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Wall Street’s Dirty Lies http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/wall-streets-dirty-lies/

Over the past thirty years, Wall Street has waged a steady war against governments around the globe, convincing policymakers of various ideological stripes that whatever raises profits for bankers and traders will be good for the rest of society. It’s a very simple and appealing portrait of how the world works. Unfortunately, it’s completely wrong.

Profiting from hunger.In an interview with AlterNet’s Terrence McNally, economic luminary Raj Patel explains the connection between widespread global poverty and wild Wall Street profits. Markets are defined by a set of rules—if those rules completely disregard social welfare, then the participants in those markets will ignore them as well. When traders can make a quick buck speculating on the price of rice, they will, even if that speculation drives up the price of a basic necessity and makes people go hungry.

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Pharmaceutical Pillage http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/pharmaceutical-pillage/

Business ethics has become an oxymoron. Wall Street bonuses were up 17 percent to over $20 billion in 2009, the year taxpayers bailed out the financial sector after its meltdown. So, everyone has many reasons to hate the banking and financial sectors that dumped our economy, and the general corruption of American politics by corporate interests. There are good reasons to detest the pharmaceutical industry. Besides raping people with onerous prices for prescription drugs, corporate greed coupled with ineffective government regulation and oversight is actually killing Americans through unsafe drugs.

Enter the newest fiasco, that sweetly named diabetes drug Avandia, so heavenly sounding, yet now revealed to be just another in a long history of drugs that get government approval but turn out to be lethal. According to Bloomberg News: “Safety reviewers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urged the agency to take GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s diabetes drug Avandia off the market in 2008 because they said it was causing 500 additional heart attacks per month.” A month! The drug was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009, which implies many thousands of deaths to date.

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O'odham Ofelia Rivas Imprisoned in Mexico http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/02/oodham-ofelia-rivas-imprisoned-in.html

O'odham human rights activist Ofelia Rivas was imprisoned in southern Chiapas for four days and crossed safely onto O'odham lands Wednesday night. "There are inhumane border policies all across the world. My personal experience at home dealing with the Border Patrol helped me deal with confinement in the prison cell," Rivas said after crossing the border to her home.Rivas was imprisoned in the Tapachula Immigration Prison in southern Chiapas near the Guatemalan border on false charges of crossing the border of Guatemala without documents. Rivas, however, had not crossed into Guatemala."Throughout our travel, by plane and bus, federal authorities reviewed my documents and allowed me to pass without problems.

The federal police in Tapachula saw that an American was traveling with an Indigenous woman and arrested us."They wouldn't talk to me directly because I don't speak Spanish," said Rivas, who speaks O'odham and English.Rivas was not provided with a translator when charged or during the four days she was imprisoned. "I signed papers without a translator when I was released. I still don't know what I was charged with.""I was not read any rights," Rivas said. "When they were doing the paperwork, they said we were not being arrested. When we got to the detention center, they said 'You're not being arrested, you're not in handcuffs.'"However, she had been arrested. She was taken to her cell, which she shared with a family from Colombia, which included a four-month-old baby and nine-month-old baby. They had been there for two months.

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Dubai money trail leads back to Israel http://warincontext.org/2010/02/24/dubai-money-trail-leads-back-to-israel/

Although the Israeli government has yet to confirm its role in the murder of Mahmoud al Mahbouh, the Dubai police have provided further evidence through financial records that connect the crime to Israel.The company Payoneer Inc., based in New York, has been named in the case – a company that helps facilitate Taglit-Birthright Israel trips.

Payoneer provides financial services for trip participants and as the Wall Street Journal reports, the company’s chief executive, Yuval Tal, is a former Israeli special-forces soldier.Dubai police said Wednesday they had identified credit cards used by 14 of the suspects to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel. Police named the issuing bank as MetaBank, a unit of Meta Financial Group Inc., a financial company based in Storm Lake, Iowa.

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The Jewish World: Top 10 U.S. Jewish politicians to watch in 2010 http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58646.shtml

"It seems that Israelis are already on the look-out for their coming Jewish (and thus Israeli) "US" president. The lobby never managed to get old Israeli Joe LieberSeems that Israelis are already on the look-out for their coming Jewish (and thus Israeli) "US" president... The lobby never managed to get old Israeli Joe Lieberman in... be it through the Democrats or Republicans... Now it will be the Democrats or Republicans who will enter the "US" government via the Israeli/American dual national presidential candidate/s. Good luck America!!

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Africa: Colonialism alive and well after 50 years of independence http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/02/17/africa-colonialism-alive-and-well-after-50-years-of-independence/

The findings of these 50 years are appaling. First, for the former colonial powers, they have pulled out only better perpetuate their rule. As Ahmed Ben Bella once said: “Colonialism went out by the door only to come back through the window.”

To continue to ensure juicy profits for their companies, the former colonial powers maintain and support autocratic regimes, provided they are servile.Ignoring hundreds of thousands of deaths and destroyed families, the systematic looting of resources, strengthening the arbitrary power of the feudal powers at the expense of the jama'a (community); forget the long colonial night, we continue to this day to suffer its agony.

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WWF: LOYAL ALLY TO AGRIBUSINESS AND GLOBALISATION http://tiny.cc/BGiqE

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) seems to have become a sort of environmental secretariat for agribusiness companies, as it is playing an increasingly dubious role in greenwashing the operations of global agribusiness.  WWF is leading Round Tables on the so-called "sustainable" production of some of the most damaging global agricultural monocultures. The most controversial case is the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS),[1] which includes corporations such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, Bunge and ADM among its members. The RTRS has approved GM soy as sustainable according to their own criteria.

