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G4s annual meeting stormed by human rights activists
Press TV – June 7, 2013
Pro-Palestine campaigners have staged a protest at the annual meeting of shareholders of disgraced security firm G4S in London, calling for an end to the firm’s Israeli prison contracts.
G4S meeting on June 6 was twice disrupted by protesters, who voiced their anger against the private company’s provision of expertise and security systems to Israeli prisons, and its complicity in the detention and torture of Palestinian children.
The demonstration was organized by the Innovative Minds (inminds) and Islamic Human Right Commission (IHRC) campaign groups.
“G4S cannot expect to do business as usual whilst it equips Israeli prisons which hold Palestinians in breach of the Geneva Convention,” said Sarah Colborne, director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
G4S faces criticism for its cooperation with the Israeli regime, including providing equipment and services to Israeli checkpoints, illegal settlements, the apartheid wall and jails where Palestinian political prisoners are subjected to mistreatment and torture.
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South African bodies call for Israel to be excluded from diamond processing over ‘war crimes’
RT | June 6, 2013
South African human rights groups, trade unions and major civil society organisations are calling for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme* to exclude Israel from diamond processing.
The certification scheme is designed to stop ‘conflict diamonds’ from entering the mainstream diamond market and was set up in 2003. The organisation which runs the scheme is currently meeting in South Africa.
The coalition of organisations such as South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers, the country’s largest trade union federation COSATU; South African Students Congress; the Coalition for a Free Palestine and BDS South Africa say that “billions of dollars’ worth of diamonds exported via Israel are a major source of revenue for the Israeli military, which stands accused of war crimes.”
The coalition is calling for Israel to be excluded from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme due to its human rights record against Palestinians, and to end all exports of rough diamonds to Israel immediately.
The organizations also wants to ban diamond polishing and cutting in Israel. They claim excluding Israel from the diamond processing would be a great chance for the South African authorities to display “moral vision and political leadership”.
“The Kimberley Process has played an important role over the past decade in resolving conflicts linked to the diamond trade but there is no doubt that it has to be reformed… [by] expanding the definition of conflict to include human rights abuses linked to diamond extraction perpetrated by governments and companies; and expanding downstream monitoring so that the process covers not just the rough diamond trade but also the international movement and polishing of diamonds,” Southern Africa Resource Watch director Claude Kabemba told the Business Day newspaper.
The coalition also pointed to the local benefits of such a move, claiming it could bring more diamond processing jobs back to South Africa. “Consumers will have a clear conscience that their diamonds are not funding, assisting or in any way involved with the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, and more jobs will be created locally for our people by bringing this diamond processing back home instead of it being done in Israel,” South African activist Mbuyiseni Ndlozi is quoted by the Middle East Monitor as saying.
The Kimberley Process, established a decade ago to help resolve international diamond trade conflicts and to ensure that the diamond trade is not used as an instrument to fund military rebellions and other violence interfering with human rights. The organization includes 54 participants representing 90 countries while its members account for about 99.8 percent of the global production of rough diamonds, the Middle East Monitor reports.
* The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is the process to prevent “conflict diamonds” from entering the mainstream rough diamond market. Established by UN GA Resolution 55/56 in 2003, the process is aimed “to ensure that diamond purchases were not financing violence by rebel movements and their allies seeking to undermine legitimate governments.” In order for a country to be a participant, it must ensure that any diamond originating from the country does not finance a rebel group or other entity seeking to overthrow a UN-recognized government, that every diamond export be accompanied by a Kimberley Process certificate and that no diamond is imported from, or exported to, a non-member of the scheme. As of 30 November 2012, there were 54 participants in the KPCS representing 80 countries, with the European Union counting as a single participant.
Turks Take to the Streets, but Erdogan Remains
By Hüsnü Mahalli | Al-Akhbar | June 3, 2013
Overnight, what was once a consensus on the stability of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government turned into a schism. The barrier of fear collapsed and demonstrations spread throughout the country, leading to clashes that left many injured. However, the “Sultan” remains, at least for now.
