Global Occupy Movement #30 Met concrete casussen en constructies

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Canada's environmental activists seen as 'threat to national security'

Police and security agencies describe green groups' protests and petitions as 'forms of attack', documents reveal

Monitoring of environmental activists in Canada by the country's police and security agencies has become the "new normal", according to a researcher who has analysed security documents released under freedom of information laws.

Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organise petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

The RCMP, Canada's national police force, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) view activist activities such as blocking access to roads or buildings as "forms of attack" and depict those involved as national security threats, according to the documents.

Protests and opposition to Canada's resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said. In 2011 a Montreal, Quebec man who wrote letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking.

"Any Canadians going to protest the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington DC on Sunday had better take precautions," Monaghan said.

In a Canadian Senate committee on national security and defence meeting Monday Feb 11 Richard Fadden, the director of CSIS said they are more worried about domestic terrorism, acknowledging that the vast majority of its spying is done within Canada. Fadden said they are "following a number of cases where we think people might be inclined to acts of terrorism".

Canada is at very low risk from foreign terrorists but like the US it has built a large security apparatus following 9/11. The resources and costs are wildly out of proportion to the risk said Monaghan.

"It's the new normal now for Canada's security agencies to watch the activities of environmental organisations," he said.

Surveillance and infiltration of environmental protest movement has been routine in the UK for some time. In 2011 a Guardian investigation revealed that a Met police officer had been living undercover for seven years infiltrating dozens of protest groups.

Canadian security forces seem to have a "fixation" with Greenpeace, continually describing them as "potentially violent" in threat assessment documents, said Monaghan.

"We're aware of this" said Greenpeace Canada's executive director Bruce Cox, who met the head of the RCMP last year. "We're an outspoken voice for non-violenceand this was made clear to the RCMP," Cox said.

He said there was real anger among Canadians about the degradation of the natural environment by oil, gas and other extractive industries and governments working for those industries and not in the public interest. Security forces should see Greenpeace as a "plus", a non-violent outlet for this anger, he argued. "It is governments and fossil fuel industry who are the extremists, threatening the prosperity of future generations."

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Iceland regains investment grade status

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Iceland's rehabilitation after several years as a pariah in the global financial markets gathered pace last night after ratings agency Fitch said the island nation's debts had regained investment grade status.

Fitch said Iceland's debts had been upgraded to BBB from junk after a strong recovery from the financial crisis.

Reykjavik's meteoric recovery comes after its 300,000 residents were told they would be locked out of the world's financial markets for decades after they refused to rescue a group of bankrupt banks in 2008.

Unlike Ireland, Portugal and Spain, the Icelandic government let the country's banks become insolvent rather than spend tens of billions of pounds on bailout funds.

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Op donderdag 14 februari 2013 21:04 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Kijk: zo doe je dat:

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Op vrijdag 15 februari 2013 10:32 schreef Chahna het volgende:

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dus de banken failliet laten gaan, bestuurders hebben reeds gegraaid en de gewone mensen zijn hun geld kwijt.

dat noem ik niet sociaal maar asociaal.

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Op vrijdag 15 februari 2013 10:40 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Bestuurders en bankiers zijn aangepakt.

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Op vrijdag 15 februari 2013 10:48 schreef Chahna het volgende:

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wat waren de straffen dan?

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Iceland, Fervent Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

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His biggest scalp so far is that of Larus Welding, the former chief executive of Glitnir, one of the trio of banks that failed in 2008. Mr. Welding and a second former Glitnir executive were found guilty of fraud over a $70 million loan to a company that owned shares in the bank.

Mr. Welding, who is now standing trial in a second case along with one of the country’s most prominent business tycoons, Jon Asgeir Johannesson, was sentenced in December to nine months in prison, six of which were suspended.

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Think there's no alternative? Latin America has a few

Not only have leaders from Ecuador to Venezuela delivered huge social gains – they keep winning elections too

Ever since the crash of 2008 exposed the rotten core of a failed economic model, we've been told there are no viable alternatives. As Europe sinks deeper into austerity, governing parties of whatever stripe are routinely rejected by disillusioned voters – only to be replaced by others delivering more welfare cuts, privatisation and inequality.

