens of thousands of sonobuoys to monitor and detect submarine movement around the world. The DoD has allocated $178.5 million to buy an additional 136,000 sonobuoys.
About a meter-long, a typical sonobuoy device can be passive or active. The first type ‘listens’ to the noises produced by propellers of various kinds of vessels and pick out those made by a submarine. Active sonobuoys, sited in strategic points such as straits and harbors, can also sonar the water space around them to detect submarines.
The sonobuoys are usually positioned in designated areas from the air, typically by using SH-60F Seahawk helicopters.
“The United States Navy maintains a superior global Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capability with the ability to detect, localize, identify, and track potential hostile submarines,” Global Security outlet said in 2011.
According to CNN, US sonobuoys are first and foremost aimed at tracking Russian submarines, over concerns they are “taking up positions near critical communication lines.”
Scientists say these sonar “intrusions” are proving deadly to marine wildlife, in particular whales. Sonar devices disrupt them and other sea mammals when nursing and feeding, which leads to injury or death of the animals who rely on sound to communicate and navigate, Elisa Allen, from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told RT.
“Sonars can confuse and disorient them, terrify these animals,” Allen said. “Animals exposed to sonars have been known to rapidly change their depth in an attempt to escape the noise. This causes them to bleed from their ears and eyes,” she said, adding that whales and dolphins often beach themselves in their attempts to escape sonar.
The lucrative $178,565,050 contract has been granted to ERAPSCO, a defense contractor in Columbia City, Indiana. Five types of sonobuoys are set to be delivered by October 2017.
ERAPSCO, a joint venture between the Sparton corporation and Ultra Electronics, has been producing military grade sonobuoys capable of detecting and classifying manmade objects traveling underwater since 1987.
Fukushima police send nuclear contamination case against TEPCO execs to prosecutors
RT | October 3, 2015
Fukushima police have finally reacted to a criminal complaint filed against TEPCO and 32 of its top officials two years ago over the contamination caused by the 2011 nuclear disaster. They have referred the case to prosecutors.
The Fukushima District Prosecutors’ Office will now determine whether to pursue criminal charges against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and its top management over the leaks of highly radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
The criminal complaint alleges that the company and its executives failed to manage storage tanks of contaminated water or build underground walls to block the flow of radioactive material into the sea at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Notable people on the list include TEPCO’s President Naomi Hirose, former Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and former President Masataka Shimizu.
Police have reviewed claims filed by local residents after 300 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from TEPCO tanks.
Investigators say that since the complaint was launched in 2013, they have conducted interviews with TEPCO officials and analyzed other relevant information on suspicion of environmental pollution offense law violations. The police will document their observations and present the case to the Prosecutors’ Office.
TEPCO has not made any public comments on the matter, but has said that company officials were in contact with investigators, according to NHK.
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is considered to be the world’s worst environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl. As of March, about 600,000 tons of contaminated water are still contained within TEPCO tanks. According to preliminary estimates, site cleanup may take up to 40 years.
How climate change efforts by developed countries are hurting Africa’s rural poor
Far from the expected development, forestry plantations and other carbon market initiatives in Uganda have severely compromised ecologies and livelihoods of the local people.
By Kristen Lyons and Peter Westoby · The Conversation · September 19, 2015
In recent years there has been significant movement toward land acquisition in developing countries to establish forestry plantations for offsetting carbon pollution elsewhere in the world. This is often referred to as land grabbing.
These carbon trading initiatives work on the basis that forestry plantations absorb carbon dioxide and other polluting greenhouse gases. This helps to undo the environmental damage associated with modern western lifestyles.
Carbon markets are championed as offering solutions to climate change while delivering positive development outcomes to local communities. Heavy polluters, among them the airline and energy sectors, buy carbon credits and thereby pay local communities, companies and governments to protect forests and establish plantations.
But are carbon markets – and the feel good stories that have sprung up around them – all just a bit too good to be true?
There is mounting evidence that forestry plantations and other carbon market initiatives severely compromise livelihoods and ecologies at a local level. The corporate land grabs they rely on also tend to affect the world’s most vulnerable people – those living in rural areas.
But such adverse impacts are often written out of the carbon market ledger. Sometimes they are simply justified as ‘externalities’ that must be accepted as part of ensuring we avoid climate apocalypse.
