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Monday, December 31, 2012

The four business gangs that run the US

The Sydney Morning Herald, Ross Gittins, December 31, 2012 

Illustration: Michael Mucci.
IF YOU'VE ever suspected politics is increasingly being run in the interests of big business, I have news: Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University, agrees with you - at least in respect of the United States.

In his book, The Price of Civilisation, he says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop. ''Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth,'' he says.

Sachs says four key sectors of US business exemplify this feedback loop and the takeover of political power in America by the ''corporatocracy''.

First is the well-known military-industrial complex. ''As [President] Eisenhower famously warned in his farewell address in January 1961, the linkage of the military and private industry created a political power so pervasive that America has been condemned to militarisation, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then,'' he says.

Second is the Wall Street-Washington complex, which has steered the financial system towards control by a few politically powerful Wall Street firms, notably Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a handful of other financial firms.

These days, almost every US Treasury secretary - Republican or Democrat - comes from Wall Street and goes back there when his term ends. The close ties between Wall Street and Washington ''paved the way for the 2008 financial crisis and the mega-bailouts that followed, through reckless deregulation followed by an almost complete lack of oversight by government''.

Third is the Big Oil-transport-military complex, which has put the US on the trajectory of heavy oil-imports dependence and a deepening military trap in the Middle East, he says.

''Since the days of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust a century ago, Big Oil has loomed large in American politics and foreign policy. Big Oil teamed up with the automobile industry to steer America away from mass transit and towards gas-guzzling vehicles driving on a nationally financed highway system.''

Big Oil has consistently and successfully fought the intrusion of competition from non-oil energy sources, including nuclear, wind and solar power.

It has been at the side of the Pentagon in making sure that America defends the sea-lanes to the Persian Gulf, in effect ensuring a $US100 billion-plus annual subsidy for a fuel that is otherwise dangerous for national security, Sachs says.

''And Big Oil has played a notorious role in the fight to keep climate change off the US agenda. Exxon-Mobil, Koch Industries and others in the sector have underwritten a generation of anti-scientific propaganda to confuse the American people.''

Fourth is the healthcare industry, America's largest industry, absorbing no less than 17 per cent of US gross domestic product.

''The key to understanding this sector is to note that the government partners with industry to reimburse costs with little systematic oversight and control,'' Sachs says. ''Pharmaceutical firms set sky-high prices protected by patent rights; Medicare [for the aged] and Medicaid [for the poor] and private insurers reimburse doctors and hospitals on a cost-plus basis; and the American Medical Association restricts the supply of new doctors through the control of placements at medical schools.

''The result of this pseudo-market system is sky-high costs, large profits for the private healthcare sector, and no political will to reform.''

Now do you see why the industry put so much effort into persuading America's punters that Obamacare was rank socialism? They didn't succeed in blocking it, but the compromised program doesn't do enough to stop the US being the last rich country in the world without universal healthcare.

It's worth noting that, despite its front-running cost, America's healthcare system doesn't leave Americans with particularly good health - not as good as ours, for instance. This conundrum is easily explained: America has the highest-paid doctors.

Sachs says the main thing to remember about the corporatocracy is that it looks after its own. ''There is absolutely no economic crisis in corporate America.

''Consider the pulse of the corporate sector as opposed to the pulse of the employees working in it: corporate profits in 2010 were at an all-time high, chief executive salaries in 2010 rebounded strongly from the financial crisis, Wall Street compensation in 2010 was at an all-time high, several Wall Street firms paid civil penalties for financial abuses, but no senior banker faced any criminal charges, and there were no adverse regulatory measures that would lead to a loss of profits in finance, health care, military supplies and energy,'' he says.

The 30-year achievement of the corporatocracy has been the creation of America's rich and super-rich classes, he says. And we can now see their tools of trade.

''It began with globalisation, which pushed up capital income while pushing down wages. These changes were magnified by the tax cuts at the top, which left more take-home pay and the ability to accumulate greater wealth through higher net-of-tax returns to saving.''

Chief executives then helped themselves to their own slice of the corporate sector ownership through outlandish awards of stock options by friendly and often handpicked compensation committees, while the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. It's not all that hard to do when both political parties are standing in line to do your bidding, Sachs concludes.

Fortunately, things aren't nearly so bad in Australia. But it will require vigilance to stop them sliding further in that direction.



(Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

 "THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS"– Sep  29, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Revealed: how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

guardian.co.uk, Naomi Wolf, Saturday 29 December 2012

Police used teargas to drive back protesters following an attempt by the
Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland. Photograph: Noah
Berger/AP

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request. The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":

"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it "police-statism":

"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage. The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic: if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent.

