Shocking Police Behaviour OccupyMELBOURNE!

Related Articles:

The Large Families that rule the world

It's Happening !

Occupy protesters seek explanation over cathedral's call to move on

An INTENSE moment of TRUTH with MAINSTREAM Media

United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement. 

Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.

Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).

Obama announces U.S. to pull out all troops from Iraq by end of year

English.news.cn   2011-10-22 

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at a press conference at the
White House in Washington D.C., the United States, Oct. 21, 2011.
Obama on Friday announced all U.S. troops stationed in Iraq will pull
out by the end of the year, and the Iraq War will be over. (Xinhua/Zhang Jun)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday announced all U.S. troops stationed in Iraq will pull out of that country by the end of this year, and the Iraq War will be over.

Obama made the statement after speaking with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki via video conference, and he reaffirmed U. S. commitment of drawdown to the Iraqi leader. He said both leaders agreed to the decision.

"After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," Obama said, after over 4,400 U.S. solders were killed there and tens of thousands Iraqi lives lost in the war.

Obama said after U.S. troops are pulled out from Iraq, the relationship between the two countries will be "one normal relationship between sovereign nations," and he will be welcoming Maliki to the White House for a visit in December.

Obama vowed the United States will have "strong and enduring partnership" with Iraq, which he defined as "an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect."

Under a security agreement reached with Iraq in 2008, the United States would pull out all its troops from that country by Dec. 31. But the administration had been negotiating with Iraq on leaving some troops behind as trainers. Whether the troops would have immunity was said to be the sticking point in discussions.

Denis McDonough, Obama's deputy national security advisor, told reporters in the White House that the two sides did talk about the immunity issue, but the decision to withdraw is not based on it. He said the decision is reflective of both sides' views of "the kind of relationship both nations want to have."

After ending combat mission in Iraq last year, the U.S. military's role in Iraq has been mostly about training and advising. There are about 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

By pulling troops out of Iraq, Obama kept a major campaign promise. He said by ending the Iraq War, the administration can focus more on the ailing economy.

"After a decade of war the nation that we need to build and the nation that we will build is our own, an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we've restored our leadership around the globe," said the President.

Related: 

• News Analysis: U.S. pullout from Iraq, political decision or not? 
• U.S. troops still hold 20 military bases in Iraq 
• Poll shows one-third U.S. veterans think Iraq, Afghanistan wars not worthwhile 
• Special Report: Situation in Iraq

Interview with Eustace Mullins 2005

The Neo-Zionist Order - Who rules your rulers?

Most Americans would agree that there is something desperately wrong with the political and judicial system in the United States, but as many unsuspecting Americans point fingers at each other (Republicans and Democrats) what they don’t realize is that this suits the Zionist purpose.

This interview is with the man who exposed the rulers who dictate policies. They hand down these policies to our so called leaders to advance the Neo-Zionist plot for total control over world affairs. Only a clear picture of what’s going on behind the facade of this so called ‘war on terror’ can one truly understand that this is a ‘war of terror’ designed for killing people and destroying property to stir up conflict to advance their agenda.

Incredibly, the DC Zionist agents sent a huge American armada across the great seas to unleash a devastating military force against a people that never fired a shot at her, not even across her bow as they approached with their invading Christian army. As this invasion spreads throughout the Middle East and Asia, it will continue to be sold as a war on terror when in actuality it is a calculated plot.

As a few unsuspecting Jews, a lot of Christians and Muslims are led to the slaughter, the Neo-Zionist and their agents will continue to enslave and rob us of our national treasures and many will cheer their own demise.

Eustace Mullins was once labeled ‘the most dangerous man in America’ by war criminal Henry Kissinger. Mullins may be one of the most plagiarized authors in the world and has authored many books that are now hard to find. Although tens of thousand of copies have been printed, mysteriously many of them seem to disappear overnight.

Eustace Mullins, who died in February 2010, was one of America’s foremost historian/researchers exposing facts over the last 50+ years that everyone in the world should know. However, these facts have been furiously suppressed by Zionists and their Neo-Con agents and the results have been (and will continue to be) devastating for the world.

