IMF: Raping women and Looting countries

Strauss-Kahn: a metaphor for IMF practices.   “Lo que Dominique Strauss-Kahn hizo con la camarera negra Nafissatou Diallo, de Guinea, musulmana, viuda y madre de una hija de 15 años, es una metáfora de lo que estaba haciendo con los países con dificultades financieras. Merecería la cárcel no sólo por la violencia sexual contra la mujer sino mucho más por el estupro económico al pueblo, que él articulaba a partir del FMI. Estamos desolados.

 

Leonardo Boff One might think that it is a tragedy that the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, succumbed to his vice, the obsessive search for perverse sex. Running naked after a Black maid in suite 2806 of the Sofitel Hotel in New York City, he grabbed and forced her to have sex. The details were thoroughly described by the New York District Attorney. For the sake of decency, I will not repeat them. It was not a tragedy for him: it was just one more person in this world whom he has victimized. Afterwards, he got dressed, and went directly to the airport. What is funny is that he left his cell phone in the hotel suite, and because of that, the police were able to detain him, after he had already boarded the plane. The tragedy was not what happened to him, but to the victim, which no-one wants to know. Her name is Nifissatou Diallo, an African, Moslem, from Guinea, a widow and mother of a 15 year old daughter. The police found her hiding behind a cupboard, crying and vomiting, traumatized by the violence suffered at the hands of the hotel guest, whose name she did not even know. Most of the French media, cynically and openly machista, tried to hide the facts, claiming even possible entrapment of the future socialist candidate for President of the French Republic. …….Strauss-Kahn is a metaphor for the present neoliberal system. It sucks the blood of countries in crisis, such as Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and now Spain, as was previously done with Brazil and the countries of Latin America and of Asia. To save the banks and enable repayment of debts, it devastated societies, forced workers out of their jobs, privatized public goods, cut salaries, delayed retirement ages, mandated longer work hours.  All because of capital.  The enforcer of these world policies is, among others, the IMF, of which Strauss-Kahn was the central figure. What he did to Nafissatou Diallo is a metaphor for what he was doing to the countries in financial difficulties. He deserves jail not just for the sexual violence against the hotel maid, but even more, for the economic rape of the people, that he committed from the IMF. Español  El lector o la lectora pensará que es una tragedia que el Director-gerente del FMI, Strauss-Kahn, diera alas a su vicio, la obsesiva búsqueda de sexo perverso, corriendo desnudo detrás de una camarera negra en la suite 2806 del hotel Sofitel de Nueva York, hasta sujetarla y forzarla a practicar sexo, con detalles que la Fiscalía de Nueva York describe minuciosamente y que, por decencia, no voy a decir. Para él no era una tragedia, sino una víctima más entre otras que ha hecho en este mundo. Se vistió y se fue directo al aeropuerto. Lo cómico fue que olvidó el móvil en la suite y así pudo ser detenido por la policía cuando estaba dentro del avión. Read full article HERE  http://cinabrio.over-blog.es/

Valencia: carga contra ‘indignados’

The police caused injuries and arrests by charging 500 ‘indignados’ protesting outside the Valencia parliament, where some of the most blatantly corrupt politicians were debating.

La Policía carga contra los ‘indignados’ de Les Corts en Valencia

Los enfrentamientos dejan cinco detenidos y 18 heridos, ocho de ellos policías. Decenas de personas se han desplazado a comisaría para pedir su libertad. En Santiago de Compostela, también se ha disuelto una concentración frente a la Xunta.

