ASKING FOR A HAUNTING

Graves of nuns to be moved as cemetery will become housing, business space in Colorado

Vandana Ravikumar, The Charlotte Observer - Yesterday 

The graves of 62 nuns buried in a Denver cemetery will soon be moved to another location, local media reports.

The nuns were buried near Loretto Heights, a campus that has acted as an educational institution in several ways, including as a girls boarding school, a college, a high school, nursing school and a military training ground, according to the website Historic Denver.

The nuns, who were among the Sisters of Loretto, operated the campus. The 62 women were buried in the cemetery from the late 1890s to 1969, according to The Denver Post.

Surviving members of the Sisters of Loretto owned the campus until 1988, and the college closed in 2017, 9 News reported. The campus was sold to the Colorado-based developer Westside Investment Partners the year after, in 2018, according to the outlet.

Now, the nuns’ bodies will be moved from the 123-year-old cemetery so the former campus can be redeveloped into housing and business space, according to The Denver Post.

The Denver City Council approved plans to redevelop the campus in September 2019, Denverite reported. Those plans include adding housing and “preserving and reusing historic structures,” the outlet reported.

Mark Witkiewicz, principal at Westside, told Denverite in 2021 that the goal of developing the campus is “not about changing the neighborhoods, it’s about enhancing the neighborhoods.”

But before the land around the historic campus can be converted into housing and “retail and cultural facilities,” the bodies of the 62 nuns will have to be moved, 9 News reported. Witkiewicz told the outlet that the decision to move the bodies was not made by the development company and that it was prepared to incorporate the cemetery into the plans.

But the Sisters of Loretto were concerned about the maintenance of the cemetery, even prior to the campus’ sale, and felt that the nuns’ bodies should be moved to the Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, The Denver Post reported.

According to the Loretto Community Facebook page, the first of the nuns was buried on the campus before it was an official cemetery. Sr. Frances O’Leary died on Nov. 5, 1898, and was buried there shortly after, the organization said.

The last burial took place in 1969, after Sr. Rita Therese DuBor died on Oct. 22, the organization said.

Efforts to exhume and relocate the nuns’ bodies are set to begin on June 20, and the site of their original burials will be turned into a memorial park, according to The Denver Post.


©2022 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Sony to build space lasers with new satellite services unit

03 Jun 2022 

WASHINGTON : Sony on Thursday said it formed a new company that will build and supply devices that allow small satellites in orbit to communicate with one another via laser beams, dipping into the fast-growing space sector.

Sony Space Communications Corp, registered on Wednesday, is meant to take advantage of laser technology to avoid a bottleneck of radio frequencies. The devices will work between satellites in space and satellites communicating with ground stations.

The company did not say when it expects to have its first commercial device operating in space, whether it has existing customers lined up or how much money it has invested into the technology to date.

There are roughly 12,000 satellites in orbit, a number that is projected to increase rapidly in the coming years as rocket companies slash the cost of launching things to space, and as firms like Amazon and SpaceX build vast networks of low-earth satellites to carry internet communications to all the globe.

"The amount of data used in orbit is also increasing year by year, but the amount of available radio waves is limited," the new company's president, Kyohei Iwamoto, said in a statement.

SpaceX makes its own laser communications devices in-house and first launched them on its Starlink satellites late last year.

Sony said one of its first successful tests occurred in 2020 when it transmitted high-definition image data by laser from the International Space Station to a ground station in Japan.

Israel: Doubt over bill 'constituting apartheid' in West Bank throws government off

The routine emergency law extension is likely to pass in the end, experts tell MEE, but mere uncertainty over its status reveals uncomfortable truths

Israeli settlers raise Israeli flags on a building in the middle of the market

 in the town of Hawara, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank (Reuters)

By Huthifa Fayyad
Published date: 2 June 2022 


The absence of a clear majority in the Israeli parliament has raised fears that a critical regulation governing West Bank settlers will not be extended, potentially placing them under military rule and causing Israel a legal nightmare.

 

For Israelis, the future is impossible to see

Gideon Levy

Read More »

On Monday the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, postponed a vote on the extension of the emergency law, in place since 1967, after doubts rose over it attaining enough votes to pass.

