How Corporate Sovereignty Undermines Democracy By Irrevocably Binding Future Governments

from the how-is-that-even-possible? dept

Techdirt has been at the forefront of pointing out the dangers of including investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in so-called trade agreements. Indeed, we even helped come up with a new term -- corporate sovereignty -- to make clear that ISDS is really about placing corporations on the same level as entire nations, and giving them a unique power to sue a country for alleged harms before special tribunals. But there's an additional aspect to this, which is explored in an insightful article by Sam Fowles on The Conversation.
He points out that although we don't know in detail what the US-EU TAFTA/TTIP agreement will contain, we do have the text for the one between Canada and the EU, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (pdf), known as CETA. The European Commission has said many times that it aims to build on the corporate sovereignty chapter in CETA when it comes to negotiating TTIP. One feature of ISDS in CETA is the following:

In the event that the present Agreement is terminated, the provisions of [Chapter X Investment] shall continue to be effective for a further period of 20 years from that date in respect of investments made before the date of termination of the present Agreement.

That is, even if a party pulls out of CETA, it will still be bound by the corporate sovereignty provisions for another 20 years, whether it likes it or not. Since we know that the US model investment treaty (pdf) also requires parties to continue allowing ISDS claims for ten years, it seems likely that TAFTA/TTIP, if it includes corporate sovereignty, will also have such a clause, for at least ten years, maybe more. Fowles explains why that is a problem -- he talks about the UK Parliament, but it applies equally to the US:

Parliament represents the will of the people. Therefore it can make or unmake any law it wants. But there’s a caveat: parliament can’t make a law that would bind future parliaments. To do so would be undemocratic. The laws of one generation are often inappropriate for the next. Parliament must embody the will of the people at the time. When two ordinary laws conflict, the courts will always apply the one passed most recently.

But the 10/20-year extension of ISDS interferes with that. It says that whatever the views of government in power, it must still respect the ISDS chapter signed by one of its predecessors. One implication is that for a decade or two, any major policy changes could be subject to billion-dollar cases before corporate sovereignty tribunals -- a strong disincentive to bring them in, whatever the public might want. The implication is clear. As Fowles writes:

If democracy is to remain the fundamental tenet of our constitution then TTIP must not be ratified. At the very least we must derogate from the 20-year clause. Living under a government you don’t like is the risk you take in a democracy, but being forced to live by rules agreed 20 years ago is fundamentally undemocratic.

As Techdirt explained last year, Canada has already signed a trade agreement with China that will take precedence over Canada's constitution for 31 years. Let's hope the US and EU aren't foolish enough to follow suit by allowing corporate sovereignty to reign over them even after TAFTA/TTIP is terminated.

Listen Closely To What A U.S. Air Force Colonel Has To Say About UFOs

May 26, 2015 by Arjun Walia.

Below is a video of retired USAF Colonel Charles Halt speaking at a conference held a few years ago at the National Press Club in Washington. In it, he shares his experience about what happened at a UK military base in eastern England. He was the Colonel stationed there at the time, along with several other USAF and RAF personnel.

This video has made its rounds, but it is still a great resource to share to create more awareness about the phenomenon.

So what happened? There was visual confirmation of multiple Unidentified Flying Objects. Keep in mind, these objects are also commonly tracked on military radar (evidence and links provided in the article below) at the same time that they are being visually confirmed. Charles describes the events that took place there, and what these objects looked like in the video.

This Is What Happens When A UFO Is Tracked On Military Radar

It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it. Hundreds upon hundreds (literally) of high ranking military personnel, political personnel, academicians, and other prestigious professionals have come forward to share their experiences and the information they’ve been privy to in the world of secrecy. You can read more about that world here.

We are talking about highly skilled, highly trained men who are trusted with jobs usually considered to be of extreme importance – like guarding nuclear missiles, for example.

Related CE Article: Why Are UFOs Shutting Down Our Nuclear Missiles

There is absolutely no doubt that strange, unexplainable things have been happening in and beyond our atmosphere for quite some time now.

