Kodaikanal

Sign the petition asking for Unilever to clean up the mercury poisoning in Kodaikanal: http://www.jhatkaa.org/unilever/.
Written by Chennai-born rapper Sofia Ashraf and set to Nicki Minaj's “Anaconda,” the video takes an undisguised jab at Unilever for its failure to clean up mercury contamination or compensate workers affected by its thermometer factory in Kodaikanal.

What's Really Going on With the Trade in Services Agreement

The Obama administration’s desire for “fast track” trade authority is not limited to passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In fact, that may be the least important of three deals currently under negotiation by the U.S. Trade Representative. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bind the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and the European Union. And the largest agreement is also the least heralded: the 51-nation Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).

On Wednesday, WikiLeaks brought this agreement into the spotlight by releasing 17 key TiSA-related documents, including 11 full chapters under negotiation. Though the outline for this agreement has been in place for nearly a year, these documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, an example of the secrecy surrounding the agreement, which outstrips even the TPP. TiSA has been negotiated since 2013, between the United States, the European Union, and 22 other nations, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and others scattered across South America and Asia. Overall, 12 of the G20 nations are represented, and negotiations have carefully incorporated practically every advanced economy except for the “BRICS” coalition of emerging markets (which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

The deal would liberalize global trade of services, an expansive definition that encompasses air and maritime transport, package delivery, e-commerce, telecommunications, accountancy, engineering, consulting, health care, private education, financial services and more, covering close to 80 percent of the U.S. economy. Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens.

More at The New Republic

Patents

For inventors, patents are an essential protection against theft. But when patent trolls abuse the system by stockpiling patents and threatening lawsuits, businesses are forced to shell out tons of money.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Two Reporters Fired By Fox News For Exposing Monsanto

How far will corporations go to silence whistleblowers?
This is video is from the documentary The Corporation which examines modern-day corporations, featuring interviews with corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Howard Zinn.

Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were working on a series talking about health concerns related to Monsanto’s growth hormone. The growth hormone did not comply with safety requirements as highlighted by Canada health. Mysteriously that conclusion was deleted from the final published version of Monsanto’s report. Days before the series was to begin they received a fax from one of Monsanto’s high-priced lawyers in New York, saying there will be consequences for Fox News if they proceed with the story. Scared that they were going to get sued, the general manager tried to bribe Steve and Jane, asking them not to proceed with the story and not to discuss it with anyone.

They refused and got FIRED!

From True Activist

Uganda: Temples of Injustice

Al Jazeera's groundbreaking series Africa Investigates goes undercover to expose corruption at the heart of Uganda's judicial system.

Anti-corruption activists on trial in China

A Chinese anti-corruption campaigner has gone on trial in Beijing, according to his lawyer, joining two others who appeared in court this week as China's government cracks down on activists.

Zhao Changqing, 45, faces a possible five-year prison sentence for supporting activists who unveiled banners in Beijing calling for government officials to disclose their assets - despite not being present, Zhang Peihong, his lawyer, said on Thursday. Zhao is associated with the New Citizens Movement, a loose-knit network of campaigners against corruption, among other issues. China jailed a founder of the movement in January, and more than 10 other members have been tried.

Zhao pleaded not guilty to a charge of "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order" for his alleged involvement in three small-scale protests in Beijing, which saw activists unfurl banners, Zhang said. "[Zhao] didn't disturb public order in any way, he didn't even appear on the scene of the protests, because he was worried about his family," he said, adding that the hearing lasted around three hours.

Fellow anti-corruption activists Ding Jiaxi and Li Wei were also put on trial this week over the protests. China's ruling Communist Party is in the midst of a highly-publicised anti-corruption campaign, which President Xi Jinping has pledged will target both high-ranking "tigers" and low-level "flies" in the face of public anger over the issue.

More on Al Jazeera English

Nestlé Corporate Troll Spotting

Abby Martin features a video message by Nestlé, which the company made in direct response to a recent report Abby made about the company. She responds to points made in the video, and sets the record straight on the company's claims.

C.I.A. Delivers Cash to Afghan Leader’s Office

For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. “We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing

More on The New York Times

Persistent allegations of corruption aimed at Hamid Karzai's family are undermining Western efforts in Afghanistan and feeding the Taliban-led insurgency, Washington policy-makers have warned.
Read more on Rawa.org

Ethos

Presented by twice Oscar nominated actor & activist Woody Harrelson

From criminal conflicts of interest in politics, to unregulated corporate power, to a news media in the hands of multi-national conglomerates, to a military industrial complex that effectively owns the US government. Ethos looks at the systemic issues that work against democracy, the environment, democracy, justice and our own personal liberty.

American Congressmen are Paid to Vote for War

To make sure American politicians play their role, Congressmen are allowed to own stocks in defense contractors, and make millions of dollars buying and selling them using insider knowledge.
According to reports from OpenSecrets.org, in 2006, 151 members of Congress had $195.5 million invested in defense corporations. Their average net worth was $910,000 compared to $100,000 for American families in general. Over 50 range between $5 million and $190 million. John Kerry is at the top end of the scale. For the psychopaths on Capitol Hill, each new military escapade is a lottery windfall.