Green Resources is one of a number of large-scale plantation forestry and carbon offset corporations operating on the continent. Its activities are having a profound impact on the livelihoods of a growing number of people. Norwegian-registered, the company produces saw log timber and charcoal in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. It receives carbon revenue from its plantation forestry operations.
In Uganda, the focus of our research, Green Resources holds two licenses over 11,864 hectares of government-owned, ‘degraded’ Central Forest Reserve. Historically, villagers could access this land to grow food, graze animals and engage in cultural practices.
Under the licensed land agreement between Uganda’s government and Green Resources, more than 8,000 people face profound disruptions to their livelihoods. Many are experiencing forced evictions as a direct result of the company’s take over of the land.
Carbon violence on local villagers
Villagers across Green Resources’ two acquisitions in Uganda report being denied access to land vital for growing food and grazing livestock. These are at Bukaleba and Kachung Central Forest Reserves. They also cannot collect forest resources. Many say they are denied access to sites of cultural significance and to resources vital to their livelihoods.
There are also many stories about land and waterways that have been polluted by agrichemicals the company uses in its forestry plantations. This has caused crop losses and livestock deaths.
Many of those evicted, as well as those seeking to use land licensed to Green Resources, have also experienced physical violence at the hands of police and private security forces tied to the arrival of the company. Some villagers have been imprisoned or criminalised for trespass.
These diverse forms violence are directly tied to the company’s participation in the carbon economy. Thus Green Resources’ plantation forestry and carbon market activities are inflicting ‘carbon violence’ on local villagers.
Green Resources appears to be continuing to tighten the perimeter of its plantation operations as part of ensuring compliance with regulations and certifications required for entry into carbon markets. This further entrenches these diverse forms of violence. In short, subsistence farmers and poor communities are carrying heavy costs associated with the expansion of forestry plantations and global carbon markets.
Inadequate remedies
Green Resources does engage in some community development activities, but these are largely disconnected from local villagers’ needs and aspirations. Interviews with 152 affected villagers across the two sites highlight that access to land to produce food is the most pressing issue. This is an issue that Green Resources has done little to address.
The loss of access to land and sustainable livelihoods for vulnerable populations is unjust and unacceptable, particularly when rural people in Uganda contribute little to carbon pollution.
In 2014 the Oakland Institute, an independent policy think tank based in California, US, published its report on Green Resources. The company has responded, most notably in a strong letter from the CEO. While he sought to discredit the researchers and the report, he failed to engage with substantial issues of concern arising from the research.
At least one company board member has publicly acknowledged problems in company relations with affected communities, especially at the Bukaleba site. These are issues raised by a number of other researchers over a number of years.
The company has not publicly articulated what it is doing to address the social and environmental problems associated with its corporate practices. Green Resources must demonstrate how it is seeking to deal with the substantial adverse impacts associated with its activities.
It’s not just about money
More broadly, there are increasing calls for reform of global plantation forestry and carbon markets to alleviate the burden subsistence farmers carry alongside their expansion. Similarly, there are calls for reform to corporate practices, including community development initiatives and employment practices.
We would suggest that such reforms should be directed towards reducing the gap between the winners and losers in global carbon markets. There must be recognition of common property rights and access and use rights of local people in license areas. This must be done alongside valuing indigenous and local people’s knowledge of forests and ecosystem management.
There are also stronger calls from climate movements for the transformation of global energy futures. Those include the support for renewable energy to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and the subsequent reliance on offset initiatives.
Movements for climate justice in Africa and elsewhere demonstrate the growing resistance to market based and techno fixes as the means to avert climate change. These calls for justice challenge change agents to move beyond simply tweaking at the edges of carbon markets.
They need to imagine a future where social and environmental justice – not money and markets – are at the centre of thinking and planning.
At ‘socialist’ conference in UK, invited speaker makes pitch for U.S./NATO arms to Kyiv regime
Pro-NATO, pro-U.S. ‘socialist’ scholar invited to speak at ‘Socialist Resistance’ conference in London.
New Cold War | October 2, 2015
The political group ‘Socialist Resistance’ in England held an education conference in London on Sept 26, 2015 featuring a Ukrainian diaspora scholar, Marko Bojcun, who delivered a strong message that the rightist, neo-conservative regime in Kyiv should be supported and that the United States and NATO should be pressured to provide more and heavier arms to it. His talk was titled ‘Russian imperialism today‘. The conference theme was ‘Imperialism, globalisation and climate change’.