With all of this information available, it’s important to remember that just because a respected person says something does not mean we should believe it with blind faith. But when we have hundreds of these people speaking out and thousands upon thousands of declassified government documents to back them up, it’s time to reassess. The truth is out there.

This is precisely why a quarter of Americans believe that intelligent extraterrestrial visitors have already come to Earth and have been here for some time. That is a very large number, and keep in mind that is just in America alone.  (source)

“Everything is in a process of investigation both in the United States and in Spain, as well as the rest of the world. The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data.” – General Carlos Castro Cavero (1979). From “UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 2,″ written by Richard Dolan.

For more information, documentation, and statements you can check out this article:

If You Still Think That We Are Alone In The Universe – You Might Want To See This 

The Ministry of Defense determined this issue was not a threat to national security and therefore never investigated the incident.

Former Senior Royal Navy Officer (Admiral of the fleet, highest possible rank) and chairman of the NATO military committee had this to say about it:

UFO Disclosure Conference - National Press Club/27. September 2010 - Part 1/5

“The Bentwaters incident is a classic case, where an apparent intrusion of our airspace was witnessed by serious minded people within the military, and by responsible people doing a responsible job. And Bentwaters is a benchmark of how not to deal with these matters in the future.” (source)

“There are only two explanations for what happened that night, that something from outside the Earth’s atmosphere landed at the air force base. They touched it, inspected it, took photographs of it and found radioactive traces. They reported this and Colonel Halt [deputy base commander at the time] sent a report about the incident to our Ministry of Defense. This is one explanation as it actually happened. The other explanation is that Colonel Halt and all these men are hallucinating.” (source)

And what he says here really makes you think about the fact that the Ministry of Defense said this was not of defense significance.

“My position is perfectly clear, either of those explanations is of the utmost defense interest.”  (source)

He also went on to state that:

“There is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, by other civilizations. Who they are, where they are from, and what they want should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not be the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.” (source)

“The Ocean is Dying”: Marine and Animal Life Die Offs, California Coast

Pacific Ocean is “Turning Into a Desert”          ~  what's the "plan" folks we just fucking gonna wait till this Planet looks like the fucking ..moon  that it ,that the "plan"    ... folks we got prob's  & it isn't the ordinary cit's that IS "poll~loot~ing"  this planet ...it's Big BIZ. & "elite's" parasites  rat bastard's  ("they" go head in hand)   & how's that working 4 us  ...Huh,  hows that ...go~in    Hummm just gonna piss IT away ,Huh

By Mac Slavo

Global Research, May 27, 2015

The SHTF Plan

Region: USA

Theme: Environment

It was the dying cry of Charlton Heston in the creepy 1973 film Soylent Green… and it could resemble our desperate near future.
The ocean is dying, by all accounts – and if so, the food supply along with it. The causes are numerous, and overlapping. And massive numbers of wild animal populations are dying as a result of it.
Natural causes in the environment are partly to blame; so too are the corporations of man; the effects of Fukushima, unleashing untold levels of radiation into the ocean and onto Pacific shores; the cumulative effect of modern chemicals and agricultural waste tainting the water and disrupting reproduction.
A startling new report says in no uncertain terms that the Pacific Ocean off the California coast is turning into a desert. Once full of life, it is now becoming barren, and marine mammals, seabirds and fish are starving as a result. According to Ocean Health:

The waters of the Pacific off the coast of California are a clear, shimmering blue today, so transparent it’s possible to see the sandy bottom below […] clear water is a sign that the ocean is turning into a desert, and the chain reaction that causes that bitter clarity is perhaps most obvious on the beaches of the Golden State, where thousands of emaciated sea lion pups are stranded.
[…]
Over the last three years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has noticed a growing number of strandings on the beaches of California and up into the Pacific north-west. In 2013, 1,171 sea lions were stranded, and 2,700 have already stranded in 2015 – a sign that something is seriously wrong, as pups don’t normally wind up on their own until later in the spring and early summer.
“[An unusually large number of sea lions stranding in 2013 was a red flag] there was a food availability problem even before the ocean got warm.”Johnson: This has never happened before… It’s incredible. It’s so unusual, and there’s no really good explanation for it. There’s also a good chance that the problem will continue, said a NOAA research scientist in climatology, Nate Mantua.
Experts blame a lack of food due to unusually warm ocean waters. NOAA declared an El Nino, the weather pattern that warms the Pacific, a few weeks ago. The water is three and a half to six degrees warmer than the average, according to Mantua, because of a lack of north wind on the West Coast. Ordinarily, the north wind drives the current, creating upwelling that brings forth the nutrients that feed the sardines, anchovies and other fish that adult sea lions feed on.