So what should we make of a part of the world where governments have resolutely turned their back on that model, slashed poverty and inequality, taken back industries and resources from corporate control, massively expanded public services and democratic participation – and keep getting re-elected in fiercely contested elections?

That is what has been happening in Latin America for a decade. The latest political leader to underline the trend is the radical economist Rafael Correa, re-elected as president of Ecuador at the weekend with an increased 57% share of the vote, while Correa's party won an outright majority in parliament.

But Ecuador is now part of a well-established pattern. Last October the much reviled but hugely popular Hugo Chávez, who returned home on Monday after two months of cancer treatment in Cuba, was re-elected president of Venezuela with 55% of the vote after 14 years in power in a ballot far more fraud-proof than those in Britain or the US. That followed the re-election of Bolivia's Evo Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president, in 2009; the election of Lula's nominated successor Dilma Rousseff in Brazil in 2010; and of Cristina Fernandez in Argentina in 2011.

Despite their differences, it's not hard to see why. Latin America was the first to experience the disastrous impact of neoliberal dogma and the first to revolt against it. Correa was originally elected in the wake of an economic collapse so devastating that one in 10 left the country. Since then his "citizen's revolution" has cut poverty by nearly a third and extreme poverty by 45%. Unemployment has been slashed, while social security, free health and education have been rapidly expanded – including free higher education, now a constitutional right – while outsourcing has been outlawed.

And that has been achieved not only by using Ecuador's limited oil wealth to benefit the majority, but by making corporations and the well-off pay their taxes (receipts have almost tripled in six years), raising public investment to 15% of national income, extending public ownership, tough renegotiation of oil contracts and re-regulating the banking system to support development.

Many of the things, in fact, that conventional "free market" orthodoxy insists will lead to ruin, but have instead delivered rapid growth and social progress. Correa's government has also closed the US military base at Manta (he'd reconsider, he said, if the US "let us put a military base in Miami"), expanded gay, disability and indigenous rights and adopted some of the most radical environmental policies in the world. Those include the Yasuni initiative, under which Ecuador waives its right to exploit oil in a uniquely biodiverse part of the Amazon in return for international contributions to renewable energy projects.

But what is happening in Ecuador is only part of a progressive tide that has swept Latin America, as social democratic and radical socialist governments have attacked social and racial inequality, challenged US domination and begun to create genuine regional integration and independence for the first time in 500 years. And given what's already been delivered to the majority, it's hardly surprising they keep getting re-elected.

It says more about the western media (and their elite Latin American counterparts) than governments such as Ecuador's and Venezuela's that they are routinely portrayed as dictatorial. Part of that canard is about US hostility. In the case of Ecuador, it's also been fuelled by fury at Correa's decision to give asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces sexual assault allegations in Sweden, over the threat of onward extradition to the US. In reality, the real anti-democratic menace comes from the US's own allies, who launched abortive coups against both Chávez and Correa – and successful ones in Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay last year.

Of course, Latin America's left-leaning governments have no shortage of failings, from corruption to crime. In Ecuador and elsewhere, tensions between the demands of development, the environment and indigenous rights have sharpened. And none of these experiences yet offer any kind of ready-made social or economic alternative model.

There is also a question whether the momentum of continental change can be maintained now that Chávez, who spearheaded it, is expected to stand down in the next few weeks. His anointed successor, the former trade unionist Nicolás Maduro, is in a strong position to win new elections. But neither he nor the charismatic Correa is likely to be able to match Chávez's catalytic regional role.

Latin America's transformation is nevertheless deeply rooted and popular, while a discredited right has little to offer. For the rest of the world, it makes a nonsense of the idea that five years into the crisis nothing can be done but more of the same. True, these are economies and societies at a very different stage of development, and their experiences can't simply be replicated elsewhere. But they have certainly shown there are multiple alternatives to neoliberal masochism – which win elections, too.

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'Zwitserland stemt tegen gouden handdruk'

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De gouden handdruk lijkt verleden tijd in Zwitserland. In het referendum zondag over strengere regels voor bonussen en vertrekpremies tekent zich een duidelijke meerderheid af voor invoer daarvan. De eerste resultaten laten zien dat 70 procent voor strengere regels is.