There is a new twist: the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent.

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization" and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on? It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.
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First Gay Anglican Bishop Reflects on Tenure in NH

ABC News, Lynne Tuohy, Associated Press, Concord, N.H., December 30, 2012

In this photo taken Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 in Concord, N.H., the world's
 first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, poses for a photo at the
Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He retires from his post Jan. 5,
2013. Photo: Jim Cole / AP

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he chafed for several years at being branded the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church until he realized that he was wasting a pulpit from which he could advocate for equality.

"I'd been given this really remarkable opportunity and it would be selfish of me not to be the best steward of that opportunity," he recently told The Associated Press in an interview as he prepares to retire in January. "We went from my consecration, which set off this international controversy, to nine years later seeing gay, lesbian and transgender congregants welcome at all levels of the church, including bishop."

Robinson's election in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church created an international uproar and led conservative Episcopalians to break away from the main church in the United States.

Robinson, 65, will hand the pastoral staff to his successor, A. Robert Hirschfeld, in a ceremony at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord on Jan. 5.

As he prepared to retire after nearly a decade as bishop, Robinson reflected on the crucibles and crusades of his tenure.

He was publicly shunned by church elders, targeted with death threats and says he struggled to strike a balance between being the "good bishop" and the "gay bishop." In the end, he says, they became one and the same.

He is a self-described "off-the-end-of-the-scale extrovert" who bounds across stages and television studios, whether promoting causes or his new book, "God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage."

Robinson said it pained him deeply to be excluded in 2008 from a gathering of Anglican bishops and clergy that occurs every 10 years in England, known as the Lambeth Conference. He said it was the first time since 1867 that a bishop had not been invited.

He traveled to England despite the snub to make his presence known and minister to anyone who wanted his counsel.

"It was probably the hardest thing I've done — to go and bear up under that quite intentional exclusion," Robinson said. "It took me a long time to get over it."

A month before the conference, he entered into a civil union with his long-time partner Mark Andrew. Robinson chuckles that columnists in religious publications speculated he did it to thumb his nose at the conference.

Robinson said it was a coincidence, one he and Andrew didn't realize until after the date was set, and said the timing of the ceremony was driven by far more somber reasons.

"The point was to put in place the protections a civil union would provide if someone made good on these death threats ... before I put myself in harm's way," Robinson said. "I wanted Mark to be as protected as he could be."

Their civil union automatically converted to a marriage when New Hampshire legalized gay marriage in 2010.

Months after the Lambeth Conference, Robinson delivered the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial that kicked off festivities leading up to the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

"That was an enormous honor," Robinson said.

Robinson said he has learned to live with the threats he's received and refuses to turn their rural home into a fortress.

For him, New Hampshire, where he has worked in the Episcopal Diocese for 27 years, has been a safe haven.

"New Hampshire was the one place where I wasn't the gay bishop," he said. "I'm just the bishop. That's been terrific and kind of lifesaving in way."

He has spent every Christmas Eve of the past decade ministering at New Hampshire's women's prison. He calls it his Christmas present to himself.

"I do church work 24-7, but I never feel more like I'm doing God's work than when I'm there," said Robinson, who is giving donations he got for his retirement from the congregation to the chaplain's program at the prison.

Robinson said he would have stayed on as bishop until the mandatory retirement age of 72 had he remained the sole gay voice in the nearly 300-member House of Bishops worldwide. Mary Glasspool, the first openly gay woman to serve as bishop, was elected to lead the diocese of Los Angeles in 2009.

"I never thought about retirement until she was elected," Robinson said. "Now I can move on to do other things."

Robinson will be a part-time senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton. Robinson intends to spend two weeks a month in Washington and focus on immigration and health care reform, poverty and LGBT issues.

After a brief vacation in Palm Springs, Calif., he said he and Andrew will head for Washington to attend Obama's second inauguration as the guest of Rep.-elect Annie Kuster.

"I leave this job loving it more than when I started," Robinson said. "I think the excitement about the future is finally outweighing the grief over the loss."


Related Articles:

Dutch anger over pope's gay marriage condemnation

Philippines contraception law signed by Benigno Aquino


About the Challenges of Being a Gay Man – Oct 23, 2010 (Saint Germain channelled by Alexandra Mahlimay and Dan Bennack) - “You see, your Soul and Creator are not concerned with any perspective you have that contradicts the reality of your Divinity – whether this be your gender, your sexual preference, your nationality – or your race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or anything else.”