The temporary regulation is renewed every few years to ensure that civilian Israeli law is applied to settlers living in West Bank settlements, as opposed to the military law governing Palestinians living adjacent to them.

The right-wing Likud Party, which leads the opposition in parliament, has vowed not to vote on any laws brought forward by the ruling coalition, which has half the seats in parliament.

With pressure from Palestinians mounting on the United Arab List - made up of Palestinian citizens of Israel who are part of the ruling coalition - to vote against the extension, fears have grown over its failure to pass, which could trigger a legal mess.

A new vote is scheduled for next Monday, giving the ruling coalition extra time to gather enough supporters to pass the extension, which is due to expire by the end of June.

The extension will most likely pass in the end, experts say, but the mere uncertainty over it raises uncomfortable questions about the state of Israeli politics and the occupation.
'Constitution of the apartheid'

The "Emergency Regulations – Judea and Samaria, Jurisdiction and Legal Aid" was introduced in the West Bank after Israel occupied the Palestinian territory following the 1967 Middle East war.

The emergency regulation became an important centrepiece of the Israeli legal system, particularly after the flow of settlers into the West Bank began to grow, an illegal practice under international law that prohibits the transfer of an occupying power's civilian population to occupied territory.

The regulation allowed hundreds of thousands of Israelis to live on land outside of its boundaries while enjoying full privileges of Israeli citizenship and residency.

Under this umbrella, Israeli settlers are tried in civilian courts, allowed to receive social and health benefits and run for public office, among other rights.

All the while, the three million Palestinian population of the West Bank are subjected to military rule under which they are tried in military courts, denied full freedom of movement and restricted from accessing land and resources.

A Palestinian flag flutters on a hilltop in the town of Beita near Nablus city in the occupied West Bank, near the settler outpost of Eviatar (AFP)

"This law is the constitution of the apartheid regime in the West Bank," Israeli legal expert Michael Sfard told Middle East Eye.

"It is the legislation by which differentiation in the legal application is imposed on Israelis and Palestinians. It is something I consider to be shameful and morally despicable."

Today, more than 600,000 settlers live in over 200 West Bank settlements, including Supreme Court judges, members of parliament and high-ranking military officers.
Legal nightmare

If the regulation is not extended, settlers will overnight become subjected to military law - the same law imposed on Palestinians.

"It's like shutting down the police," Sfard said.

"If it's not extended, then it redraws the Green Line and reintroduces military rule on Israelis...they become citizens who live abroad."

In theory, Israeli police will not be able to operate in the settlements, settlers who commit crimes in the West Bank would be tried in military courts, and their right to receive government health insurance would be rescinded.

'It's like shutting down the police'

- Michael Sfard, Israeli legal expert

It will also have an immediate impact on at least two judges serving in the Supreme Court and some MPs, who will all cease to be residents of Israel, a requirement for them to serve in public posts.

The regulation also allows prisons in Israel to hold Palestinians charged by military courts. If it is not extended, Israeli jail authorities will no longer have the power to keep some 3,600 Palestinian prisoners who will need to be sent back to the West Bank, Sfard explained.

It's such a "central piece in the legal architecture of the Israeli regime in the West Bank," Sfard said, that it's nearly impossible to imagine the extension not passing next week.

"The only reason we are talking about it is because there is suddenly a political mess which raises doubts whether they will be able to extend it."

'Holding on by a thread'

Earlier this week, doubt over the extension of the bill emerged after the opposition - who hold 60 seats out of 120 Knesset seats - said they would not support it, in an attempt to put pressure on the ruling coalition.

Further concerns came from the reluctance of the United Arab List to vote on it since many Palestinians view it as a bill institutionalising apartheid.

Justice Minister Gideon Saar, who is seeking to extend the bill by five years, warned that the "game being played by the opposition is not only unprecedented but dangerous", in an interview with Israeli broadcaster Kan on Tuesday.

"A coalition MP who opposes the bill is saying, 'I don't want this government to continue,'" he said.

But Saar himself has been named in media reports as holding talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the opposition, to form an alternative coalition in case the current government falls.

