Eire: CSI - Central Bank

This event marked the start of a campaign by the Anglo: Not Our Debt group which launched a campaign to freeze the ‘Anglo bonds’ at an examination of a financial ‘crime scene’ outside the Central Bank, Dublin this morning at 11am. ‘Forensic scientists’, dressed in ‘CSI’ style examination suits, cordoned off the Central Bank behind tape that reads “Crime Scene – Do Not Enter” and carried out an inspection of the evidence of financial crimes against the people of Ireland as a result of the socialisation of the Anglo debt.
Nessa Ní Chasaide of the campaign said,

“We are launching our campaign to freeze the remaining €25 billion of ‘Anglo bonds’ at the ‘crime scene’ of the Central Bank as it prepares to sell these ‘Anglo bonds’ to the market. These bonds must not be traded; the people of Ireland must not be held responsible for this criminal debt, and charges must be brought immediately against those who de-frauded the state.”

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The Anglo: Not Our Debt campaign, is a broad-based coalition of trade union, community, faith-based, academic and global justice groups.
http://www.notourdebt.ie

The Big Bank Opera, Act 3 (of 4)

From the Improbable Research Collection #126: The Big Bank Opera

("Big Bank Theory")

A banker explains the whole history of big banks - where they came from, how they got big, and what happened to them. She tells the complete story of The Big Bank Theory. It's remarkably similar to The Big Bang Theory that explains the history of the universe. (The music is "Una Voce Poco Fa" from Rossini's "Barber of Seville".)

This is Act 3 of "The Big Bank Opera", in which stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big bankers.

This mini-opera has music by L.v. Beethoven & G. Rossini, and words by Marc Abrahams. Starring Maria Ferrante and Ben Sears, and Brandon Grimmett, conducted by David Stockton. The premiere, seen here, was on October 1, 2009 as part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. Bar patrons: Benoit Mandelbrot, Stephen Wolfram, John Barrett, Wade Adams, Nobel laureates Rich Roberts, Wolfgang Ketterle, Dudley Herschbach, Paul Krugman, Roy Glauber, Frank Wilczek, Martin Chalfie, Orhan Pamuk, and William Lipscomb; and many Ig Nobel Prize winners.

Uprising: the crisis of civilisation and the struggle for the global commons…

Uprising: the crisis of civilisation and the struggle for the global commons by Dr Nafeez Ahmed 

The last half decade has seen the persistence of social protests in various forms, including civil disobedience and mass demonstrations. From the Occupy movement across the Western world, to the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa; from riots in European capitals, to the current protests in Cyprus: uprisings have become a regular feature of life.

With the world reeling under the impact of banking collapses, austerity, environmental crisis, energy woes and rocketing food prices, it’s no wonder that people everywhere are rising up and demanding change.
But at the heart of these disparate uprisings is a single global struggle: between the people and profit, for access to the planet’s precious land, water, energy, raw materials and resources – a struggle for the global commons.

Over three hundred years ago, the struggle kicked-off in a major way when the seeds of English capitalism were planted amidst mass evictions of peasants from public lands. Formerly landed peasants, who were compelled by threat of force to pay tribute (a percentage of their produce), to local lords, now ended up as a new, landless proletariat. They had no choice but to sell their labour power for wages to the lords who now owned and controlled what was once their land. This process of enclosure gradually enforced a new social condition – the dispossession of people from access to the sources, means and technologies of production – that was, and remains, the fundamental basis of modern capitalism.

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Nuclear power expansion plans condemned: "An unbearable inheritance to future generations"

Global coalition of “Alternative Nobel Prize” laureates and members of the World Future Council condemn nuclear power expansion plans

...In unusually clear language the signatories of the statement argue that nuclear energy is prone to insolvable infrastructural, economic, social, health, ecological, and security problems. The statement applauds the successful efforts being made around the world to advance renewable energy as the only viable alternative and those governments that have embarked on transforming their energy sectors. "We strongly support the aspirations of numerous regions across the globe in moving towards 100% decentralized renewable energy to meet electricity, heating and transport needs," state the signatories.