"The Akashic System" – Jul 17, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Religion, The Humanization of God, Benevolent Design, DNA, Akashic Circle, (Old) Souls, Gaia, Indigenous People, Talents, Reincarnation, Genders, Gender Switches, In “between” Gender Change, Gender Confusion, Shift of Human Consciousness, Global Unity,..... etc.)  - (Text version)

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Barred Arab candidate allowed to run in Israeli election

Deutsche Welle, 30 December 2012


Israel's highest court has overturned a decision by the country's electoral commission to disqualify an Arab lawmaker from running in upcoming elections. The candidate was involved in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday overruled a decision by the country's electoral commission to disqualify an Arab-Israeli politician from running for office in the January 22 parliamentary elections.

The nine-judge court unanimously dismissed the argument there were sufficient grounds to disqualify Arab Balad party hopeful, Hanin Zoabi, from standing for election, saying she "shall be a candidate for the Knesset [parliament] in next month's poll."

The ruling, published on Sunday, did not outline specific arguments put forth by those seeking to have Zoabi, who entered parliament in 2009 as the first Arab-Israeli female representative, disqualified.

More than two-dozen extreme-right activists attempted to block Zoabi from leaving the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem, pushing her and yelling insults, including "Terrorist, go to Gaza."

Right-wing and ultra-right parliamentarians criticized the court's decision, saying the legal system in Israel was a "left-wing stronghold," and Zoabi had, in the past, "supported terrorists."

Opposition to Israeli blockade

Zoabi drew widespread criticism in Israel when she joined pro-Palestinian activists in the 2010 international aid flotilla challenging the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, a territory ruled by Hamas Islamists opposing the existence of the Jewish state.

Nine activists were shot dead in clashes aboard the ships, but Zoabi said she did not participate in the violent confrontation, nor did she witness it.

Earlier this month, Israel's Central Elections Commission voted to disallow Zoabi based on the reading of the Basic Law, which states "anyone who denies Israel's existence as a Jewish state, or supports armed struggle against it, may not be a candidate for the Knesset."

Zoabi told reporters on Sunday that the attempt to disqualify her had been "motivated by political persecution against her, her party and the Arab public in Israel as whole."

Environment Minister Gilad Erdan condemned the ruling saying Zoabi had been involved in "expressing solidarity with our enemies."

jlw/ rc (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Israeli president Shimon Peres speaks during an interview
 with Agence France-Presse on December 6, 2012 (AFP/File, 
Menahem Kahana)

Related Articles:

 Israel must complete peace deal with Abbas: Peres

Israel indicts former Foreign Minister Lieberman


"The End of History" – Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)
(Subjects: Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Muhammad, Jesus, God, Jews, Arabs, EU, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Africa, South America, Global Unity,..... etc.) (Text version)

" ..... If an Arab and a Jew can look at one another and see the Akashic lineage and see the one family, there is hope. If they can see that their differences no longer require that they kill one another, then there is a beginning of a change in history. And that's what is happening now. All of humanity, no matter what the spiritual belief, has been guilty of falling into the historic trap of separating instead of unifying. Now it's starting to change. There's a shift happening. ....."

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Saturday, December 29, 2012

India to name and shame sex offenders as rape protests grow

Government makes bold move after criticism it is out of touch and ignored public revulsion over violence against women

guardian.co.uk, Jason Burke in Delhi, Friday 28 December 2012

An Indian woman climbs on a police barricade during a protest for women's
rights, in New Delhi. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/EPA

The Indian government is to publish the names, photographs and addresses of thousands of convicted sex offenders in a bid to tackle a wave of sexual violence against women, and head off growing anger at what has been seen as an inadequate and tardy response by older political leaders out of touch with a rapidly changing society.

The controversial measure, announced by the minister of state for home affairs, RPN Singh, is to start in Delhi, where angry protests continue over the gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student 10 days ago. The victim of the hour-long attack, who suffered serious internal injuries, has now been moved to a specialist hospital in Singapore where her condition remains critical.

Police chiefs and officials are to meet activists and experts on Friday to discuss implementation of the scheme.

"We are planning to start the process [of identification] in Delhi. Photographs, names and addresses of the rapists will be uploaded on the Delhi police website also," Singh told reporters.

There are fears that identifying convicted rapists will lead to vigilante attacks. Others point out that, with a national average conviction rate of 25% for rape cases, and with many charges taking several years to reach court and enormous numbers of incidents going unreported, the measure can only have a limited effect. Women's rights campaigners have, however, backed the idea.