Fox News added:

The warm water is likely pushing prime sea lion foods — market squid, sardines and anchovies — further north, forcing the mothers to abandon their pups for up to eight days at a time in search of sustenance.
The pups, scientists believe, are weaning themselves early out of desperation and setting out on their own despite being underweight and ill-prepared to hunt.
[…]
“These animals are coming in really desperate. They’re at the end of life. They’re in a crisis … and not all animals are going to make it,” said Keith A. Matassa, executive director at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, which is currently rehabilitating 115 sea lion pups.

The same is true of seabirds on the Washington State coast:

In the storm debris littering a Washington State shoreline, Bonnie Wood saw something grisly: the mangled bodies of dozens of scraggly young seabirds. Walking half a mile along the beach at Twin Harbors State Park on Wednesday, Wood spotted more than 130 carcasses of juvenile Cassin’s auklets—the blue-footed, palm-size victims of what is becoming one of the largest mass die-offs of seabirds ever recorded. “It was so distressing,” recalled Wood, a volunteer who patrols Pacific Northwest beaches looking for dead or stranded birds. “They were just everywhere. Every ten yards we’d find another ten bodies of these sweet little things.”
“This is just massive, massive, unprecedented,” said Julia Parrish, a University of Washington seabird ecologist who oversees the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a program that has tracked West Coast seabird deaths for almost 20 years. “We may be talking about 50,000 to 100,000 deaths. So far.” (source)

100,000 doesn’t necessarily sound large, statistically speaking, but precedent in the history of recorded animal deaths suggests that it is, in fact massive. Even National Geographic is noting that these die off events are “unprecedented.” Warmer water is indicated for much of the starvation faced by many of the dead animals.
Last year, scientists sounded the alarm over the death of millions of star fish, blamed on warmer waters and ‘mystery virus’:

Starfish are dying by the millions up and down the West Coast, leading scientists to warn of the possibility of localized extinction of some species. As the disease spreads, researchers may be zeroing in on a link between warming waters and the rising starfish body count. (source)
[…]

Dying Starfish on West Coast: What's causing Sea Star Wasting Syndrome? | KCTS 9

The epidemic, which threatens to reshape the coastal food web and change the makeup of tide pools for years to come, appears to be driven by a previously unidentified virus, a team of more than a dozen researchers from Cornell University, UC Santa Cruz, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and other institutions reported Monday. (source)

Changing temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, driven by the natural cycle of gyres over decades, shifts wildlife populations, decimating the populations of species throughout the food chain, proving how fragile the balance of life in the ocean really is.
Recently, the collapse of the sardine population has created a crisis for fisheries and marine wildlife alike on the West Coast:

Commercial fishing for sardines off of Canada’s West Coast is worth an estimated $32 million – but now they are suddenly gone. Back in October, fisherman reported that they came back empty-handed without a single fish after 12 hours of trolling and some $1000 spent on fuel.
Sandy Mazza, for the Daily Breeze, reported a similar phenomenon in central California: “[T]he fickle sardines have been so abundant for so many years – sometimes holding court as the most plentiful fish in coastal waters – that it was a shock when he couldn’t find one of the shiny silver-blue coastal fish all summer, even though this isn’t the first time they’ve vanished.” [emphasis added]
[…]
“Is it El Nino? Pacific Decadal Oscillation? [La] Nina? Long-term climate change? More marine mammals eating sardines? Did they all go to Mexico or farther offshore? We don’t know. We’re pretty sure the overall population has declined. We manage them pretty conservatively because we don’t want to end up with another Cannery Row so, as the population declines, we curb fishing.” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official Kerry Griffin. (source)