His right-wing party, New Hope, and Netanyahu's Likud both dismissed the reports.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held meetings on Wednesday with the heads of parties forming the ruling coalition, hoping to secure a majority for the emergency law vote next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, on 15 May 2022 (AFP)

"It is a very unusual situation, almost amusing," said Orly Noy, an Israeli political activist and journalist, puzzled at how such a routine vote over a legal technicality is throwing the government off.

"As children, we used to amuse ourselves with this silly riddle, can God create a stone so heavy that even God itself can't lift it? So now I think we are facing a similar question. Has Israeli apartheid finally arrived at a situation where its supremacy is collapsing from within?"

'Beginning of the end': Israel's government set to fall amid secular-religious tensions

Read More »

On Thursday, Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List, was quoted as saying to Kan that he did not oppose voting in favour of extending the bill, but rather the timing of it, as it comes immediately after a series of Israeli raids on al-Aqsa Mosque and the right-wing flag march in Jerusalem where Israeli police and ultra-nationalists assaulted Palestinians.

"Next week is a new week, and we will study the vote on the law in another atmosphere," Abbas said, hinting that his list could vote in favour, giving a boost to Bennett.

But negotiations are continuing to secure the majority needed, as doubt still presides over the position of some members of the left-wing party, Meretz

Sooner or later, Noy believes, the government will find a way around it and pass the bill. But what this confusion reveals is a "very meaningful thing about the true nature and incentives that operate and make Israeli politics".

"The government is holding on by a thread," she said. "If it's not this, it will be something else that brings the government down."

Palestinians remind us the right to protest is ours

Huda Ammori
02 Jun, 2022

Palestinians don’t wait for the ‘right to protest’ by Israel, some solidarity groups should follow their example and rethink their strategy in response to the anti-boycott bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, writes Huda Ammori

Palestine solidarity groups and activists should be inspired by the resistance of Palestinians in the face of the Israeli apartheid regime, argues Ammori. [AFP]

For too long, reactive campaigning has been the go-to tactic for international organisations acting in solidarity with Palestine. A constant offensive launched by Israel’s apartheid state and its supporters, means organisations are susceptible to limiting their agenda on Palestine to fending off the latest attacks.

Whether it’s placing all efforts into responding to the newest offensive by the Israel lobby or saving key mobilisations for when Palestinians are under the bombs, always acting on the defence is not an effective strategy.

A current example is the latest reaction to the introduction of a new ‘anti-boycott’ bill in the recent Queen’s Speech. With Prince Charles announcing legislation to “prevent public bodies engaging in boycotts that undermine community cohesion”, a renewal of the campaign for the ‘right’ to boycott and to speak up on Palestine began.

The proposed new bill, has dominated the agenda of large non-governmental organisations. Except it won’t be the first attempt by the British government to keep the funds flowing from Britain directly to Israel’s apartheid regime. In 2016, they issued legal guidance to councils which essentially restricted their right to divest from companies on the basis that they were assisting the oppression of the Palestinian people. In response, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) claimed for a judicial review.

''Palestinians do not sit around waiting for the right to protest by Israel, or the right to defend their homes, or the right to fight Israel’s apartheid regime. They act, because their lives and their freedom depend on it. For those of us who live in the imperial core, which is actively enabling Israel’s apartheid regime, who want to show true international solidarity, we must demonstrate the same resilience.''

During my time working at PSC and before the legal battle entered the supreme court, I embarked on a mission to find out how much money Local Government Pension Schemes were funnelling into corporations complicit in Israel’s apartheid regime. After sending off 450 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, it was discovered that over £3billion was invested in corporations maintaining the illegal occupation of Palestine.

Eventually, the legal battle was victorious in 2020, and the Supreme Court upheld the right for councils to pull their billions out of the illegal occupation of Palestine. This was the perfect time to launch an undefeatable offensive grassroots campaign compelling councils to stop their funds entering the pockets of war criminals. Instead, organisations are resorting back to fighting for the ‘right’ to boycott.