Istanbul – The bloody wave of clashes in Turkey over the past two days has raised many questions, from comprehending the Turkish government’s disproportionate reaction, to debating the possibility of a wider “Turkish Spring.”
The information is conflicting, but there is one constant: The barrier of fear that has protected Turkish PM Erdogan, who has exerted his authority over the entire country, has come tumbling down. Though the view prevails that Erdogan is still firmly in control, there is no denying that the events took everyone by surprise.
It is clear there is more to the issue. The transformation of a public square into a mall does not warrant hundreds of injuries and arrests, or people from 47 districts taking to the streets.
Erdogan blamed the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its president Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Yet there is no denying that the control and hegemony practiced by Erdogan, which by and large turned the private media into an official spokesperson for the government, is a large factor in the turnout.
The reason might also be Erdogan and his party’s interference in the private affairs of individuals, such as the recent decision to ban alcohol. Or it could be popular discontent with the Syrian issue, with some polls indicating that up to 80 percent are not happy with the situation.
Kılıçdaroğlu expressed it boldly. The government’s policy toward Syria is a threat to Turkey national and homeland security. Erdogan’s reply, as usual, was violent and provocative, accusing him of “supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because they are both Alawis.”
Some believe that Erdogan’s attack on Hezbollah and Iran is another reason behind the popular discontent with the prime minister. There are about 20 million Alawi Turks, albeit known to be the most ardent defenders of secularism in the country.
No matter what, Erdogan’s strength lies in the political, economic, and moral support of the US. Istanbul’s stock market has 66 percent foreign investment. What does that mean? It means that Erdogan, who has sold off almost all of the public sector, is now a hostage to this money and investment. If foreign investment declines, it will lead to an economic collapse, taking with it Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AKP) party.
The AKP came to power following an economic collapse. They remain in power due to economic “achievements.” It was interesting that in all this confusion, several Turkish, US, and British newspapers rooted their analyses in this framework. However, they differed about the outcomes.
Those who believed it was a Turkish Spring cited its causes in economic and cultural reasons, as well as fear of the Islamization of the state.
The Turkish press say that talk of a Turkish Spring is “exaggerated.” However, some Turkish pundits admitted that the current events are “a turning point in the sanctity of the image of Erdogan and his party.”
Nevertheless, the Turkish press agreed that the demonstrations “reveal the gap in the opinions of citizens and the view of the ruling AKP.”
What is Happening in Istanbul?
By İnsanlik Hali | defnesumanblogs | June 1, 2013
To my friends who live outside of Turkey:
I am writing to let you know what is going on in Istanbul for the last five days. I personally have to write this because most of the media sources are shut down by the government and the word of mouth and the internet are the only ways left for us to explain ourselves and call for help and support.
Four days ago a group of people most of whom did not belong to any specific organization or ideology got together in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Among them there were many of my friends and students. Their reason was simple: To prevent and protest the upcoming demolishing of the park for the sake of building yet another shopping mall at very center of the city. There are numerous shopping malls in Istanbul, at least one in every neighborhood! The tearing down of the trees was supposed to begin early Thursday morning. People went to the park with their blankets, books and children. They put their tents down and spent the night under the trees. Early in the morning when the bulldozers started to pull the hundred-year-old trees out of the ground, they stood up against them to stop the operation.
They did nothing other than standing in front of the machines.
No newspaper, no television channel was there to report the protest. It was a complete media black out.
But the police arrived with water cannon vehicles and pepper spray. They chased the crowds out of the park.
In the evening the number of protesters multiplied. So did the number of police forces around the park. Meanwhile local government of Istanbul shut down all the ways leading up to Taksim square where the Gezi Park is located. The metro was shut down, ferries were cancelled, roads were blocked.
Yet more and more people made their way up to the center of the city by walking.
They came from all around Istanbul. They came from all different backgrounds, different ideologies, different religions. They all gathered to prevent the demolition of something bigger than the park:
The right to live as honorable citizens of this country.