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the worst events have wiped out 90% of animal populations, falling short of extinction, but creating a rupture in food chains and ecosystems.
And environmental factors are known to be a factor, with pollution from chemicals dumped by factories clearly tied to at least 20% of the mass die off events of wildlife populations that have been investigated, and many die offs implicated by a number of overlapping factors. TheDaily Mail reported:

Mass die-offs of certain animals has increased in frequency every year for seven decades, according to a new study.
Researchers found that such events, which can kill more than 90 per cent of a population, are increasing among birds, fish and marine invertebrates.
The reasons for the die-offs are diverse, with effects tied to humans such as environmental contamination accounting for about a fifth of them.

Farm runoff from Big Agra introduces high levels of fertilizers and pesticides which createoxygen-starved dead zones which fish and aquatic live is killed off. Also preset in agriculture waste are gender bending chemicals like those found in Atrazine, used in staple crop production, and antibiotics and hormones, used in livestock production, which creates hazardous runoff for fish populations:

Livestock excrete natural hormones – estrogens and testosterones – as well as synthetic ones used to bolster their growth. Depending on concentrations and fish sensitivity, these hormones and hormone mimics might impair wild fish reproduction or skew their sex ratios. (source)

Pharmaceutical contaminants are also to blame for changing the sex of fish and disrupting population numbers, while a study found that the chemicals in Prozac changed the behavior of marine life, and made shrimp many times more likely to “commit suicide” and swim towards the light where they became easy prey.
Fish farms also introduce a large volume of antibiotic and chemical pollution into oceans and waterways:

The close quarters where farmed fish are raised (combined with their unnatural diets) means disease occurs often and can spread quickly. On fish farms, which are basically “CAFOs of the sea,” antibiotics are dispersed into the water, and sometimes injected directly into the fish.
Unfortunately, farmed fish are often raised in pens in the ocean, which means not only that pathogens can spread like wildfire and contaminate any wild fish swimming past – but the antibiotics can also spread to wild fish (via aquaculture and wastewater runoff) – and that’s exactly what recent research revealed. (source)

Mass die offs of fish on the Brazilian coastline have linked to pollution from the dumping of raw sewage and garbage.
In the last few days it was reported that a massive die off of bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico was connected by researchers to BP’s Deep Water Horizon oil spill. Evidence was found in a third of the cases of lesions in the adrenal gland, an otherwise rare condition linked with petroleum exposure. More than a fifth of the dolphins also suffered bacterial pneumonia, causing deadly lung infection that is likewise rarely seen in dolphin populations.

Boston Bombing Core Mystery: Why are Feds Not Interested in this Man?

By Jill Vaglica

Global Research, May 27, 2015

WhoWhatWhy 26 May 2015

Region: USA

Theme: Intelligence, Law and Justice

Originally published on WhoWhatWhy
Now that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his involvement in the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the lengthy inevitable Death Row appeals process begins, the investigative work for conscientious journalists continues as well.
As readers of WhoWhatWhy know the case is chock full of unresolved issues, inconsistencies, and anomalies that cast doubt on whether we learned even the most basic truths of what happened on April 15, 2013, or why. Perhaps most troubling is the FBI’s successful effort to minimize its prior relationship with Tsarnaev’s dead older brother, Tamerlan—a relationship that demands focused attention because of the Bureau’s long, documented history of placing its own assets inside violent plots as infiltrators or informants. A cast of “highly interesting” secondary characters have behaved oddly enough that any serious inquiry would focus on them.
One in particular draws our attention: a Chechen native who immigrated with his family to Chelsea, MA in 2004, Viskhan Vakhabov. He received a telephone call from Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombings’ alleged senior conspirator, at an incredibly important moment: right after Tsarnaev allegedly shot an MIT patrol officer and was about to commit a carjacking.
Yet federal authorities have bizarrely shown almost no interest in Vakhabov. Indeed, the FBI and Justice Department seemed only too glad to let the man avoid testifying in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial. It is hard to see why those seeking the truth could possibly not consider Vakhabov crucial. The government appears to be shielding a man who may have crucial knowledge about the case, which supposedly was a “lone wolves” operation limited to the two brothers.
“I don’t have any comments or anything to talk about,” Vakhabov told WhoWhatWhy via phone.
Earlier, the government said that Vakhabov lied to the FBI about “matters of great import” relating to the Boston bombing investigation, according to a court transcript. But when Vakhabov refused to testify in court, citing his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, the prosecution fought to keep his FBI statements from being admitted into evidence.