But what is the goal? Is it simply to keep ourselves in the same position we are now? Or is it to achieve actual divestment from councils and other institutions? If it’s the latter, then the majority of resources must be ploughed into building grassroots campaign which can be effective in getting councils to pull their money out of complicit corporations.

Following the court victory, the only pension fund to divest, pulled their money from Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms company. East Sussex Pension Fund based their reasoning on the increased “environmental, social and governance risk” of Elbit Systems. The Israeli arms firm is the primary target of the direct-action movement, Palestine Action. Through pro-active campaigning, involving occupying, blockading and destroying their sites, activists have dragged Elbit’s name through the mud. With locals building pressure against the pension fund, coupled with the direct-action campaign against the company of which they held investments in, a victory for the Palestinian people was achieved.

Direct action requires no permission from governments. This makes the movement to end Israel’s arms trade in Britain immune to any attempts from the British government to stop them. For they already accept potential arrests, and state repression as part of the course they’ve embarked on. And when the police detain activists, they’re forced to react to Palestine Action’s sustained hits of Elbit’s sites.

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On the other hand, NGO’s are in a constant back and forth with the government for the ‘right to boycott’. Their latest tactic involves over 40 organisations opposing any restriction of the ‘right’ to boycott, but many of the signatories are not pushing for corporations and institutions to actually boycott Israel. Simply being granted the ‘right’ to boycott, a right which frankly, we always had, does not require any institutions or corporations to boycott the apartheid state. And they won’t, unless significant pressure through grassroots campaigns forces their hand.

The introduction of similar repressive bills, such as the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill was also met with opposition. The campaign designed to kill the bill, composed of mass mobilisation, awareness building, and lobbying politicians. Unfortunately, the bill was passed, with the government pushing it through regardless of attempts by the grassroots to stop it. Although the mass campaign did lead to the removal of certain repressive clauses, the government is now rushing them through in the new “Public Order” Bill.

Rather than follow in their footsteps, and hope for different results, we must switch the script entirely.

Palestinians do not sit around waiting for the right to protest by Israel, or the right to defend their homes, or the right to fight Israel’s apartheid regime. They act, because their lives and their freedom depend on it. For those of us who live in the imperial core, which is actively enabling Israel’s apartheid regime, who want to show true international solidarity, we must demonstrate the same resilience.

Yes, the British government can introduce a new law with the stroke of a pen, and maybe a well-funded organisation can spend years fighting it, only for it to be overturned through a new piece of legislation or guidance issued by the government.

The constant back and forth ping pong many fall into the trap of playing, just to win the ability to effectively campaign for Palestine, puts us right where they want us, in a constant standstill.

If we want to break the cycle, we must place our collective efforts into striking the corporations, institutions and governments that uphold Israel’s apartheid regime, and force them to react to us, rather than the other way round. No permission is needed to act.



Huda Ammori is a co-founder of the direct action network Palestine Action and has conducted extensive research and campaigns targeting British complicity with Israeli apartheid.
Follow her on Twitter: @HudaAmmori

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@alaraby.co.uk.
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Four Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in two days as tensions flare

Smoke is seen as the Israeli forces blow up the house of assailant Palestinian militant 

Diaa Hamrasheh near Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank June 2, 2022. — Reuters pic

Friday, 03 Jun 2022 8:18 AM MYT

RAMALLAH, June 3 — Israeli troops shot dead a teen in the West Bank on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, the fourth Palestinian killed in the occupied territory in two days.

The ministry identified the slain Palestinian as 17-year-old Odeh Odeh, who was hit in the chest by what it said was an Israeli bullet near the village of Al-Madiya, west of Ramallah.

The Israeli army said “three suspects threw a firebomb” at soldiers “operating near the security barrier” adjacent to Al-Madiya.

“The soldiers responded with fire toward the suspects, and a hit was identified,” the army said.

It came hours after a Palestinian man was killed during a clash with Israeli forces conducting an arrest operation in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.

On Wednesday, a woman approaching soldiers with a knife was shot, and later that day a man was killed in an Israeli raid in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli security forces have stepped up their operations in the West Bank in recent months, carrying out almost daily raids to arrest suspects after a spate of deadly attacks inside Israel.

