Society's ChildS


Bullseye

Monsanto pleads guilty to illegally spraying banned pesticides in Hawaii

corn sprouts in a field
© Matthew Thayer—APMonsanto crew members count corn sprouts in a field of test hybrids in a breeding nursery near Kihei, Hawaii on Sept. 10, 2014.
Agrochemicals company Monsanto on Thursday pleaded guilty to spraying a banned pesticide on research crops on the Hawaii island of Maui in 2014, prosecutors said.

Monsanto, now owned by the pharmaceutical company Bayer of Germany, has also agreed to pay $10 million for charges it unlawfully stored the pesticide, which was classified an acute hazardous waste. The money includes a $6 million criminal fine and $4 million in community service payments.

Prosecutors have agreed not to prosecute Monsanto if it abides by the agreement, which requires the company comply with U.S. environmental laws.

U.S. attorneys in Los Angeles handled the case after their counterparts in Honolulu were recused.

Comment: See also: Monsanto: The complete history of the world's most evil corporation


Propaganda

YouTube censored my interview with Posie Parker

posie parker
One of the crucial debates in the modern online space in recent years has been about the limits of permitted speech. While the First Amendment protects the rights of Americans to speak their mind, those of us living in Europe and much of the rest of the world are increasingly subjected to restrictions on what we are and aren't allowed to say.

In 2016, the British police detained and questioned 3,300 people for saying the "wrong" thing on social media. A recent example of this style of policing is the ex-cop who was told by the police that he needed to "check his thinking" after he retweeted an offensive limerick. He has brought a case against the police and has launched a crowdfunder to pay his costs.

Traditionally, "hate speech" has been understood to mean words aimed at stirring hatred and violence towards members of various protected groups. But today hate speech means whatever tech giants want it to mean.

Comment: See also:


Stock Down

World's ultra-rich scramble to find safe-deposit boxes ahead of next crash

safe deposit
© BloombergSafe-deposit boxes at 46 Park Lane
Last week we reported that according to a new analysis by UBS Wealth Management, the wealthiest investors around the world are preparing for a "significant" market crash by the end of next year.

And while that may be fine and good - after all, virtually no finance professional thinks the current, longest bull market on record, will continue beyond next year's election - one question quickly emerged: if the world's 0.001% are indeed liquidating in anticipation of a generational crash, just what are they converting their assets into? After all, if the crash is great enough, not a single risk asset will retain its value, while a DM sovereign collapse could promptly render paper money is worthless, as for gold retaining its value, yes maybe, but only if one owns far more lead to defend it.

The answer is to be found at 46 Park Lane, a few blocks from Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, which initially resembles a private club with wood-paneled walls and an ornate fireplace dating back to Britain's Victorian era. But down a flight of stairs is one of the most secure rooms in London.

Comment: See also:


USA

Best of the Web: The Day John Kennedy Died

John F Kennedy
© Off Guardian Org
There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who died on a November 22nd Friday like this in 1963.

I have contributed my small share to such writing in an effort to tell the truth, honor him, and emphasize its profound importance in understanding the history of the last fifty-six years, but more importantly, what is happening in the U.S.A. today.

In other words, to understand it in its most gut-wrenching reality: that the American national security state will obliterate any president that dares to buck its imperial war-making machine. It is a lesson not lost on all presidents since Kennedy.

Unless one is a government disinformation agent or is unaware of the enormous documentary evidence, one knows that it was the CIA that carried out JFK's murder. Confirmation of this fact keeps arriving in easily accessible forms for anyone interested in the truth.

A case in point is James DiEugenio's recent posting at his website, KennedysandKing, of James Wilcott's affidavit and interrogation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, declassified by the Assassinations Record Review Board in 1998.

In that document, Wilcott, who worked in the finance department for the CIA and was not questioned by the Warren Commission, discusses how he unwittingly paid Lee Harvey Oswald, the government's alleged assassin, through a cryptonym and how it was widely known and celebrated at his CIA station in Tokyo that the CIA killed Kennedy and Oswald worked for the Agency, although he did not shoot JFK.

I highly recommend reading the document.

Snakes in Suits

Best of the Web: Grenfell Tower contractor's hiring for new project in London highlights neoliberal outsourcing nightmare

grenfell tower
© ZUMAPRESS.com
News that the principal Grenfell Tower contractor won a new contract worth almost £100 million to redevelop a London council estate might seem shocking, but really it's unsurprising given the way the system operates in the UK.

You couldn't make it up, could you?

Despite the secretary of state saying it should not bid for public works until investigations into the Grenfell fire had been completed, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan signing an order to that effect, Rydon - the principal contractor for Grenfell - has just been awarded a new contract worth almost £100 million ($129 million) for more redevelopment work from Ealing Council in London.

