brazil freezes assets of chevron and transocean, detains executives over oil spill

US oil giant Chevron and 17 executives of “environmental crime” in connection with a major spill off southeastern Brazil last November.

The country’s national oil regulator estimates that 2,400 barrels of crude were spilled in the accident, which led authorities to suspend all of Chevron’s drilling operations and to deny the company access to huge new offshore fields.

The US firm rejected Wednesday’s charges as “outrageous and without merit” and vowed to defend itself and its employees.

The prosecutors said in a statement that it was charging “Chevron, oil drilling contractor Transocean and 17 executives with environmental crime and damage in connection with the oil spill.”

George Buck, the president of Chevron’s Brazil unit, and three other company officials “sought to frustrate the work of the prosecution by presenting a misleading emergency plan,” and by “altering documents shown to the authorities,” it is alleged.

Prosecutors called for a “freeze on all assets of the accused, including 11 senior officials and employees from Chevron and five from Transocean,” and an environmental expert. A judge will decide if the executives are to face trial.

“The charges are based on conclusions of the police investigation into the November 7 2011 accident which occurred because the accused did not respect safety procedures,” state prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira told reporters.

The oil spill “affected the entire maritime ecosystem, which could lead to the extinction of species, as well as the region’s economic activities, in addition to damage caused to the state,” he added.

The prosecutors called for payment of bail of $550,000 for each person accused and $5.5 million for each company.

“These measures aim to ensure that the accused, most of them foreigners, do not leave the country. The sum for the fines will not be returned and will be used to pay for the damage caused,” said de Oliveira.

via AFP: Chevron accused of ‘environmental crime’ in Brazil.

CNT calls general strike, all of europe to join in

anarcho-syndicalist union CNT has called for a general strike in spain for march 29th. not to be left out, the other major labor unions have also called their members and supporters out as well.

the date has gone viral throughout europe, and the spanish general strike has spawned a european day of action against capital, to be carried out on march 31.

we’re all experiencing this together, so why not take part and make it a worldwide general strike and mobilization against capital?

European Action Day against capitalism M31

Days of global action against capitalism promoted by the AIT.

Support for the General Strike in Spain

We can do better

Current policies in the EU and in Europe as a whole are as speculative as capitalism has ever been. That’s because austerity measures are jeopardising economic stability just as much as debt-inflated growth. There can never be salvation in capitalism, only endlessly recurring crises. So why continue wasting our lives for this? Let’s fight neoliberal ideology, let’s get organised on a European level. Our Day of Action on March 31st 2012 will be a first step. Simultaneous demonstrations in many European countries are more than just a signal of solidarity. They’re already sparking transnational discussion and cooperation. We invite all emancipatory initiatives to join this process. We strive to grow independent of official institutions, and are prepared for a persistent struggle. The crisis may manifest in varying ways in different countries, but we all share a common goal: We don’t want to save capitalism, we want to overcome it. We oppose nationalism. It is crucial to fight against the continued erosion of social standards, but we need to aim higher. We want to get rid of the fatal constraints of capitalism and its political institutions. That’s the only way the widespread demand for “real democracy” can be fulfilled.

see more, from the european day of action against capitalism website.

Stratfor leaks: NATO commandos in illegal special ops in Syria

Undercover NATO troops are already in Syria despite denials from their parent governments, according to a leaked brief from a highly-placed analyst.

The information comes from a hacked email from leading private US intelligence agency Stratfor, whose correspondence has been released by Wikileaks since February 27. The email appears to be written from the address of Reva Bhalla (bhalla@stratfor.com), the company’s director of analysis, for internal use, and details a confidential Pentagon meeting in December. The consultation is alleged to have been attended by senior analysts from the US Air Force, and representatives from its chief allies, France and the United Kingdom.

Western powers have categorically denied military involvement in Syria’s internal conflict, for which they have no international mandate. But if the information contained in the letter is reliable, a radically different picture of Western activity in Syria emerges.

The author of the letter claims that US officials “said without saying that SOF [special operation forces] teams (presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey) are already on the ground, focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces.” A little later the US army experts expand on the role of the undercover commandos:  “the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.”

Alawites are a minority Islamic sect, to which Syrian President Bashar Assad and his support base belong. For the past year he has battled an insurrection that has united a range of opponents, from pro-democracy activists to radical Sunni Muslims.

There have been previous allegations of a Western presence on the side of the rebels and on Monday 13 French officers were reportedly captured by the loyalist forces.

Despite the commandos’ already wide remit, the email states that the US experts “stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.”

If confirmed, the information will give ammunition to Russia and China, who have accused Western powers of paving the way for an invasion of Syria. These fears have already been cited as the reasons the two countries vetoed the US-backed UN resolution on Syria in February.