Bullets and petrol bombs

The army said troops had entered Dheisheh to arrest a Palestinian “suspected of terrorist activities” and were met with volleys of petrol bombs and cement blocks.

They responded with live rounds.

Late Wednesday, Israeli troops mounted an incursion into the village of Yabad outside the flashpoint northern district of Jenin, to demolish the home of the assailant who carried out a March attack that killed five people in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak.

The health ministry said that after that raid a Palestinian man died in hospital in Jenin. He had been admitted in critical condition, having been “shot by live bullets in the chest and thigh”.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said that six Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli raid.

The army said it had also arrested the “terrorist’s father”.

It said it had informed the family of the shooter, Diaa Hamarsha, on April 17 of the demolition order against the family home.

Israel regularly destroys the homes of individuals it blames for attacks on Israelis. The practice, which often fuels tensions, has been condemned by critics as a form of collective punishment. Israel insists it deters attacks.

On Wednesday morning, Israeli soldiers in the southern West Bank near Hebron shot dead Ghofran Warasnah, 31, after she “advanced” towards soldiers with a knife, the army said.

Nineteen people, mostly Israeli civilians — including 18 inside Israel and a Jewish settler — have been killed in attacks by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs since late March.

Israeli security forces have responded with raids inside Israel and the West Bank, particularly in and around Jenin. Three Israeli Arab attackers and a police commando have died.

Thirty-nine Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank — suspected militants but also non-combatants, including an Al Jazeera journalist who was covering a raid in Jenin and bystanders. — AFP

Raglan Mine production halts as 630 union workers strike

Union leaders want more respect from employer, along with a pay increase.

By

 Jeff Pelletier, Nunatsiaq News

 -

May 31, 2022

Union members at Nunavik’s Raglan Mine are on strike after contract talks aimed at a new contract broke down Friday. (Nunatsiaq News file photo)

A breakdown in contract negotiations stopped production at Nunavik’s Raglan Mine over the weekend when unionized staff took strike action, calling for better working conditions and increased pay.

Negotiations for a new collective agreement between the company, part of the Glencore Group, and 630 members of the United Steelworkers union, began at the end of March. Their previous five-year contract expired April 30.

Raglan Mine is located in the northeast region of the Ungava Peninsula. It is the largest employer in Nunavik, with close to 1,200 workers who rotate in and out of the mine throughout the year. There are hundreds of contractors and non-union workers who are not affected by the strike.

On May 5, Raglan tabled an offer, which a majority of union workers voted to reject. The union also voted to forward a strike mandate to union negotiators.

Another “improved” offer was also rejected, according to the company.

A government-appointed mediator was named to help broker a deal between Raglan and the union. However, after those talks broke down Friday, the union announced it would strike.

This past weekend, unionized workers at the mine were flown back to their home communities.

Cimon Guy, a mine worker and member of the union’s negotiating committee, said he wants an agreement that shows more respect from Raglan to the employees.

A new contract, he said, should include provisions such as specific lunch times, commitments to better amenities for staff who spend long tours at the mine, as well as a pay increase to match the increased cost of living.

“Unfortunately, especially over the last five years, the relation between the employer and the employees has become more and more negative, so, by the strike we want to demand more respect from our employers,” Guy said in an interview.

“We hope that they understand that that’s something that’s important to us nowadays.”

He added: “It’s not only about money, it’s not only about who profits, it’s about some basic respect. We want to talk about it, we want it to be important in the discussion.”

In an interview, Raglan’s director of public affairs Amélie Rouleau disputed some of the claims, citing high employee satisfaction from employee surveys, a low turnover rate and high grades awarded the company for workplace safety.

Rouleau said its offer would have “placed its employees among the best-paid in the mining industry.”

As both sides meet with an independent mediator, as of Monday afternoon, no new date had been set to resume talks.

“We’re ready to talk at any time, so our teams are ready and just waiting [for] the cue for us to sit at the table,” Rouleau said.

Despite the lack of a deal, Guy said the process has been “polite” from the beginning. He said his side has been ready to make a new deal since Christmas, and he’s eager to meet with Raglan to make settle the talks.

