CounterCurrents: The Slow Bleed: Fukushima Five Years On, US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion In Profits In Offshore Accounts, British Conservative Breaks Ranks, Opposes TTIP

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org

One More Civilian Shot Dead In Kashmir
By Countercurrents.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc150416.htm

One more civilian was killed and five more were injured on Friday as angry residents clashed with security forces amid simmering anger over four similar deaths since Tuesday in a tense but curfewed Kashmir Valley. The protestors were demonstrating outside an army camp in Natnusa village of border district Kupwara when soldiers opened fire to stop them from marching in. Five protestors were injured, one of the them died in a hospital later. Police identified the deceased as Mohammed Aarif, a resident of the north Kashmir district which has been at the epicentre of fresh unrest in the valley


US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion In Profits In Offshore Accounts 
By Patrick Martin

http://www.countercurrents.org/martin150416.htm

A report issued Thursday by the British charity Oxfam found that the 50 largest US corporations are hiding $1.4 trillion in profits in overseas accounts to avoid US income taxes, much of it in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten


British Conservative Breaks Ranks, Opposes TTIP 
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse150416.htm

Britain’s former Secretary of State for Trade & Industry (1990-92, under Margaret Thatcher and John Major), and current Conservative MP (Member of Parliament), Peter Liley, did it when he blogged on April 3rd at the Conservative Party’s website “Conservative Home”: "The more closely I look at it, the more parts of it worry me. Conservatives who believe in free trade should be very wary about endorsing TTIP. And both the Leave and Remain campaigns should look very carefully at its implications for our EU membership."


The Slow Bleed: Fukushima Five Years On 
By Vincent Di Stefano

http://www.countercurrents.org/stefano150416.htm

The melt down of three nuclear reactors at Fukushima in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami of 11th March 2011 seems to have quietly slipped out of our collective awareness - as quietly as the cauldrons of radioactive elements that were once within the active cores of the reactors invisibly bleed into the groundwaters and seawaters of the region. This event has become yet another minor detail in the distorted mosaic of ruin that mirrors the latter days of a civilisation in free-fall


Value Our Children, Instead Of Money
By Lionel Anet

http://www.countercurrents.org/anet150416.htm

The present is the future in its formative stage. That process is universal and is always adhered to as that’s nature. Life only thrives from the present activities, which are evaluated in the future, and that future tends to be imagined from the past. But today’s evaluation of the future is highly fragmented as a result of the reductionist method used by scientist and society. Study to do with life’s future, to be useful, must be holistic. The most important thing we need to ponder, and be as accurate as we can is the future we are creating today, so we are back to the beginning. What sort of future are we making?


The Cuckoo That Won't Sing: Sustanaibility And Japanese Culture 
By Ugo Bardi

http://www.countercurrents.org/bardi150416.htm

If the historical example of Japan counts for something, we may be heading in the right direction and the age of planetary civil wars may end one day or another. So, if we can wait long enough, one day we may hear the cuckoo sing


“Poor” G7 Just Cannot Disarm Yet! 
By Andre Vltchek

http://www.countercurrents.org/vltchek150416.htm

They met in Hiroshima, Japan, in the first city on Earth that had been subjected to nuclear genocide. They were representing some of the mightiest nations on Earth: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States – the so-called Group of Seven (G7). And at the end of their encounter, they called for “a world without nuclear weapons”. Read carefully the names of these countries, one by one! For decades and centuries, the world has been trembling imagining their armed forces and corporations. Lashes administered by their colonial rulers have scarred entire continents, tens of millions were enslaved, and hundreds of millions killed, billions robbed


Should Asia Pacific Lead The World With Robust Roadmap
For Sustainable Development? 
By Bobby Ramakant

http://www.countercurrents.org/ramakant150416.htm

Although the governments of UN member countries had adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, a lot more work needs to be done to deliver on these promises by 2030. Thirty-six Asia Pacific nations had met in Thailand for Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) but largely failed to agree with consensus on a regional roadmap to achieve these promises by 2030. The window of opportunity is not closed yet - Asia Pacific nations still can demonstrate leadership on implementing SDGs by agreeing on an ambitious plan to move forward


The Pleasure Of Walking In Istanbul,The City Of Orhan Pamuk 
By Vidyadhar Date

http://www.countercurrents.org/date150416.htm

One of the great joys of being in Istanbul is the ease with which you can walk. On the famous Galata bridge there are walkways on both sides which are so wide, one initially feels disoriented. Some motor car may come from behind, you feel. But that is only for some time. After that you leave behind the constant fear, the trauma caused by the motor car-dictated pattern of India’s roads. Even in the countryside in Turkey there are wide roads exclusively for walking. I walked some 3 km from the town of Selcuk to the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, on one such road


Discrimination Against Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle Continues At IIT Madras
By APSC IITM

http://www.countercurrents.org/apsc150416.htm

On Commemorating the 125th Birth Anniversary of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, APSC had organized a seminar on 14th of April, in which Prof. Ram Punyani delivered a speech. Shortly before the seminar could begin, the security personnel of around 7 who were at the entrance of the auditorium, refused to allow people who didn't have an IIT identity card as per order of Dean. No such rule have been followed any of the institute lecture but the Dean enforced the rule "Outsiders are not allowed for IITM lecture" to APSC event with intention to stop the program. The students shifted the venue and conducted the event in open place