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March Against Monsanto
Aam Aadmi Party workers today protested outside residences of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and local MLAs on the issues of rising prices of power and water, and women’s safety in the national capital.
May 19, 2013
While demonstrating outside the CM’s residence, some workers were detained and sent to Tuglak Road Police Station, a statement released by Aam Aadmi Party said. AAP workers claimed that a number of volunteers were injured during police action at the time of the protest.
“In Shahdara, AAP volunteers, including several women and children, were hurt when they were protesting outside Congress MLA Narendra Nath’s residence. Around 20 volunteers were detained by the police outside his house and taken to Farsh Bazar Station,” the statement said.
When AAP volunteers tried to gherao local MLA and senior Congress leader Kiran Walia’s house in Malviya Nagar, they were detained by police and taken to local police station, it said. Workers, who went to meet area MLA in Gandhi Nagar, were arrested and taken to Kalyanpuri Police station when they tried to confront their MLA, the statement said. MLAs refused to meet the AAP workers, the statement added.
Aam Aadmi Party is an Indian political party launched on 26 November 2012. ‘Aam Aadmi’ in Hindi means ‘Common Man’. The name was adopted by the Party as it aims to represent common Wo/man of India and to bring political power back into the people’s hands. One of the party’s primary vision is to realize the dream of ‘SWARAJ’ or ‘Self-governance’ that Mahatma Gandhi had envisaged for a free India - where the power of governance and rights of democracy will be in the hands of the people of India.
An Indonesian court has ruled indigenous people have the right to manage forests where they live, a move which supporters said prevents the government from handing over community-run land to businesses.
May 17, 2013
Disputes between indigenous groups and companies have become increasingly tense in recent years, as soaring global demand for commodities like palm oil has seen plantations encroach on forests. In Thursday’s ruling, Constitutional Court judges said that a 1999 law should be changed so it no longer defines forest that has been inhabited by indigenous groups for generations as “state forest”, according to court documents.
“Indigenous Indonesians have the right to log their forests and cultivate the land for their personal needs, and the needs of their families,” judge Muhammad Alim said as he handed down the ruling, state news agency Antara reported.
While environmentalists welcomed the ruling, they warned it could unintentionally lead to an upsurge in disputes between authorities and communities over the classification of indigenous land. In March, seven villagers were shot in northern Sumatra, where a dispute over a forest claimed by both the community and government has been simmering since 1998.
The National People’s Indigenous Organisation filed the challenge to the 1999 law, which has let officials sell permits allowing palm oil, paper, mining and timber companies to exploit their land. The group said Friday’s ruling affected 40 million hectares (98 million acres) of forest - slightly larger than Japan, and 30 per cent of Indonesia’s forest coverage. Despite their living there, the area was legally classified as “customary forest”, a term that describes forests that have been inhabited by indigenous people for a long time.
“About 40 million indigenous people are now the rightful owners of our customary forests,” said the group’s chief Abdon Nababan.
Stepi Hakim, Indonesia director of the Clinton Climate Initiative, said the ruling would give legal grounds for indigenous communities to challenge businesses operating in their forests, but this could lead to a string of new disputes. “As soon as this policy is delivered, local governments have to be ready to mitigate conflicts,” he said.
The Bulgarian winter or protests against corruption, poor living conditions & high energy costs
March 16, 2013
From the beginning of February, Bulgarians in most big cities have been out in the streets, protesting against the increased electricity and heating bills. While the increase has happened gradually throughout 2012, in January 2013 the bills were considerably bigger than they would normally get. The price formation was transparently written down on the bill, but what angered many is that a significant amount of money was charged not for energy per se but for various taxes and tariffs.
Bills and bonds
A wave of contention spread throughout the country, resulting in blockades of roads, barricades, increasing popular rage and police violence. Three men died having set fire to themselves in protest at the bills and the subservience of the state to economic interests. One old man cut his veins out of sheer desperation over his electricity bill. The protesters were mostly rank-and-file Bulgarians: middle-aged men and women, young couples with children and students all went out on the streets to voice their concerns over high energy costs, mediocre living standards and perceived corruption. The protests were also joined and partly hijacked by a number of extreme-right groups, who were ready to exploit the situation for harassment and looting.