US and allies wary about air strikes

The majority of the December meeting was dedicated to discussing the possibility of a US aerial attack on Syria, and offers an unvarnished glimpse into US foreign policy thinking.

The letter reports military experts as saying that the US has a “high tolerance for killings” and will not execute air strikes on Assad’s regime “unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Gaddafi move against Benghazi.”

The strikes themselves would be “doable” but “the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake.” All the same, a US Air Force intelligence officer is described as “obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria’s ballistic missile capabilities and chem [chemical] weapons.”

On Monday, Republican Senator John McCain called for an air strike on Syria, But the following day, President Obama spoke out against “unilateral action”, noting that the situation in Syria was not as clear cut as in Libya.

If the US does end up staging another military intervention, it is not clear how much support it would receive. The French representative said to the author that “Syria won’t be a Libya-type [sic] situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year.” Meanwhile, Britain would be “reluctant” on the one hand, but on the other is “looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent [Europe]” following the renegotiation of the EU treaty.

This is the latest in a line of revelations from the 5 million emails obtained by Internet hacker group Anonymous in December and passed to Wikileaks, which is currently publishing them on a drip-drip basis. While Stratfor refuses to comment on the emails, it has not been able to refute their authenticity.

via Stratfor leaks: NATO commandos in illegal special ops in Syria — RT.

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how the rest of the world views the “justifyable” murder of another black american youth

I am Trayvon Martin.

So are you. And so is any human being who has ever felt cornered, in a dark and desolate alley, between life and death. Add the grim reality of skin color in America, and you have the disastrous spectacle of 250lb George Zimmerman, 28, pursuing 140lb Trayvon, 17, until that man-child is screaming “Help!” – and then gasping for air after a bullet from Zimmerman’s 9mm handgun had punctured his chest. A majority-white, gated community became, on 26 February, the makeshift mortuary for a black boy who will not get a chance to live, to go to college with his exceptional high school grades, to make something of his life. Trayvon’s fatal act: a mundane walk to the nearby convenience store to buy a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles.

This is what racism, the American version of it, means to black boys like Trayvon, to black men like me. That we often don’t stand a chance when it has been determined, oftentimes by a single individual acting as judge and jury, that we are criminals to be pursued, confronted, tackled, and, yes, subdued. To be shocked and awed into submission.

The police authorities in Sanford, Florida, where the shooting occurred, are apparently so mired in racial prejudice and denial that George Zimmerman, at this writing, still has not been arrested nearly a month after Trayvon was killed – in spite of Zimmerman being told, on 911 police dispatch audio, not to follow Trayvon Martin.

In spite of Zimmerman being charged in 2005 with resisting arrest with violence and battery on a police officer. In spite of Zimmerman calling the police 46 times since January 2011. In spite of Zimmerman, according to neighbors, being fixated on bracketing young black males with criminality. In spite of Zimmerman being the subject of complaints from neighbors in his gated community due to his aggressive tactics. In spite of the officer in charge of the crime scene also receiving criticism in 2010 when he initially failed to arrest a lieutenant’s son who was videotaped attacking a homeless black man. In spite of Zimmerman violating major principles of the Neighborhood Watch manual (the manual states: “It should be emphasized to members that they do not possess police powers. And they shall not carry weapons or pursue vehicles.”)

In spite of Zimmerman not being a member of a registered group, which police were not aware of at the time of the incident. And in spite of the Sanford, Florida police failing to test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol. (A law enforcement expert told ABC that Zimmerman sounds intoxicated on the 911 tapes, and that drug and alcohol testing is “standard procedure in most homicide investigations”.)

Finally, what was a man like George Zimmerman doing with a gun in the first place? And will Florida’s very controversial “stand your ground” self-defense law prevent Zimmerman from ever being prosecuted, especially as he and his lawyers are claiming he was protecting himself from harm?

Finally, does any of the above truly matter, if the shooter has white skin and the victim’s is brown?

We’ve heard, since President Obama came into office, that we suddenly, miraculously, live in a “post-racial” America, that there now is such a thing as “post-blackness”. Try telling that to the families of Trayvon Martin. Or Ramarley Graham. Or Sean Bell. Or Oscar Grant. Or Amadou Diallo. Or Emmett Till. Or the Scottsboro Boys. And numberless others in modern US history.

via Trayvon Martin and the fatal history of American racism | Kevin Powell | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

international extortion, economic hitmen, and the IMF

Part of An animated interview of John Perkins, author of ‘HoodWinked’ and ‘Confessions Of An Economic Hitman’
Copyright of the audio belongs to John Perkins.