“We are ready to sit back down with the company at any time of their choosing, with or without a mediator, and we want to keep negotiating the best collective agreement we can get,” Guy said.

 

Inuit documentary in production wins top award at Cannes Film Festival

"Twice Colonized" won the Best Docs-In-Progress award.

By

 Nunatsiaq News

 -

June 2, 2022

1

A film following Inuk lawyer Aaju Peter as she tries to change European policy to make room for Indigenous voices has won an award at Cannes Film Festival. (Courtesy of David Murphy via Nunatsiaq News)

A documentary that tells the story of an Inuit lawyer’s search for justice in the wake of the death of her son has won an award for films in production at Cannes Film Festival.

Twice Colonized, directed by Lin Alluna, was showcased during the Cannes Docs — Marché du Film, where it won the Best Docs-In-Progress award on May 25.

It follows the journey of Aaju Peter, who is based in Greenland. After her son suddenly dies by suicide, she embarks on a quest to make sure Indigenous people play a role in forming policy in Europe.

Iqaluit filmmakers Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald co-produced the film alongside Emile Hertling Péronard, who is from Greenland. They worked with fellow producers Bob Moore and Daniel Cross, who are based in Montreal.

Twice Colonized is scheduled to be released next year.

America, Meet Your New Dictator-in-Chief

The President’s Secret, Unchecked Powers

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / June 2nd, 2022

America, meet your new dictator-in-chief.

As the New York Times reports, “Newly disclosed documents have shed a crack of light on secret executive branch plans for apocalyptic scenarios—like the aftermath of a nuclear attack—when the president may activate wartime powers for national security emergencies.”< The problem, of course, is that we have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency. Power-hungry and lawless, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. The seeds of this present madness were sown almost two decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20) provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”

Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president.

The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.

Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life.

It has happened already.

As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.

The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.

Yet according to documents recently obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public.

It doesn’t even matter what the nature of the crisis might be—civil unrest, the national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters”—as long as it allows the government to justify all manner of government tyranny in the name of so-called national security.

In such a climate, the American president becomes dictator with permanent powers: imperial, unaccountable and unconstitutional.

Then again, the police state with the president at its helm has been riding roughshod over the rule of law for years now without any pretense of being reined in or restricted in its power grabs by Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.”

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump and passed along to Joe Biden.

These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

This is what you might call a stealthy, creeping, silent, slow-motion coup d’état.

If we continue down this road, there can be no surprise about what awaits us at the end.

Unfortunately, the process of unseating a dictator and limiting the powers of the presidency is far from simple but at a minimum, it must start with “we the people.”

For starters, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we must recalibrate the balance of power.

Start locally—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.

What we desperately need is a concerted, collective commitment to the Constitution’s principles of limited government, a system of checks and balances, and a recognition that they—the president, Congress, the courts, the military, the police, the technocrats and plutocrats and bureaucrats—answer to and are accountable to “we the people.”

In other words, we’ve got to start making both the president and the police state play by the rules of the Constitution.cebook
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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

General Electric’s French Tax Scam

by Filippo Ortona / June 2nd, 2022

Since the purchase of Alstom Energy in 2015, the US multinational could have put in place a vast system of tax evasion involving France, Switzerland and Delaware. With the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

It is an industrial fiasco which has no end. Seven years after the sale of Alstom Energy to General Electric,¹ the record of the American multinational has been disastrous – 5000 workers retrenched, including 1400 in the key Belfort factory complex; an advanced technology hub left to rot; a preliminary inquest for conflict of interest against Hugh Bailey, CEO of GE France.² And now, a scandal involving tax evasion.

According to our inquest, supported by independent audit reports and several internal accounting documents of the group, the American multinational has put in place an opaque financial setup between its French subsidiary, General Electric Energy Products France (GEEPF) and subsidiaries domiciled in Switzerland and in the American State of Delaware.

Objective: to bypass the French tax authorities in concealing the profits arising from the sale of gas turbines produced at Belfort, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.region. We estimate that more than €800 million has disappeared from GEEPF’s accounts between 2015 and 2020. This translates into a deficit for the public exchequer of €150-300 million.

