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December 30, 2011
'UK equipped Saddam during war on Iran'
Secret documents have revealed that the British government clandestinely supplied the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime with military equipment during his eight-year-long imposed war on Iran. Although the British government had repeatedly denied allegations that the UK assisted Saddam Hussein in his eight-year imposed war on Iran insisting Britain was officially neutral, revealed files show that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher provided the Iraqi regime with 78 different types of military equipment.
Read article on the Press TV website (Iran)
December 19, 2011
Argentina tango lessons: Europe's turn for financial danse macabre?
Exactly ten years ago Argentina suffered a full-scale financial and governmental collapse. That was the end-result of over a decade of doing exactly what the IMF, international bankers, rating agencies and global “experts” told us to do.
Read article by Adrian Salbuchi on the Russia Today website
December 14, 2011
Poland Protesters Blast EU Plan
WARSAW – Thousands of protesters marched through the heart of the Polish capital Tuesday night, shouting their opposition to the European Union's latest plans to rescue the euro zone and demanding that Poland's government not participate. Waving red-and-white Polish flags and chanting, “We want sovereignty, not the euro,” the demonstrators marked the anniversary of the communist-era imposition of martial law here by decrying proposed new EU limits on state budgets as an unwarranted loss of national independence.
Read article in the Wall Street Journal (USA)
December 14, 2011
Polish opposition: EU fiscal treaty means German rule
Opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said Polish leaders at last week's EU summit sold the country's sovereignty to Germany for the sake of "private interests." Kaczynski made the accusations at a rally in Warsaw on Tuesday (13 December) that saw several thousand people turn out to mark the 30th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Communist times. "Herr Tusk and Sikorski: serve the Germans in Berlin, leave Poland to the Poles," one banner proclaimed. "Euro macht frei," another one said, referring to the motto of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.
Read article at euobserver.com
December 12, 2011
Disgraced German re-emerges as European Commission adviser
Brussels – Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a disgraced German politician who went into self-imposed exile nine months ago, re-emerged Monday with an honorary post as a European Union adviser.
Read article at monstersandcritics.com
Comment: Notably, Guttenberg was raised from the age of 14 by his step-father, who was the son of a prominent Nazi, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop was Hitler's foreign minister from 1933 to 1945 and coordinated the military component of WWII, the Oil and Drug Cartel's second war of global conquest. In 1947, Ribbentrop was tried in Nuremberg and hanged for his crimes. One may argue that a mere family relationship does not necessarily predetermine allegiances with corporate interests or political strategies. In this case, however, the facts speak for themselves. German defence minister Guttenberg is an adamant advocate of the militarization of Europe and the launch of a European army. Pressured for resignation after publicly defending the killing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan by German troops, Guttenberg responded in front of a German TV audience: “I will definitely stay, even if a storm is blowing. That is the way I have been educated – and that is the way I will behave.” To learn more about the hidden history of the Brussels EU, click here.
December 10, 2011
Euro crisis: US General Martin Dempsey warns of unrest
The top US military commander, Gen Martin Dempsey, says he is concerned about “the potential for civil unrest” as Europe's financial crisis unfolds. Gen Dempsey said it was unclear the latest steps taken by EU leaders would be enough to hold the eurozone together, adding that a break-up could have consequences for the Pentagon.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
December 9, 2011
EU suffers worst split in history as David Cameron blocks treaty change
The European Union suffered the most damaging split in its 54 year history after David Cameron used the British veto to block eurozone treaty change after France and Germany opposed “safeguards” to protect Britain's economy.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
December 9, 2011
Croatia signs treaty to join EU in middle of 2013
Croatia has signed a treaty to make it the 28th member of the European Union from mid-2013, becoming the EU's second ex-Yugoslav member after Slovenia.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
December 8, 2011
Banks Prep for Life After Euro
Countries Study Printing Their Own Notes in Case Monetary Union Unravels
Some central banks in Europe have started weighing contingency plans to prepare for the possibility that countries leave the euro zone or the currency union breaks apart entirely, according to people familiar with the matter.
December 7, 2011
New cases illustrate ‘conflict of interest’ involving former EU staff
Eight new cases “illustrating the extent of Brussels' revolving door problem” have been highlighted in a new report. The eight cases cited by the group Corporate Europe Observatory feature individuals who, it says, have moved through the “revolving door” from the European institutions, including the commission, into private sector lobbying jobs. The Brussels-based group says they have done so “apparently without the proper checks or adequate restrictions being imposed”.
Corporate Europe Observatory says that the “easy shift” from the EU institutions to private sector lobby jobs can create “serious conflicts of interest and lead to privileged access by corporate interests”.
Read article at theparliament.com
December 6, 2011
Euroscepticism hits record high in Sweden: poll
STOCKHOLM - Almost nine out of 10 Swedes want to stay outside the eurozone and keep their currency the krona, a poll published Tuesday showed as the single currency faces its worst crisis since its inception, AFP reported.
Read article on the website of the FOCUS Information Agency (Bulgaria)
December 5, 2011
Fascists enter by the back door
There has been a curious oversight in the mainstream media's coverage of the European Union's replacement of the elected Greek government with one allegedly of "technocrats." This effective coup d'etat involved the replacement of an elected government of social democrats, which was judged unable to carry out the diktats of the unelected triumvirate of European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund, with a team headed by former ECB vice-president Lucas Papademos. The message was that, regrettable though it may be, the Greek people could not be expected to appreciate the ins and outs of the mess that they had got themselves into, and need a team of experts to get them out of it. What they needed, they were told, was a safe pair of hands. The reality of what they got turns out not quite to match this image.
Read article in the Morning Star (UK)
November 29, 2011
Public support for EU social policy in 'dramatic' nose-dive
A regular European Commission social issues survey out on Tuesday (29 November) has shown that the public's belief that the EU is having a positive impact on employment and social policy - policies with the biggest impact on ordinary peoples' lives - has sharply declined in almost all countries. “Compared with 2009, there has been a substantial fall in the number of people who think that the EU has a positive impact,” the survey says.
Read article at euobserver.com
November 28, 2011
Forget Fracking, Vitamin B12 Could Make Fuel Cells Cheaper
Vitamin B12 could replace platinum as a catalyst in fuel cells, and that could lead to a new generation of emission free, low cost hydrogen fuel cells for cars and other vehicles. Aside from helping to reduce the use of petroleum-fueled vehicles, cheaper fuel cells could also help ease some of the pressure to drill for more natural gas. Natural gas is emerging as a low-emission alternative fuel for vehicles, but given the environmental risks and community disruption caused by fracking (a method of drilling that involves pumping chemicals underground), natural gas is not the kind of long term, sustainable solution that fuel cells have the potential to offer.
Read article at cleantechnica.com
Comment: Energy for All – through ending the world"s dependency on oil and bringing about a global change to renewable energy – is one of the main goals of the Movement of Life. To learn more about the Movement of Life, and support its campaign for Health, Peace and Social Justice for All, click here.
