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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org
Baghdad On Military Lockdown Over Fear Of Protests
By Bill Van Auken
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken080516.htm
Security forces erected heavy concrete blast walls and strung barbed wire across two strategic bridges in the capital of Baghdad Friday as heavily armed troops deployed across the city. The security lockdown was meant to prevent a repeat of the events last Saturday, when thousands of demonstrators stormed the Green Zone, the walled-off seat of the Iraqi government
Obama: TTIP Necessary So As To Protect Megabanks From Prosecution
By Eric Zuesse
http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse080516.htm
On May 7th, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or German Economic News, headlined, "USA planen mit TTIP Frontal-Angriff auf Gerichte in Europa” or “U.S. Plans Frontal Attack on Europe’s Courts via TTIP,” and reported that, “America’s urgency to sign TTIP with Europe has solid reason: Megabanks must protect themselves from claims by European investors who allege that they were cheated during the debt crisis. … The U.S. Ambassador to Italy has now let the cat out of the bag on this — probably unintentionally.”
In this particular case, the megabank that’s being sued isn’t American but German, Deutsche Bank, which the U.S. Ambassador to Italy has cited as his example to defend, perhaps so as to appeal to Germans to protect their megabanks against lawsuits from foreign investors (such as Italians) who complain. In that case it was investors in the Italian city of Trani, population 53,000. The smallness of the city was an issue the Ambassador raised against the suit’s having been brought there.
Reuters headlined on May 6th, "Italian prosecutor investigates Deutsche Bank over 2011 bond sale”, and reported that, "An Italian prosecutor is investigating Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its sale of 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of Italian government bonds five years ago, an investigative source told Reuters. A prosecutor in Trani, a town in southern Italy, is investigating because Deutsche Bank allegedly told clients in a research note in early 2011 that Italy's public debt was no cause for concern, and then sold almost 90 percent of its own holding of the country's bonds.” The U.S. bond-rating agencies are also subjects in this suit, because Trani had relied upon their ratings of those bonds.
The Obama Administration (through its Italian Ambassador) seems thus to be saying, in effect, that unless TTIP is passed into law, Europe’s megabanks (and the U.S. bond-rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) will be able successfully to be sued by cheated investors, just as has been happening with such American banks as JPMorgan/Chase and Goldman Sachs in the United States, which — since TTIP hasn’t yet been in force anywhere, including in the U.S. — were forced to pay billions to cheated investors. Apparently, Obama would be happier if those suits had been impossible in the U.S. The argument here, though only implicitly, seems to be that TTIP is the way to protect megabanks and the bond-rating firms. It concerns specifically the selling of sophisticated derivative investments.
If this is the argument behind the remarks by Obama’s Italian Ambassador, John Phillips, he’s obliquely warning Europeans that unless TTIP gets signed, their megabanks might similarly be forced to pay billions to investors who were cheated. As quoted by Reuters, he said that, in the U.S., it's "highly unlikely that such a case would be brought outside the major financial centers, where prosecutors have both jurisdiction and expertise in securities fraud prosecutions,” and that megabanks need the protection that’s provided by such prosecutors, since they possess “expertise in securities fraud prosecutions.” Phillips was clearly implying that small-city prosecutors (such as are allowed to prosecute such cases in Europe) aren’t such “experts,” as are needed in order to protect the megabanks. Reuters characterizes Phillips’s argument as asserting, “Italy’s justice system was deterring investors.” However, no clarification of the meaning of that statement was provided by Reuters.
DWN alleges that under the TTIP such a court-issue would probably not even have been raised but would simply have ended before an arbitration panel, in which the aggrieved investors exert no influence and where it would be almost impossible for these investors’ rights to be protected.
Another example is cited, where the German city of Pforzheim successfully sued, at the Federal Court of Justice, the U.S. megabank JPMorgan/Chase, and where that court allowed Pforzheim to seek “accumulated damages of 57 million euros.”
Under TTIP, a megabank fined this way might in turn sue the nation’s taxpayers to restore the megabank’s ensuing loss of profits. If the cheated investors win, taxpayers might thus end up bearing the cheated investors' losses. Under TTIP, the fined company would be arguing that the law under which it had been fined is in violation of TTIP and thus constitutes a violation of that treaty, so that the violating government is obliged to be paying the fine — the law against fraud would itself be violating the fined company’s rights. If the three-arbitrator TTIP panel rules in the megabank’s favor, the government would need to pay the fine it had assessed against the bank, and no appeals court exists for any of these arbitration-panels’ rulings — these rulings are final. Obama and other proponents of that system, which is called ISDS for Investor State Dispute Settlement, say that it’s a more efficient way of handling such disputes. In international commercial affairs, it not only eliminates appeals courts, it gradually eliminates democracy, by fining the government into ultimate submission to these three-person panels of international-corporate-accountable arbitrators.
On the same basic idea, Benito Mussolini was praised for “making the trains run on time.”
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Thank You, Andrea Dworkin
By Mickey Z.
http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz080516.htm
As someone who eschewed college and instead embarked on a long journey of dedicated radical self-education, I find it quite illuminating that it took so damn long for me to finally encounter the work of Andrea Dworkin
The Sustainable Energy Transition: A "Back Of The Envelope" Calculation
By Ugo Bardi
http://www.countercurrents.org/bardi080516.htm
Here are a few notes on the kind of effort we need in order to move to a completely renewable energy infrastructure before it is too late to avoid the double threat of climate disruption and resource depletion. It is a tall order: we need to do it, basically, in some 50 years from now, possibly less, otherwise it will be too late to avoid a climate disaster. So, let's try a "back of the envelope" calculation that should provide an order of magnitude estimate
On Ecology And Going Back To The Land
By Dr. Glen Barry
http://www.countercurrents.org/barry080516.htm
One of the primary components of the coming Great Ecological Transition will be going back to the land to reverse ecological fragmentation and once again place humanity within the context of surrounding healthy land. Along with ending fossil fuels, limiting human population and inequity, and military demobilization; going back to the land is a requirement for a peaceful, just, and fair human future on a living Earth that can last forever
Shhh……! Don't Talk About The Economy!
By Vijaya Kumar Marla
http://www.countercurrents.org/marla080516.htm
Keep silent! Do not disturb! Big Biz at work! The biggest loot of Indian economy is going on for the last 25 years. Dare not complain – otherwise “business sentiment” will be hurt! In the year 2016-17, the total subsidies and concessions in the form of taxes and revenue foregone to the rich amounts to a paltry sum of Rs. 6.11 lakh crores, out of the annual budget of Rs. 19 lakhs of rupees (about 1/3rd and no less)
The New Middle East :The World After The Arab Spring
Book Review By Suraj Thube
http://www.countercurrents.org/thube080516.htm
The author commendably weaves a complex narrative that would surely act as more than an authoritative text to decipher future events. He concludes on an optimistic note even in this ocean of pessimism by stating that these Middle eastern countries have shown the willingness to shed their client-nation status. More than anything else, they have managed to keep hold of their greatest gain from the Arab Spring - their voice
Shocking Indifference To The Plight Of Project Affected Persons In Narmada Valley
By National Alliance of People’s Movements
http://www.countercurrents.org/napm080516.htm
The recent High Level meeting in Delhi chaired by the Prime Minister’s Pirncipal Secretary Nripendra Mishra and attended by the Chief Secretaries of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra on the 6th of this month regarding the Sardar Sarovar Project, reveals the deep sense of apathy and indifference of the current Central and respective State governments to the plight of the thousands of Project Affected Persons in the Narmada valley
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