Bojcun is Director of the Ukraine Centre, London Metropolitan University. He is a PhD university graduate in Canada. In April 2015, he co-signed an open letter appealing to President Petro Poroshenko not to sign into law anti-communist, thought-control measures which had been approved by the Ukrainian Rada. Poroshenko approved the laws. The result has been a harsh crackdown on political, press and other forms of expression in Ukraine as well as the banning of political parties. Among the parties banned by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine have been the large Communist Party of Ukraine and two smaller parties calling themselves communist.
In his speech to the conference, Bojcun reviewed the current situation in the countries bordering, or close to, Russia. He reported favorably on the efforts of the U.S. and EU to “aid” these countries in the face of alleged Russian economic ‘pressure’ and ‘aggression’ against them. At the 23′ mark, he reports on the efforts of Western powers to help Azerbaijan “break out” of its economic ties to Russia. (Those trade and other ties, actually, are an important lifeline for the people of that country heavily dependent on oil revenues. Many Azeris live and work in Russia and send home their earnings.)
Bojcun dismissed the argument that NATO is engaged in a military buildup in eastern Europe and a threatening stance against Russia and he argued that NATO should be supplying many more weapons and other military aid to Kyiv. Referring to the NATO summit meeting in August 2014, he lamented that “Poroshenko came away with absolutely nothing that he asked for. He was not going to be armed.
“I know there are American advisers in Ukraine and there are some who are training [Ukrainian] forces there. But neither the U.S. nor NATO are supplying Ukraine with lethal weapons. Some NATO countries, very small countries such as Lithuania, have promised to. But this is really not serious.”
“NATO is concerned, first of all, with securing its own member states. It doesn’t have the capacity to do that, to my way of thinking, should Russia decide to make a move northward [??] to the Baltic states. That is a cause of great concern.”
Bojcun then argued it is Russia which is engaged in a military buildup in eastern Europe. “Russia, on the other hand, has military bases in eight of the former Soviet republics. Eight of them. And it has been building them since 2003…
“So, the Russian capacity to strike in the neighbourhood of Ukraine is far superior than the NATO one, and it is growing. One needs to take that into account.
“Looking into this long argument that has been made about NATO expansion into east-central Europe, I agree, NATO made an expansion into east-central Europe. But, that happened. We are into a period since the 2008 financial crisis and the Russo-Georgian War [2008] where the U.S. is really a reactive force and is not [reacting] in kind to the Russian military buildup.”
Also speaking on Ukraine at the same conference was Catherine Samary, a pro-Maidan French intellectual and leader of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) of France. Her talk was titled ‘Socialists’ attitudes to Russian expansionism’.
Socialist Resistance calls itself “An ecosocialist organisation opposed to imperialist wars and capitalism.”
The recordings of the two speeches are posted to the website of the rather mis-named ‘Ukraine Solidarity Campaign’ based in the UK. There is no broadcast of discussion by conference participants following the speech by Bojcun to know what, if any, disagreement with the speech was expressed by conference participants or by his conference co-speaker.
Marko Bojcun spoke in London on May 27, 2014. The talk took place two days after the presidential election in Ukraine. In his speech, Bojcun welcomed the election of Petro Poroshenko. He shared the platform with Gabriel Levy (pseudonym), a pro-Maidan writer who publishes People and Nature.
UN Introduces New Feudalism Under Guise of Social Activism
“Global Goals” Is Lavishly-Funded Public Relations Endeavor “We the People” Never Voted For
By James Tracy | Memory Hole | September 30, 2015
This month delegates to the United Nations ratified the so-called “Global Goals For Sustainable Development.” This will 
involve a radical, far-reaching social and economic transformation of everyday life that has been in the works for decades.
In true Hegelian dialectic style, the program is taking place as various black swans linger on the economic horizon, while some of the very interests involved in the “Global Goals” are likewise putting the finishing touches on the Trans-Pacific trade agreement, designed to (not coincidentally) crush the nation state.
Such an ambitious program will cost, by the UN’s own estimate, as much as $5 trillion annually. A social makeover of this scale requires enlistment of ideologically-motivated shock troops from all walks of life to act as change agents in their own spheres. Thus a portion of such finances will be apportioned to thought and behavioral modification toward ideational acceptance of continued corporate ascendance, wealth and resource redistribution, and the breakdown of traditional borders that for better or worse have defined the human condition since the feudal era–from gender and common morality to the nation state. As the “Global Goals” website declares, “We are not a generation of bystanders. We are global citizens.”