November 24, 2011
Campaigners call for more transparency on ex-commission officials
A report says that "too few" checks are being made on ex-commission officials who move into jobs in the lobby industry. It says this potentially can result in "abuses of power".
Read article at theparliament.com
November 23, 2011
Britain"s Cover-Up of Inside Job in Fatal RAF Chinook Crash
Evidence points to liquidation of British counterinsurgency team to trick Irish republicans into a defeating political process
For 17 years the British authorities have lied about the fatal RAF helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre in which 25 senior counterinsurgency personnel were killed. Now Global Research reveals new evidence showing that the loss of life was an intentional act of sabotage.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
November 23, 2011
Bush, Blair found guilty of war crimes
A Malaysian tribunal has found former US President George W Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war, Press TV reported. The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found the former heads of state guilty after a four-day hearing. A seven-member panel chaired by former Malaysian Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman presided over the trial. The five panel tribunal unanimously decided that the former US and British leaders had committed crimes against peace and humanity, and also violated international law when they ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The prosecutors at the hearing ruled that the invasion of Iraq was a flagrant abuse of law, and act of aggression which amounted to a mass murder of the Iraqi people.
Read article on the Press TV website (Iran)
Comment: Our organization has long taken a leading role in calling for Bush and Blair to stand trial for war crimes. To read about the formal Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Bush, Blair and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the "business with disease", war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.
November 17, 2011
Bilderberg Leader Mario Monti Takes Over Italy in 'Coup'
Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Monti, who rose to power in what critics called a “coup d’etat,” is a prominent member of the world elite in the truest sense of the term. In fact, he is a leader in at least two of the most influential cabals in existence today: the secretive Bilderberg Group and David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission. Nicknamed “Super Mario,” Monti is also an “international advisor” to the infamous Goldman Sachs, one of the most powerful financial firms in the world. Critics refer to the giant bank as the “Vampire Squid” after a journalist famously used the term in a hit piece. But its tentacles truly do reach into the highest levels of governments worldwide.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
November 15, 2011
Activists in Malaysia plan 'war crime trial' of George W. Bush and Tony Blair
Malaysian-led activists will hold a symbolic trial this month for former President George W. Bush and British ex-leader Tony Blair on charges of committing crimes against peace in the Iraq war, the event's organisers said on Tuesday. The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is an initiative of Malaysia's retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who staunchly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 10, 2011
MEPs hit out over 'shameful' report on EU accounts
MEPs say that EU leaders should be "shamed" by the latest report of the European Court of Auditors. One MEP said the latest annual report on the EU accounts for 2010, published on Wednesday, "once again found them riddled with fraud and waste". The court said that overall 3.7 per cent of the EU's €122bn budget in 2010 was spent in error or against EU rules. In the area of cohesion, energy and transport, the figure was as high as 7.7 per cent of total spending. The report suggests that 'irregularities' - or possible fraud in layman's terms - are on the rise from their previous 2009 report.
Read article at theparliament.com
November 8, 2011
EFSA's 2009 report on pesticides residues in food shows: EU food still heavily contaminated with dangerous cocktails of pesticides.
The 2009 EU report on pesticide residues, published today by EFSA, shows food on the European market is still heavily contaminated with cocktails of pesticides. The percentage of EU food in shops and markets with multiple residues remains at a high level of 25.1%, meaning only a slight improvement in the last 5 years of reporting. The highest reported number of pesticide residues in one food item remains at 26: One sample analysed in the Netherlands (raisins from Turkey) with 26 different pesticides!
Read press release at pan-europe.info
November 5, 2011
Europe's democratic deficit grows wider by the day
The Eurocracy's contempt for the nation-states it governs is growing ever more flagrant.
It isn’t often that you are aware of the world order changing before your eyes. Last week, the European Union effectively undermined the democratically elected government of one member state and put another one on notice.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 3, 2011
Greek public 'should have the right to say' in referendum
Party of European Socialists president Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has called for "everyone to respect the right of Greek people to express their will freely" in the referendum called by the country's prime minister George Papandreou. Speaking on Thursday, Rasmussen, a former Danish MEP, said, "It is difficult for those outside Greece to realise the extent of the sacrifices that Greek citizens are making.
Read article at theparliament.com
November 2, 2011
Citizens may be compelled to appear before EU parliament
Plans to allow parliament the right to summon any resident of the EU to appear before it have been branded a "huge power grab". The attack comes after parliament adopted a report by UK Labour MEP David Martin, allowing MEPs to summon any resident of the EU concerning a matter of European law. The report also says the assembly should have the right to demand a resident testifies under oath at a parliamentary inquiry and impose sanctions through the member state if the person does not comply.
Read article at theparliament.com
November 1, 2011
Death knell for a Greek debt deal
Paris and Berlin trembled overnight after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou unveiled surprise plans to hold a rare national referendum on Greece’s latest bailout package. According to French newspaper Le Monde French President Nicolas Sarkozy was dismayed by the announcement, believing that the agreement that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had hammered out last week – which boosted the firepower of the eurozone’s bailout fund and forced banks to write off 50 per cent of their Greek debts – had been enough to ensure that the eurozone debt crisis would not spread to Italy.
Read article on the Business Spectator website (Australia)
Comment: Sarkozy’s reported “dismay” – and the Brussels EU’s shock and fury – stems from the fact that the Oil and Drug Cartel’s political stakeholders habitually eschew democracy in favor of dictatorship. For anyone who had previously been in any doubt about this, the passing of the dictatorial Lisbon Treaty – with less than 1% of Europe’s population being permitted to vote on it in referendums – provided the final sobering proof. In choosing to let the Greek people decide for themselves whether their country should now come under almost total control by the Brussels EU, Greek Prime Minister Papandreou would be making it possible for the dictatorial and financial domination of his country to be democratically rejected.
November 1, 2011
Financial crisis: Eurocrats are terrified of democracy
Greece’s prime minister George Papandreou is in the doghouse only because he dared to offer voters a choice. Shall I tell you the truly terrifying thing about the EU? It’s not the absence of democracy in Brussels, or the ease with which Eurocrats swat aside referendum results. It’s the way in which the internal democracy of the member states is subverted in order to sustain the requirements of membership. George Papandreou, the luckless Greek leader, is the latest politician to find himself being chewed up because he stands in the way of the Brussels machine. On Monday afternoon, Papandreou announced a referendum on whether to accept the EU’s bail-out terms.
Read blog entry by Daniel Hannan on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
October 31, 2011
Did the Euro’s Architects Expect It to Fail?
Could it be that the politicians and eurocrats who designed the structures of the euro zone always knew they were flawed, but reasoned that a structural breakdown would enable them to bring in the common fiscal policy that would otherwise have been politically impossible?