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Het enthousiasme voor de nieuwe regels is ingegeven door de kwaadheid die ontstond over hoge bonussen bij de Zwitserse bank UBS en de torenhoge vertrekpremie van 60 miljoen euro die topman Daniel Vasella bij Novartis meekreeg. Nadat dat nieuws bekend werd, kon het wetsvoorstel plots op veel meer steun rekenen.

In de nieuwe regels wordt de gouden handdruk afgeschaft en krijgen aandeelhouders het recht om mee te beslissen over het toekennen van bonussen en vertrekpremies. Zwitserland zou daarmee de strengste wetten op dat gebied krijgen.

Het referendum is een initiatief van Thomas Minder, zelf zakenman. Hij wijt de financiële crisis aan de bonuscultuur. Het Zwitserse bedrijfsleven vreest dat het land minder aantrekkelijk wordt voor grote bedrijven

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Op zondag 3 maart 2013 16:10 schreef Erasmo het volgende:
Behalve dat het vrij weinig met Occupy te maken heeft ben je goed bezig om de halve waarheid te vertellen. Hieronder de rest van het nieuwsbericht:

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Of terwijl de aandeelhouders zouden kunnen gaan beslissen over vertrekpremies. Je weet wel dezelfde aandeelhouders die achterover leunen terwijl het hele bedrijf instort.

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Op zondag 3 maart 2013 16:14 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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het word niet gewaardeerd om hele artikelen te quoten, dat heeft niets te maken met helve waarheden, maar met de commerciële belangen van oude media.

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Aandeelhouders die nu blijkbaar niet het recht hebben om mee te beslissen dus weinig anders kunnen doen dan achterover zitten.

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Op zondag 3 maart 2013 17:12 schreef Lavenderr het volgende:

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Is dit een bindend referendum Papier?
Ik begreep van een andere user , Reya, dat alle referenda in Zwitserland bindend zijn. Is dat zo?

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Op zondag 3 maart 2013 17:14 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ik hoop het

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Occupy Wall Street offshoot, Strike Debt, announced Friday that it has abolished $1.1 million in medical debt for more than 1,000 people.

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The protest group did this by buying emergency room debts for pennies on the dollar and then simply forgiving them rather than trying to collect the money, Strike Debt said in a statement.

When a bank, lender or other company, like a hospital, is unable to collect on a debt, it typically sells it to debt buyers or collectors -- often at a much lower price than the original amount owed since the odds of collecting the money are low. Whoever buys the debt then attempts to get the money from the debtor.

Citing the large number of bankruptcies that stem from medical bills, Strike Debt's mission is to stop this collection cycle and abolish the debt altogether.

"Our privatized health care system buries ordinary people in debt all to enrich the 1%," the group said.

The more than $1 million in debt the group eliminated belonged to 1,064 people, amounting to an average of about $900 in debt per person. These randomly-selected people will receive notices explaining that their debt has been forgiven.

The organization spent about $21,000 to purchase the debt, using money raised from supporters.

To rally the troops around its debt-busting initiative, Occupy's Strike Debt is planning protests later this month against private insurance companies and other events to raise awareness about hospital closings due to excessive amounts of debt.

Strike Debt originally launched its campaign and fundraising efforts in November, abolishing more than $100,000 in consumer debt before the end of 2012. To top of page

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GlobalRev Press Release: NYC settles Lawsuit GlobalRev Brought for Zuccotti Park Raid