Mediapart has already analysed in 2019 the means by which the financial policies of the company has drained the Belfort site. The massive utilisation of intra-group financial transfers via transfer pricing has been outlined. The revelations of Disclose confirm and deepen this information.

For GE, the large-scale tax evasion begins in late 2015 by a trick both simple and discrete: the transfer of corporate liability to a company created for the occasion at Baden, in Switzerland. Its name: General Electric Switzerland GmbH (GES).

From then onwards, the Belfort factory, announced at the time of purchase from Alstom as the future global site of turbine production for the group, ceases to be a manufacturing site and becomes a ‘production unit’ placed under the direction of a Swiss company. This restructuring marks the last profitable year of the Belfort site. And for good reason: with this sleight of hand, GE comes to launch its process of the appropriation of the profits arising from the sale of turbines and component parts ‘made in France’.

An illustration from 2019. This particular year, a contract is passed between GEEPF and the Swiss company GES for the sale of gas turbines. The contract price – more than €350 million. Although these products have been produced in France, GES appropriates for itself the status of ‘manufacturer’, presenting the Belfort site merely as a banal ‘distributor’.

The point of this vanishing act: to allow the Swiss outlet to resell the turbines to the ultimate client in order to garner the profits of the sale. In the framework of the contracts, not less than 97 % of the profits fly off to Switzerland, where the company tax rate ranges between 17 – 22 % against 33 % in France. Contacted, General Electric has not responded to our questions.

Laissez-faire of the state

A similar setup concerns the sale of replacement parts for the turbines – the bulk of revenues generated at Belfort. From estimates based on the GE group’s annual reports, the scheme could have transferred around €1.5 billion to GES, the Swiss subsidiary, between 2016 and 2019. All with the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

From our investigations, General Electric, following the acquisition of Alstom Energy, could have benefited from the protocol of a ‘trust relationship’ (relation de confiance) with the French Treasury. This mechanism allows that “the enterprise should furnish all the elements necessary to the understanding of its [fiscal] situation”, citing a document from the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques), dating from 2013. Clearly, the multinational has validated its tax scheme, involving the links with its subsidiaries, with the Finance Ministry. In return, it has ensured that the Ministry has arranged to not execute any control over the arrangement. Interrogated over its precise knowledge of this mechanism of fiscal optimisation established by General Electric, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has not responded to our questions.

At Baden, 8 Brown-Boveri Strasse, General Electric has domiciled three other subsidiaries as French ‘service providers’. The first two, General Electric Global Services GMbH and GE Global Parts and Products GmbH, are charged to sell replacement parts manufactured at Belfort. The third, baptised General Electric Technology GmbH, has as mission to hold the patent rights over gas turbines. For one simple reason, according to one of the audit reports consulted by Disclose: “The foreign revenues arising from patents are very little taxed in Switzerland”. Since 2017, €177 million of royalty payments have left France, direction Baden.

The millions sent to Delaware

To complete its strategy of fiscal optimisation, General Electric relies on another subsidiary of the group, based, this time, in the US. Monogram Licensing International LLC – this is its name – is domiciled in Delaware, a State known for imposing zero tax on companies. Between 2014 and 2019, it could have received around €80.9 million on the part of GE France for the utilisation of GE’s brand, logo and advertising slogans. According to the contract in place between GE France and Monogram, France must pay 1 % of its annual turnover to Delaware. However, this threshold has been cleared on several occasions. With no explanation, one of the audits of the group has underlined.

The massive appropriation of the wealth produced by the workers of Belfort is essentially illegal, as outlined in the international tax convention BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). Taking effect in France in 2019, this text, intended to reinforce the struggle against tax evasion, stipulates that company profits must be “taxed where the real economic activity takes place … and where value is created”. Logically, in the case of turbines manufactured at Belfort, the associated tax must then be deducted in France, not in Switzerland.

