KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.
Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.
Tag: Business
Israel admitted launching hundreds of preemptive strikes on Syrian targets. Former IDF chief General Gadi Eisenhkot earlier said “(w)e struck thousands of targets (in Syria) without claiming responsibility or asking for credit.”
In response to two reported rockets from Syria striking illegally occupied Golan, falling harmlessly, Israeli warplanes terror-bombed Syrian targets pre-dawn Sunday.
Throughout the war, no evidence suggests Syrian forces ever targeted Israeli territory. Clearly they’d be nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Attacking Israel would escalate war Damascus is winning and wants ended. Clearly its forces had nothing to do with striking occupied Golan on June 1.
Most likely, US/Israeli supported terrorists were to blame for the incident, giving the Netanyahu regime a pretext for a terror-bombing attack even though it needs none to do whatever it pleases — with full US support and encouragement, with the UN and world community failing to hold it accountable.
When war is good for business and the US operates to create endless wars with commercial intent. (ODT)
via Israel Terror-Bombs Syria With Impunity – Stephen Lendman
Yemen means profit for a Military Industrial State (ODT)
The Ugly American: Trump Vetoes Congressional Resolution to get out of Yemen
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars convincing the American public that opioid painkillers are safe to use for chronic pain—and fueling a deadly, decades-long addiction epidemic as a result—the drug maker Purdue Pharma could file for bankruptcy to avoid being held accountable for its actions.
According to Reuters, Purdue is considering bankruptcy to halt thousands of lawsuits and allow the company to settle with the plaintiffs out of court.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Reform has issued a Report on a plot to make billions of dollars by selling Saudi Arabia sensitive American nuclear technology that could allow the Kingdom to develop nuclear weapons. The scheme required breaking US law, which forbids technology transfers that might allow nuclear proliferation.
This scheme is the ultimate in criminality, where US government resources (remember the Manhattan project?) are given away to another government by the white collar criminals now running the US government so that they can scoop up private massive fortunes rivaling those of the richest persons in the world such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
Australia Institute finds employers get six hours’ free work a week from each employee, while thousands are underemployed
Just over a week ago, on Friday 10 August, U.S. media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s private jet touched down in Sydney and unloaded him back in the land whose citizenship he’d spurned years before for reasons of rank ambition and untrammelled greed.
Rupert Murdoch owns a very big business — News Corp, which produces 60 per cent of the newspapers in Australia by circulation and operates the only cable network. He would have also seen Turnbull emerge from the Party room last Tuesday, overjoyed his caucus had endorsed his centrepiece energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). Much of the media declared this a triumph for the (current) Prime Minister. Murdoch probably wouldn’t have agreed, being not only a climate change denier, but also an oil-man.
Annual government expenditure is over $450 billion per year making it, by far, the biggest business in the country.
They decide what percentage of our income they will take and how they will spend it. They have total control over our common wealth and the ability to sell our assets as they please.
They make our laws. They can send us to war. They can choose to ignore existential threats like climate change.
When is Corporate theft deemed a crime. Steal off a Corporation it’s a jailable offense? A Corporation steals off it’s enmployees it’s “hard nosed business” someting is seriously wrong and its systemic because our system allows it to happen. (ODT)
It is what Quadrant is doing with Rockpool Dining Group, which is expanding rapidly, has become heavily indebted and according to former senior management has a ruthless focus on costs and wages.
The downside is the mountains of evidence of systemic issues at Rockpool Dining Group around the underpayment of workers through the heavy use of unpaid overtime.
There is a foul stench emanating from planet earth. The noxious smell emanates from a single destructive paradigm. That festering greed is known as capitalism. On a single planet with finite resources, the philosophy of capitalism is terminal for the planet and all who reside on it.
Something is Rotten – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The last thing Rupert Murdoch needed, during a two-month recovery from a fall on his son’s yacht, was to be thrown a curve ball.