The solution offered by many intellectuals, politicians from throughout the political spectrum and the media, was – surprise, surprise – the end of monopolies and further privatization and liberalization of the energy market.
This posture disappointed many, as the whole process is actually a showcase example of how privatized entities function poorly outside state control. The national power distribution companies were privatized in 2005 and then sold out to foreign companies under very favourable conditions. This move made the state – i.e. taxpayers – indebted to the private companies, which held prices high with a cartel agreement.
Yet, it was not the monopoly in general that was a problem: the issue was eclipsed by the amnesia of 23 years of transition to a market economy. It was the monopoly in the hands of uncontrollable private companies within a free market economy with no state regulation or protection that has left the population totally vulnerable to price hikes. The clamour around the energy bills also eclipsed some contradictory actions of the Borisov government. To calm down grain producers who also threatened nation-wide protests, populist Borisov promised new subsidies. Consequently, days before his resignation, Borisov pressed Finance Minister Dyankov to issue government bonds for 800 mio lev (€409 mio). Thanks to the unexpected shock for the national economy, and to the surprise of the international markets, the country’s bond yields started to rise and the value of the Bulgarian debt went down. But it was mostly Bulgarian banks who bought most (over 80%) of the bonds, raising suspicions of a deal to help Borisov’s reelection.
The crisis becomes political
Bills and bonds aside, the crisis of political representation had started. After a few nights of running battles between police and protesters, the government made an attempt to offer some blatantly unsustainable concessions: they offered a significant decrease of energy prices and transparency of the energy sector.
A few “protesters” coming from circles close to the government called for the protests to stop, to little effect. The people demanded Borisov’s resignation. After a night of violent clashes with the police, Borisov filed his resignation, saying he could not tolerate blood on his hands. The resignation was almost unanimously approved by parliament.
President Rossen Plevneliev launched “public consultations” to find a way out of the political crisis and form a new government. In his office, along with representatives of the protesters, he invited neoliberal think-tank experts and members of oligarchic and commercial organizations. The protesters soon walked out. Plevneliev offered the mandate only to the three parties which had previously proposed to form a government: Borisov’s centre-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), social-democratic Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), and the Turkish ethnic Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (DPS) – all refused. This meant the dissolution of the Parliament, the calling of new elections in May and the appointment by the President of an interim “expert” government.
This outcome didn’t satisfy the protesters, who saw it as a convenient way for the current government to gain time to erase their record of corruption and avoid investigation or persecution. And this government shows no intention of reforming electoral laws ahead of the elections, when the current electoral code makes it exceptionally difficult for small parties to run for office.
People did not leave the streets. Demands for the electricity bills to be lowered were soon followed by more radical claims: a new Constitutive Assembly, elections by majority vote with no parties, only individual candidates, and the revision of all privatization deals and concessions of the last 20 years.
Outraged about poverty & corruption, 50,000 demonstrate in Varna - tens of thousands more across dozens of cities in Bulgaria
March 3, 2013
Tens of thousands of Bulgarians furious over poverty and corruption protested in more than a dozen cities on Sunday, as a lack of clear support for any political party mired the country in limbo days after the government was toppled.
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov quit along with his centre-right government on Wednesday after two weeks of sometimes violent protests. He remains in office until an interim government is appointed, most likely next week, which will take Bulgaria to elections due on May 12.
However Bulgarians are still struggling to unite behind a single political leader or give voice to a clear set of demands.
Polls suggest neither Borisov’s rightist GERB party nor the opposition Socialist Party has enough support for an overall majority, and whichever wins the election will have to try to assemble a coalition to form a working government.