The statement ends with a call on governments "to remove existing barriers to renewable energy development and to abandon nuclear power – in their countries as well as outside their own territorial borders – once and for all."

The text can be accessed at full length here: www.worldfuturecouncil.org/nuclear-statement2013.html ...

Earth's Gold Came from Colliding Dead Stars

We value gold for many reasons: its beauty, its usefulness as jewelry, and its rarity. Gold is rare on Earth in part because it's also rare in the universe. Unlike elements like carbon or iron, it cannot be created within a star. Instead, it must be born in a more cataclysmic event - like one that occurred last month known as a short gamma-ray burst (GRB). Observations of this GRB provide evidence that it resulted from the collision of two neutron stars - the dead cores of stars that previously exploded as supernovae. Moreover, a unique glow that persisted for days at the GRB location potentially signifies the creation of substantial amounts of heavy elements - including gold. 

"We estimate that the amount of gold produced and ejected during the merger of the two neutron stars may be as large as 10 moon masses - quite a lot of bling!" says lead author Edo Berger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). 

[ ... ]

The team calculates that about one-hundredth of a solar mass of material was ejected by the gamma-ray burst, some of which was gold. By combining the estimated gold produced by a single short GRB with the number of such explosions that have occurred over the age of the universe, all the gold in the cosmos might have come from gamma-ray bursts. 

"To paraphrase Carl Sagan, we are all star stuff, and our jewelry is colliding-star stuff," says Berger. 

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Larry Silverstein: World Trade Center owner trying to sue airlines for billions over 9/11 attacks

Larry Silverstein, the owner of the World Trade Center, is seeking $3.5billion from United Airlines, US Airways and American Airlines

Silverstein argues that the 9-11 attacks cost his property group more than $7billion

The new One World Trade Center alone cost $3.9billion

The owner of the World Trade Center is arguing in federal court that the airlines who planes were flown into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 should pay him billions in compensation.

Larry Silverstein is attempting to collect $3.5billion from United Airlines, US Airways and American Airlines – on top of nearly $5billion he has already received from his insurance company.

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Hungry aboriginal people used in bureaucrats' experiments

The Canadian government says it's appalled to hear hungry aboriginal children and adults may have been used as unwitting subjects in nutritional experiments by federal bureaucrats.

Recently published research by food historian Ian Mosby has revealed details about one of the least-known but perhaps most disturbing aspects of government policy toward aboriginal people immediately after the Second World War.

"It was experiments being conducted on malnourished aboriginal people," Mosby, a post-doctoral fellow in history at the University of Guelph, told CBC's As It Happens program on Tuesday.

 "It started with research trips in northern Manitoba where they found, you know, widespread hunger, if not starvation, among certain members of the community. And one of their immediate responses was to design a controlled experiment on the effectiveness of vitamin supplementation on this population."

Mosby also found that plans were developed for research on aboriginal children in residential schools in British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Alberta.

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The World Bank is bringing back big, bad dams

From The Guardian:

In the 1950s and '60s, huge hydropower projects such as the Kariba, Akosombo and Inga dams were supposed to modernise poor African countries almost overnight. It didn't work out this way. As the independent World Commission on Dams found, such big, complex schemes cost far more but produce less energy than expected. Their primary beneficiaries are mining companies and aluminium smelters, while Africa's poor have been left high and dry.
The Inga 1 and 2 dams on the Congo River are a case in point. After donors have spent billions of dollars on them, 85% of the electricity in the Democratic Republic of Congo is used by high-voltage consumers but less than 10% of the population has access to electricity. The communities displaced by the Inga and Kariba dams continue to fight for their compensation and economic rehabilitation after 50 years. Instead of offering a shortcut to prosperity, such projects have become an albatross on Africa's development. Large dams have also helped turn freshwater into the ecosystem most affected by species extinction.
Under public pressure, the World Bank and other financiers largely withdrew from funding large dams in the mid-1990s. For nearly 20 years, the bank has supported mid-sized dams and rehabilitated existing hydropower projects instead.
Following a trend set by new financiers from China and Brazil, the World Bank now wants to return to supporting mega-dams that aim to transform whole regions.

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