Below is the campaign’s slickly produced promotional video.
Truthstream Media has developed a clever interpretation of the UN’s “Global Goals.” Unfortunately, these are by no means exaggerations but rather illustrate the hypocrisy of this campaign, which in reality involves an accelerated privatization of the commons and even our own bodies combined with elaborate psychological warfare to disguise such endeavors as social activism.
What’s that you say? You’re not on board? See you in the gulag, comrade.
Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Translation: Centralized banks, IMF, World Bank, Fed to control all finances, digital one world currency in a cashless society
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Translation: GMO
Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Translation: Mass vaccination, Codex Alimentarius
Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Translation: UN propaganda, brainwashing through compulsory education from cradle to grave
Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Translation: Population control through forced “Family Planning”
Goal 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Translation: Privatize all water sources, don’t forget to add fluoride
Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Translation: Smart grid with smart meters on everything, peak pricing
Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Translation: TPP, free trade zones that favor megacorporate interests
Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Translation: Toll roads, push public transit, remove free travel, environmental restrictions
Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
Translation: Even more regional government bureaucracy like a mutant octopus
Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Translation: Big brother big data surveillance state
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Translation: Forced austerity
Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Translation: Cap and Trade, carbon taxes/credits, footprint taxes
Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Translation: Environmental restrictions, control all oceans including mineral rights from ocean floors
Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Translation: More environmental restrictions, more controlling resources and mineral rights
Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Translation: UN “peacekeeping” missions (ex 1, ex 2), the International Court of (blind) Justice, force people together via fake refugee crises and then mediate with more “UN peacekeeping” when tension breaks out to gain more control over a region, remove 2nd Amendment in USA
Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
Translation: Remove national sovereignty worldwide, promote globalism under the “authority” and bloated, Orwellian bureaucracy of the UN
Is Boeing Helping the Feds Cover Up the Worst Nuke Disaster in US History?
Sputnik – 29.09.2015
Aviation giant Boeing Co. is spending money on lobbyists and court cases in an effort to cover up one of the worst nuclear disasters in American history and avoid paying millions to clean up the still-contaminated site.
In 1959, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) north of Los Angeles leaked more than 300 times the allowable amount of radiation into surrounding neighborhoods, according to an in-depth investigation by NBC4 Southern California. That contamination is now linked to up to a 60% increase in cancer in the area.
After a power surge occurred in one of the nuclear reactors, operators of the facility for weeks deliberately released radiation into the atmosphere to avoid a nuclear detonation similar to Chernobyl.
Boeing’s acquisition of SSFL in 1996 has prevented any proper investigation into current radiation levels at the site and stalled any cleanup efforts, according to the NBC4 investigation.
In 2007, the California legislature passed a law asserting that Boeing was obligated to clean up SSFL, even though it did not own the site at the time of the accident. A higher court invalidated the law, ruling it was too stringent.
Eventually, California’s EPA drafted agreements for the Department of Energy, NASA, and Boeing to commit to a cleanup. Boeing was the only entity that refused to sign.
A recent media report about Washington’s plans to upgrade nuclear bombs in Western Germany resulted in Russia expressing concern, but the United States denied allegations of violating the
Linda Adams, the former head of the state EPA, told NBC4 that Boeing hired “a large army of lobbyists … to do everything they could to stop a cleanup to that level.”
The lobbyists included “Peter Weiner, a former environmental aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, Winston Hickox, a former head of the California EPA, and Robert Hoffman, the former chief lawyer of the Department of Toxic Substance Control. All three left government service and have worked on behalf of Boeing to kill a full cleanup of Santa Susana.”
Boeing also gave thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Barbara Boxer and California Sen. Kevin De Leon.
De Leon is the Chairman of the Committee that confirmed Barbara Lee as Director of the Department of Toxic Substance Control, which is the agency tasked with forcing Boeing to conduct a cleanup.
Lee admitted to NBC4 that SSFL “has a lot of contamination,” but does not “believe there is a current exposure to communities.”
In 2012, Boeing put together a PR team with a campaign strategy to “target media” and put out the message that the “site poses no risk to human health today,” NBC4 reported.