PUBLICO. ES/ AGENCIAS

La Policía Nacional ha cargado esta mañana contra los ‘indignados’ concentrados en los alrededores de Les Corts Valencianes, donde hoy se ha celebrado la sesión constitutiva de la octava legislatura. Decenas de ‘indignados’ se han dirigido a la comisaría donde están los detenidos para protestar y otros acudirán a la subdelegación del Gobierno. Los acampados en Sol también se han solidarizado con sus compañeros valencianos

Liverpool Antifascists Presents…

Former BNP Councillor Paul Golding heads Britain First nationalist movement

A FORMER BNP councillor who was accused of “doing nothing” for his constituents is launching his own nationalist party. Paul Golding, who stepped down as a Sevenoaks District councillor for the Swanley St Mary’s ward in February, is now director of Britain First. Mr Golding, whose latest venture is run from a Swanley postal address, … Read more

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EDL supporter punched police horse eight times at Blackburn demo

An English Defence League supporter who violently attacked a police horse during demonstrations in Blackburn has been sentenced. The town’s magistrates heard Robert Gavin Tromans punched the animal eight times about the neck as police formed a mounted cordon to control a crowd in Northgate. Tromans, 29, of Beverley Road, West Bromwich, pleaded guilty to … Read more

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Police hunt for EDL supporter who attacked Asian man in Rochdale

A racist thug who abused and attacked a passer-by in a shopping precinct is being hunted by police. The man, who was wearing a T-shirt promoting the English Defence League, targeted a 31-year-old Asian man as he walked through the Wheatsheaf Centre in Rochdale town centre.  Images from CCTV cameras have been released by police … Read more

antifasc dub flyer colour

Liverpool Antifascists Presents…

On Friday June 24th, The Casa will be playing host to Liverpool Antifascists’ latest fund raiser. Join us for heavyweight dubs, live bands and a beltin’ night – and of course, help raise funds to keep fighting fascism on Merseyside! F.O.E Alliance Hi Fi DJ’s Toxteth Rebel Alliance DJ’s + more to come this week! … Read more

The Fighting Fuhrers

The British National Party continues to implode, although it’s more of a whimper than a bang these days. While the infighting has led to arrests, splits and a rapidly disappearing membership, one man has stood aloof from the fray, Andrew Brons MEP. On Sunday the fray came to Brons. One of his staff, Eddy Butler, … Read more

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4 more ‘Food not Bombs’ activists arrested.

Feeding: The anti-poverty group Orlando Food Not Bombs has been passing out free food in city parks for years.

cross-posted from the Miami Herald

ORLANDO, Fla. — Four more activists have been arrested for feeding pancakes and donuts to the homeless in downtown Orlando.

Police officers handcuffed the activists and loaded them into a police van Monday just after they had distributed food to about 30 homeless people in defiance of a city ordinance.

The Orlando ordinance requires groups to get a permit to feed 25 or more people in parks in a downtown district. The rules also restrict the groups to two permits per year for each park.

The law was passed in 2006, but Orlando Food Not Bombs challenged it in court. In April, a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled that the Orlando law was legal.

Last week, four other activists were arrested for violating the law.

“Responsible” soy labelled ”greenwash. Earth 1st.

Soy fields encroach on Brazilian rainforests accelerating deforestation and destroying biodiversity. Life is replaced by industrial agriculture.

On Wednesday 8 June, the first bags of certified “responsible” soy will be issued to companies such as Ahold and FrieslandCampina, during a ceremony in Rotterdam. This voluntary certification scheme is an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund and will be marketed by the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS). One certificate represents one tonne of soy products: beans, flour or oil. [1]

However, the new label has repeatedly been dismissed by hundreds of organisations as “greenwashing”. Networks including Friends of the Earth International, Global Forest Coalition and Food & Water Watch wrote a letter in March this year to warn supermarkets not to cooperate with this misleading label. 23,000 consumers signed an email petition with a similar message. [2]

“This soylabel is a typical example of consumer deceit”, says Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory. “Importing soy for industrial livestock farming in the Netherlands is inherently unsustainable. Apart from that the soy is produced with intensive use of agrotoxins. Even genetically manipulated soy that is resistant to the herbicide Roundup can be called ‘responsible’ according to this new label”, she adds.

Read more here

http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/new-%E2%80%9Cresponsible%E2%80%9D-soy-label-misleads-consumers/

Fracking the world. New Int.

