The Monday Night Muse - October 19 2015

If you want to know what’s going on in the world, there are places that will tell you the truth, not paint you a picture, maintain the status quo or be part of any international/inter-business synergy.

This is one of those places.

Stories, truths and angles that you need to know and have probably been sheltered from by the powers that be or your own search bubble.

Every Monday evening.

Millions of slaves living in the West

 

Slavery is not a thing of the past. Credit: Lisa Kristine.

There are 21 million modern slaves in the world today, most of them women and girls hiding in plain sight in poor and rich countries alike – 7% of today’s slaves live in North America or the European Union. From trafficking and sexual exploitation to work in private homes, agriculture, fishing, construction and manufacturing, modern slavery is not only a crime, it is big business. It generates some $150bn in illegal profits every year, according to an estimate by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Poverty is at the root of it, as is lack of awareness by both victims and the general public. Forced labor affects the most vulnerable and least protected people, perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty and dependency. Women, low-skilled migrant workers, children, indigenous peoples and other groups suffering discrimination on different grounds are disproportionately affected. And many victims don’t even consider themselves to be slaves – working to pay off a debt passed down through generations, or being a servant in a private home from dusk to dawn is the only life some have ever known. At the same time, you may be eating food picked by modern slaves, or wearing clothes made with slave labor without realizing it.

The ILO has a new protocol on forced labor that gives countries a powerful tool to tackle slavery. The first international treaty on slavery in more than 80 years, it was adopted by ILO members in 2014 and takes into account new forms of slavery, including trafficking for sexual or labor exploitation and debt bondage. It also requires countries not only to criminalize slavery and punish perpetrators but to prevent it, and to offer protection and remedy to victims.

The protocol requires two national ratifications before it enters into force. The ILO is launching a campaign to persuade at least 50 countries to ratify it by 2018. Because to live in a world with millions of slaves demeans us all.

 RoundUp confirmed as "cancer causing", Monsanto deny independent findings

See previous post on Monsanto. http://theultrabomb.blogspot.ie/2015/04/monsanto-roundup-and-autism-1-in-2.html 

The last year has seen more happen in conscious defiance of genetically modified food and its associated chemicals than perhaps the last 20 combined. After a slow start, humanity is awakened, activated, and taking no prisoners. There are now blueprints in place from individuals, communities, states, and entire countries to replicate on the way to casting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their chemicals into the history books.

Meanwhile, Monsanto’s public relations and marketing appear to be operating within a vacuum by attempting to ignore a growing global population. As entire countries ban their products and inferior technology, Monsanto is quickly losing control of their financial bottom line as they watch their consumer base evaporate. Short videos and marketing spots are still lauding the virtues of their failed Roundup product. With Monsanto’s YouTube video titled “Glyphosate: Give it a Minute,” the public is getting a front row seat to the company’s “emperor has no clothes” moment.

With each day that goes by, Monsanto’s flagship product Roundup is getting closer to worldwide rejection. Glyphosate appears to have taken its place as the unofficial sponsor of cancer since being labeled a 2A carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The fact this chemical remains on the market and is still used on the food supply is a damning admission of the corruption and shortcomings of leadership at all levels of politics and regulatory agencies.

After being named a 2A Carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the worldwide recoil is now in full swing. The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has announced that it too will label glyphosate a carcinogen. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich recently announced that Russia had “made the decision not to use any GMO in food productions.” U.S. imports of non-GMO food soared to $85.4 million in 2015.  

 

Steven Seagal claims government is behind mass shootings 

In an interview with RT news, Seagal said that:

“We believe that many of the people in America are not going along with the hocus pocus of certain governmental bodies who want to try and perpetuate the Cold War, we believe that the Cold War is a fantasy and a hoax to perpetuate maybe some sort of financial gain….” 

“You have to understand, whether or not it is intelligent, or ethical, or moral, one of the great techniques of even Adolf Hitler … [is to] tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth. One of the things that, you know, certain people’s regime has become very adept at is controlling the press, and controlling the media … For example, CNN, do I think CNN is completely telling it like it is? No, I think they have an agenda, I think their agenda is bought and paid for…. This isn’t about telling the truth, who’s right or who’s wrong, it’s about a smear campaign and who can manipulate the press.” 

“I am not prepared to make a comment on what’s happening in Syria because in America I don’t believe we are being told the whole truth.” 

“I believe that, I hate to say this, a lot of these mass murders and all this funny stuff that’s going on, I believe a lot of this is engineered.”

And finally...

Idiot of the week!!

A picture says a thousand words. I'd imagine a lot of those will be expletives and/or terms of pity. Yikes.

 

Never accept the world with which you are presented.

The Monday Night Muse - October 12 2015

If you want to know what’s going on in the world, there are places that will tell you the truth, not paint you a picture, maintain the status quo or be part of any international/inter-business synergy.

This is one of those places.

Stories, truths and angles that you need to know and have probably been sheltered from by the powers that be or your own search bubble.

Every Monday evening.

 

TTIP 'would remove people's rights to access basic human needs'

Access to basic rights such as energy running water could be jeopardised by multinational corporations, according to a new report into two free trade deals.

The report states that the agreements could allow all public services to be tied into commercial deals that would place profit above the rights of individuals to access basic services.

According to the report, titled Public Services Under Attack, such deals would be “effectively irreversible”, allowing multinational corporations to sue governments that try to regulate the cost of public services if it could be proved companies’ profits would be harmed.

Both agreements, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) with the US the CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with Canada, are currently being negotiated.