A University of Michigan study found that rates of cancer were 60% higher in the area around SSFL than in other regions. Boeing dismissed the analysis, saying it found no proof of health side effects due to radiation.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Hal Morgenstern, accused Boeing of manipulating his work. Morgenstern wrote in a letter to California State Senator Joe Simitian, Chair of the Committee on Environmental Quality:
“I would like to make it clear to your Committee that Boeing’s claim made about the conclusion of our study is false. We did not conclude that there was no excess cancer in the communities surrounding SSFL. Furthermore, Boeing’s quotes from our report were taken out of context, and they failed to report our specific findings that contradicted their claim.”
Morgenstern noted that cancers such as thyroid, bladder, and lymph tissue were both tested for and found.
Indigenous peoples bear the brunt of global greenwash
By Amy Dickens | Ecologist | September 23, 2015
In Paraguay’s vast Chaco region, the familiar sounds of the forest are being drowned out by the rumble of heavy machinery. “Where jaguars once trod, now there are just the tracks of bulldozers”, protests Porai Picanerai, a member of the Ayoreo tribe.
His people are being chased from their ancestral lands by Brazilian corporation Yaguarete Pora. While some Ayoreo remain hiding in the forest, living in fear and isolation, those forced out are vulnerable to disease and illness.
The Chaco is experiencing rapid deforestation thanks to companies like Yaguarete Pora, who are illegally clearing vast swathes of land for cattle ranching. Ironically, having promised a small, protected nature reserve, they continue to oust the forest’s most accomplished conservationists, its tribal people.
In spite of this, the company proudly flaunt the logo of the largest corporate responsibility initiative on the planet, the United Nations Global Compact.
This voluntary agreement advocates ten fundamental corporate responsibility principles, including the provision that “businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights.”
Though Yaguarete clearly defy this responsibility, the Compact’s lax membership requirements allow corporations to engage in bad practices while sporting the UN seal of approval.
Such is the hypocrisy of 21st century greenwashing. With pressure mounting on companies to endorse high standards of corporate responsibility, many are failing to deliver. To mask the truth, companies frequently greenwash their activities by participating in seemingly eco-friendly ventures that disguise the true extent of the environmental and human damage they are causing.
With conservation and intergovernmental organisations cosying up to big business, the greenwash is increasingly sophisticated, posing an ever-greater threat to the lives of tribal peoples. Because their livelihoods depend on their unique local environments, this greenwashing poses a grave threat to their survival.
Corporate greenwashing is destroying tribal peoples
The Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport (APECO) in Casiguran, the Philippines, is a 12,923 hectare area currently being developed into a self-sufficient commercial hub and special economic zone.
The project promises to bring “modernity with a touch of green” to Casiguran, boasting plans for eco-friendly features including a Marine Sanctuary and Mangrove Development Zone. For all this talk, the situation on the ground tells a dramatically different story.
If completed, APECO will strip 3,000 small farms and indigenous Agta households of their land. The Agta have reported intimidation, interrogation and assassination attempts relating to the project, which are further jeopardising a population already plagued by malnutrition and homicide.
What’s more, APECO’s ‘green’ promises appear entirely forgotten, as mangrove destruction and illegal logging are destroying the local ecosystem. The Agta’s message is simple: “The most important thing here is our land. If we don’t have it, then we won’t survive.”
Conservation organizations – the ultimate greenwash
Regrettably, corporate greenwashing at the expense of tribal peoples is widespread and recurrent. As if this wasn’t bad enough, an even more worrying trend has emerged.
Increasingly, well-known conservation groups are collaborating with companies to establish ‘green’ projects like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
RSPO, an association of palm oil industry stakeholders, was established with the objective of making sustainable palm oil the international norm. It is backed by prominent conservation organizations including Conservation International, the World Resources Institute, and founding member WWF.
Despite these reputable [sic] credentials, there’s a catch. Among RSPO’s members is Wilmar International, whose former subsidiary PT Asiatic Persada is responsible for the forced eviction of the Batin Sembilan from their homes in Jambi province of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The tribe have been arrested, attacked and murdered as their ancestral lands give way to palm oil plantations. Accusations of Wilmar’s bribery blighted negotiations to settle the dispute and culminated in the sale of PT Asiatic Persada, leaving the Batin Sembilan without recourse for their suffering.
Wilmar’s participation in RSPO shows that companies who feign social responsibility are still welcome in ‘green’ initiatives. Indeed, by cosying up to big businesses, which push for lenient responsibility standards, conservation groups enable companies to mask exploitative practices whilst gaining credibility for participating in sustainable projects.
This brand of greenwashing spells danger, not only for tribal peoples but also for conservation groups, who run the risk of guilt by association. So long as these organizations remain indifferent to corporate deception, their loyalty and integrity is called into question.