Read blog entry by Martin Essex on the Wall Street Journal website (USA)
October 31, 2011
Belgium aims to phase out nuclear power by 2025
Belgian's main political parties have reached an agreement to shut down the country's two nuclear power plants on the condition that they can find alternative sources of energy to prevent energy shortages.
Read article on the Deutsche Welle website (Germany)
Comment: Belgium’s announcement follows that of the German government in May of this year, which has agreed to shut down all its country's nuclear power plants by 2022.
October 27, 2011
Europe could be plunged into war if efforts to save euro fail: German Chancellor
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has issued a warning that European countries could end up warring with each other if the euro collapses.
Read news report at yahoo.com
Comment: Merkel’s statement follows the recent illuminating analysis of
the Polish Finance Minister, Jacek Rostowski. Providing evidence that the message of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation’s book has now reached the minds of the European political elite, and with EU leaders scrambling to contain the panic, Rostowski spoke candidly of the risk of war on the continent within 10 years if the eurozone collapses.
October 26, 2011
Public in no mood to amend Lisbon deal
The Irish electorate is likely to reject any attempt to amend the Lisbon Treaty to deal with the financial crisis in the European Union, according to the latest Irish Times /Ipsos MRBI poll. When asked how they would vote on an amendment to the Lisbon Treaty to extend the powers of the EU to deal with the financial crisis, 47 per cent said they would vote No; 28 per cent said they would vote Yes; and 25 per cent were undecided.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
October 20, 2011
Revealed – the Capitalist Network that Runs the World
As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
October 10, 2011
Electronic Surveillance Scandal Hits Germany
A German hacker organization claims to have cracked spying software allegedly used by German authorities. The Trojan horse has functions which go way beyond those allowed by German law. The news has sparked a wave of outrage among politicians and media commentators. It sounds like something out of George Orwell's novel "1984" -- a computer program that can remotely control someone's computer without their knowledge, search its complete contents and use it to conduct audio-visual surveillance via the microphone or webcam. But the spy software that the famous German hacker organization Chaos Computer Club has obtained is not used by criminals looking to steal credit-card data or send spam e-mails. If the CCC is to be believed, the so-called "Trojan horse" software was used by German authorities.
Read article in Spiegel Online (Germany)
Comment: As the world’s leading exporter of chemicals and one of the main drug exporting nations, Germany plays a key role in the ‘Brussels EU’ dictatorship. Significantly, therefore, the surveillance strategies being used to enforce the ‘Brussels EU’ regime are directly descended from those used by the Nazis following the adoption of the Oil and Drug Cartel’s Enabling Act by the German Parliament in 1933. To learn more, read chapter 5 of “The Nazi Roots of the ‘Brussels EU’”.
October 6, 2011
Soros fails to reverse insider dealing conviction
European Court of Human Rights rejects hedge fund billionaire's claim that French law was unclear
George Soros, the hedge fund billionaire, has failed in his latest attempt to overturn an insider dealing conviction handed out in France 23 years ago. The European Court of Human Rights rejected his argument that French law on insider trading was not sufficiently clear to provide grounds for a conviction.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: Accused in court by the Dr. Rath Health Foundation of having funded the ARV drug-promoting Treatment Action Campaign to the tune of 1.4 million South African Rand, George Soros has invested heavily in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors over the years, buying large holdings in companies including Pfizer and Monsanto. Nevertheless, despite Soros’ conviction for insider share dealing, it is notable that Jimmy Wales’ Wikimedia Foundation, of which Wikipedia is a project, continues to list his so-called “Open Society Institute” as one of its main supporters.
October 6, 2011
Germany may buy Greeks' sunshine
As Germany's economy minister, Philipp Rösler, arrives in Athens to drum up investment, Greece is hoping solar energy can help it out of its debt crisis
Germany's economy minister, Philipp Rösler, arrived in Athens on Thursday with businessmen, entrepreneurs, financiers and green energy experts in what was billed as a potentially groundbreaking visit to draw badly needed investment into the debt-stricken country.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
October 5, 2011
Speculation in Agricultural Commodities: Driving up the Price of Food Worldwide and plunging Millions into Hunger
In late 2006, the price of food and other commodities began rising precipitately, continuing throughout 2007 and peaking in 2008. Millions were cast below the poverty line and food riots erupted across the developing world, from Haiti to Mozambique. While analysts initially framed the crisis in terms of market fundamentals (such as rising population, increased demand for resource-intensive food, declining stockpiles, biofuel and agricultural subsidies, and crop shortfalls from natural disasters), a growing number of experts have tied the massive spikes to financial intermediation.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
October 4, 2011
Vladimir Putin wants Soviet-style power bloc to rival EU
Vladimir Putin has said he wants to forge a "Eurasian Union" on the vast swath of territory that used to be the Soviet Union to compete with the European Union and the United States. Speaking six months before he reassumes the Russian presidency for the third time, Mr Putin said he wanted to create a global power bloc that would straddle one fifth of the earth's surface and unite almost 300 million people.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 30, 2011
Half of all Germans want to ditch euro
Half of Germans want to ditch the euro and return to the deutschmark, a major survey showed just a day after Angela Merkel drove through a vote in favour of a Greek bailout. The poll conducted for respected newspaper Die Welt showed 50% of Germans wanting a return to the old currency and only 48% supporting the euro.
Read article in the Evening Standard (UK)
September 28, 2011
MEP hits out at plans for EU 'schools propaganda'
A UK Conservative MEP has hit out against commission plans which she fears will lead to schoolchildren being "force-fed pro-Brussels propaganda". She claims the proposals, contained in a report to parliament, could lead to pupils having "compulsory lessons in how to be good Europeans and receiving a biased version of the EU's benefits to society".
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: The EU Commission’s plans follow demands by the so-called “European People's Party” group for school pupils in all EU member states to be forced to take lessons about the bloc. Without doubt, therefore, under the dictatorial regime of the ‘Brussels EU’, such lessons would not result in school pupils being taught the real facts about the bloc and its origins.
September 26, 2011
Blair the envoy 'pushed deals worth billions' for investment bank that pays him £2m a year
Tony Blair is facing fresh questions over his role as a Middle East peace envoy after claims that he has used the position to promote lucrative business deals for clients of an investment bank that pays him £2million a year. As a representative of the Quartet –the UN, the EU, the U.S. and Russia – the former prime minister is tasked with fostering peace between Israel and Palestine. But he has also used the post to promote two contracts worth more than £1billion in Palestine with British Gas and mobile phone firm Wataniya – both major clients of JP Morgan, the U.S. investment bank which employs him as a senior adviser.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: For information on the history of JP Morgan, and its relationship to the Rockefeller family and the Investment 'Business With Disease', click here.
September 19, 2011
Greece may hold referendum on euro zone membership: report
Greece may hold a voter referendum on euro zone membership as a way to strengthen the government's hand in dealing with the debt crisis within the euro zone or by exiting the single currency, the Kathimerini English language newspaper reported on its website on Tuesday.