It is claimed that all public services  including health, education and energy could be at risk of privatisation.

Under current WTO agreements, access to water is regarded as a basic human right. The new trade agreements would effectively undermine this, according to John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want, one of the campaign groups behind the report .

He claims that in a worst-case scenario, if individuals were unable to pay their water bill, they would be denied access to it. “Suddenly, instead of water being considered a human right, it would be treated as a commodity and people could be cut off if they can’t afford it,” Mr Hilary told The Independent.

 

Previously, the UK Government  has insisted that public services such as education and the NHS would be protected from such action.

In November last year, the UK Government published a document on the deal, Separating Myth from Fact, in which it states: “TTIP will not change the way that the NHS, or other public services, is run.

“The European Commission is following our approach that it must always be for the UK to decide for itself whether or not to open up our public services to competition.” But Mr Hilary believes the public should be sceptical of such assurances. He said: “There is no truth in the government’s claim that public services are safe in TTIP. Corporate lobbyists have made sure that key services such as health, education, post, rail and water are to be opened up to the private sector, and treaties such as TTIP will lock in that privatisation for ever. As a result of the lobbying by these special interest groups in the services sector, it’s quite clear that public services are in the frame and any claim to the contrary is bogus.”

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Facebook paid less than £4,500 tax in the UK last year

 

Social media giant Facebook’s UK arm paid just £4,327 in company taxes according to its latest published accounts.  

Facebook claimed that it takes tax obligations seriously.

A spokesman for the giant said: “We are compliant with UK tax law and in fact all countries where we have employees and offices.”

A single worker on the UK average salary of £26,500 would pay £3,180 in income tax and £2,213 in national insurance contributions, some £1,000 more than the conglomerate paid in 2014.

Facebook's UK revenues were £105 million while the company made profits of $2.9 billion globally.

Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, John O’Connell, said: “Taxpayers will be justifiably confused and angry about this tax bill. We have to ensure our taxes are simple to eliminate loopholes, and that taxes are low to increase our competitiveness so that companies choose to base themselves here.”  

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Europe's 'last dictator' re-elected 

"I advise you to follow the law...you know what will happen” - actual quote 

In a landslide victory, Alexander Lukashenko has won a fifth term as president of Belarus.

Long-standing opposition figures barred from standing in yesterday’s vote and state media gave Lukashenko uniformly positive coverage. The president ran against three unknowns, only one of whom campaigned.

Lukashenko has warned the opposition against protests that could derail the lifting of Western sanctions imposed over rights abuse allegations.

Lukashenko won 83.49% of the vote with nearest rival Tatiana Korotkevich collecting just 4.42%.

While Lukashenko allowed an unauthorised opposition rally in the capital to go ahead without police intervention on Saturday, he warned that he would not tolerate such protests after the vote.

“The polls close at 8pm and I advise you to follow the law,” he said, adding: “You know what will happen.”

Ridiculing runner-up Korotkevich, Europe’s longest-serving leader said she could not handle ruling a country because she is a woman.

“The president here has masses of powers, from security to the economy, that so far a person in a skirt cannot carry out,” he said.

The previous elections of 2010 led to mass street protests against his victory, triggering a crackdown during which a number of leading opposition figures were arrested.

Lukashenko’s subsequent incarceration of his opponents led to his international isolation and the imposition of Western sanctions against him.

That could now change. A mooted EU move to suspend the punitive measures, also following the surprise release in August of the country’s last political prisoners, has sparked an outcry from Belarussian opposition figures who have waged a long campaign against authoritarianism.

But opposition leader Mikola Statkevich — who was pardoned in August after spending five years in jail — told AFP: “If they are together with this murderer, this criminal, then democracy is just words.”

Lukashenko had the lowest result in the capital Minsk where 65.58% of voters backed him, while in a striking figure, 20.6% in Minsk voted against all candidates, the most popular option for those who opposed the long-serving leader.

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And finally... 

Peking Bad: school teacher held in China's latest drug swoop

A secondary school teacher has been arrested by police in China following a six-month investigation into his methamphetamine empire.

The 35-year-old, named as Lu, taught teenagers at a school in the city of Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous Region in south-west China. After becoming addicted to drugs and losing his job, Lu transformed himself into a basement chemist producing drugs at home in order to feed his own habit, the People’s Daily newspaper reported.

Photographs published in Chinese state media showed an array of chemicals and glass flasks laid out around the alleged criminal’s flat.

This the latest in a list of cases in the Asian country to echo the story of Walter White, the main character in the AMC's drama Breaking Bad. China’s meth boom has so far spawned at least four homegrown Walter Whites. Before Guangxi unmasked Lu this week, there had been reports of similar figures being put out of business in Hubei, Shaanxi and Guangdong provinces.

China has witnessed a surge in the use of meth - or bingdu – in recent years and the substance has overtaken heroin as the drug of choice for millions of addicts.

North Korea is also thought to boast its own army of disgruntled chemistry teachers channeling synthetic drugs into the rapidly expanding Chinese market.

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And this week's Who buys this crap?  moment of the week goes to...

http://reserveaspotinheaven.com/

Yes folks, you read that right. A website SO ludicrous  it inspired its own segment on The Monday Night Muse!

We have found a ridiculous  website to rival the claims of scientology and the indulgences scandal of the 16h century Catholic church. 

You can even give a loved one the gift of eternal happiness. The only problem is, how to revert back to a regular gift next Christmas? Suddenly going back to buying jewelry would be an anti-climax.

Check out the website for yourself. This has to be seen to be believed.

Never accept the world with which you are presented.