Thousands of people took to the streets of cities including the capital Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas, Blagoevgrad, Ruse and Sliven on Sunday - a national holiday. In the biggest rally, about 50,000 protested in the Black Sea city of Varna, local media reported.
“It is obvious that the protesters are not united and this could very quickly destroy the enthusiasm of the people,” said Georgi Trendafilov, a demonstrator in Sofia downtown.
Six years after joining the European Union, Bulgaria trails far behind other members. Its justice system is subject to special monitoring and it is excluded from the passport-free Schengen zone because of other members’ concerns about graft.
The country’s public debt is one of the lowest in the bloc but business cartels, corruption and wages that are less than half the EU average, have kept many from feeling the benefit.
It also has the cheapest electricity costs in the EU but an increase in prices since last July under an energy market liberalisation has made it harder for Bulgarians to heat their homes through a cold winter.
Power Protests
The demonstrations began with a handful of youngsters protesting against high electricity bills. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets, angered by their low living standards.
President Rosen Plevneliev said an interim government would aim for stability by sticking to the 2013 budget, which foresees a deficit of 1.3 percent of GDP, and implementing previous commitments such as a 9 percent increase in pensions from April.
He also said he would set up a 35-member public council to advise the interim government and re-present the people’s interests. But consultations for the establishment of the council at the presidency collapsed on Saturday.
Representatives of protesters, objecting to the inclusion of some wealthy businessmen, walked out of the talks. They said they could not “sit at the same table with those they were fighting”.
“We are going out to fight until the end, we will not negotiate with oligarchs,” said Angel Slavchev, one of the leaders of the demonstrations. A trade union leader also quit, objecting to the composition of the council.
Earlier this week, Borisov, described as “a lone player” by analysts, dismissed the idea of a governing national unity coalition and said such a move could benefit nationalist parties such as far-right Attack.
Support for Borisov’s rightist GERB party has fallen over the last year, and it is now neck-and-neck with the opposition Socialist Party.
Just before resigning, Borisov had proposed to cut electricity prices by 8 percent and alarmed investors by saying the government would revoke the distribution licence of the Czech utility CEZ, risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic and EU.
The energy regulator proposed a smaller, 6.4 percent cut on Friday, a few days after CEZ and the other two distributors, Austria’s EVN and the Czech firm Energo-Pro, said they had done nothing wrong.
Guinea protesters continue to clash with oppressive security forces
February 28, 2013
Guinea security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at thousands of anti-government protesters in the seaside capital Conakry on Wednesday in clashes that wounded more than two dozen people, sources said.
The violence in the West African state is a result of soaring tensions ahead of a parliamentary election the opposition says is being rigged by the administration of President Alpha Conde.
“We don’t know how it started, but the security forces charged the crowd and fired tear gas,” said Ousmane Camara, a Conakry resident at the protest in the city’s Hamdallaye neighborhood, an opposition stronghold.
Another witness said security forces had wounded at least two people, including a child, with live rounds and were using truncheons to push back other demonstrators, who threw stones and chunks of concrete, and set fire to tires.
A security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that 16 police and gendarmes had been admitted to hospital with wounds after the initial clashes. Sources said injuries among the protesters were likely higher.
It was unclear if there were any dead, and witnesses said demonstrations were ongoing.
Guinea’s opposition coalition had called for widespread protests in Conakry after announcing last week it would boycott preparations for long-delayed legislative polls, claiming the run up to the vote was flawed.
The election set for May 12 is intended to be the last step in Guinea’s transition to civilian rule after two years under a violent army junta following the death of long-time leader Lansana Conte in 2008.
President Alpha Conde won a 2010 presidential election in the world’s top supplier of bauxite, the raw material in aluminium, but delays in the legislative vote have deepened a political deadlock and led to intermittent violence.
The opposition says the elections commission chose the poll date unilaterally and that two companies contracted to update voter rolls have skewed the lists in Conde’s favor. They also want Guineans living abroad to be allowed to vote.
