Demonstrators protest Monsanto Co. in Paris last year
Last year the World Health Organisation finally labelled the biggest selling weedkiller Roundup as ‘probably cancer causing’. This after decades of sellout to Monsanto’s tame scientists and the incalculable suffering of millions of people. (The word ‘probably’ is just to defend against the lobby’s legal machine, there are thousands of documented deaths).
Nowadays Roundup is everywhere, cumulative and persistent, in your food, in parks, crops, picnic spots, roadsides… By chance its authorization in the EU has just come up for renewal and all hell has broken loose as Monsanto tries everything to covertly bribe or threaten officials (ie. lobbying) and citizens and victims campaign try to ban it.
Government-Owned Bank Begs Customers To Borrow Cash
yes folks,Hello Helicopter Money… the first showers of free cash are beginning to fall in Europe…
by Secular InvestorWe have already reported back to you several times on how desperate the European Central Bank seems to be in its attempts to get the money circulation in the Eurozone going again. Unfortunately all of its previous ‘ideas’ didn’t really work out too well, and the ECB just continues to cut its most important interest rates to discourage the banks to deposit cash at the ECB in overnight deposits.
Nice theories don’t always work in the real world, and the idea of negative interest rates definitely didn’t help at all. But then, the ECB’s recent statements contained some interesting surprises. During the Q&A session with journalists, Mario Draghi confirmed ‘ helicopter money ’ is a real thing, and just one week later, one of the main board members of the ECB was quoted in an Italian newspaper saying helicopter money is interesting (and cannot be ruled out).
That would be quite unique, and we were very intrigued when we got our hands on a letter from a Belgian bank to an existing (business) client. In that letter, the bank offered the client an immediate credit facility of 3,750 EUR (which could immediately be expanded to 10,000 EUR upon request).
The most intriguing part is that this bank is 100% government-owned, and that the client has never applied for a loan, nor does he need one. In fact, the company is perfectly healthy, has no net debt but a net cash position on the balance sheet, but still was offered to borrow money without any installment fees whatsoever. The business owner also confirmed to us he has been client at a larger non-government bank for a much longer period of time but has never ever even received just a request to find out what his capital needs are.
Source: letter provided to us, in Dutch.
Was this a publicity stunt? No. Included in the letter was a SIGNED CONTRACT by the bank’s credit department, stating the credit facility HAS ALREADY BEEN OPENED (the highlighted part in yellow states ‘this proposal will automatically turn into a contract from April 15 on’) and no further action was required. In fact, there was an accompanying letter promoting another credit facility of up to 22.5M EUR (keep in mind the business we’re talking about has a total annual revenue of less than half a million US Dollar) which could be made available upon a second check and after paying a 2,500 EUR installment fee. That’s right, a bank was proposing a substantial line of credit with an installment fee of 0.01% of the total amount that would be borrowed.
Belgian-French financial services group Dexia Chairman Jean-Luc Dehaene
We don’t like to use the term ‘ helicopter money ’ loosely but in this case it certainly looks like this (again; government-owned) bank has gone in overdrive to force credit lines down people’s and company’s throats. Giving away credit lines with no end date looks pretty much like a ‘please borrow some money from us’ type of thing. And we have saved the best for last. Belfius Bank is nothing less but the nationalized part of Dexia, the bank that collapsed during the Global Financial Crisis and was nationalized in 2011 after more shit has hit the fan, and the cost to insure against a default of this bank more than hundredfolded.
Return of refugees to Turkey is shameful, illegal human trafficking Amnesty’s Andrew Gardner says sending refugees back to Syria is “absolutely illegal” both under Turkish and international law in itself. Also 2 documented reports, by Amnesty and the BBC show Turkey is now forcing refugees back into the Syrian war zone. Thus refugees deported by the EU to Turkey could be doubly illegally dumped on into Syria. Turkey is charging EU taxpayers 6,000,000,000 euros, plus free entry to the EU, for the privilege of exploiting this mega scam. Plus for every deportee accepted from Greece the Turkish state can legally dump a ‘documented’ refugee back there!
Sick, obscene, shameful, stupid or what?!
Greece on brink of chaos as refugees riot over forced return to Turkey
Rival ethnic groups clash in Piraeus and 800 break out of detention centre on Chios as EU deal brings desperation
Bee populations in Europe see improvement after three toxic neonicotinoid herbicides are partly banned from their environment
by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Some resurgence in honey bees
After banning the herbicides clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, three years ago, Europe is already beginning to see a resurgence in bee populations. All three of these herbicides are still being used in the USA, where honeybee populations continue to rapidly decline.
If the rest of the world doesn’t begin cutting back on herbicide use significantly, as Europe has already started to do, then pollination of important vegetable and herb crops will likely diminish by 33 percent or more in the coming decade.
This will directly influence agricultural economy, limiting the availability of a large assortment of healthy crops that were once made readily available through the tedious work of natural pollinators.
Nature’s best pest control mechanisms already coexist in the environment. By continuing to take wide scale chemical approaches to the annihilation of pests, we throw off the intricate balance that is needed to sustain healthy ecosystems for future agricultural abundance. Continue reading “Bees in Europe recover after pesticides restricted”
– Uranranebi Agbeyegbe screams into a microphone during a Black Lives Matter protest
On March 21st, Black Lives Matter activists pitched tentsat the Toronto Police headquarters and started an occupation to protest
the police killings of Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby, Alex Wettlaufer,
Melkioro Gahungu, and others. Cops reacted to the peaceful protest by attacking the crowd on two separate occasions, all in order to
extinguish their campfire, confiscate their tents, and pour chemicals
all over their firewood. Since then, the protest has only grown.
Anonymous just pulled a fast one on Donald Trump, his campaign staff, the Secret Service, and the FBI — in one brilliant and telling fell swoop.
To support the White Rose Society and the White Rose Revolt, which began as a response to fascist leanings by Trump and his supporters, Anonymous launched #OpWhiteRose — and the billionaire presidential hopeful fell right into the ‘trap.’
On Friday, Anonymous announced it had released Trump’s personal information online — including such details as his cell phone number and Social Security number. Backlash from the Trump front promptly followed, as well as an announcement from the Secret Service and FBI that an investigation had begun.
However, the information had not been hacked or leaked. In fact, everything Anonymous posted had been online — and available for anyone to see — for years.
Bertha Cáceres addresses a massive demonstration in Tegucigalpa on July 4, 2009, six days after the coup d’état in Honduras. Edited photo by Sandra Cuff
I lost it at the one about the crab in the laptop case.
Laughter filled the little room and floated out into the dirt courtyard of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) office. Bertha Isabel Cáceres Flores and another longtime COPINH organizer were regaling me with tales of all the pranks he had pulled on her over the years.
One time he slipped an empty crab shell left over from someone’s soup into the front pocket of her laptop case for her to find when she reached in to get the mouse. That particular prank didn’t turn out as intended, which somehow made it that much more hilarious. She didn’t use the mouse anytime soon, and ended up wondering where the funky smell was coming from. Another time, when they were hiking in the mountains to get to a community affiliated with COPINH, he carefully slipped rocks into her backpack one by one along the way until she finally realized that it wasn’t just a sensation. Her backpack really was heavier.
video by Contrainfos group ”in homage to Berta we must save the rivers”
When I heard that Bertha had been killed, that laughter-filled conversation was the first memory to come rushing back. It was followed by other memories from a decade ago, during the four and a half years I lived in Bertha’s hometown of La Esperanza, Intibucá.
Corporate Looting vs Public Health
The Free 