Read news report at reuters.com
September 14, 2011
Poland warns of war 'in 10 years' as EU leaders scramble to contain panic
Germany, France and the European Commission are scrambling to contain panic and "quash rumours" about a eurozone break-up amid repeated off-piste messages from other senior EU politicians. But even amid their desperate efforts, the finance minister of Poland, the country that currently represents the EU to the world as holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, warned of war on the continent within 10 years if the eurozone collapses.
Read article at euobserver.com
September 13, 2011
New EU members to break free from euro duty
Seven EU members which joined the European Union between 2004 and 2007 are concerned about an obligation to adopt the euro under the terms of their accession and could stage referenda to change their accession treaties, AFP reported, quoting diplomatic sources.
Read article at euractiv.com
September 5, 2011
Herman van Rompuy wants second term as strengthened EU president
Herman van Rompuy is ready to run for a second term as EU president, at the head of a “United States of Europe”. His comments came as Germany further strengthened demands for a new treaty giving the president extra powers.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: Readers who live outside of Europe should not be misled into thinking that van Rompuy will be “running” for EU president in a democratic election. Appointed by an elite circle of corporate interests in November 2009 following his presidential “job interview” being held at a meeting of the Rockefeller-controlled Bilderberg Group, he assumed the post via a political system in which the people of Europe are totally excluded from the selection process. As such, the Brussels EU system of governance reverses all democratic achievements of European civilization over the past thousand years and throws the entire continent back to Medieval times, when autocratic monarchs ruled Europe outside of any democratic control. To learn more about the nature of the Brussels EU, click here.
September 5, 2011
Former UK chancellor calls for Lisbon treaty to be scrapped
Former UK finance minister Lord Lawson is reported in the Daily Express as saying the time has come to scrap the Lisbon treaty. The senior Tory, who was chancellor from 1983 to 1989 uses an article in the Times to say that "eurozone meltdown" is continuing to inflict substantial economic damage, not merely on its member countries but also on the wider world.
Read article at theparliament.com
August 19, 2011
Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances
For many years conventional wisdom has said that the whole world is controlled by the monied elite, or more recently by the huge multi-national corporations that seem to sometime control the very air we breathe. Now, new research by a team based in ETH-Zurich, Switzerland, has shown that what we’ve suspected all along, is apparently true.
Read article at physorg.com
August 17, 2011
Dag Hammarskjöld: evidence suggests UN chief's plane was shot down
Eyewitnesses claim a second aircraft fired at the plane raising questions of British cover-up over the 1961 crash and its causes
New evidence has emerged in one of the most enduring mysteries of United Nations and African history, suggesting that the plane carrying the UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld was shot down over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) 50 years ago, and the murder was covered up by British colonial authorities. A British-run commission of inquiry blamed the crash in 1961 on pilot error and a later UN investigation largely rubber-stamped its findings. They ignored or downplayed witness testimony of villagers near the crash site which suggested foul play.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
August 4, 2011
EC president Jose Barroso warns eurozone debt crisis is spreading from smaller nations
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has warned that the eurozone sovereign debt crisis is spreading from the smaller debt-laden nations to Italy and Spain, the currency area's third- and fourth-largest economies.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
July 31, 2011
The damning of Tony Blair: Former PM to be held to account on Iraq in Chilcot report on war
Tony Blair is to face scathing criticism from the official inquiry into the Iraq War for the role he played in leading Britain into one of its biggest foreign policy fiascos in modern history.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: With even Blair’s own sister-in-law now saying he should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq, it is long since time that he should have been formally charged and brought to trial in the International Criminal Court. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair, George W. Bush, and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.
July 22, 2011
Serbia loses faith in European future
The country is on course to qualify for EU membership but public opinion is becoming more sceptical.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
July 15, 2011
Poll: British People Overwhelmingly Ready to Leave EU
The people of Great Britain have had enough of the European Union and its growing financial difficulties. In fact, according to a recent poll, if they had a choice in the matter, the British would leave the EU as soon as possible.
Read article in The New American (USA)
July 8, 2011
Brussels' Eurocrats see EU project in 'lasting crisis'
A recent survey has found deep pessimism among European Commission staff on a wide range of issues, including the course of European integration over the past decade and the likelihood of success of the EU's strategy for economic growth. Some 63% partially or totally agreed that "the European model has entered into a lasting crisis".
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: European Commission staff are of course correct in recognizing that the so-called ‘EU project’ is in “lasting crisis.” Moreover, with global awareness growing of the construct’s Nazi origins, we can be sure that calls for its dismantling will continue to grow.
June 27, 2011
Mark ‘set for comeback’ as German euro crisis deepens
Almost three-quarters of Germans doubt that the euro has a future, a poll reveals. They also believe rescue attempts are futile as billions more euros will be paid to bail out Greece. A poll by German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, found 71 per cent had “doubt,” “no trust” or thought there is “no future” for the euro. Only 19 per cent expressed “confidence” in it.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)
June 16, 2011
Bilderberg 2011: The Rockefeller World Order and the "High Priests of Globalization"
Investigative journalist Daniel Estulin’s report of inside sources in this year’s meeting indicated a rather extensive discussion on the role of China, which is hardly surprising, considering this has been a central topic of discussion in meetings for a number of years. China emerged in discussions on Pakistan, as China has become increasingly Pakistan’s closest economic and strategic ally, a trend that is continuing as America continues to spread the Afghan war into neighbouring Pakistan. China is also a major player in Africa, threatening the West’s stranglehold over the continent, in particular through the World Bank and IMF. Most importantly, however, and not unrelated to its role in Pakistan and Africa, China has become the greatest economic competitor for the United States in the world, and as the IMF even admitted recently, its economy is expected to surpass that of the United States by 2016. Bilderberg paid attention to this issue not simply as a financial-economic consideration, but as a massive geopolitical transition in the world: “the biggest story of our time.”
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
June 15, 2011
Greece crisis: Commissioners 'fear future of eurozone'
EU commissioners have a "profound sense of foreboding" about Greece and the future of the eurozone, a leaked account of a meeting has suggested.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
June 13, 2011
Italians find voice and punish Silvio Berlusconi
Italians have firmly rejected Silvio Berlusconi's plans to revive nuclear power and his right to skip his trial hearings, in a popular referendum which the prime minister had urged voters to boycott.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
June 11, 2011
Media: The Spreading of False Ideologies into our Culture
Media has become a mirror of the disconnected state that humanity finds itself in. News, current affairs, even the dramas and reality TV shows that entertain us serve to exacerbate the religion of polarity being reflected back to us in all its forms – materialism, hatred, killing, idolization and separation. Almost all television, be it sagas and melodramas or daily news, is as addictive as any drug. This single dimensional ‘pulpit’ from which media preaches to us (often in the centre of our living rooms) actually seeds many of our negative behavior patterns in day-to-day life. Dramas and melodramas aside, we have been led to believe that the news and current affairs programs we watch are true, unbiased, fair. Often this is anything but the case.