"It is true that there is a risk of such attacks but at the moment it is the victim who has to suffer the shame and social ostracism," said Ranjana Kumari, director of Delhi's Centre for Social Research. "She can't get married, for example. This will make sure the rapist is shamed. He won't get a job, or somewhere to live and will be cut off from society. This is a powerful deterrent," Kumari, who is also a member of the national commission for empowerment of women, told the Guardian.

Authorities, already under fire for their failure to prevent the original attack, which took place on a Sunday evening in a bus travelling on busy public roads, are now under pressure over their mishandling of the protests around India. Images of riot police beating back demonstrators carrying placards with slogans against violence who have attempted to reach parliament, the president's official residence and the official homes of top officials in the centre of the capital, have reinforced the impression of an uncaring, out-of-touch government.

Earlier this week, Abhijit Mukherjee, the president's son and an MP with the ruling Congress party, was forced to apologise after calling protesters "painted women" who "have little connection with ground reality" and "have nothing better to do". The incident has revealed deep fissures within Indian society. Described as "eve teasing", sexual harassment is endemic and rape systematically blamed on irresponsible women behaving in "un-Indian" ways.

Police routinely ignore complaints of sexual violence; senior officers have even suggested women should fight back by hurling chilli powder at rapists. Bollywood films typically feature an initially distant girl who finally gives in to her determined, and often physically aggressive, suitor.

"India is currently in a twilight zone, when the traditional social norms have lost their resonance while modern values based on individual liberty have not yet gained acceptance," said the financial newspaper Mint, in an editorial.

The six men responsible for the incident in Delhi included a driver of an unlicensed private bus, a vegetable seller and a gym assistant. Most had grown up in deeply conservative parts of rural India before moving to the capital. One consequence of the media's recent focus on sexual violence against women has been coverage of incidents that normally would be either relegated to local editions of newspapers or not covered at all.

A second alleged gang rape, this time of a 42-year-old woman, in a moving vehicle in Delhi made headlines. All major TV channels on Thursday reported the suicide of an 18-year-old woman near Patiala, a town in the north-western Punjab province two weeks after a serious sexual assault.

When she told police she had been raped by three men from her village, their response was to jeer, relatives said. Officials have admitted a case was only registered – the first step in a criminal investigation in India – after her suicide last month.

In Bhopal, a 21-year-old has told police she was raped in the office of a senior politician six weeks ago.

Among the demands of protesters are more severe punishments for rapists, including the death penalty. However laws protecting women are already on Indian statute books, the problem is haphazard implementation.

Kumari, one of those who suggested the public sex offenders' register, said she was pleased with the government's move but disappointed that finances devoted to women's schemes had been cut at a meeting earlier this week.

"How are they going to make all these ideas to protect women work if they are not going to fund them? There is a fundamental lack of priority and political intent," she said.
Indian protesters rally in Delhi following the cremation of the 23-year-old
 gang-rape victim. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images




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Philippines contraception law signed by Benigno Aquino

BBC News, 29 December 2012

Related Stories

The Catholic Church campaigned
against the bill
Philippines President Benigno Aquino has signed into law a bill providing for free access to contraception and family planning.

Supporters say the law, which took 14 years to pass, will reduce poverty and maternal mortality in a country with the highest birth rate in the region.

The Roman Catholic Church repeatedly tried to block the bill.

Parliament failed to pass the measure several times before approving a final version on 19 December.

The law is due to take effect in mid-January, said presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte.

"The passage into law of the Responsible Parenthood Act closes a highly divisive chapter of our history - a chapter borne of the convictions of those who argued for, or against this act," she said.

"At the same time, it opens the possibility of co-operation and reconciliation... engagement and dialogue characterised not by animosity, but by our collective desire to better the welfare of the Filipino people."

The BBC's Kate McGeown reports from the capital, Manila, that even now the bill has become law, the Church and its political allies could still derail it.

Several bishops have already threatened to contest the bill's legality in the Supreme Court.

More than 80% of the population in the Philippines is Catholic, and the Church has had the support of many politicians, media commentators, and businessmen.

Condoms are widely sold in the Philippines, but at a price that many people cannot afford.

Many maternity hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of births, and the UN appealed to the Philippines earlier this year to pass the family planning bill.

A government health survey in 2011 found that the maternal mortality rate had risen by 36% between 2006 and 2010.
Related Articles:

Top Australian Cleric Apologizes for Abuse

Dutch anger over pope's gay marriage condemnation

Contraception could save world $5.7 bn: UN report
Seven billion people and climbing, but not everywhere


“… No person shall be forced into marriage against his or her will. No woman shall be forced to bear or not bear children, against her will. No person shall be forced to hold or not hold views or worship in a manner contrary to his or her choice. Nothing vital to existence shall be withheld from another if it is within the community’s power to give. …”


"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…

Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?