While insider trading carries hefty prison terms for common people, it is perfectly legal for US congressmen. They are free to own shares in companies that are regulated by committees they sit on. Members of congress can trade freely using insider knowledge they have about regulations or events that could affect specific industries or the stock market as a whole, such as an economic crash, a new law... or a war.

savethemales.ca

Sarkozy named in arms deal corruption scandal

Nicolas Sarkozy has been named by an investigation into an alleged party funding corruption scandal said to have led to the deaths of 11 French engineers in a Pakistan bomb attack. It is claimed Mr Sarkozy must have been aware of the establishment of a shell company suspected of diverting cash from arms sales commissions to fund the 1995 presidential campaign of then prime minister Edouard Balladur.

The commissions, paid as part of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were not illegal under French law at the time, but channelling the money back to France was, and remains so. Magistrates also allege the subsequent freezing of the payments by President Jacques Chirac led indirectly to a bomb attack on a bus in Pakistan which killed 11 French engineers.

Mail Online

iDead

More on Steve Jobs and Apple

Shell oil paid Nigerian military to put down protests

Shell has never denied that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta – land and air. But it had resisted charges of complicity in human rights abuses.

Court documents now reveal that in the 1990s Shell routinely worked with Nigeria's military and mobile police to suppress resistance to its oil activities, often from activists in Ogoniland, in the delta region.

Confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents, released in 2009, show the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.

According to Ogoni activists, several thousand people were killed in the 1990s and many more fled that wave of terror that took place in the 1990s.

In 2009, in a New York federal court, that evidence never saw light during the trial. Shell had been accused of collaborating with the state in the execution in 1995 of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and other leaders of the Ogoni tribe. Instead, Shell paid $15.5m (£9.6m) to the eight families in settlement.

Among the documents was a 1994 letter from Shell agreeing to pay a unit of the Nigerian army to retrieve a truck, an action that left one Ogoni man dead and two wounded. Shell said it was making the payment "as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favourable disposition in future assignments".

The Guardian – The Independent – Nigeria 70 - Essential Action

Coca-Cola Exposed! Killer Cola

You will never look at a can of Coke the same way after seeing this documentary film.

Organized Crime

Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

A Scandal (USA)

Senator Sanders' Top 10 Worst Corporate Income Tax Avoiders: More here

"Scumbag" Judge That Was Found Guilty Of Sending Kids To Jail For Cash

Colin Powell was ‘manipulated’ by Cheney into justifying Iraq war

Colin Powell's ex-chief of staff said Thursday the former Secretary of State was lied to and manipulated by Vice President Dick Cheney into justifying the US invasion of Iraq.

The primary justifications offered by the Bush administration for invading Iraq were that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had possible links to Al-Qaeda. Both turned out to be false.

Iraqi defector "Curveball," ostensibly a source corroborating Hussein's biological and chemical weapons program, this week admitted he knowingly concocted the story in an effort to get rid of the dictator.

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army Colonel who ran Powell's staff at the time, was asked by MSNBC's Cenk Uygur if he believes he and Powell were "flat-out lied to."

"I cannot come to any other conclusion," he responded, saying that some intelligence sources had warned Curveball may not be reliable. "I think there was some manipulation of the material and there was some outright lying."

Full article on The Raw Story

Britain to cover up Royal affairs

The British government is to introduce new regulations that prevent any scrutiny of the Royal Family's letters, emails, documents and finances.

The all-out protection under changes to the Freedom of Information Act is meant to put a lid on what is related to the Queen, her heir Prince Charles and the second in line to the throne Prince Williams.
The move follows recent embarrassing revelations about a number of financial abuses by the Royal Family including Queen's move to pay for Buckingham Palace's heating costs through a state poverty fund.
This comes as, the brief implementation of the Freedom of Information Act on the Royal Family affairs also disclosed details of Charles's lobbying to influence the public issues and the decisions of the government.
The government's decision has proved controversial as activists raised serious questions about the move.

PressTV

State media: Russian court finds Khodorkovsky guilty

A judge in Moscow has found former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner guilty of corruption charges, state-run RIA-Novosti and Interfax news agencies said Monday. The trial, which began in March 2009, was the second for the two men.

Khodorkovsky and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, were charged with embezzlement and laundering of stolen property.

They are accused of stealing billions of dollars' worth of oil from Yukos production subsidiaries from 1998 to 2003, oil on which he's already been convicted of underpaying tax.

Ahead of the verdict, hundreds of supporters gathered outside the central Moscow courthouse.

Security officers, who maintained a heavy presence outside the building, whisked several people away while others stood in -5 C (22F) temperature chanting "Freedom" and "Russia without Putin" -- referring to the prime minister.

Khodorkovsky had expressed a desire to run for office at the time and funded opposition political parties. And he has said the trial was part of a Kremlin campaign to destroy him and take the company he built from privatization deals of the 1990s.

The Kremlin has denied any role.

CNN.com