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April 10, 2013 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Breaking: NYC has to reimburse Global Revolution TV Collective for the equipment destroyed during the raid on #OWS Zuccotti Camp in November of 2011.
A year and a half after NYPD officers, under orders of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, surrounded the #OccupyWallStreet occupation in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan and proceeded to “evict” the non-violent protest against the inequalities in our society, the City settled with GlobalRevolution.tv, Times Up!, and the People’s Library, some of the groups who were working in the park, for failing to allow them to remove equipment and material that was vital for their work in telling the story of the expanding movement.
“By targeting equipment used for media as well as literature in the People’s Library, the city in effect not only tried to deny our movement a place to gather and organize, but also went after the tools we use to communicate, in direct violation of our First Amendment rights,” said Vlad Teichberg of Global Revolution TV.
The city agreed to reimburse the Global Revolution Collective $75,000 for the costs of equipment that was destroyed in the park, as well as almost $50,000 in legal fees. This number represents a fraction of actual material lost by members of the movement during this raid as well as subsequent attacks against all occupations around the country and the world, which we are now learning have been coordinated at the highest levels of the US federal government.
During the raid itself, all corporate media were pushed outside the park, and the only reporting that came during the incident was from livestreaming citizen journalists who broke the media blockade and showed the whole world what was happening in real time.
In addition to the monetary compensation, the City has been forced to express regret for destroying and not taking care of media equipment during the raid. Quoting directly from the settlement: ”Defendants acknowledge and believe it unfortunate that, during the course of clearing Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011, computers, wifi hotspots and similarly related live-streaming equipment were damaged so as to render them unusable, and additional live-streaming equipment is unaccounted for. [...] Defendants recognize that when a person’s property is removed by the City it is important that the City exercise due care and adhere to established procedures in order to protect the legal rights of the property owners.”
Wylie Stecklow, attorney representing GRTV, remarked: ”The livestreamers showed us the real, uncensored police brutality that was often downplayed in the major media… until it went viral and could not be ignored. The livestreamers of Global Revolution TV have been distributing livestreaming gear and done trainings of citizen journalists, not just in Zuccotti Park but all over the world from local Occupies around the USA to media collectives in Tahrir, Tunis, Spain and other countries, and for their troubles, thousands of dollars of their equipment was seized and destroyed in the eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011.
In resolving this litigation, it was important that the language of the document stress the fundamental rights that Global Rev was protecting: Whereas there is no dispute between the City and Global Rev as regards the importance of computers, wifi hotspots, and similarly related live streaming equipment to plaintiffs efforts to promote an educated and informed citizenry and to plaintiffs efforts to protect and promote the rights of the Occupy community.”
The money that GRTV recovers from this settlement will be used to outfit more citizen journalists, and to train and equip more people to bring us the real stories of what is going on in the streets around the world.
One of the members of the media collective said on hearing the news of the settlement, ”It is interesting that this money that the city led by the quintessential member of the 1% has to reimburse GlobalRev for basically destroying their media capability is now going to be used to empower citizen journalists all over the world as well as help enhance the current OWS media efforts in NYC.”
For further questions, you can contact members of Global Revolution Collective at editors@globalrevolution.tv or @globalrevlive on Twitter. Attorney Wylie Stecklow can be reached via http://www.wylielaw.com. Times Up! can be reached via http://times-up.org .

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Op donderdag 11 april 2013 09:59 schreef Lavenderr het volgende:
Papierversnipperaar, zou Occupy iets te maken hebben met die ddos-aanvallen?

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Op donderdag 11 april 2013 10:16 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Dat denk ik niet. Dan zouden ze daar reclame voor maken. Of zou er iig van tevoren iets over getweet zijn. Occupy is net zo min een organisatie als Anonymous, ze kunnen weinig organiseren met geheim intern overleg.

Het zijn beide activistische bewegingen die het moeten hebben van publiciteit en bewustwording van het volk, dus stiekeme acties hebben ze weinig aan.

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Hundreds of service workers strike in Chicago

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As service and retail work has come to replace manufacturing as the country’s bedrock industry, low-wage employees in those workplaces have become more and more restless. Last Thanksgiving, employees at Walmarts across the United States went on strike as part of a dramatic campaign to change conditions at the notoriously low-wage retail colossus. Just days later, workers in New York City staged the largest walkout in the fast food industry’s history, demanding higher wages and union recognition.

While no subsequent labor actions have garnered as much national attention as the Black Friday strike, low-wage workers across the country have been chipping away at retail and fast food companies with targeted, short-term walkouts and protests. Many of these actions have been organized by non-union “alt-labor” groups such as OUR Walmart and the community organizing group New York Communities for Change, which is organizing New York City fast food workers.

“In some ways this is something new,” Columbia professor Liza Featherstone told MSNBC in late November. “This idea of organizing through community organizations, through worker organizations, that are more flexible and reflect the contemporary workplace, and the fact that people don’t necessarily have the same job for their whole lives.” However, she also sees low-level, militant, decentralized labor organizations as a throwback to 19th century industrial relations.