Issue 442

Big oil is on the move. there’s a rush to exploit new sources of ‘unconventional’ natural gas via hydraulic fracturing – or ‘fracking’. The environmental price tag, as Joyce Nelson reports, is steep.

www.gaslandthemovie.com

Warning: drink at your peril! Tap water drawn from aquifers that have been contaminated by fracking is so full of toxic chemicals that it can be set alight.

Caution: flammable water

I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower and then my dogs refused to drink the water…

In North America, shale gas has become increasingly controversial because of fracking. Huge volumes of water are mixed with sand and dozens of toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene and xylene, and then injected under extreme pressure to shatter the underground rock reservoir and release gas trapped in the rock pores. Each ‘slick-water frack’ uses nearly 20 million litres of freshwater. The toxic chemicals mixed in the water endanger groundwater aquifers and threaten to pollute nearby water-wells. With horizontal drilling, a well can be fracked more than a dozen times, making the fractures extend several kilometres………..

Filmmaker Josh Fox found the same thing happening across the US in many of the 34 states where fracking is taking place. His feature-length documentary, Gasland, won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award this year.

Gasland shows a man setting his water alight and people in 10 different states talking about how their communities were ruined by hydraulic fracturing. One gas company recently bought out the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, for $4.1 million because fracking made the water completely undrinkable. Fox calls his documentar

y ‘a public health story’ because ‘health problems throughout these regions are really rampant’……..

In Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and West Virginia over the past two years, almost 1,000 small-to-medium-sized earthquakes are being investigated as ‘induced earthquakes’ caused by nearby fracking and wastewater disposal wells.

Meanwhile, the reputation of shale gas – as a clean fossil fuel that could last for a century – is rapidly deteriorating. In January, new research by the EPA found that greenhouse gas emissions from fracking are almost 9,000 times higher than previously calculated, because of methane emissions. And some petroleum geologists are now saying that because the wells deplete so quickly shale gas represents only about seven years’ supply in North America.

Given the consequences it’s no wonder the industry is fretting about its public image. As Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre, puts it: ‘The only safe place for shale gas is in the ground.’…

READ FULL ARTICLE  HERE

On the fracking radar

Some countries targeted for shale gas development.

Countries Companies interested
France Elixir Petroleum Ltd, Vermillion Energy, Toreador Resources
Poland ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Talisman Energy, Chevron
Indonesia BP
China Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips
Australia ConocoPhillips, Origin Energy Ltd, BP, Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
Nigeria ExxonMobil
Hungary ExxonMobil
Germany ExxonMobil
Austria OMV
Ukraine Royal Dutch Shell
Sweden Royal Dutch Shell
South Africa Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
Algeria BP
India Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
New Zealand Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol, Energy Corp of America

Joyce Nelson is a freelance writer and researcher based in Toronto.

Artic: resource grabbing sparks war fears

Scramble for Arctic oil and gas puts pristine ecosystem at risk

Mark Jansen

6th June, 2011

The Arctic is becoming a battleground as Russia, Norway, Canada and the US vie for access to oil, gas and minerals – campaigners fear safety and the environment will be the losers

one cannot exclude that in the future there will be…armed intervention

The Arctic covers 30 million square km, has 24 time zones and is home to just four million people. It also has vast reserves of oil and gas, not to mention diamonds, platinum, nickel and iron.

Those reserves have been known about for centuries, yet a combination of new extraction technology and rising demand means that the human race is ready to start ripping them out – raising the threat of devastating pollution to a uniquely clean environment and worsening the problem of global warming, even as the ice caps are melting.

Greenpeace claims they could even cause a war in the region, with releases this month by Wikileaks, the whistle-blowing website, showing how the scramble for oil and gas in the Arctic is sparking military tension. Norway’s foreign minister is quoted as saying regular military flights by the Russians up and down Norway’s coast had helped to justify the purchase of four new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter combat aircraft to the Norwegian public. Meanwhile, the head of the Russian navy is quoted as saying ‘one cannot exclude that in the future there will be a redistribution of power [in the region], up to armed intervention.’

Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, point out campaigners, Arctic nations are preferring to invest in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it.

Read more HERE