But that’s exactly what he faces after Brian Roberts, chief executive of US telecommunications company Comcast, announced a £22.1 billion ($39.4 billion) rival bid for British broadcaster Sky on Tuesday evening.
via How Rupert Murdoch could respond to the latest Sky curveball
The US-backed Saudi-led war on Yemen is keeping two million children out of school (Yemen is a country of 27 million). Worse, schools and schoolchildren have repeatedly been struck from the air by Saudi, UAE, Moroccan and Jordanian pilots using American-supplied planes and bombs, in a campaign backed by Washington and the Pentagon and the United Kingdom. The US military supplies logistics, refueling and targeting advice to the aggressors.
via Let’s remember the Schoolchildren US & Russian bombs are killing, too
Whether the rationale is the need to wage a war on terror involving 76 countries or renewed preparations for a struggle against peer competitors Russia and China (as Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested recently while introducing America’s new National Defense Strategy), the U.S. military is engaged globally. A network of 800 military bases spread across 172 countries helps enable its wars and interventions. By the count of the Pentagon, at the end of the last fiscal year about 291,000 personnel (including reserves and Department of Defense civilians) were deployed in 183 countries worldwide, which is the functional definition of a military uncontained. Lady Liberty may temporarily close when the U.S. government grinds to a halt, but the country’s foreign military commitments, especially its wars, just keep humming along.
via Can American Democracy survive six Standing Wars? | Informed Comment
When the government announced that it would spend $400 billion over the next twenty years on defence materiel and that it would, in opposition to its supposed commitment to free trade, adopt a protectionist requirement for local content, foreign defence manufacturers flocked like bees to a honey pot.
By Riccardo Labianco | (The Conversation) | – – Since the catastrophic Yemeni civil war began in 2015, the British …
Source: Should Western Countries be Selling Masses of Arms to Saudi Arabia? | Informed Comment
Blackwater’s Erik Prince was a shoo-in for the plan. But who is Stephen Feinberg?
Source: Kushner and Bannon Team Up to Privatize the War in Afghanistan | The Nation
Ian the Climate Denialist Potato has invited Bethany the intern to speak to his new coffee shop franchisees. But does he know she’s in the union?
After his U-turns at home and Dr Strangelove-style antics abroad, markets and investors are supposing that the president is making it up as he goes along
Source: Is business starting to get spooked about Donald Trump? | Larry Elliott | US news | The Guardian
ACTU secretary Sally McManus has a surprising ally in one of the world’s most powerful bankers in her fight against pay cuts
Would you want to buy up a US president’s debt?
Source: Holy Conflict of Interest! The Firm Holding Much of Trump’s Debt May Be Up for Sale. | Mother Jones
A major Lincolnshire employer has announced it is moving its headquarters to Europe as a direct result of the Brexit vote in June. Anxiety over the cost of a hard Brexit, which would see the UK drifting away from cooperation with the rest of the EU, has compelled Smiffys to open a new headquarters in the Netherlands.
The UK construction industry will slam into a “brick wall” early next year due to the massive uncertainty created by the Brexit vote, an industry source has warned. A person in the sector, who contacted The Independent but did not want to be named, said that since the shock referendum result was announced last Friday morning anxious international investors have already pushed the pause button on future UK infrastructure investments.
Crown Casino is a haven for drug traffickers and money launderers, leading one of Victoria’s most prominent judges to label the venue a “blot on the community”.
Source: Crown Casino haven for drug traffickers, ‘a blot on the community’
Despite the fact that various social, political, and human rights organizations have condemned the United States’ prison system, it remains one of the biggest businesses in existence today. Did you know that America has four percent of the world’s population, yet still carries approximately twenty five percent of the world’s prison population? That is a staggering […]
Source: The Massive Prison Industry In The United States: Big Business & Slavery | Collective-Evolution
Major defense contractors Raytheon, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin assured investors at a Credit Suisse conference in West Palm Beach this week that they stand to gain from the escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Bruce Tanner told the conference his company will see “indirect benefits” from the war in Syria, citing the Turkish military’s recent decision to shoot down a Russian warplane.
Weapons sales from Israel to Africa rose by 40 percent in 2014.
Source: Israeli arms fuel atrocities in Africa | The Electronic Intifada
the 8 countries that sent the most weapons to Syria since 2011 only accepted 2 percent of the refugees Germany has taken in.
Source: Nations that sent the most arms to Syria have accepted the fewest refugees