Mullins has been vilified by the Zionist powers that be for his supposed anti-Semitism, but as you contemplate the hard facts he has compiled, you see something much more important and frightening than some allegation about verbal insults. You see in Mullins’ voluminous scholarship a clear and terrifying picture of the forces that control the world, and don’t care a whit about real people.

In the complete interview Eustace Mullins talks about the conspiracy of the Federal Reserve, The World Order, George Bush, Zionists, Israel, Mossad, Neo-Cons, CIA, FBI, 9/11, and the Zionists design for a Christian Muslim war.

Online books of Eustace Mullins:

Secrets of the Federal Reserve - modernhistoryproject.org/​mhp/​ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FedReserve

The World Order - modernhistoryproject.org/​mhp/​ArticleDisplay.php?Article=WorldOrder

Eustace Mullins - Who Rules Your Rulers? from Ritchy_Niburu_2 on Vimeo.


Related Article:

It's Happening !

An INTENSE moment of TRUTH with MAINSTREAM Media

5.8 Virginia earthquake shakes East Coast, rattles residents

Top banks accused of colluding on ATM fees

Reuters, Wed Oct 19, 2011

A pedestrian walks past a Bank of America banking branch in 

Charlotte, North Carolina October 13, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Chris Keane)

(Reuters) - A New Jersey man sued Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo on Wednesday on behalf of ATM users, accusing the banks of colluding to fix the fees they charge customers to withdraw money.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is the third such suit seeking class action status on the issue of automated teller machine fees in the past week.

The latest suit alleges the banks worked with Visa and MasterCard to set artificially high rates on ATM fees.

The earlier lawsuits were filed against Visa and MasterCard, Wednesday's lawsuit is directed at both the card network firms and the banks.

Customers who use ATMs not operated by their bank are often charged both by the operating bank and by their own bank, as a "foreign ATM transaction" fee.

Successful ATM operators need access to the Visa and MasterCard networks, since the vast majority of debit cards are exclusive to them. Some cards can access alternate, cheaper networks.

The lawsuits accuse Visa and MasterCard of forcing ATM operators to charge the same access fee to customers regardless of which network they use, in order to get access to the Visa and MasterCard networks.

One of the other lawsuits was filed by a group representing the operators of ATMs.

Wednesday's lawsuit accused the banks, that collect the access fees, of colluding with Visa and MasterCard in setting the transaction price.

A spokesman for JPMorgan declined comment. Representatives for Bank of America and Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is Justin Genese v Visa, MasterCard and others, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 11-01838.

(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Related Articles:

Occupy the Mortgage Lenders

An INTENSE moment of TRUTH with MAINSTREAM Media

Revealed: the link between Liam Fox donors and Tory HQ

Adam Werritty funded by businessmen introduced to former defence secretary by party treasurer

guardian.co.uk, Rajeev Syal, Rupert Neate and Nicholas Watt, Wednesday 19 October 2011

Liam Fox attacked the media in his resignation speech. He will face
 a fresh inquiry into his links with Adam Werritty. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/
Getty Images Europe

The Liam Fox affair has reached the Conservative party's high command for the first time after it was confirmed that its leading fundraiser introduced donors to the former defence secretary, who then introduced them to his best man, Adam Werritty.

In a blow to Downing Street's central tactic of distancing itself from Fox – saying that he was operating in his own way – the Conservative party admitted that its senior treasurer was the conduit for donors to the former defence secretary.

Howard Leigh passed on the details of donors who wished to support Fox's campaign during the 2005 Tory leadership contest. They were then persuaded by Fox to give money to Werritty's not-for-profit company Pargav, according to a source, and some of the money was spent visiting Fox on lavish trips abroad. Leigh was one of party's treasurers at the time.

The disclosure is an embarrassment for the Tories and will pose further difficult questions for Fox, who has been told that he faces a parliamentary inquiry into his behaviour and Werritty. In his resignation statement in the Commons, Fox attacked the media for pursuing him.

"Last week's media frenzy was not unprecedented, and it happens where a necessary free press and politics collide," Fox said. "But I believe there was, from some quarters, a personal vindictiveness, even hatred, that should worry all of us."

