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.”
----------------------
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.
----------------------
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.
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