Hypocrisy at the highest level
Greenwashing can even implicate the institutions and funding bodies responsible for global development. Though these international organizations advocate sustainability, they frequently support projects that undermine this ethos.
As a case in point, in the early 1990s the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), a newly-established World Bank program, struck an agreement with the Cameroon government to conserve a 6 million acre area of rainforest. Yet as one indigenous Baka man observed, “those who now claim they are conserving the forest are the same people pillaging our forests.”
This agreement masked a hefty World Bank loan to fund the logging of a further 3.5 million acres of forest. For the Baka hunter-gatherers and their neighbours, this proved disastrous. Unable to claim their land rights, and prohibited from entering the protected forest to gather resources, they have struggled to survive. In Republic of the Congo, the Baka and Mbenjele suffered a similar fate at the hands of another GEF project.
Such institutional double-dealing delivers a damaging twin blow to tribal peoples – first, their environment is destroyed by commercial activity, and then conservation projects deny them access to their surviving lands and resources.
The World Bank’s conflicted sponsorship doesn’t end there. Today, the Bank is set to profit from its investment in the controversial UN REDD+ scheme, which encourages carbon offsetting to maintain a global equilibrium. Simultaneously, billions of dollars are lent to companies in the extractive industries, the most highly polluting sector.
This has led some to dub the World Bank a ‘climate change profiteer‘.
What next for tribal peoples?
It’s evident that greenwashing is evolving, and with it the challenges that tribal people face. As conservation and development organizations collaborate with irresponsible corporations, the distinction between protector and perpetrator becomes blurred.
This results in indigenous rights violations going unpunished, while organizations that should be working with tribal peoples to protect the environment are discredited. If green initiatives are to live up to their word, they must respect the land ownership rights of tribal peoples and legally obtain free, prior and informed consent.
Environmental groups must also insist on greater transparency among corporate participants. Until then, greenwashing will continue to mask the destruction of the world’s last refuges for tribal peoples.
Guatemala: Environmental Activists Kidnapped in Palm Oil Region
teleSUR | September 2015
Three members from the Guatemala’s Council of Displaced Peoples, CONDEG, were kidnapped on Thursday in the palm oil producing town of Petén.
Local human rights organization, UDEFEGUA, issued a press release Thursday denouncing inaction on the part of local authorities following the disappearance.
“We reiterate and demand immediate action by the authorities to ensure the security, life and physical integrity of the human rights defenders,” the statement read.
Police officials have not identified any suspects or persons of interest involved in the incident.
According to local media reports, the kidnappers are demanding the reversal of a Guatemalan court ruling, which ordered local palm oil manufacturer Repsa to temporarily halt its operations due to unethical environmental practices.
The decision was handed down Wednesday after local residents filed legal motions against the company for contaminating drinking water and endangering protected species along the La Pasión River.
Last June, heavy rains caused a holding pond containing chemicals to overflow into the river, marking the second time in two years that communities in northern Guatemala have seen large scale fish die-offs in their rivers.
Water pollution is a major environmental problem associated with palm oil production, according to labor watchdog Verité.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources recently concluded that the La Pasion River had been polluted with malathion, an agricultural pesticide.
The court ruling, however, angered some local residents who depend on the company for work. Repsa employs more than half the local population and the majority of jobs center around the palm oil industry.
Guatemala has become the ninth largest palm oil exporter in the world, and the second largest palm oil exporter in Latin America.
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Blood Passover, English Version
The Bloody Satanic Sacrifice Rituals of the Jewish Race
Ariel Toaff | 2016
The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
Dr. Toaff is uniquely qualified to write this book, being thoroughly familiar with the derivative literature in English, French, German and Italian, as well as the original documentary sources in Latin, Medieval Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish. This is not something he worked on in secret. On the contrary, he worked on it openly with his university students and colleagues in Israel for several years; one of his students was even going to publish a paper on the subject. The author is extremely careful about what he says, and his conclusions must be taken seriously. It reads like a detective story.
If it had been published in Israel, in Hebrew, no one would have cared. There are large bodies of literature in Hebrew that Jews do not wish Gentiles to know about. But Dr. Toaff’s announcement of its publication in Italy, in Italian, raised a worldwide firestorm of fury.
Under unbearable pressure, the book was withdrawn from publication. Come in out of the darkness, and strike a blow for the light.
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