A Conservative spokesman confirmed Leigh's role in helping to introduce Fox to the donors whose recent support was used by Werritty to fly around the world to meet the former defence secretary.

The spokesman told the Guardian: "Howard Leigh introduced donors to Liam Fox's office during the 2005 leadership campaign. Some of them subsequently maintained contact with Dr Fox's office. Mr Leigh had no knowledge of Pargav and has not introduced donors to Dr Fox for some time."

A source close to Leigh said: "Howard Leigh was as shocked as anybody to find that donors' funds were being used to fund Adam Werritty's trips. There is no way that he would have countenanced that."

Leigh is now the senior treasurer of the party. He is understood to have met Werritty on a number of occasions, but does not regard him as a friend. A party source says the donors approached Leigh asking to donate money to Fox's campaign, not that they were solicited by Leigh.

The Tory spokesman declined to say which donors had been introduced to Fox by Leigh, and did not expand on whether they knew of how their money had been spent by Werritty. Backers of Pargav include Mick Davis, a South African-born mining magnate known for his pro-Israel views; Tamares real estate, an investment company owned by Poju Zabludowicz, the chief funder of Israeli pressure group Bicom; and Michael Lewis, a former vice-president of Bicom, who donated £13,832 to Atlantic Bridge and £5,000 to Fox.

Davis, Zabludowicz and Lewis would not comment on Wednesday on how their donations had been solicited or what they believed the money was to be used for. However, Lewis has stated he had no knowledge of how his donations to Fox's leadership campaign were used.

A source with knowledge of some of the donations said some initial contributions were made to Fox's charity, Atlantic Bridge, and renewed in subsequent years without close scrutiny of where the money was going. He said some of the donors were also under the impression that the approaches had been approved by the Conservative party. "I don't think it was core Tory party fundraising but there were core Tory party fundraisers who were willing to support it."

Another source said there had been no co-ordination between the Jewish donors to fund Werritty, though some had initially felt well-disposed to help Fox because of his pro-Israel position. Both Davis and Leigh serve on the Jewish Leadership Council, a body with representatives from community and religious groups. Davis has been chairman of the council's executive committee since 2009.

Leigh chairs the elite Leaders' Group, which has more than 70 members who pay up to £50,000 a year for the privilege of meetings with David Cameron. Tory insiders say he has helped to bring in more than £2m a year through fundraising events, according to reports.

He is the managing director of Cavendish Corporate Finance, which helped Cameron's wife, Samantha, collect a windfall following the £18m sale of Smythson, the stationery and leather goods emporium company where she is creative dire ctor.

Leigh passed the donors over to Fox in 2005. At the time, Fox was the leading candidate of the party's right in the leadership campaign against Cameron and David Davis. Tory sources claim Fox then maintained contact with the donors and was responsible for passing them to Werritty, who then funnelled £150,000 to Pargav.

The parliamentary standards commissioner, John Lyon, announced that he would investigate a complaint about the former defence secretary lodged by Labour MP John Mann, after Mann asked him to examine allegations that Fox allowed Werritty to live rent-free in his London flat, which allowed him to run a business from a property funded by parliamentary allowances.

Fox apologised to MPs after Sir Gus O'Donnell ruled that he was guilty of multiple breaches of the ministerial code for a "blurring of lines" between his official and private responsibilities. In a carefully constructed sentence, Fox said: "The ministerial code has been found to be breached. For this I am sorry."

Fox accused the media for hounding his family and accepting "unquestioningly" claims by Harvey Boulter, the Dubai-based businessman. "It is difficult to operate in the modern environment, as we know, where every bit of information, however irrelevant or immaterial, is sensationalised, and where opinions or even accusations are treated as fact.

Boulter rejected Fox's criticism. He said: "It is most certainly not fair or correct for Fox to again brand me as a blackmailer. He knows very well that I was trying to settle a legal dispute … this is a negotiation."

He added: "If Fox had not issued an incorrect statement in the first place, which the Guardian forced him to correct publicly, then he would not have exposed his adviser to scrutiny."