They gathered and marched. Police chased them with pepper spray and tear gas and drove their tanks over people who offered the police food in return. Two young people were run over by the panzers and were killed. Another young woman, a friend of mine, was hit in the head by one of the incoming tear gas canisters. The police were shooting them straight into the crowd. After a three hour operation she is still in Intensive Care Unit and in very critical condition. As I write this we don’t know if she is going to make it. This blog is dedicated to her.
These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its people’s will.
On top of all that, the government control over its people’s personal lives has become unbearable as of late. The state, under its conservative agenda passed many laws and regulations concerning abortion, cesarean birth, sale and use of alcohol and even the color of lipstick worn by the airline stewardesses.
People who are marching to the center of Istanbul are demanding their right to live freely and receive justice, protection and respect from the State. They demand to be involved in the decision-making processes about the city they live in.
What they have received instead is excessive force and enormous amounts of tear gas shot straight into their faces. Three people lost their eyes.
Yet they still march. Hundred of thousands join them. Couple of more thousand passed the Bosporus Bridge on foot to support the people of Taksim.
No newspaper or TV channel was there to report the events. They were busy with broadcasting news about Miss Turkey and “the strangest cat of the world”.
Police kept chasing people and spraying them with pepper spray to an extent that stray dogs and cats were poisoned and died by it.
Schools, hospitals and even 5 star hotels around Taksim Square opened their doors to the injured. Doctors filled the classrooms and hotel rooms to provide first aid. Some police officers refused to spray innocent people with tear gas and quit their jobs. Around the square they placed jammers to prevent internet connection and 3g networks were blocked. Residents and businesses in the area provided free wireless network for the people on the streets. Restaurants offered food and water for free.
People in Ankara and İzmir gathered on the streets to support the resistance in Istanbul.
Mainstream media kept showing Miss Turkey and “the strangest cat of the world”.
***
I am writing this letter so that you know what is going on in Istanbul. Mass media will not tell you any of this. Not in my country at least. Please post as many as articles as you see on the Internet and spread the word.
As I was posting articles that explained what is happening in Istanbul on my Facebook page last night someone asked me the following question:
«What are you hoping to gain by complaining about our country to foreigners?»
This blog is my answer to her.
By so called «complaining» about my country I am hoping to gain:
Freedom of expression and speech,
Respect for human rights,
Control over the decisions I make concerning my on my body,
The right to legally congregate in any part of the city without being considered a terrorist.
But most of all by spreading the word to you, my friends who live in other parts of the world, I am hoping to get your awareness, support and help!
Please spread the word and share this blog.
Thank you!
For futher info and things you can do for help please see Amnesty International’s Call for Urgent Help
Taken from Occupy Gezi Facebook page. Also used by Reuters
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Colombia: Piedad Córdoba Ratifies Intention to Run for President
Prensa Latina | June 1, 2013
La Paz – While visiting this capital, Colombian ex senator Piedad Córdoba expressed her intention to run for president in the next elections in her country, according to press reports.
Cordoba visited the cities of Sucre and La Paz to film the next chapters of the program “Causa Justa” (Just Cause) to be broadcast by Telesur television network, and took the opportunity to ratify her position to become the first woman to be at the helm of Colombia.
According to the newspaper Cambio, Córdoba also extolled the transformations undergone by the Bolivian capital in the past few years: “you can really see progress in Bolivia, the big changes and improvements in La Paz!”, she said.
Cordoba, 58, has worked systematically for the rights of women, ethnic minorities and human rights in her country, besides being involved, in 2007, in efforts to reach an agreement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) guerrillas and the then government of President Alvaro Uribe.
Since 2011, in the wake of her dismissal as senator by the Attorney General’s Office of Colombia, she started to work with Telesur in the Causa Justa program, which highlights conflicts hitting the region, as told by political, social and cultural figures, notes Cambio newspaper.
She is in Bolivia “for a second season of the program in order to film a documentary on discrimination, bilingual education and the indigenous presence of President Evo Morales,” added the source.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Gets Taste of His Own Medicine?