The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].

Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”

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Thursday, December 27, 2012

'Instant chicken' scandal: McDonald's admits Liuhe was supplier

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2012-12-27

A McDonald's outlet in Beijing. (Photo/CNS)

McDonald's has finally admitted that the company at the center of China's "instant chicken" scandal was one of its suppliers, the state newswire Xinhua reports.

The global fast food chain had initially denied it did business with the Shandong-based Liuhe Group, a major supplier to rival KFC, which was discovered to have used excessive antibiotics and illegal hormones and chemicals to speed up the growth of its broiler chickens.

Following continued public and media scrutiny, however, McDonald's now says that Liuhe was in fact one of its "second-tier" or "downstream" suppliers, although it has stopped buying chicken from the company since Dec. 18 and samples of McDonald's products have subsequently been tested by the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration.

McDonald's had been reluctant to comment after the scandal first came to light, only previously publishing a notice on its official Chinese microblog claiming that all its chicken products had passed stringent quality controls and met government standards after independent third-party laboratory testing.

A McDonald's China spokesperson said that the restaurant chain was not directly stocked by Liuhe and that quality controls of its second-tier suppliers are carried out by its first-tier suppliers.

According to Xinhua, second-tier suppliers provide the basic raw materials, while first-tier suppliers process the raw materials into chicken products. McDonald's does not deal directly with second-tier suppliers and relies on its first-tier suppliers to enforce quality controls, the spokesperson added.

The world's largest fast food chain added that it also conducts quality checks on every batch of its chicken products but has so far not found excessive antibiotic levels in Liuhe's chicken, while hormone levels are not tested as part of the checks.

A spokesperson from China's Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday morning that the scandal is still under investigation but all suspect chicken farms and processing plants have been shut down.


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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

UN Approves New Debate on Arms Treaty Opposed by US Gun Lobby

Jakarta Globe, December 25, 2012

President Barack Obama says it's time for US lawmakers to tackle
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United Nations. The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to restart negotiations on a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global trade in conventional arms, a pact the powerful US National Rifle Association has been lobbying hard against.

UN delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because US President Barack Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney before the Nov. 6 election if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge US officials have denied.

The NRA, which has come under intense criticism for its reaction to the Dec. 15 shooting massacre of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, opposes the idea of an arms trade treaty and has pressured Obama to reject it.

But after Obama's re-election last month, his administration joined other members of a UN committee in supporting the resumption of negotiations on the treaty.

That move was set in stone on Monday when the 193-nation UN General Assembly voted to hold a final round of negotiations on March 18-28 in New York.

The foreign ministers of Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya and the United Kingdom — the countries that drafted the resolution - issued a joint statement welcoming the decision to resume negotiations on the pact.

"This was a clear sign that the vast majority of UN member states support a strong, balanced and effective treaty, which would set the highest possible common global standards for the international transfer of conventional arms," they said.

There were 133 votes in favor, none against and 17 abstentions. A number of countries did not attend, which UN diplomats said was due to the Christmas Eve holiday.

The exact voting record was not immediately available, though diplomats said the United States voted 'yes,' as it did in the UN disarmament committee last month. Countries that abstained from last month's vote included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran.

Among the top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention in last month's vote. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in the disarmament committee in support of the same resolution approved by the General Assembly on Monday.

NRA threatens 'greatest force of opposition'

The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States — the world's biggest arms trader, which accounts for more than 40 percent of global transfers in conventional arms — reversed US policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

Obama administration officials have tried to explain to US opponents of the arms trade pact that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on gun sales and ownership inside the United States because it would apply only to exports.

But NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told UN delegations in July that his group opposed the pact and there are no indications that it has  changed that position.

"Any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA's greatest force of opposition," LaPierre said, according to the website of the NRA's lobbying wing, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA).

LaPierre's speech to the UN delegations in July was later supported by letters from a majority of US senators and 130 congressional representatives, who told Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that they opposed the treaty, according to the NRA-ILA.

It is not clear whether the NRA would have the same level of support from US legislators after the Newtown massacre.

US officials say they want a treaty that contributes to international security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation but protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade.

"We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms," a US official told Reuters last month.

The United States, like all other UN member states, can effectively veto the treaty since the negotiations will be conducted on the basis of consensus. That means the treaty must receive unanimous support in order to be approved in March.

Arms control activists say it is far from clear that the Obama administration truly wants a strong treaty. Any treaty agreed in March would also need to be ratified by the parliaments of individual signatory nations before it could come into force.

Reuters
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