Related Article:

Liam Fox resignation: Adam Werritty money trail was final straw

UN urges ban on solitary confinement

BBC News, 19 October 2011

Related Stories 

• 'Enhanced interrogation is ineffective'
• UN issues Afghan 'torture' report

The UN's lead investigator on torture has called for governments to end the use of long spells of solitary confinement in prison.

Juan Mendez said the majority of countries
abused the practice of solitary confinement

Juan Mendez said such isolation could cause serious mental and physical damage and amount to torture.

He said it should not be used on people with mental disabilities or juveniles.

Mr Mendez said short term isolation was permissible for prisoner protection but all solitary confinement longer than 15 days should be banned.

He told a UN General Assembly human rights committee that solitary confinement as practised in a majority of countries was "subject to widespread abuse".

Mr Mendez, a professor of law at American University in Washington, cited studies indicating harmful physical and mental effects after just a few days of solitary confinement.

"Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles," he said.

"Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, supermax, the hole, secure housing unit... whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique."

He said it was estimated that in the US, 20-25,000 prisoners were being held in isolation.

Mr Mendez also criticised Chinese authorities for keeping a woman in isolation for two years out of an eight-year sentence for supplying state secrets to foreigners.

[Occupytimessquare] 1 Marine vs. 30 Cops (Marine Wins)

United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.

Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.

Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).

Related Video

Ahmadinejad likens claims of Iranian assassination plot to Iraq WMD

Iranian president says US claims of Iranian involvement in an alleged plot to kill Saudi ambassador will prove false

guardian.co.uk, Reuters in Tehran, Tuesday 18 October 2011

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the US wants a rift
between Tehran and the Saudis. Photograph: AY/SIPA /Rex Features

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said US allegations of an Iranian assassination plot resemble its claims about weapons of mass destruction that formed the basis for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and would prove to be equally untrue.

The Iranian president suggested that the US aimed to cause a rift between Tehran and Saudi Arabia that would help Washington dominate the oil-rich Gulf and had fabricated the plot of an Iranian seeking to kill the Saudi ambassador to America.

"In the past the US administration claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They said it so strongly, they offered and presented documentations and everyone said: 'Yes, we believe in you. We buy it,'" Ahmadinejad said in a live interview on al-Jazeera television on Monday evening.

"Now is everyone asking them, were those claims true? Did they find any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq? They fabricated a bunch of papers. Is that a difficult thing to do?

"The truth will be revealed ultimately and there will be no problem for us at that time," he added.

Barack Obama hopes the alleged foiled plot will lead to tighter sanctions against Iran – already under several rounds of UN measures over its nuclear programme. The Us president has repeatedly said that all options were on the table to deal with the Islamic republic, a tacit threat of possible military action.

When asked whether he thought Iran and the US were on an inevitable "collision course" towards military conflict, Ahmadinejad replied: "I don't think so. I think that there are some people in the US administration who want this to happen but I think there are wise people in the US administration who know they shouldn't do such a thing."

Nevertheless, Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, commander of Iranian ground forces, said his troops were "fully prepared and ready to give a quick response to any aggression on Iran's soil".

"Today America is too unsteady to even think about launching an attack on Iran," he told the semi-official Fars news agency.

Saudi Arabia, Iran's main rival in the Gulf and which has close ties with Washington, requested the United Nations look into what it called the "heinous conspiracy". On Monday the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he had passed correspondence about the affair to the security council.

Ahmadinejad called on Saudis not to fall for a US strategy which he said aimed to divide and conquer the Gulf.

"If the US administration is under the impression that by doing this it can create conflict between us and Saudi Arabia then I have to say the US administration is sorely mistaken.

"The US administration is not interested in Iran or in Saudi Arabia. They see their interests in having a dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia – they want to dominate our region," he said.

The events of the Arab spring have strained Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia, as each tries to assert its position in the region amid a welter of sectarian and geopolitical rivalries.

Even before the uprisings began, a leaked US cable published on WikiLeaks said Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah had urged the US to "cut off the head of the snake" by launching military strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear programme.

The furore over the alleged assassination plot appears to have killed any chance of a quick return to talks between Tehran and world powers concerned about its nuclear programme, but the foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran would examine the allegations.