Thousands of people had participated in peaceful protests across Guinea last week in support of opposition demands. The parliamentary poll was originally due to be held in 2011 but has already been delayed four times.
The uprising in Slovenia: Europe’s latest popular challenge to austerity & corruption
February 20, 2013
During the crisis in Europe we’ve seen democracy harmed by the power of financial markets. Take Greece and Italy, where investors essentially decided who would become those countries’ banker-prime ministers without so much as consulting the citizenry. In this kind of anti-democratic climate, protesters despite their growing numbers remained unheard.
This time, though, as mass demonstrations grow into the tens of thousands in recent weeks, people in Slovenia have a chance to make a difference.
This small country of 2 million, lodged in the middle of Europe, belonged to Yugoslavia until 1989 though today it is more similar economically to its northern neighbor Austria than to other post-Yugoslav republics. Slovenians joined the European Union in 2004 and the Euro-zone in 2007.
With an export-oriented economy that has done quite well, Slovenia became something of an example for other countries to follow. It inherited certain social characteristics from the former Yugoslavia, which enabled it to share common goods relatively equally and keep the income gap small; meanwhile, its solidly democratic foundations provided wide legislative representation.
But the dark days arrived here too after September 15, 2008 and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Slovenia’s export-driven economy couldn’t protect itself against the recession that hit other European countries, and many companies went bankrupt. According to the National Bank of Slovenia, the percentage of all unpaid credits as a result of companies which sank and failed to pay back loans is 13 percent; other economists say the number could be as high as 25 percent.
In short, Slovenia may soon be the next EU member in need of a bailout.
This comes at a time when the situation for ordinary people is worsening as the unemployment rate has climbed to 12.2 percent. Meanwhile, a political impasse over the last year enabled Janez Janša and his right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party to form a government that subsequently started to decrease public spending.
Social programs that help the unemployed, students and retirees have started, like elsewhere, to be cut. Under the growing pressure of austerity, vocal groups of protestors are now appearing in the streets—most recently, from an unexpected turn of events.
Last October, Franc Kangler, the mayor of Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city, decided to build a speed camera system throughout the city and its neighborhoods. Speed traps were imposed by a private-public partnership, and within the first few days the system detected 25,000 traffic offenses. People were outraged—even more so when they discovered that only 8% of the fines were transferred to the city budget. The rest, 92 percent, went to the private company.
The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, an independent state body, accused Kangler of violating the law and began an investigation into the speed camera contract. Meanwhile, 10 of the city’s 30 speed traps were physically destroyed during protests—the biggest of which took place on Dec. 3, when 20,000 people amassed and demanded Kangler’s resignation.
Three days later, amid ongoing protests and unyielding accusations of corruption, Kangler stepped down as mayor. But that was only a beginning.
Since then, allegations of corruption have been leveled against Slovenia’s Prime Minister, Janez Janša, and against Zoran Janković, the mayor of the capital Ljubljana and leader of the biggest opposition party, Positive Slovenia.
On Jan. 8, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption affirmed that Janković and Janša “systematically and repeatedly violated the law.” Prime Minister Janša, who was already on trial for corruption, is now being forced to report how he earned—and why he did not previously report earning—more then 200,000 euros in income.
For his part, Mayor Janković is in the position of explaining why companies that cooperated with the city of Ljubljana also transferred money into his private account.
The success of the demonstrations in Maribor has encouraged Slovenians nationwide now to enter into the streets in protests that are loud and growing louder. “People simply can’t stand having corrupted politicians using people’s hard earned money for their own corrupted interests any more,” said one Slovenian woman protester.
The impacts of increased austerity policies are fanning the fire, and protests continued over the past month with Slovenians demanding the resignations of both Janša and Janković. On Jan. 8, 8,000 people turned out to march in Ljubljana. Then, last Friday, Feb. 8, some 20,000 demonstrators filled the streets of the capital, which has about 280,000 residents.