Reporters line up outside the courthouse in Boston where the Marathon bombing trial took place. None have yet spoken with Viskhan Vakhabov, who declined to testify at the trial though he received a phone call from the convicted bomber immediately following the attacks. Photo credit: Jill Vaglica

Hiding What?
What could possibly be self-incriminating about Vakhabov’s statements to the FBI, if the Tsarnaevs (as the government claims), acted alone? Vakhabov spoke with the Tsarnaev brothers on their secret cell phones two hours before the carjacking on Brighton Avenue. Could Vakhabov have been in any way involved? If so, why hasn’t he faced any criminal charges?
Particularly interesting is that the government heavily redacted Vakhabov’s FBI 302 interview summary form. It could contain crucial and “self-incriminating” information relating to the bombing investigation—and specifically, the carjacking allegedly perpetrated by the Tsarnaevs after video with their images was released by the FBI three days after the bombings.
In order to justify that Vakhabov should be dismissed as an unreliable witness, prosecutor William Weinreb revealed in court some tantalizing facts about him. “I think it’s undisputed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev contacted him on April 18th, I believe, between the time that Officer Collier was murdered and the time that Dun Meng was carjacked,” Weinreb said. “And he has given quite inconsistent statements about what that conversation was about and about what Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have asked him or said to him.”
Why would Tamerlan Tsarnaev contact this man—or any person—while subject to an intense manhunt? Obviously, that call should have been important to investigators, perhaps even a crucial indicator of a larger conspiracy.
That phone call wasn’t even the only significant interaction between the two. According to phone records released by the DOJ last month, Weinreb failed to mention that the Tsarnaevs called Vakhabov from the prepaid “burner” cell phone account they opened in order to coordinate the bombings. Vakhabov is the only person they spoke with using the “burner” phone. Why did the brothers deem it acceptable to contact Vakhabov with this cell phone? If he had nothing to do with their actions, why not just call his number on their regular cell phones?
Last month, FBI Special Agent Chad Fitzgerald testified that Dzhokhar, or at least the phone registered under the name “Jahar Tsarni,” placed an 88-second call to someone at a number in the 617 (Boston) area code. This number traces back to Vakhabov. It was the first call Dzhokhar made on this burner cell phone since the day of the bombings. And, according to phone records released in court, Vakhabov’s number is the only one Dzhokhar called on this phone (other than his brother Tamerlan) since he opened the account on April 14.

*857-928-4634 is Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s cell phone