"We are prepared to examine any issue, even if fabricated, seriously and patiently, and we have called on America to submit to us any information in regard to this scenario," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

China underlines importance of safeguarding peaceful use of outer space

English.news.cn   2011-10-18

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday underlined the importance of safeguarding the peaceful use of outer space and preventing the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space, saying that "the outer space is the common wealth of mankind as the global public space."

The statement came as Wang Qun, the Chinese ambassador for disarmament affairs, was taking the floor at the thematic debate on outer space at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly. The First Committee is in charge of disarmament and international security.

"The outer space is the common wealth of mankind as the global public space," Wang said. "The permanent peace of outer space is correlated to all nations' security, development and prosperity."

"Meanwhile, with the growing reliance of mankind on outer space, the risk of the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space are on rise, and the uncertainties concerning outer space security are accumulating as well," he said. "Safeguarding the peaceful use of outer space and preventing the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space are common interest and obligations of all countries."

In responding to the growing challenge for security in outer space, the international community also witnessed common grounds on opposing to the weaponization of outer space and advertising the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space, he said.

The General Assembly, for consecutive years, adopted " Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space" resolution by overwhelming majority of votes, calling for negotiations on an international legally-binding instrument on the prevention of an arms race in outer space at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

"The mankind has marched into the 6th decade of outer space exploitation, and the manned space flight has made a history of 50 years," Wang said.

"Recently, China has successfully launched the Tiangong-1 ( Heavenly Palace 1) as a target spacecraft for rendezvous and docking experiment, which opens a new era of China's manned space flight, and also reflects that China is committed itself to the honorable objective of promoting the peaceful exploration and utilization of the outer space, maintaining peace and bringing benefit to mankind."

Editor: yan

Related Article:

Healing the Military Energies in our family tree – June 2011 (Kryon channelled by David Brown)

Q Poll: 67% Of NYC Voters Agree With OWS

NY Daily News, by Celeste Katz, October 17, 2011

New York City voters agree, 67% - 23%, with the Occupy Wall Street protesters' aims and say 87% - 10% percent that it's ok that they're demonstrating, a Quinnipiac University poll finds.

Democrats overwhelmingly (81%) agree with OWS, independents are slightly divided but still supportive (58% - 30%) and Republicans disagree 58% - 35%.

Still, 73% of Republicans polled say the protesters have a right to be there. And overall, 72% of NYC voters say if the protesters obey the law, they can stay as long as they like.

Voters are nearly evenly split on how the police are handling Occupy Wall Street, although they are more supportive in general of how the cops are doing their job.

“Critics complain that no one can figure out what the protesters are protesting. But seven out of 10 New Yorkers say they understand and most agree with the anti-Wall Street views of the protesters," said Quinnipiac's Mickey Carroll.

“For a while, the critics focused on the cops’ use of pepper spray at the protests. Voters are divided on how police are handling the protesters, but they say almost 2-to-1 that police are doing a good job overall,” he added.

As to the crux of the issue, 61% of New York City voters support an extension of the state’s "Millionaire’s Tax."

Voters also support, by a margin of 73% - 19% , including 48% - 40% among Republicans, tougher government regulation of banks and Wall Street firms. Read on for the crosstabs!

And who's to blame for the current economic situation? Quinnipiac found: 

• 37% of New York City voters blame the administration of former President George W. Bush;
• 21% blame Wall Street and financial institutions;
• 18% blame Congress;
• 11% blame President Obama.

 Quinnipiac Wall St. Poll

Related Article:

EU leaders say youth protests are 'totally legitimate'

EU leaders say youth protests are 'totally legitimate'

Deutsche Welle, 17 October 2011 

Van Rompuy and Barroso both struck
a softer tone

In the wake of massive protests across Europe and the world against the financial sector, EU leaders have said they understand the frustration and that greater financial regulation is necessary.

European Union leaders on Monday made conciliatory remarks in response to the weekend's global protests against corporate greed and unemployment, using the opportunity to push for stricter financial regulation.

"The concerns of those young people on growth and employment are totally legitimate," EU President Herman Van Rompuy told reporters after meetings with business and union leaders. "But our responsibility is to go through this unpopular period in order to safeguard a better future."