A mega-greenwashing operation is underway to cover up the environmental and social destruction caused by soy production in South America; impacts include deforestation, environmental pollution and poisoning of people. WWF has also ignored numerous accounts of Human Rights violations, perpetrated by agribusinesses in order to preserve High Conservation Value Areas (HCVA). WWF has integrated itself in the main lobby groups of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to promote the privatization of the world's remaining forests and to encourage the role of meaningless environmental certification.

comment-also see...The 1001 Club - Bankers, Intelligence Agents, and Raw Materials http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_1001club01.htm

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Banksters, Corrupt EU Politicians, and Gotham Stories: Wall Street Pirates Invited to Sink the Euro and Rob Taxpayers http://euro-med.dk/?cat=5 

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Mainstream Media Refuses to Disclose that “Independent” Pundits Are Actually Lobbyists http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/02/mainstream-media-refuses-to-disclose.html

As reporter Sebastian Jones points out (see this and this), former Congressman Richard Gephardt runs a lobbying firm representing giant insurance and pharmaceutical companies.Retired General Barry McCaffrey sits on the board of a giant defense contractor, DynCorp, and lobbies for war.And many other "pundits" interviewed by the mainstream news are really high-level lobbyists for giant companies, pushing their agendas.And yet they are treated as "independent experts" by the media.

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Chavez Unfairly Viewed Through Cold War Lens http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=fb5da30c38cfdb6cbf303245a30c51a5

When Chavez revoked the license of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), he was roundly criticized in Venezuela and abroad. Yet even with RCTV gone, well over 90 percent of the media is controlled by wealthy elites opposed to him. RCTV openly supported the abortive coup of 2002, and when the coup failed, it ran cartoons 24 hours a day rather than news of the restoration of Chavez as the democratically elected leader.

Dan Hellinger, a Venezuelan scholar from Webster University, says that while Chavez has concentrated a great deal of power in his hands, he has had some success at reducing poverty. Chavez set up free medical clinics staffed by Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods and also established government-subsidized grocery stores.

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Venezuelan Indigenous Newspaper Is Nominated For UNESCO Prize http://tiny.cc/zBpsP

This newspaper supports the process of intercultural bilingual education in language translations Wayuunaiki doing and has a section dedicated to indigenous languages of Venezuela. Many of his reports are investigated, "from the field and indigenous worldview that characterizes it, and apart from journalism, his team is involved in activities directly with the Communal Councils.

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Uribe's cousin arrested for alleged paramilitary ties http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8404-uribes-cousin-captured-and-in-custody-over-parapolitics-ties.html

Mario Uribe Escobar, ex-president of the Colombian congress and cousin of President Alvaro Uribe, was arrested by agents of the office of the Prosecutor General in Medellin on Wednesday.The arrest happened only hours after the Supreme Court of Justice gave an order to detain him on charges of conspiring to commit crimes with various members of paramilitary organizations.

Uribe is allegedly linked with former paramilitary Jairo Castillo Peralta, aka 'Pitirri', and Salvatore Mancuso, who commanded the Northern Bloc of the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) The former paramilitaries accused Mario Uribe of having used his relationship with the AUC to buy cheap land in the department of Cordoba. They also accused him of making political agreements to be elected senator in the 2002 elections

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Colombian politician sentenced to 40 years for massacre http://www.deccanherald.com/content/54540/colombian-politician-sentenced-40-years.html

Colombia's Supreme Court has imposed a 40-year prison term on former senator Alvaro Garcia Romero for his role in a massacre carried out by right-wing militias. The sentence, imposed Tuesday, is the harshest handed down so far in what is known here as the "parapolitica" scandal.Garcia was "instigator and accomplice" of the Oct 16, 2000, massacre in the northern province of Bolivar, the court found.On that date, 80 fighters from the North Bloc of the since-demobilized AUC militia federation clubbed and hacked to death at least 15 peasants in the village of Macayepo in the course of forcing some 200 families to abandon their homes and lands.

Garcia, an erstwhile political boss in the Caribbean province of Sucre who spent almost two decades in Colombia's Congress, has been held at a prison in Bogota since surrendering to authorities in November 2006.The charges against him were based on testimony from demobilised AUC commander Jairo Castillo, who said the senator helped create militias in Sucre.Fewer than half of the more than 60 politicos indicted in the parapolitica case have been convicted and sentenced, while the rest are awaiting trial.Around 32,000 AUC fighters demobilised between 2003 and 2006 as part of a peace process with President Alvaro Uribe's government. The militia federation is blamed for more than 20,000 deaths.

comment-also see... Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia.http://www.counterpunch.org/cryan08252004.html  

Stop Fascism in Colombia http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/content/view/155/54/

RIGTHWING PARAMILITARISM in COLOMBIA 1 URIBE AUC killers COLOMBIA VIDEO TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH PART 1 http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/jAABv-PfTtk/

Death-Squad Scandal Circles Closer to Colombia's President http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/americas/16colombia.html

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Farmers, Others Sue USDA Over Monsanto GMO Alfalfa http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35154/story.htm

Opening another front in the battle over genetically modified crops, the lawsuit contends that the US Department of Agriculture improperly is allowing Monsanto Co to sell an herbicide-resistant alfalfa seed while failing to analyse the public health, environmental, and economic consequences of that action.

"The USDA failed to do a full environmental review when they deregulated this genetically engineered alfalfa," said Will Rastov, an attorney for Center for Food Safety, one of the plaintiffs. "They're going to wreak untold dangers into the environment."