Ealing says it selected Rydon as a 'partner' for their project to demolish the 264-home High Lane estate and replace it with 450 homes in April 2017, i.e. two months before the Grenfell Fire. But why couldn't they have put the decision on hold until after the inquiry into the fire which, lest we forget, caused the death of 72 people?

What this highlights is how outsourcing in the neoliberal era allows councils and companies to evade proper responsibility. Only last month, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the judge in charge of the Grenfell Inquiry, said in his report into the first phase of the fire that the aluminium composite material cladding on the outside of the tower was the 'primary cause' of the flames spreading up the building. He said the external facade failed to comply with building regulations.

Sheriff

FSB commandos descend on Islamist cells plotting COUP in Russia's largest cities

fsb raid
© RIA Novosti / FSB
From Moscow to Tatarstan and Siberia, a shady Islamist network recruited followers and stored supplies in a bid to establish a caliphate - until the FSB got them in their crosshairs. The anti-terrorism raids were caught on film.

The FSB's elite counter-terrorism teams breached flats across Moscow, Tatarstan and the Tyumen region of Siberia, targeting members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist organization designated as terrorists in Russia.

A video released by the security agency shows heavily armed officers gaining entry through the doors and ordering the suspects onto the ground.

Eye 1

'Delete WhatsApp unless you're OK with surveillance,' founder of rival Telegram messenger warns

Telegram founder Pavel Durov
© (L) Global Look Press /lukomore.Org (R); Global Look Press / ZUMAPRESS.com / Andre M. ChangTelegram founder Pavel Durov
WhatsApp is a "Trojan horse" exploited to snoop on millions of users naive enough to believe that the Facebook-owned messenger differs from its parent company, long beset by privacy scandals, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said.

In a lengthy post on his Telegram channel on Wednesday, Durov took aim at one of his brainchild's biggest rivals - WhatsApp, the world's leading messaging app, which became a Facebook subsidiary in 2014 and boasts some 1.5 billion monthly active users.
"Regardless of the underlying intentions of WhatsApp's parent company, the advice for their end-users is the same: Unless you are cool with all your photos and messages becoming public one day, you should delete WhatsApp from your phone."
The Russian-born entrepreneur pulled no punches, citing a long record of privacy-related violations by Facebook to back up his case.

Family

Karoshi: The misery of Japanese workplaces shows few signs of lifting

japan death overwork Karōshi
Japan's labor force is dangerously exhausted
Curbing death by overwork in Japan

By noon on October 12, Japan was preparing for the arrival of Hagibis, the most powerful typhoon to hit the country in decades. Public transport had been halted and commercial flights grounded, while evacuation orders blared from mobile phones as the risk of floods, landslides and deadly winds mounted.

As the danger grew, social media catalogued the complaints of workers who had been forced by their employers to brave nature's fury and turn up for work. Many of the businesses identified — coffee shops, estate agents, sushi restaurants — were not essential services.

But the testimonies rang true. Two weeks earlier, the government had published a white paper on Japan's overwork crisis that suggested progress on eliminating one of the country's most notorious workplace problems was slow.

Comment:


Yellow Vest

Police fire tear gas & water cannon as mass anti-govt protests in Colombia's capital turn violent

bogota protests
© Reuters / Luisa Gonzalez 793
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in cities across Colombia in a mass strike against the government of President Ivan Duque. While largely peaceful, clashes with riot police broke out as some of the protests dispersed.

Sparked by general dissatisfaction with government policies, including a recent proposal to cut pensions, some 207,000 Colombians joined the massive demonstrations on Thursday, according to Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutierrez.

With protesters chanting anti-Duque slogans and carrying bright banners and national flags, the marches mostly took place without incident. However, as the event in Bogota came to a close, people described as "hooligans" by some witnesses initiated confrontations with police, prompting them to respond with tear gas, water cannon and billy clubs. Some of the clashes were captured on video.

A demonstration in the city of Cali that drew over 20,000 protesters also ended in minor clashes near a local university, after which the city government declared a temporary curfew.

NPC

'Tell Me Why': Microsoft's inclusivity initiative is a lazy marketing gimmick

Tell Me Why
Screenshot from 'Tell Me Why' official announcement trailer
As part of its 'Gaming is for Everyone' initiative, Microsoft and Dontnod announced 'Tell Me Why,' boasting that it is the 1st game from a major studio to ever feature a trans lead. This is due to its female-to-male protagonist.

Both companies are marketing it as hard as they can to a woke crowd that will suck it up because 'gender benders' are currently en vogue. Websites such as Mashable are already touting it as a "significant step forward" for representation. Never mind the fact that we don't yet know how well the character will be written and no gameplay has been shown.