Due to the wave of protests, the governing coalition has lost its majority in parliament. Zoran Janković has stepped down as his party’s leader, though he remains the mayor of Ljubljana. Meanwhile, all signs point to early Slovenian elections.
What is happening right now in Slovenia is extraordinary: people are exercising their power in the streets to peacefully shift authority away from corrupt elected officials. Some have called the movement an uprising.
The real challenge, however, and the bigger question still to be answered, is how to rebuild a political and economic landscape after the hurricane sweeps through.
An international call to action: Nearly 40 events will mark Pfc. B. Manning’s 1,000 day imprisoned without trial across the world - show your support for the WikiLeaks whistleblower & exposing war crimes this Saturday, February 23.
U.S. Events
Tucson, AZ Feb 23, 11am-5pm
Tempe, AZ Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm
Guerneville, CA Feb 23, 12-1pm
Cahuenga (L.A.), CA Feb 23, 9-11am
Los Angeles, CA Feb 23, 5:30-6:30
Long Beach (L.A.), CA
Feb 23 at 1pm until Feb 24 at 2pm
Montrose (L.A.), CA Feb 23, 5:30-7pm
Studio City (L.A.), CA Feb 22, 6:30-7:30pm
San Francisco, CA Feb 23, 1-4pm
San Diego, CA Feb 23, 7-9pm
Denver, CO Feb 23, 12-3:30pm
Washington, DC Feb 24, 6:30-9pm
Ft. Lauderdale, FL Feb 23, 12-1:30pm
Pensacola, FL Feb 23, 5:30-6:30pm
Tallahassee, FL Feb 23, 12-1pm
Honolulu, HI Feb 22, 4-5:30pm
Chicago, IL Feb 23, 12-1:30pm
Ft. Leavenworth, KS Feb 23, 1-3pm
Boston, MA Feb 23, 1-2pm
Augusta, ME Feb 23, 11:30am-12pm
Portland, ME Feb 23, 12pm
Detroit, MI Feb 23, 3-8pm
Minneapolis, MN Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm
New York, NY Feb 23, 2-4pm
Toledo, OH Feb 23, 12pm
Corvallis, OR ongoing
Philadelphia, PA Feb 23, 2-4pm
Seattle, WA Feb 23, 12-4pm
International Events
Melbourne, Australia Feb 22, 2-4pm
Sydney, Australia Feb 23, 11am-2pm
Vancouver, Canada Feb 23, 1-5pm
London, England Feb 23, 2pm
Yorkshire, England Feb 23, 11am
Fairford, Gloucestershire Feb 23, 9:30am-12pm
Cardiff, Wales Feb 23, 10:30am-2:30pm
Berlin, Germany Feb 23, 12:30-3pm
Rome, Italy Feb 23, 4-5pm
Scotland ongoing
Ireland ongoing
Spread the word. FREE MANNING NOW!
UN committee ‘deeply concerned’ as US lets sexual abuse slide in religious groups
February 19, 2013
At a moment of turmoil for the Catholic Church following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, a UN committee is accusing American law enforcement of being soft on child sex abuse in religious groups – a problem infamously associated with the Church.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child stated in a February 2013 report that it was “deeply concerned” by systemic sexual abuse by higher-ups and staff of religious institutions. Most troubling was a “lack of measures taken by [American legal authorities] to properly investigate cases and prosecute those accused,” partially because of “a lack of measures … to properly investigate cases and prosecute them.”
The report, adopted in Geneva during a routine review of US compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 1, urged American law enforcement officials to create such measures in order to get to work revealing cases of sexual abuse and taking predators to court.
Authorities from various religions have been accused and convicted of sexually abusing children, but none on the scale of the Catholic Church, which in the US alone has paid out some $2 billion in damages to victims of sexual abuse over the years.
“The committee is deeply concerned at information of sexual abuse committed by clerics and leading members of certain faith-based organisations and religious institutions on a massive and long-term scale,” the report continues.