Read article on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
June 10, 2011
U.S. Mainstream Media Covers Weinergate, Ignores BilderbergGate
The secret Bilderberg planners are probably having second thoughts about holding this year's conference in Switzerland. They are being met by angry protesters, journalists, and activists who have come from around the world to challenge their claim to secrecy. A number of influential Swiss politicians
are also planning to protest the shadowy meeting and bring attention to the fact that important global issues are being discussed by senior Western bureaucrats, heads of states, CEOs, high-ranking politicians and banking ministers without the people's knowledge and consent.
Read article at opednews.com
June 9, 2011
FAZ: the EU has become "a demon, uncontrollable, impossible to vote away"
This is some forceful stuff from the Vienna correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dirk Schümer. In a piece published in Monday's paper under the headline "Back to the nation", Mr. Schümer takes a long, critical look at the current state of the European Union - and he takes no prisoners.
Read article on the Open Europe blog site (UK)
June 9, 2011
EU Presidents at war: Van Rompuy and Barroso fly to same destination in separate jets
A feud between two of the European Union's leaders was exposed yesterday as the two men travelled in separate VIP jets on the same morning to the EU-Russia summit destination in Russia. Rivalry between the EU president Herman Van Rompuy and the European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, whose title is also president, over who is Europe's true leader on the world stage meant that the pair and their entourages, would not share one aircraft.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: With the Nazi roots of the ‘Brussels EU’ having now been exposed, and photographic evidence showing that public awareness of these origins is growing, Van Rompuy and Barroso’s fallout seems indicative of their fears regarding the next, inevitable development: Demands for the dismantling of the ‘Brussels EU’.
June 9, 2011
MEP calls for export ban on 'execution' drugs
A campaign has been launched to ban the export from the EU of drugs used for executions.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: With global awareness growing that the pharmaceutical industry supplied the chemicals that killed tens of thousands of prisoners at the Auschwitz WWII concentration camp, and that to this day it continues to sell toxic chemicals in full knowledge they will be used for executions, the launch of this campaign, by UK MEP Sarah Ludford, is long overdue.
June 2, 2011
Greece default risk at 50:50 says Moody's
Greece's credit rating has been cut again by rating agency Moody's. Moody's cut its rating by three notches from B1 to Caa1 - just five notches short of default. The new rating means Greece is 50% likely to default on or restructure its debts in the next five years, according to Moody's methodology.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
May 29, 2011
Nigerian fraud prompts parliamentary control of European Development Fund
Millions of euros of EIB credits to Nigeria are being handed to dubious private equity funds and banks, a watchdog claims. The European parliament at the same time says it is “surprised at [a recent] EIB’s statement [saying] that no fraudulent practice exists in the context of EIB Investment Facility programmes.” In a recent report, the European Parliament has urged the Commission to compile an overall audit of all development projects financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The call reflects an investigation by Counter Balance, a group of non-governmental organisations published in the British newspaper The Guardian in November 2010. Claims have arisen that the EIB granted loans and credits out of the European Development Fund (EDF) to fraudulent private enterprises in Africa.
Read article on the New Europe website
May 30, 2011
German government pledges nuclear phaseout by 2022
Japan's recent nuclear troubles triggered a rethink of a plan to keep Germany's nuclear power plants on line longer. The governing coalition has now established a new timeline for Germany's nuclear shutdown by 2022. German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen has announced that the center-right coalition has agreed to shut down all the country's nuclear power plants by 2022. Röttgen made the announcement in the early hours of Monday following a lengthy meeting of the ruling coalition parties. "It's definite: the latest end of the last three nuclear power plants is 2022," Röttgen told reporters. "There will be no clause for revision."
Read article on the Deutsche Welle website (Germany)
May 27, 2011
Greeks to choose between euro and drachma
Athens is ready to stop using the euro and go back to the drachma. This was announced by European Commissioner for Greece Maria Damanaki. An official message placed on her web site on the 25th of May reads that “the scenario of Greece being distanced from the euro is now on the table”.
Read article on the Voice of Russia website
May 26, 2011
New Zealand attacks Denmark over ban on marmite
A New Zealand food industry executive appealed to the government to challenge Denmark over an import ban on Kiwis' favourite breakfast spread, Marmite. The industry was "incredulous at Denmark's bizarre decision" to make Marmite illegal under food safety laws, Katherine Rich, chief executive of the New Zealand Food & Grocery Council, said in a statement on Thursday. Marmite, a sticky yeast extract first made in England in 1902, has been made in New Zealand since 1919. A food writer noted recently, "Marmite is undoubtedly part of Kiwi culture - generations have been raised to eat it on toast, with cheese and crackers or between bread with a slice of lettuce or a handful of chips." Reportedly first devised by a German chemist named Justus von Liebig, Marmite is said to be one of the world's richest sources of B vitamins, containing five of them - Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate and B12.
Read article at timeslive.co.za (South Africa)
Comment: Denmark has a long history of acting in the interests of the Pharma Cartel by enacting dictatorial laws for the over-regulation of micronutrients. As one of the richest food sources of B vitamins, therefore, it would appear that even Marmite is now seen as a threat to the interests of the pharmaceutical ‘business with disease’.
May 25, 2011
Red Cross and Vatican 'helped thousands of Nazi war criminals escape'
New research suggests number of Nazis and collaborators who used travel documents meant for genuine refugees was much higher than previously thought
The Red Cross and the Vatican both helped thousands of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to escape after the second world war, according to a new book that pulls together evidence from previously unpublished documents.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
May 20, 2011
What happens when Greece defaults
It is when, not if. Financial markets merely aren't sure whether it'll be tomorrow, a month's time, a year's time, or two years' time (it won't be longer than that). Given that the ECB has played the "final card" it employed to force a bailout upon the Irish - threatening to bankrupt the country's banking sector - presumably we will now see either another Greek bailout or default within days.
Read blog entry by Andrew Lilico on the Daily Telegraph website (UK)
May 12, 2011
True Finns won't join govt after clash on bailout
Finland's eurosceptic True Finns party dropped out of talks to form a new government, its leader said on Thursday after disagreeing with the country's top two parties over helping bail out Portugal.
Read news report at reuters.com
May 11, 2011
EU to keep files on all air passengers (and that includes what they EAT on flights)
Millions of holidaymakers will have their personal details tracked on huge databases thanks to the latest EU diktat. Countries will be expected to record air passengers’ information, including who they travelled with, the price they paid for a ticket, and even any meal requests they made.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
May 8, 2011
The Unwisdom of Elites
The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe’s single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong? Well, what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that it’s mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness. So this seems like a good time to point out that this blame-the-public view isn’t just self-serving, it’s dead wrong.