Organizations like OUR Walmart, historian Nelson Lichtenstein told In These Times in October, are “a kind of return to labor formations of the 1930s. It’s an association–they aren’t looking for legal certification, they don’t claim to represent everyone. They’re a minority that is willing to stick their necks out.”

Wednesday’s strike in Chicago is remarkable because it shows just how contagious this kind of labor unrest has become. Until now, major fast food strikes have been confined to New York City, which recently held a second strike, even larger than its first. The strike in Chicago is the first major labor action to afflict the fast food industry in a city besides New York.

Similarly, the Chicago strike demonstrates how the tactics which have given Walmart such a headache are spreading to other big department store brands. Workers from Macy’s and Sears are among those who walked off the job on Wednesday.

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Adbusters Tactical Briefing #43

We thrill the world by shutting Goldman Sachs down on May Day.

This year’s May Day could be a major tipping point for the political left worldwide. Here’s a classic quote from Matt Taibbi that clues you in to what’s at stake:

. “Goldman Sachs, the world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Next week, on May 1st, let’s hone in on a single target, the top evildoer — that unrepentant corporation that continues to flaunt its money-worshiping criminality and reward its CEO Lloyd Blankfein. His persistent grin is getting a little too hard to bear.

Goldman Sachs has 73 offices in 56 cities worldwide … On May Day, come have some fun with us in front of every one of them. We’re going to thrill the world by shutting down this criminal corporation for a few hours with our voices and our right to the people’s assembly – let’s wipe that grin off Lloyd Blankfein’s face!

Get the address of the #Goldman location nearest you at Meetup, then recruit friends on Facebook, Twitter and in real life … see you out there!

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

P.S.
This ongoing #GOLDMAN campaign will have another big bang moment on May 23 when Goldman Sachs holds its shareholder meeting in Salt Lake City.

Catch up on the #GOLDMAN gameplay thus far:
Tactical Briefing #41 / #42

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Waarom bankiers die miljoenen verdienen zich 'blut' wanen

In het Verenigd Koninkrijk verdient 1 procent van de belastingbetalers meer dan 150.000 pond (178.000 euro) per jaar. In de VS verdient 1 procent meer dan 370.000 dollar (284.000 euro) per jaar. En toch beweren sommige bankiers die bij die 1 procent zitten dat ze het moeilijk hebben om rond te komen.

'Het is niet ongewoon om Wall Street-bankiers te vinden die zichzelf bijna blut noemen', aldus Gary Goldstein, medeoprichter van de Amerikaanse onderzoeksbureau Whitney Partners. 'Sommigen hebben het ook echt moeilijk.' Op de jaarlijkse aandeelhoudersvergadering van de Britse financiële dienstverlener Barclays verweet gepensioneerde Joan Woolard vorige week het bedrijf dat het zijn bankiers te veel betaalt. 'Iedereen die meer dan 1 miljoen pond verdient per jaar, is een inhalige zak.'

Maar blijkbaar komt niet iedereen rond ondanks zoveel salaris. In een artikel op de Britse website eFinancialCareers vertellen verschillende bankiers dat er redenen zijn om per jaar meer dan een miljoen Britse pond te verdienen. 'Er zijn veel mensen met een bijzonder exclusieve levensstijl', legt Louise Cooper, voormalige vertegenwoordigster bij de bank Goldman Sachs uit. 'Ze hebben een nanny, hun kinderen gaan naar privéscholen en ze hebben een groot, duur huis. Dat moet allemaal betaald worden van hun loon, waar soms tot 45 procent belastingen op geheven wordt.'

Waarom kunnen bankiers hun huis in de Hamptons dan niet gewoon verkopen? 'Als je in de bankwereld werkt, ben je omgeven door mensen die bakken geld verdienen', legt Erika Shapiro uit. Zij werkte als vertegenwoordigster bij de banken Goldman Sachs, Citi, Credit Suisse en UBS. 'Iedereen heeft een serieuze lening voor zijn huis en stuurt zijn kinderen naar privéscholen.'

Het volledige verhaal - het laatste in een reeks verbijsterende artikels van journaliste Sarah Butcher - is verplichte lectuur voor iedereen die een kijkje in het hoofd van topbankiers wil nemen.