The problem of sexual predators in the clergy weighed heavily on Pope Benedict XVI, who after his publicly announced resignation, will step down as head of the Church on February 28. During his tenure the pope has visited and personally apologized victims the world over, but there is still a steady stream of new information about ongoing abuse within the Church.
Britain’s National Secular Society, a group that lobbies against privileged treatment for religious organizations at the UN, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of covering up abuse and getting in the way of the law.
“We can only hope that his successor opens the secret files and treats victims with the respect they deserve,” the group’s chief Keith Porteous Wood said in a statement.
Sexual abuse by Catholic priests and other Church clergy and staff have been reported since the 1980s, but became more widely-known after a culture of cover-ups and relocations for predators became the subject of American media scrutiny in 2002.
Following the bad publicity, Catholic officials in many countries began taking measures to mitigate the problem, in part by preventing what it saw as potential abusers from being able to enter the priesthood.
Pakistan govt signs deal with protesters to dissolve parliament
January 17, 2013
A team of Pakistani ministers and political leaders have struck a deal with protesters, dubbed the “Islamabad Long March Declaration”.The document provides for the dissolution of parliament and snap elections, RT’s correspondent in Islamabad reports.
RT’s Tariq Muhiyuddin says the parliament will be dissolved before March 16 and elections will be held in 90 days, according to the deal.
The document is yet to be signed by the Prime Minister, however.
Muslim Cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri, along with his supporters, has been staging street protests in the capital for several days calling on the government to resign.
On Thursday, Qadri and the government negotiators spent over four hours in talks. Emerging from the meeting, the cleric said an agreement had been reached and called it the ‘Islamabad Long March Declaration’.
He added that he would put a halt to the street protest in Islamabad. Once the document is signed by the PM, he will read it out at the main site of the protests, Jinnah Avenue.
More than 1,000 anti-government protesters descended upon Kuwait Sunday even though unauthorized political rallies are banned. Protesters demanded an end to government corruption & that the new parliament be dissolved.
The demonstration was met with riot police, tear gas & stun grenades. More than 20 people have been arrested so far.
Thousands gather at unsanctioned opposition protest against Putin
December 15, 2012
Thousands of people challenged the administration of President Vladimir Putin in a defiant, unsanctioned gathering amid temperatures that hovered around minus 17 C.
“Respected citizens, this event is against Moscow laws, please walk to the Metro in order not to be detained,” repeated policemen — who numbered in the hundreds — over a megaphone throughout the meeting.
The crowd did not heed the call.
The gathering took place on Lubyanka Square, across the street from the headquarters of the FSB, the successor organization to the KGB. Protesters laid white flowers — the color of the opposition — on the Solovetsky stone, a memorial to victims of the Gulag, erected after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Police and special forces presence was significant, and officers numbered in the hundreds. Buses lined surrounding streets with buses waiting to be used for detained protesters, and a helicopter hovered low, apparently in an attempt to drown out noise from protesters.
Neither heavy security nor freezing cold temperatures deterred protesters, about 2,000 to 3,000, including families with children, and teenagers with iPads tweeting to pensioners. By attending an unsanctioned gathering, all of them were risking fines up to about $9,000, — or $18,000 for organizers — as the result of a law signed by Putin in June.
“I am not afraid to be here — Putin should be afraid of us,” said Lilia Sokolova of Moscow, who said that she had protested since the 1960s in the Soviet Union.
“This is the warmest place in Moscow!” quipped longtime opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, who was deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin.
Protesters did not only include liberal figures such as Nemtsov; nationalists, libertarians and gay rights activists also came to Lubyanka. (Communists, however, held their own sanctioned rally earlier Saturday in another part of Moscow where protests frequently occur.) The disparate groups share a deep desire to see Putin leave office after almost 13 years in power.
“I don’t want our freedom to depend on one person,” said Alexander Bolgov, a protester from Moscow. “That is stupidity.”
“The fish rots from the head,” said Valentina Ostak-Pengur of Moscow, who rejected that the so-called war on corruption waged by Putin — mostly involving sacking key officials such as Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov — was anything significant.