Read article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times (USA)
May 6, 2011
Greece Considers Exit from Euro Zone
Athens Mulls Plans for New Currency
The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government's actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area's finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. Greece's economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.
Read article on the Der Spiegel website (Germany)
May 3, 2011
EU wins super-observer status at UN
The European Union on Tuesday secured super-observer status at the United Nations after overcoming objections from small states that they could see their influence eroded.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: The securing of this so-called “super-observer” status at the United Nations provides further evidence of the ongoing attempt by the Brussels EU to expand its undemocratic influence worldwide. Far from being a “largely symbolic change” as is disingenuously being claimed by some, this latest increase in the EU’s status at the UN transforms the global body and enables the bloc’s unelected president, Herman Van Rompuy – whose pre-appointment “job interview” was conducted by the Rockefeller-controlled Bilderberg Group – to address the global assembly in the same way as elected leaders.
April 29, 2011
Alarm over EU 'Great Firewall' proposal
Broadband providers have voiced alarm over an EU proposal to create a “Great Firewall of Europe” by blocking “illicit” web material at the borders of the bloc. Anti-censorship campaigners compared the plan to China’s notorious system for controlling citizens’ access to blogs, news websites and social networking services.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2011
Figures show Greece and Portugal's financial debts far worse than expected
Greece and Portugal are deeper in debt than previously estimated, according to official figures that show attempts to contain their financial woes have so far failed. The statistics agency Eurostat said Greece’s budget deficit hit 10.5 per cent of economic output in 2010, well above the 9.6 per cent the European commission expected last autumn. Portugal, which is negotiating a bailout similar to those for Greece and Ireland, saw its debts reach 9.1 per cent, far ahead of the 7.3 per cent the commission used as a benchmark until recently.
Read article in the Irish Times (Ireland)
April 21, 2011
Belgium's unelected prime minister marks one year in the job
Belgium's prime minister will on Friday mark one year in office despite his administration's collapse, a lost election and his country's world record breaking period without an elected government. Divisions between Belgium's Flemish and French speaking political parties, are behind history's longest political impasse in a democracy. The crisis has called the future of the Belgian state into question.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
April 20, 2011
"For 500 million Europeans in times of austerity"
...That was how EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski presented his 2012 EU budget proposal, tabled today. With such a heading it must include lots of belt tightening, better targeting and some relief for those European governments whose budget is already incredibly strained, right? Unfortunately, not. To the surprise of no one, the proposal includes increasing the budget by 4.9% (€6.2bn), around 2% more than average inflation in the EU.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe website (UK)
April 20, 2011
Schwarzenegger the next EU president?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made a seamless transition from Hollywood film stardom to California governor, could have his sights set on a new job as next head of the European Union, US media reported. The Austrian-born former bodybuilder, 63, at loose ends as he tries to figure out what his next act should be, reportedly is being advised by aides to return to his native Europe to run for the EU presidency, Newsweek reported.
Read article at skynews.com.au (Australia)
April 19, 2011
Web creator's net neutrality fear
The inventor of the web has said that governments must act to preserve the principle of net neutrality. Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC that legislation may be needed if self-regulation failed.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
Comment: To learn more about the concept of net neutrality and understand why it is important, visit the Save the Internet website.
April 18, 2011
Finland's Euro-Skeptics Poised to Form Government Following Election Upset
Finland’s euro-skeptic bloc is poised to enter a government with the pro-Europe National Coalition led by Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen after voters used yesterday’s election to protest against funding bailouts.
Read article at Bloomberg.com
April 13, 2011
Number of patent applications in Europe hits all-time high
The European patent office (EPO) says that the number of applications for patents has risen sharply in the past year.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: A particularly malicious aspect of patents is that they are being used to form global corporate cartels beyond any national or international legislative control. Large multi-national companies do not need to formally unite in order to control the market for a certain product across a continent or the entire world – they simply need to stake out their territorial patent claims. As a result, patents are the key economic tools of the Brussels EU; in particular, patents on chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, genetically-modified seeds and other high-tech products. Significantly, therefore, the EPO’s annual report states that European firms continue to be the "champions" of patent protection in their home market, with a former IG Farben member, Germany’s BASF, being one of the three most prolific applicants in 2010 and medical technology topping the list of categories with 10,500 applications. The strongest growth rates are reported to be in biotechnology-related filings - which increased 42.6% to 7,400 applications in 2010 - and pharmaceuticals, which went up 20% to reach 6,700 filings.
April 13, 2011
BP faces wave of protests at AGM
Oil giant BP is facing a wave of protests as it holds its annual general meeting in London days before the first anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
Comment: The largest oil spill in US history was caused by British Petroleum (BP), a prominent member of the international Oil Cartel. While much of the global media’s attention has focused on the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, one decisive question has largely been avoided: Who benefits from this crisis? To learn the answer to this question, from a historical perspective, click here.
April 7, 2011
Eurosceptics cry foul as EU 'history house' costs soar
Plans to create a museum to celebrate the history of the European Union were hit by controversy this week, amid soaring costs and claims from Eurosceptic MEPs that the project is beset by conflicts of interest.
Read article at euractiv.com
Comment: As we have stated previously, whatever this museum ends up containing, there’s one thing we can be almost certain of: Evidence of the Nazi roots of the Brussels EU, and the role of IG Farben in financing the rise of the Nazis and the preparation for WWII, will be notable only by its absence.
March 31, 2011
Buzek allows Olaf probe, continues to deny access to offices
European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek has let the EU's anti-fraud office (Olaf) conduct an investigation into the Sunday Times cash-for-amendments scandal. But he continues to deny access to MEPs' offices.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: Few people will be surprised by the news that, with four members of the Brussels EU Parliament having been caught up in a "cash-for-laws" scandal, the institution’s President is preventing a full investigation into the matter. Moreover, given that the Brussels EU operates outside of the basic principles of democracy and was designed as a dictatorship under the control of the Oil and Drug Cartel, we should not expect this latest exposé to result in any significant changes as regards the way the construct is run.
March 28, 2011
Fourth Euro MP named in lobbying scandal
A fourth Euro MP caught up in a "cash-for-laws" scandal has denied wrongdoing as the European Parliament investigates corruption allegations. Spanish MEP Pablo Zalba said he had been "deceived" by the Sunday Times undercover reporters and had not accepted their offer of cash. But he said he did amend draft legislation at the request of the reporters posing as lobbyists. Two other MEPs have resigned in the affair and a third has left his party.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
March 26, 2011
It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know
A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game. But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts. The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin. Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
March 21, 2011
Bank lobbying sting nabs three senior MEPs
The European Parliament has opened an investigation into allegations that three senior MEPs - all former government ministers - have accepted bribes in return for tabling amendments in the chamber intended to water down legislation regulating the financial industry. Late Sunday (20 March), the chamber's leadership launched an inquiry into the suggestions made in an eight-month Sunday Times sting operation by the paper's Insight investigative journalism team that three MEPs, former Austrian interior minister Ernst Strasser, Romanian former deputy prime minister Adrian Severin and former Slovenian foreign minister Zoran Thaler, had accepted bribes of up to €100,000 for tabling the motions.