By Daniel McAdams | LRC | June 1, 2013
After nearly a week of increasing public protests in Turkey, ostensibly over government plans to turn a last bit of green space in Istanbul into another shopping mall, matters became far more serious on Friday. Riot police descended on the protestors with various forms of tear gas (and possibly worse chemical and biological agents — raw sewage?) and water cannon, blasting everyone and everything in sight including non-participants. When they caught protestors, they beat them violently and brutally, as can be seen in this video. Photographs show that police fired tear gas into crowded underground metro stations, leading to panic and worse. Istanbul looks like a war zone.
Today indications are that protests have only increased in number and fury in response to the violence with which they were met yesterday.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under increased criticism at home over his enthusiastic support for those fighting to overthrow the government in neighboring Syria. Turkish government support for the rebels came early and has included providing safe havens for the Islamist insurgents and safe passage into Syria from Libya, Yemen, and other countries of the insurgents’ origin.
Erdogan’s stated policy of “zero problems with neighbors” has been turned on its head by his support for the rebels fighting next door. Public dissatisfaction with the Turkish government’s policy of encouraging an Islamist insurgency next door has steadily increased.
The insurgents fighting the Syrian government were still unsatisfied by the level of support they received from their Turkish hosts and they took to false flag attacks in places like Reyhanli and a planned false-flag sarin gas attack on southern Turkey in Adana in attempt to provoke a Turkish (and NATO) military response against Syria.
Suddenly the tables are turned at home.
Faced with a nascent but growing protest movement of his own, Erdogan expresses a very different view toward the people in the street. The Prime Minister strongly supported the “Arab Spring” overthrow in Egypt and supports the overthrow of Assad next door because he said the leaders of these countries did not listen to their people. Just last week he met with President Obama and agreed that “Assad must go.” Now with protesters in Turkey chanting “Erdogan must go” he is singing a different tune. Now “the people” he claimed to speak for — on the streets in Egypt and Syria, at least — were, in Turkey, “with terror, have dark ties,” in his words.
Suddenly “the people” are not so noble when they are calling for his ouster. With the tables turned on Erdogan, he can only demand order! “I call on the protesters to stop their demonstrations immediately,” he thundered yesterday.
Erdogan caught the tiger by the tail and thought he would become a new Ottoman Sultan. Reality bites back hard on the streets of Istanbul and elsewhere. This is far from over.
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Canadian church boycotts companies in Israeli settlements
MEMO | May 31, 2013
Canada’s largest Protestant church, the United Church of Canada, has decided to boycott three Israeli companies as part of its campaign against products manufactured in illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The “Unsettling Goods: Choose Peace in Palestine and Israel” campaign is set to start on Saturday and will last for a year. It calls for “education and for economic action by United Church members to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories.”
Last week, the church’s governing General Council approved the proposal to boycott Keter Plastic, SodaStream and Ahava which all operate in illegal settlements. The move builds on last year’s agreement to boycott products manufactured in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem which the Church regards as the principal obstacle to peace in the region.
A statement on the United Church’s website said that in the coming months it “will engage in dialogue” with the three companies and request them to cease production in settlements: “They will be informed that failure to do so will result in economic action against their products.”
Democracy in Turkey: Peaceful Protest Turns Violent as Police Fire Teargas
Al-Manar | June 1, 2013
Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday at demonstrators in central Istanbul, wounding scores of people and prompting rallies in other cities in the fiercest anti-government protests in years.
Thousands of demonstrators massed on streets surrounding Istanbul’s central Taksim Square while protests erupted in the capital, Ankara, and the Aegean coastal city of Izmir.
Broken glass and rocks were strewn across a main shopping street near Taksim. Primary school children ran crying from the clouds of tear gas, while tourists caught by surprise scurried to get back to hotels lining the square.
The unrest reflects growing disquiet at the authoritarianism of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Riot police clashed with tens of thousands of May Day protesters in Istanbul this past month. There have also been protests against the government’s stance on the conflict in neighboring Syria.
“We do not have a government, we have Tayyip Erdogan. … Even AK Party supporters are saying they have lost their mind, they are not listening to us,” said Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at Bosphorus University, who attended the protest.