Vakhabov has registered numerous websites to the address of 26 Park Vale Avenue, Allston, which is more or less a five-minute walk from the spot where Tamerlan allegedly carjacked Dun Meng’s Mercedes at 60 Brighton Avenue.
Given his proximity in time and location to the Brighton Avenue carjacking, could Vakhabov know more about the brothers’ plans or in some other way be connected?
Despite the wave of arrests, brutal profiling, and harsh crackdown on Tsarnaevs’ former friends for the slightest infraction in the FBI’s Boston bombing investigation, the government decided to let Vakhabov go. It also heavily objected to admitting his 302 FBI interview report into evidence at Tsarnaev’s trial, despite the fact that this report contains statements of “great import,” according to the government itself. Why?
Vakhabov remains free, and the government has acted to keep his “self-incriminating” statements to the FBI from being admitted into evidence at court. This kid-glove treatment is in sharp contrast to the way the feds have treated Khairullozhon Matanov and Robel Phillipos, two former friends of the Tsarnaev brothers who have been charged with lying during a terrorism investigation.
Matanov allegedly called the Tsarnaevs 40 minutes after the bombing, and invited them to dinner. He initially lied to the FBI about the fact that he had driven the Tsarnaevs to dinner, downplayed the extent to which he shared a similar philosophical justification for jihad as the suspected bombers, and deleted his computer history during the week of the bombing, according to his indictment. Downplaying one’s religious and philosophical views does not violate any laws; indeed, it’s a First Amendment right. Through these actions, the government claims Matanov intentionally misled investigators and destroyed evidence. But was Matanov’s computer history as important to the Boston bombing investigation as Vakhabov’s misleading statements to the FBI?
Where are the witnesses? 
Other potentially important witnesses seem to have vanished from public view. One is the man who attended the Wai Kru gym with the brothers three days before the attack. He is now identified as Magomed Dolakov. After meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a mosque in August 2012, one month after the elder Tsarnaev returned from a six-month trip to Russia, Dolakov regularly discussed radical Islam with him. Is this not a matter of great import?
Tsarnaev’s defense had hoped to utilize Dolakov’s 302 report, but it too is unavailable, according to the court trial transcript. Neither the government nor the defense can locate Dolakov, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense attorney Miriam Conrad told the court.
Given the extensive surveillance and even harassment of the Tsarnaevs’ former friends and associates by the the FBI, the inability of the government to learn Dolakov’s whereabouts is striking. Investigators used a single spy drone to monitor Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s friend Khairullozhon Matanov at his home in the Boston suburb of Quincy for over a year after the bombing. This surveillance led to his arrest in May 2014, and to his guilty plea to the charge of making false statements in a federal terrorism investigation. Clearly, the authorities have the surveillance resources to locate Dolakov, if they wanted to. So why the hands-off treatment? If Dolakov had any prior knowledge of the marathon attacks from his regular discussions about jihad with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, why would the FBI not be interested in him? Could he have been an informant for the FBI? Given that Dolakov met Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the mosque right after his return from six months in Russia, odds say it’s possible.
Is the government really unable to locate these witnesses? Are they under any sort of protection? If yes, from whom, and for what purpose?
Who is the third friend?
Dolakov reportedly told the FBI that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev hung out with an unnamed third friend and discussed topics relating to Islamic terrorism.
In August 2012, according to Boston.com, “Dolakov said he and Tamerlan went to a Quincy mosque together, after which they relaxed on a nearby beach with a third friend and discussed a recent suicide bombing.”
Khairullozhon Matanov lived and worked in Quincy. Could he be that unnamed “third friend”? If yes, what could he know about the relationship between Magomed Dolakov and Tamerlan Tsarnaev? Why did the FBI monitor Khairullozhon for over a year after the bombings before arresting him? Were they afraid Matanov would blow the whistle on matters of great import?
“The FBI is trying to destroy my life,” Matanov wrote to the Daily Beast last fall.
Historically, the FBI has targeted Muslim immigrants like Matanov to recruit informants. Refusing such recruitment is often a choiceless choice, with some recorded instances of the FBI torturing those who refuse.
After refusing to wear a wire for the FBI to speak with a former friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, another Chechen friend of Tamerlan, Konstantin Morozov, was detained. Morozov told the Boston Globe that the FBI offered to accept his application for political asylum if he cooperated.
Crackdown on Tsarnaevs Friends
Despite the official narrative adamantly claiming that the Tsarnaevs were lone wolves, the specifics of the FBI’s investigation show evidence to the contrary. There have been eight reported instances in which the Tsarnaevs’ friends and associates have faced charges for allegedly helping the brothers and misleading the FBI in its investigation.
Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov were charged in May 2013 with obstruction of justice and conspiracy after Kadyrbayev allegedly removed from the younger Tsarnaev’s dorm room and threw away a Jansport backpack that had shortly before been emptied of illegal fireworks. But, Assistant US Attorney B. Stephanie Siegmann said neither of the friends’ DNA was found on it.
Dzhokhar’s friend Phillipos denied knowledge that Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov had removed the Jansport backpack from Tsarnaev’s UMass Dartmouth dorm room. Phillipos now faces up for 16 years in prison for these statements to the FBI.
If Vakhabov lied to the FBI about matters material to the investigation, why does the government refuse to prosecute him, while expending great time, effort and expense to imprison all these other men on what appear to be petty matters?
Correction: An earlier version of this article was incorrectly edited to include an erroneous reference to an additional call to Mr. Vakhabov. In fact, Tamerlan Tsarnaev called Vakhabov only once (using Dzhokhar’s phone)—on April 18.