Read article at euobserver.com
March 18, 2011
EU history museum branded 'waste of money'
A parliamentary committee has approved the release of EU funds for work to start on a 'House of European history' museum in Brussels. The decision was immediately condemned by eurosceptics as a waste of money.
Read article at theparliament.com
Comment: Whatever this museum ends up containing, there’s one thing we can be almost certain of: Evidence of the Nazi roots of the Brussels EU, and the role of IG Farben in financing the rise of the Nazis and the preparation for WWII, will be notable only by its absence.
March 17, 2011
Secretive Plan For a Global Currency
Is the Group of Twenty Countries (G20) envisaging the creation of a Global Central bank? Who or what would serve as this global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency and police monetary policy for all humanity? When the world’s central bankers met in Washington in September 2008 at the height of the financial meltdown, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role.
Read excerpt from "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century" by Ellen Brown on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
March 3, 2011
Survey: Czechs' trust in EU lowest in history
Czechs' trust in the European Union is at a historical low of 46 percent, according to the latest poll conducted by the STEM polling agency, which has monitored the trust since 1994, and released to CTK Wednesday. Public trust in the EU has dropped under 50 percent for the first time in history.
Read article on the Prague Daily Monitor website (Czech Republic)
March 1, 2011
Commission accused of power-grab under new EU rules
Member states and interest groups stand to lose considerable power to the European Commission under new rules surrounding the implementation of EU legislation, experts on the subject say. The rules, which come into force on Tuesday (1 March), are designed to overhaul decision-making in the 300-odd EU committees that vote on the detailed implementation of EU laws - a procedure known as 'comitology'. Through ratification of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, member states handed greater control over hundreds of daily decisions such as food labeling and trade-protection measures to the commission, Daniel Gueguen, a leading public affairs consultant, told EUobserver.
Read article at euobserver.com
February 24, 2011
A step backwards for transparency
The bulk of the cost of regulations in both the UK and Europe stem from the European Union, as we've showed in our extensive research on the subject. But this isn't even the end of the story. Many key decisions on the actual substance of EU laws and regulations are being taken during an uber-opaque process called “Comitology”. As we've noted before, Comitology involves special committees consisting of Commission and national experts deciding on how EU legislation should be implemented - usually behind closed doors - after the proposal has been agreed by national governments and the European Parliament. The Lisbon Treaty - the document, if you remember, that would lead to more transparency in Europe - is introducing new rules for the Comitology procedure, effective from 1 March 2011. The new rules were meant to improve and simplify the system, but are now universally acknowledged to have made the situation even worse.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe website (UK)
February 21, 2011
MEPs question 'Big Brother' urban observation project
Greek MEP Stavros Lambrinidis, a vice-president of the European Parliament, has called on the European Commission to clarify the purpose of an EU-funded project that develops "observation" algorithms to enhance the "security of citizens in urban environments". In an interview with EurActiv Germany, Socialists & Democrats MEP Lambrinidis warned that the project aims to access "all existing feeds in cameras, in the Internet, in DNA databases and even on personal computers". The INDECT project, launched under the European Commission's research programme, develops "algorithms" through "observation" to enhance the "security of citizens in urban environments". According to the MEP, the cameras don't just register crimes but also "abnormal behaviour". This, he says, can introduce "Big Brother into our lives".
Read article at euractiv.com
February 17, 2011
Where East and West aren't meeting
Thousands of kilometres away from their fractious border, India and China face a common threat. From May 1, a Brussels diktat known as the herbal directive, will effectively outlaw ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) from the 27-member countries of the European Union. The directive in question was adopted in 2004 but it granted a seven-year grace period to manufacturers of herbal medicines to register, a deadline that expires on April 30.
Read article in the Business Standard (India)
February 15, 2011
UK sells US enough drugs to execute 100 death row inmates, inquiry told
Enough pharmaceutical drugs have been sold to the US by licensed British wholesalers since last summer to execute 100 death row inmates, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
Comment: As we have pointed out previously on these pages, pharmaceutical companies have a long history of supplying chemicals for killing prisoners. With the industry already having been proven to have supplied the chemicals that killed tens of thousands of prisoners at the Auschwitz WWII concentration camp, it is high time that all modern-day drug companies selling drugs for use in executions are publicly exposed.
February 14, 2011
Revealed: how energy firms spy on environmental activists
Leaked documents show how three large British companies have been paying private security firm to monitor activists
Three large energy companies have been carrying out covert intelligence-gathering operations on environmental activists, the Guardian can reveal. The energy giant E.ON, Britain's second-biggest coal producer Scottish Resources Group and Scottish Power, one of the UK's largest electricity-generators, have been paying for the services of a private security firm that has been secretly monitoring activists.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
February 13, 2011
Bush no longer a free man amid torture charges
Retired heads of state and government often travel to reminiscence with old colleagues or polish legacies by pontificating on prevailing issues. A new trend could turn lawyers into travel agents for the lot. A modest example: Former US President George W. Bush planned a Geneva visit on Saturday. He was to deliver a keynote address at a gala the Jewish Keren Haysods organisation held. Mr Bush and pleasant “mum-next-door-type wife,” Laura, stayed home. The Jewish outfit explained security considerations aborted the trip. Not so, said several United States and Swiss human rights organisations. Mr Bush feared arrests for alleged torture against alleged terrorists.
Read article in the Daily Nation (Kenya)
February 6, 2011
Bush trip to Switzerland called off amid threats of protests, legal action
A planned trip to Switzerland this week by George W. Bush was canceled after human rights activists called for demonstrations and threatened legal action over allegations that the former president sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and several European human rights groups said they were planning to file a complaint against Bush and wanted Swiss prosecutors to open a criminal case against him once he arrived in the country.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)
February 2, 2011
Transparency NGOs call on EU not to restrict document access
The EU is set to tightly restrict its freedom-of-information rules just seven years after they were introduced, says an alliance of some 180 human rights organisations, transparency pressure groups and journalist unions, which have called on the European Parliament to apply the breaks to proposed legislation. On the weekend a public letter signed by 56 investigative journalists and 131 groups including transparency and access-to-information campaigners and environmental NGOs warned that European Commission proposals that are set to be approved in the coming weeks will "substantially reduce the number of public documents" available upon request.
Read article at euobserver.com
February 1, 2011
EU to collect data of international air travelers
Air travellers going in and out of the EU may soon have to give their personal details to national authorities in the member state of departure or arrival, if proposals set to be put forward by the EU commission on Wednesday are approved by governments and the European Parliament.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 31, 2011
EU calls for 'free and fair' elections in Egypt
European Union foreign ministers on Monday called on Egypt to embark on an "orderly transition" leading the way to "free and fair elections."
