A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

British banks love the smell of cluster bombs in the morning

Posted: 15 Aug 2011

Yet another reason that major banks, this time in Britain, regard corporate social responsibility as something that needs to be done, rather than actually believed. Making money, no matter how, is the key reason to get up in the morning. And helping to manufacture death? Bring. It. On:

British high-street banks, including two institutions that were bailed out by taxpayers, are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in companies that manufacture cluster bombs – despite a growing global ban outlawing the production and trade of the weapons.
The Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC have all provided funding to the makers of cluster bombs, even as international opinion turns against a weapons system that is inherently indiscriminate and routinely maims or kills civilians.
One year ago this month, Britain became an active participant in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a global treaty that bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs. To date, 108 countries have signed the treaty, which also forbids parties from assisting in the production of cluster weapons.
Yet there has been no attempt by the Coalition Government to rein in banks and investment funds that continue to finance companies known to manufacture the weapons.

Chomsky: “Pro-Israel Christian Right most anti-Semitic people in the world”

Posted: 15 Aug 2011

And one of them is possibly the next US President. Will the Jewish mainstream condemn such figures? I’m not holding my breath. Being “pro-Israel” seemingly trumps everything, especially human rights:
 

Yet another Western firm complicit with Chinese repression

Posted: 15 Aug 2011

A company that should be named, shamed and shunned (via the Sydney Morning Herald):

Cisco, one of the world’s largest technology companies, is being sued by Chinese political prisoners for allegedly providing the technology and expertise used by the Chinese Communist Party to monitor, censor and suppress the Chinese people.
Dan Ward, of US law firm Ward & Ward, has brought the case on behalf of Du Daobin, Zhou Yuanzhi, Liu Xianbin and ten unnamed others. He compared Cisco’s actions to “IBM’s behaviour in Nazi Germany”.
Cisco has rejected the allegations as baseless but has failed to respond to serious questions stemming from an internal company presentation.
“Cisco has, for years now, knowingly aided and abetted the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing efforts to stifle the free speech and discourse of its citizenry,” Mr Ward told Fairfax Media.
“Dating back to the early 2000s, Cisco competed for contracts with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to help design, develop and implement the ‘Golden Shield Project’ – a rather Orwellian euphemism for the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing effort to monitor, track and censor all internet traffic into and out of China.”
According to court documents, Mr Du spent three years in jail, Mr Zhou is currently a prisoner in his own home and Mr Liu has served two months of a 10 year sentence. All three claim to have been tortured and abused over articles they published online.

Of course Glenn Beck is loved by Israeli government; he hates Arabs, too

Posted: 15 Aug 2011