German Ministers Call for EU-Wide Ban on Monsanto’s Deadly Glyphosate Herbicide (Roundup)

By Daniel Barker

Global Research, May 26, 2015

Natural News

Region: Europe

Theme: Biotechnology and GMO, Environment

Monsanto may be expanding its operations in the United States, but elsewhere, lawmakers, scientists, activists and ordinary citizens are increasingly questioning (and in many cases banning) the introduction of GM crops, along with the use of the glyphosate herbicide (Monsanto’s Roundup).
State consumer protection ministers in Germany are advocating an EU-wide ban on glyphosate herbicides in response to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) categorization of the chemical as “probably carcinogenic.”
On May 8, the German state ministers introduced a resolution calling for “the supply to and use by private persons to be banned for precautionary reasons.” The resolution also recommends prohibiting use of the herbicide near consumers.
Christian Meyer, chairman of the Consumer Protection Minister Conference, said: “This pesticide should not be found in gardens, parks or on children’s playgrounds. I also do not think use in private gardens is appropriate.”
Unfortunately, the German federal government sees “no need for action,” according to the news website EurActiv.com.
This latest battle between those who recognize the dangers associated with glyphosate use and those who seek to protect the immensely powerful and profitable GMO agriculture industry as a whole reflects the global controversy surrounding the technology.
It should perhaps come as no surprise that the German federal authorities see no reason to take action, particularly when one considers the fact that two of the biggest players in the industry – Bayer and BASF — are German firms. As in the U.S., it can be assumed that these corporations have considerable influence on the “opinions” and actions of the German federal government.
The struggle over the GMO industry and its promotion of the use of glyphosate has typically played out along these lines throughout the world in various countries and situations. The biotech firms do their best to spread pro-GMO propaganda, often through enlisting the press to ridicule those who oppose it and, of course, buying influence over politicians.
The industry has managed to hoodwink the American public through lobbying and propaganda to the point where, as of now, glyphosate pesticides are sprayed on 84 percent of the major U.S. crops, including corn, soybean, cotton, sugar beets and canola/rapeseed.
However, the fight against the GMO industry continues to make headway, both in the U.S. and abroad. There is fierce opposition to the use of these technologies, and even in the face of massive pressure on the part of the industry, some progress has been made towards halting its spread.
Currently, there are 64 countries which require GMO labeling on foods. Many European nations, including France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and others have banned GMO crops. Australia, Russia and India have also banned GMOs.
In the United States, food labeling bills are currently being introduced in several states. Vermont has already passed a law requiring GMO labeling.
But the influence of the industry on governments and the press is formidable. A case in point was the media reaction to the recent announcement by the Chipotle restaurant chain that they would begin excluding GMO products from their menu. The admirable decision on the part of the popular American chain was immediately met with derision and ridicule on the part of the media, with accusations of “capitulating to ‘scare tactics’ of the anti-GMO lobby to increase burrito sales.”
The L.A. Times went as far as accusing Chipotle of joining “the ranks of companies that endeavor to deceive the public.”
Oh, really?
As far as many of us are concerned, the real deception has been on the part of the GMO industry, along with the politicians and presstitutes who have willingly become their servants.
The battle is far from over, and although there has been some encouraging progress towards the banning of GM crops and the use of glyphosate, there remains much to be done.
Ordinary citizens must let it be known that they do not support the industry. Only 37 percent of the American public believe that GMOs are safe, and polls have repeatedly shown that up to 90 percent of Americans want GMO labeling.
Signing petitions, joining demonstrations, writing letters to congressmen, educating yourself and your peers about the dangers of GMOs and glyphosate are all small, but important, steps towards fighting the insanity which continues to be promoted by corporations whose apparent aim is to endanger our health and upset the balance of global ecosystems in the reckless pursuit of massive profits.
Sources:
http://www.euractiv.com
http://www.crozetgazette.com