The protest at Taksim’s Gezi Park started late on Monday after trees were torn up under a government redevelopment plan, but has widened into a broader demonstration against Erdogan’s administration. Friday’s violence erupted after a dawn police raid on demonstrators who had been camped out for days.
“This isn’t just about trees anymore, it’s about all of the pressure we’re under from this government. We’re fed up, we don’t like the direction the country is headed in,” said 18-year-old student Mert Burge, who came to support the protesters after reading on Twitter about the police use of tear gas.
Thousands chanting for the government to resign gathered at a park in the center of Ankara, where police earlier fired tear gas to disperse several dozen opposition supporters trying to reach the AKP headquarters. Protesters also rallied at two locations in Izmir, according to pictures on social media.
A woman was in critical condition last night after being hit by a police gas canister and underwent an operation after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
A total of 12 people, including a pro-Kurdish MP and a Reuters photographer, suffered trauma injuries and hundreds suffered respiratory problems due to tear gas, doctors said.
Some people were injured when a wall they were climbing collapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas.
Amnesty International said it was concerned by “the use of excessive force” by the police against what had started out as a peaceful protest. Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the European parliament rapporteur on Turkey, also voiced concern.
In Washington, the State Department said it was concerned with the number of injuries and was gathering its own information on the incident.
“We believe that Turkey’s long-term stability, security and prosperity is best guaranteed by upholding the fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly and association, which is what it seems these individuals were doing,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
Interior Minister Muammer Guler promised that allegations that police had used disproportionate force would be investigated.
Hundreds of military officers have been jailed for plotting a coup against Erdogan in recent years. Academics, journalists, politicians and others face trial on similar charges.
He has made no secret of his ambition to run for the presidency in elections next year when his term as prime minister ends, increasing opposition dismay.
“These people will not bow down to you” read one banner at the Gezi Park protest, alongside a cartoon of Erdogan wearing an Ottoman emperor’s turban.
Postings on social media including Twitter, where “Occupy Gezi” – a reference to protests in New York and London last year – was a top-trending hashtag, and Facebook said similar demonstrations were planned for the next few days in other Turkish cities including Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bursa.
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From the Archives
How Bill Gates Premeditated COVID Vaccine Injury Censorship
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | March 30, 2021
In 2000, everything about Bill Gates’ public persona changed. He morphed from a hardnosed and ruthless technology monopolizer into a soft, fuzzy and incredibly generous philanthropist when he and his wife launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.1
It was a public relations coup. May 18, 1998, the U.S. Justice Department, in collaboration with 20 state attorneys, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.2 At that time, the company was 23 years old and was ruling the personal computer market. The Seattle Times described the fallout from the antitrust lawsuit:3
“The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.”
How would the world be different today if the company had been split? Yale law professor George Priest described the antitrust lawsuit as “one of the most important antitrust cases of its generation.”4 In 2002, a court settlement placed restrictions on Microsoft to curb some of its practices for five years.
It was later extended twice and then expired May 12, 2011. The lawsuit had a dramatic effect on “the emergence of an entirely new field called IP (intellectual property) antitrust,” Iowa law professor Herbert Hovenkamp told the Seattle Times.5
Later, large sums donated from the foundation made the news multiple times, including $9.5 million to GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines), a second $7.5 million to GAVI and $6.8 million to the World Health Organization in 2017.6
By June 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, the Gates Foundation’s donations totaled 45% of WHO’s funding from nongovernmental sources.7 Once mainstream media’s attention was no longer on Gates’ antitrust activities and focused on the philanthropist actions of the foundation, Gates publicly turned his attention to vaccinating the world, long before COVID-19.8
Event 201: A Preplanned Pandemic
In a deep dive into the Gates Foundation’s charitable donations, The Nation found there were $250 million in grants to companies where the foundation held corporate stocks, including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi and Medtronic. The money was directed at supporting projects “like developing new drugs and health monitoring systems and creating mobile banking services.”9 … continue
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