The workforce the losers

In making disappear €800 million from the accounts of General Electric Energy Products France, the multinational has then escaped tax. But it has also deprived the French workforce of a part of their participation in the enterprise. A tax expert to whom we’ve submitted the details of the operations of General Electric at Belfort confirms it: in artificially reducing the profits, the industrial could have deprived its employees of several thousand euros each, between 2015 and 2019, by virtue of their formal participation in GEEPF profits. In December 2021, the SUD Industrie Union and the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on the Belfort site have lodged a complaint against their employer for “fraud against the right to participation [in profits] of employees”.

The system implanted by the group has equally burdened the municipal budget. “Leaving from the moment when GE moved its profits offshore, inevitably it pays less [local] taxes”, explains Mathilde Regnaud, opposition Councillor at Belfort. By February 2022, given “the cumulative loss of tax takings”, estimated at €10 million, from the tax on enterprise value-added (cotisation sur la valeur ajoutée des entreprises, CVAE), members of the Municipal Council of Belfort have requested a detailed analysis of the tax losses suffered by the town. A demand which points above all to “the legality … of the manoeuvres of fiscal optimisation” carried out by General Electric on the territory. In 2021, the aforesaid manoeuvres could have in part provoked the augmentation of property taxes on the commune.

*****

31 May. Following publication, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance and the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques) have reacted through Agence France-Presse, claiming that they had never validated GE’s tax arrangements via any ‘trust relationship’. General Electric, through AFP, claims that the group “respects the fiscal regime of the countries in which it operates”.

The article has been translated by Evan Jones.

1. [Translator’s note] The complex saga of the corrupt takeover of Alstom Energy by General Electric is told in Jones, ‘Behind GE’s Takeover of Alstom Energy, Counterpunch, 2 December 2016; and Jones, ‘The Coalition of the US Justice Department and GE against Alstom’, Dissident Voice, 20 April 2019. Of great significance regarding the rise and rise of General Electric is a recent book by Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. []
2. [Translator’s note] In September 2019, the public prosecutor of Paris charged Bailey for possible conflict of interest. Bailey was advisor in the office of Emmanuel Macron, then Economy Minister, when €70 million was granted to the French export authority which directly benefited GE’s exports. In 2017, Macron becomes President, Bailey is hired by GE France and is appointed CEO in 2019. [FacebookTwitter

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Filippo Ortona is an Italian freelance journalist who has contributed this article (29 May) to Disclose, a French network of investigative journalism. Read other articles by Filippo.

This article was posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2022 at 8:20pm and is filed under Capitalism, Corporations, France.

Ransomware attack affects production at a Foxconn factory in Mexico

Foxconn's Mexico facilities suffer a second ransomware attack in two years. (Source: Unsplash)

For the second time in two years, Foxconn's facilities operating in Mexico have been breached. A ransomware group known as LockBit has taken the responsibility. The group is demanding that Foxconn fulfill certain conditions by June 11 if the company wants to save its data from being leaked.

Fawad Murtaza, 06/03/2022

Security

Foxconn, one of the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturers, has been hit with a ransomware attack on one of its facilities in Mexico. Talking to Bleeping Computer, the company explained, “one of our factories in Mexico experienced a ransomware cyberattack in late May. The company's cybersecurity team has been carrying out the recovery plan accordingly.”

The affected factory, which is located in Tijuana, serves as a major supply center for California, United States. To ensure production isn’t hampered by the hack, Foxconn has decided to adjust the production capacity of the factory. The company has also shared details of the attack with the management, clients, and suppliers.

While Foxconn hasn’t officially identified the perpetrators, a ransomware group known as LockBit has claimed responsibility for the breach. The group posted an ultimatum on May 31, that if Foxconn doesn’t comply with the demands by June 11, it will publish the files.

Foxconn’s Mexico factories produce mobile phones, LCD TVs, computers, and set-top boxes. As such the manufacturer may have sensitive documents about unreleased products and production plans which can end up in the wrong hands if LockBit proceeds to leak the files.

This is not the first time that a ransomware group has targeted Foxconn’s Mexico-based facilities. The company’s CTBG MX facility in Ciudad Juárez suffered a similar attack in December 2020 by the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang.

LockBit's warning. (Source: Bleeping Computer)

Source(s)

Bleeping Computer