Hundreds of thousands of protesters, many of them youths, marched through cities across Europe, the United States, Latin America and Asia over the weekend in demonstrations sparked by the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. 

Protests across Europe included one at
the European Central Bank in Frankfurt

The protests were an expression of anger at the banking and financial sectors blamed for causing an economic crisis that has forced governments to cut budgets and roll back social welfare programs.

Van Rompuy said such budget cuts were an unfortunate necessity to restore confidence in European government debt, but he also said that austerity measures "must be as growth- and jobs-friendly as possible" and that the burden should not fall solely on the backs of the poor

EU-wide financial crimes

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso echoed Van Rompuy's sentiment, saying he could "very much understand the frustration and indignation of so many people in our societies."

The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, plans on introducing legislation on Thursday that would penalize insider trading and market manipulation with fines or jail time across the 27-country bloc.

"Some of the behavior you have seen in the financial sector was completely irresponsible, sometimes... of criminal nature," Barroso said, adding that the financial sector must "make a fairer contribution to the common good."

Merkel downplays summit expectations

Meanwhile, as about 200 people continued to camp outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffan Seibert said the protests expressed "a legitimate demand for justice," but that they should not "place all the blame for the current financial crisis on the banks," when governments spending beyond their means were also to blame.  

Lenders may be asked to take a greater
loss on their Greek government bonds

Leaders of EU member states are to meet in Brussels on Sunday to discuss how to solve the bloc's debt crisis. They are expected to ask private lenders to take an even bigger loss on Greek government bonds, which have already lost 20 percent of their value under an agreement made in July.

Seibert sought to lower the expectations of the summit, saying the problem was too big to be solved quickly.

"Dreams that everything will be resolved and dealt with by next Monday cannot be fulfilled," Chancellor Mekel's spokesman said. "These are important steps on a long path, a path that will certainly continue far into next year."

Author: Andrew Bowen (AFP, dapd, dpa)

Editor: Mark Hallam

Related Articles:

New Yorkers support anti-Wall Street protests: poll

Holland hosts own 'Occupy' demonstrations

Occupy DameStreet: Irish bank protesters stage well-mannered sit-in

Analysis: Wall St. action part of global "Arab Spring?"

Obama chides banks, taps anger over Wall St

Biden: Wall St protests show Americans see system unfair

Other protests have been held in Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago

George Soros' sympathy for Wall Street protesters

Unions endorse, will join Occupy Wall Street protests

'Speculation on basic foodstuffs is catastrophic'

Deutsche Welle, 16 October 2011  

Ziegler: Death by starvation is murder

To mark World Food Day on 16 October 2011, DW-World presents an exclusive interview held earlier this month with Jean Ziegler, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, about the causes of world hunger.

Jean Ziegler, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, is a stark advocate of the right of every individual to have access to food. Since 2008, Ziegler has been a member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council. He spoke to Deutsche Welle in Geneva about the current global food situation.

Deutsche Welle: All people have a right to food, but food has also become a speculative commodity on the world's stock markets. Where do you see the reasons for this, and what effects does it have?

Jean Ziegler: Financial speculation on basic foodstuffs is completely catastrophic. In the first place, the big hedge funds, large banks and large-scale speculators moved to the commodities exchanges, particularly the food stock markets, after the financial crash and are now making astronomical profits, quite legally, with forward transactions. The result is that corn has become 93 percent more expensive in the past 18 months. The price of rice has gone up 110 percent. And the third basic foodstuff is wheat. A ton of wheat now costs 271 euros ($372), exactly twice as much as last year. Why is that a catastrophe? If you take the example of developing countries such as the 53 countries in Africa, 37 of them have to import food in normal periods, not just when there is famine, and they can't do that if the prizes explode. That is why stock market speculation on basic foodstuffs should be banned.

One of the biggest obstacles in the fight against hunger is that poor countries in particular are dependent on food imports. How could this development be reversed? How can countries regain some degree of the food security that they once had?