The most famous anti-corruption leader inside and outside of Russia — lawyer and blogger Alexei Navalny — came to the rally and was immediately swarmed by reporters, photographers and fans. He stood in a scrum and greeted the crowd before being detained by police. Russian investigators accused him and his brother, Oleg, of fraud and money laundering on Friday — charges that he rejects as politically motivated.
Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov was detained much more quickly, as was Ksenia Sobchak, who is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the former St. Petersburg mayor and the mentor to both Putin and Dimitry Medvedev. All three of them were released later Saturday.
The rally was nowhere near the size of other protests that began after the Duma elections Dec. 4, 2011, tainted by widespread fraud. But unlike some of those protests, authorities did not approve the rally after negotiations broke down earlier this week.
“I am furious that our protest demonstration was not officially sanctioned despite the fact that we had applied for the permission to hold a rally in time. We have never been violent. So, they have no right to deny us permission,” said pensioner Tamara Kozhevnikova.
The police, after about an hour and a half of allowing the protesters to mill about, began to detain people, dragging them out the square. People chanted, “Shame! Shame!” and “Russia Without Putin!” But the protest only ended when officers, with their arms locked to form a chain, pushed the crowd out of the square and into the cold Moscow evening.
Too big to jail: HSBC financed terrorists, narcotics trafficking & walked away scot-free
December 13, 2012
The New York Times reports this week that megabank HSBC has escaped criminal prosecution for money laundering that probably funded terrorists and narcotics traffickers. Why? Because regulators and prosecutors were petrified that an indictment would undermine the entire financial system. The Times quotes anonymous government sources who confessed fears about bringing formal charges because doing so would be a “death sentence” for the bank. So they let it off the hook.
That’s right, HSBC is officially above the law. Too-big-to-fail has become too-big-to-prosecute.
A year-long investigation found that the British banking giant had blown right past federal laws by laundering billions of dollars from Mexican drug trafficking and processing banned transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma. A Wednesday Times article serves up vivid passages about the shady goings-on, including HSBC officials working closely with Saudi Arabian banks linked to terrorist organizations. According to the report, “the four-count criminal information filed in the court charged HSBC with failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, to conduct due diligence on its foreign correpsondent affiliates and for violating sanctions and the Trading With the Enemy Act.”
In a statement, the bank said it “will acknowledge that, in the past, we have sometimes failed to meet the standards that regulators and customers expect.” HSBC apologized and promised never, ever to do it again, scout’s honor.
I’m pretty sure I know what would happen to me if I stole a loaf of bread from the corner store. But a big bank can act as financier to freaking terrorists and never worry about things like jail. Funny how a corporation is a person until it breaks the law.
Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a congressional watchdog panel, observed that “the culture at HSBC was pervasively polluted for a long time.” Now we can be certain it will remain so. Criminal activity has been legitimized. In the world of banking, crime pays, big-time.
A number of recent bank scandals, including the Barclays LIBOR rate-fixing revelation, demonstrate that big banks are behaving with blithe disregard for the law and they are avoiding criminal prosecution by paying fines – the cost of doing shady business. The prosecutors and regulators involved in the decision to let HSBC off with a wrist-slapping fine of $1.9 billion (half a quarter’s profit) have officially declared that they are not working in the public interest. They are being paid by taxpayers to protect big banks. Shouldn’t they be on the banks’ payroll?
Simply saying that a bank is too big to prosecute is a travesty of justice. If prosecutors could not charge HSBC, they could charge individuals within the bank. And if they can’t charge HSBC without killing it and endangering the whole system, then something obviously needs to change. Here’s an idea: break up the big banks.
Full article
Do drugs? Go to prison. Lauder billions for drug cartels? Pay a fine & continue business as usual.
Argentina sex slavery court ruling sparks riots
December 13, 2012
Riots have broken out in Argentina after 13 people were acquitted over the disappearance of a young woman who was allegedly kidnapped and forced into sex slavery.