Read AFP news report at yahoo.com
Comment: It is of course deeply hypocritical of the Brussels EU to call on Egypt to hold ‘free and fair’ elections. As a construct whose president (Herman van Rompuy) and 27-member executive body (the so-called “European Commission”) were appointed completely outside of the democratic process on behalf of corporate interests, the Brussels EU is clearly in no position to lecture anybody about building and supporting democracy. On the contrary, whilst it portrays itself to the world as a shining example of a 21st century democracy and regularly calls on other governments to hold “free and fair elections,” the fact is that, by preventing its own citizens from having any control over its unelected executive level, the Brussels EU is itself a dictatorship.
January 26, 2011
Blair's sister-in-law urges his trial on war crimes
KUALA LUMPUR - Former British prime minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth, a rights campaigner and Muslim convert, said Wednesday he should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq. Booth, the half-sister of Blair's barrister wife Cherie, is in Malaysia for lectures organised by Viva Palestina, a British-based organisation associated with controversial politician George Galloway. Asked whether Blair should be arrested and sent to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for war crimes, Booth replied: "Absolutely. He misled the British people and took Britain to war on a lie."
Read article at asiaone.com
January 25, 2011
Global Poverty, Food Riots, and the Economic Crisis
The sugar-coated bullets of the “free market” are killing our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the New York and Chicago mercantile exchanges, where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon. People in different countries are being impoverished simultaneously as a result of a global market mechanism. A small number of financial institutions and global corporations have the ability to determine the prices of basic food staples quoted on the commodity exchanges, thereby directly affecting the standard of living of millions of people around the world. This process of global impoverishment has reached a major turning point, leading to the simultaneous outbreak of famines in all major regions of the developing world.
Read article by Michel Chossudovsky on the Centre for Research on Globalization website
January 24, 2011
Iran calls for intl. court to try Blair
Iran's top security official Saeed Jalili has called for an international tribunal to put former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on trial for war crimes. The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council told a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey that Blair should be tried as a war criminal at an international court for his complicity in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq.
Read article on the Press TV website (Iran)
January 21, 2011
George Galloway calls for former PM Tony Blair to face war crimes charge
George Galloway last night demanded that ex-Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell and former PM Tony Blair should stand trial for war crimes. The Record columnist clashed with Campbell on the BBC's Question Time over the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.
Read article in the Daily Record (Scotland/UK)
Comment: Galloway, a former British MP, should be commended for his continuing to speak out on this issue. As regular readers of this website will be well aware, our organization has long taken a leading role in calling for Blair to stand trial for war crimes. To read about the Complaint we submitted to the International Criminal Court in 2003, charging Blair and others with causing injury to and the death of millions of people through the ‘business with disease’, war crimes and other crimes against humanity, click here.
January 20, 2011
EU commission condemned over new 'ethics' code for ex-commissioners
A draft ethics code for former EU commissioners has been branded a "half measure" which will not end the "revolving door scandals." The commission’s new draft code of conduct is designed to address cases where former commissioners exploit their inside knowledge and contacts by taking up lobbying jobs for industry. But the campaign group, Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU), said the draft in its current form would not prevent commissioners from "going through the revolving door" in future.
Read article at theparliament.com
January 19, 2011
Greenpeace calls for 'green-powered' grid
A new Greenpeace report claims to demonstrate how Europe can switch to a smooth-running electricity grid powered almost entirely by green energy. The report, launched on Wednesday, says it shows for the first time what an "intelligent" grid for Europe by 2050 could look like. It says "smart grid management, control technology and a network of efficient transmission lines" can reliably balance the supply of variable renewable energy with demand across the continent, even when there is little wind and sun.
Read article at theparliament.com
January 18, 2011
Tony Blair ‘Misled Parliament Over Legal Go-Ahead To Invade Iraq’
Tony Blair misled MPs when he suggested in 2003 that Britain could attack Iraq without further United Nations backing, said former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. He claimed that the then Prime Minster had been given clear legal advice to the contrary.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)
January 14, 2011
Berlusconi faces new court date after legal defeat
The Italian Premier, Silvio Berlusconi, is set to be hauled back to court on tax evasion and bribery charges after losing the latest battle in his struggle with the country's judiciary. The Constitutional Court in Rome decided yesterday afternoon to throw out key parts of Mr Berlusconi's latest immunity law, which shielded the 74-year-old billionaire from prosecution.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
Comment: Believed to have once been a member of a secret and illegal right-wing Masonic lodge known as P2, or Propaganda Due, Berlusconi has, over the years, been involved in more than a dozen different criminal trials, appeals and other investigations and been accused of fraud, false accounting, bribery and Mafia connections. To learn more about the Italian prime minister and his friends, click here.
January 11, 2011
Danish PM sued over Lisbon Treaty
The Danish Supreme Court on Tuesday (11 January) ruled admissible a complaint filed by 28 citizens who are trying to sue Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen for having adopted the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum. In a surprising ruling, the country's top constitutional judges allowed the plaintiffs to pursue their case against Mr Rasmussen for breach of the constitution. The Supreme Court found that the 28 plaintiffs have a "requisite legal interest in having their claims verified." The group of professors, actors, writers and euro-sceptic politicians mounting the constitutional challenge argues that the Lisbon Treaty does indeed hand over parts of national sovereignty to Brussels and therefore a referendum should have taken place.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 11, 2011
EU financial watchdog 'systemically sabotaged fraud investigations'
The EU's financial watchdog has systemically "sabotaged" investigations and caved into intimidation from countries including France and Italy to cover up fraud, according to a senior official.
Maarten Engwirda, a former Dutch member of European Court of Auditors for 15 years, who retired 10 days ago, has alleged that abuse of EU funds was swept under the carpet by an auditing body that was supposed to expose wrongdoing. "There was a practice of watering down if not completely removing criticism," he told the Dutch Volkskrant newspaper yesterday. Slim Kallas, the European Commission's vice-president, who was responsible for anti-fraud measures from 2004 to 2010 and who is now the EU transport chief, is accused of putting "heavy pressure" on investigators to tone down findings of abuse.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
January 7, 2011
Capital punishment and Big Pharma's ethics
Is it acceptable for companies that manufacture drugs used in US executions to know that fact yet deny moral responsibility?
On Thursday, the BBC's Today programme ran a story on Reprieve's investigation into the British execution drug export bonanza. While, originally, it seemed that only sodium thiopental was being sourced in the UK, we recently learned that all three chemicals used in lethal injection have been exported by this country – adding pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride to the deadly mix.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
Comment: Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of supplying chemicals for killing prisoners. With the industry already having been proven to have supplied the chemicals that killed tens of thousands of prisoners at the Auschwitz WWII concentration camp, it is high time that all modern-day drug companies selling drugs for use in executions are publicly exposed.