More than 10 million people are affected
 by the current food crisis in parts of Africa

By canceling their foreign debt. If developing countries spend everything they earn in the way of foreign currency to pay off interest or to pay back creditor banks in Frankfurt, London, Paris or New York, they don't have any money. Take Ethiopia as an example: this huge country of a million square kilometers, with 70 million inhabitants, has 3.8 percent of arable land. Because there is no investment, no fertilizer or selected seeds, and no market development, productivity is low. In normal periods, in the Sahel, Burkina Faso or Niger, they harvest 600 to 700 kilograms (1,300 to 1,500 pounds) per hectare (2.47 acres). In Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany, they get ten tons, or ten thousand kilograms (22,000 pounds), not because the farmers in Baden-Württemberg are so much cleverer or work so much more than farmers in the Sahel, but because farmers in the Sahel have no investments. No draft animals, so no natural fertilizer, no seed, selected seed, no pesticides, no irrigation. The only thing they have is the same short-handled hoe they have had for three thousand years, and they use rain-based agricultural methods, totally dependent on weather conditions that have gone mad.

You have said that death by starvation is murder. Who is the murderer?

The recently released World Food Report says that a child of under 10 years of age dies every five seconds. Some 37,000 people die of hunger every day. The same World Food Report says world agriculture could feed 12 billion people without any problems. There is no objective lack of food any more.

A child that dies of starvation these days has been murdered. The murderer is the cannibalistic world order. That world order is dominated by multinational corporations. The global agricultural market is dominated by some 10 multinational companies that function according the principle of profit maximization; that's completely normal. It's not a matter of attacking them. What matters here is the structural violence of a cannibalistic order. Last year, Cargil controlled 26 percent of the entire global wheat trade. Monsanto controls 85 percent of all seed, both genetically modified and normal selected seed. Archer Midland, Louis Dreifus control the rice market and decide every day who on this planet will live and who will die.

According to the human rights organization FIAN, chronic hunger results above all from the fact that the perpetrators are not punished. Is that how you see it, and who could bring them to trial?

Huge quantities of grain are needed
to make bioethanol

Last year, the Americans burnt 138 million tons of corn and hundreds of millions of tons of wheat to produce bioethanol and biodiesel. The production and import of bioethanol and biodiesel have to be banned. Stock market speculation on basic foodstuffs must and can be banned. The 27 states of the EU pay billions in production and export subventions and swamp the African markets with cheap products, completely ruining the local farming industry. This form of dumping can and must be stopped. The foreign debt of the poorest countries must be canceled so that these countries can invest in subsistence farming. And land-grabbing has to stop, it must be banned. All of these are very concrete demands that a democratic public sphere could implement today, now.

What demands would we have to make on global agricultural production to be able to feed nine billion people in the long run?

The world could feed 12 billion people already today. It's a problem of distribution.

It's not just raw agricultural products that are being destroyed - you spoke about wheat and corn from the USA - but we also hear that around a third of all food on offer is wasted here in Europe. What can be done there? Who is to blame?

Millions of tons of food are thrown away by supermarkets, by bakeries. That is the consumption mania, the neoliberal consumption mania that we have, the total lack of responsibility for people. It isn't a matter of transporting the bread that is thrown away here as dry bread for Somali refugees. That is nonsense, complete nonsense. It is a matter of wresting the structures of production and consumptions away from the corporations; of saying: there is a right to food, it is produced and the amount of food is distributed in such a way that everyone has access to the food that gives and preserves life.

The tyranny of the oligarchy of globalized financial capital has existed for 20 years. Things have been liberalized and privatized as never before in the history of humankind. Nation-states are like snowmen in summer; every week they lose more sovereign rights. And hunger is growing. Minimum wages for farmers, land rights, rights to seed, rights to fertilizers, the legally protected access of people to sufficient food: these are things we can achieve - it isn't a utopian dream.

Author: Andreas Zumach / tj

Editor: Sean Sinico

Related Articles:

UN expert calls for guidelines to protect vulnerable people against 'land grabs'

Ugandan villagers evicted to make way for forestry company - video

G-20 announces measures to stabilize food prices

US universities in Africa 'land grab'

Hedge funds 'grabbing land' in Africa

Global food crisis: the US speculators playing with our daily bread

Indonesia expects G20 meeting to press food speculators