The court ruling has also prompted calls by political leaders to impeach the three judges who delivered the verdict.
Many have called the ruling a setback for Argentina’s efforts to combat sex trafficking.
When Maria de los Angeles “Marita” Veron vanished in 2002, her mother, Susana Trimarco, launched a one-woman campaign to find her - and rescued hundreds of women from sex slavery along the way.
Ms Trimarco’s search exposed an underworld of organised crime figures who operate brothels with protection from authorities across Argentina.
The 13 people on trial - seven men and six women - faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted on charges they abducted Ms Veron and made her work as a prostitute.
The three-judge panel delayed for more than four hours on Tuesday night before reading their unanimous verdict: not guilty of any of the charges.
The courtroom erupted at the news, with the defendants sobbing and spectators shouting expletives.
President Cristina Fernandez personally called Ms Trimarco to express her surprise and outrage.
“I thought I would find her destroyed, but I found her more together than ever, more committed to keep fighting,” she said.
Ms Fernandez also said that while she cannot prove it, she is sure that judicial corruption influenced the verdicts.
Security Minister Nilda Garre called the verdict “a tremendous slap in the face for the prospect of justice”.
The judges later explained from the bench that despite the testimony of more than 130 witnesses, including a dozen former sex slaves who described brutal conditions in brothels, there was no physical evidence linking any of the defendants to Ms Veron, and no trace of her whereabouts.
Prostitution is legal in Argentina, but managing brothels and trafficking in people have been federal crimes since 2008.
Last year 938 people were saved from trafficking, 215 people from the sex trade and 723 from other workplace exploitation. More than 800 have been rescued so far this year.
Chronicle of a Mexico without a president
December 10, 2012
In Mexico, December 1, 2012, will be remembered as the day that an imposition was legitimized.
Enrique Peña Nieto — his name is often abbreviated in Mexico as “EPN” — took the reins of power in the context of deep indignation and amidst heavy state crackdown against crowds of protesters. A number of actions were planned in Mexico City to show the illegitimacy of Peña Nieto’s presidency, particularly given the unfair media attention he received and the electoral fraud that took place to ensure his victory.
On that day, Mexico’s historic center and the congressional buildings were a microcosm of the Mexican state as a whole. The Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, which houses Mexico’s Congress, appeared to be a giant fortress, deaf to the rubber bullets and tear gas grenades that the federal police fired at protesters. Nearby, thepresidential palace stood on one side of the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City.
Across the street from the palace, Alameda central park had been turned into a battleground between protesters and police. The violence forced the“embroiderers for peace” — a group of artists who had gathered to display embroidered handkerchiefs that symbolized those killed or disappeared during former president Calderón’s six-year drug war — to withdraw from their peaceful protest.
Meanwhile, over televisions across the country, Mexicans participated in a society of spectacle as they watched Peña Nieto’s inauguration. Just outside the media bubble, however, shouts of indignation rose in the streets. At a restaurant on 5 de Mayo Street, Peña Nieto’s voice declared from a television screen, “Two thousand one hundred and ninety-one days are sufficient to lay the foundation to make Mexico a prosperous country.” In the meantime, the repression continued in the historical center of the city, resulting in more than 170 arrests, and another hundred injured, many seriously. All of the violence and outcry occurred just feet from the media spectacle that protected the so-called “imposition.”
As EPN lifted his right hand and promised to protect the Constitution, the story of a Mexico without a president began. The inauguration was marked by discontent and indignation in the streets, juxtaposed against the sense of denial — “nothing to see here” — taking place in a presidential palace living in a media bubble.
“I will govern looking out for the well-being and prosperity of the union, and if I don’t accomplish it, may the nation demand it of me,” Peña Nieto declared in his inauguration speech.
This speech and the government-controlled narrative of the day’s event have been widely broadcast. But the story of the day’s protests tended to be suppressed and distorted by official propaganda.
