Blackwater paved the way for Wagner

The use of contractors in the US ‘war on terror’ inspired Russia and other powers to outsource war

For the US, Russia, & other powers, military contractors are serving as convenient means for proxy warfare which offer plausible deniability & mitigate potential domestic tensions over foreign wars

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/8/12/blackwater-paved-the-way-for-wagner

#RussiaInvadedUkraine #WagnerGroup #Blackwater #capitalism #CorporateTerrorism #CapitalismFails #PeopleNotProfits #military #contractors

Imagine thinking it's not an injustice that your workers can't afford the food from the store they work at or that they often have to access food banks to make up for their shitty wages.

Canada needs to get real on the level of food insecurity in our society while so much food goes wasted and CEOs enjoy their gilded parachutes.

#Solidarity with the Metro workers striking right now under #Unifor.

#peoplenotprofits

Patient dies & 3 hospitalised private company, Sciensus, administered unlicensed #chemotherapy

Cancer patient has died and three others have been hospitalised after they were administered unlicensed versions of chemotherapy by #Sciensus, a private company paid millions by the NHS to provide essential medication

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/07/patient-dies-hospitalised-sciensus-chemotherapy-incident

#ToryProfiteers #ToryCorruption #Privatisation #PrivatisationFails #SaveOurNHS #PeopleNotProfits #malpractice #medical #cancer #ToryLiars #ToryCronyism

Doctor EXPOSES Plan to DESTROY NHS

Video on the political decision to eliminate #ourNHS

https://invidious.0011.lt/watch?v=LJspc_i8f4g

#ToryCorruption #ToryLiars #NHS #SaveOurNHS #ToryProfiteers #PeopleNotProfit #PeopleNotProfits #CorporateTerrorism

Extra £150 goes on energy bills to switch off and on generators

Householders are forking out an estimated £150 extra a year on their energy bills to switch off or on generators

The amounts paid to energy firms through what is called the ’balancing mechanism’ has soared by over 350% from 2011/22 to 2022/23

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/23623631.extra-150-goes-energy-bills-switch-off-generators

#ToryCostOfLivingCrisis #CostOfLivingCrisis #profiteering #GreedFlation #inflation #PeopleNotProfits #ToryFascistDictatorship #corruption #ToryCorruption

A new 100-page report raises alarm over #Chevron’s impact on planet

by Genevieve Belmaker, Laurel Sutherland on 28 October 2021

- An independent expert report has determined that of the 70 ongoing cases in 31 countries against Chevron, only 0.006% ($286-million) in fines, court judgements, and settlements have been paid. The company still owes another $50.5-billion in total globally.

- The largest of those payout judgements is for $9.5 billion in environmental damages representing 30,000 plaintiffs in #Ecuador where the oil damage is so severe, it’s known as the “Amazon Chernobyl”.

- #Brazil, #Argentina, and #Venezuela are amongst a number of countries in #Africa, #Asia, the #MiddleEast, #LatinAmerica and beyond where there are ongoing litigations against Chevron. In the U.S. alone, there are 13 ongoing litigations against Chevron.

- The same day the report was released, international #HumanRights lawyer #StevenDonziger, lead attorney on the #Chevron #Ecuador case, was imprisoned. His incarceration came after nearly two years of house arrest in New York City and an intense legal battle for his freedom.

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalRacism #ClimateActivists #Texaco #OilPollution

Read more:
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/a-new-100-page-report-raises-alarm-over-chevrons-impact-on-planet/

Free After 993 Days: #Environmental Lawyer #StevenDonziger on Leaving House Arrest & His Fight with #Chevron

#DemocracyNow, April 26, 2022

"We speak with human rights and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, who was released Monday from nearly 1,000 days of house arrest as part of a years-long legal ordeal that began after he successfully sued Chevron on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian Amazonian Indigenous people. Donziger calls his misdemeanor sentencing and arrest 'a retaliation play by Chevron and some of its allies in the judiciary,' meant to intimidate other #HumanRights advocates and lawyers from pursuing #EnvironmentalJustice. 'Chevron tried to use me as what I would say is a weapon of mass distraction so people wouldn’t focus on the environmental crimes they commited in #Ecuador,' continues Donziger, who says, 'I didn’t really understand freedom until it was taken away.'

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalRacism #ClimateActivists #Texaco #OilPollution
Read more:
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/26/steven_donziger_freedom_chevron_ecuador_amazon

2021: Lawyer Who Battled #Chevron Over #Amazon #OilSpills Found Guilty of Contempt

In the protracted fight for accountability in #Ecuador’s Amazon, #StevenDonziger is a victim of #corporate retaliation, supporters say.

by Gabriela Barzallo, August 31, 2021

#Environmental lawyer Steven Donziger spent 25 years helping fight a million-dollar legal battle in the Ecuadorian Amazon against oil giant Chevron. But on July 26, a U.S. federal judge found him guilty of six counts of criminal contempt of court for withholding evidence in a long, complex legal fight.

"Having already served more than 700 days of house arrest, Donziger now awaits sentencing. He faces six months in jail as the culmination of a process he and his lawyers have called 'a charade.' Donziger was a fundamental part of the team of lawyers that sued Chevron in the early 1990s for toxic dumping in the Ecuadorian Amazon. After the case concluded in the affected communities’ favor in 2011, Chevron #countersued Donziger in the United States for alleged fraud in the Ecuadorian courts.

"'This is an outrageous decision,' Donziger said of his conviction. 'I see it as an attack on #HumanRights lawyering by the fossil fuel industry. It’s a violation for the rule of law and for our democracy."

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalRacism #ClimateActivists

Read more:
https://nacla.org/news/2021/08/25/ecuador-chevron-donziger

2020: #Chevron is refusing to pay for the '#Amazon #Chernobyl' – we can fight back with citizen action

The lawyer challenging the oil company’s #ToxicWaste dump in #Ecuador is under house arrest. We need a boycott

by Alec Baldwin and Paul Paz y Miño

"In 2001, #Chevron acquired #Texaco, including all of its assets and civil liabilities. One of those liabilities was the “Amazon Chernobyl”, a 1,700-square-mile #EnvironmentalDisaster in Ecuador that Texaco created through a disregard – and an attitude that local #Indigenous groups have called racism – for the health of the region’s peoples. Texaco, the sole operator of the fields from 1964 to 1992, eventually admitted that it deliberately discharged 72bn litres of #toxic water into the environment, which ended up in the #water supply, and gouged 1,000 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor. According to several Indigenous witnesses, including Humberto Piaguaje, a leader of the Ecuadorean #Secoya people, the company actually claimed that the oil wastes were medicinal and 'full of vitamins'.

"Studies have shown thousands of excess cases of cancer deaths and other health problems in the region.

"Chevron insists that Texaco is only responsible for a portion of the damage, has 'already cleaned up its share' and attributes any remaining pollution to Ecuador’s state-owned national oil company. The government of Ecuador has been clear, in turn, that Chevron is liable for all of the damage."

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalRacism #OilPollution

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/17/chevron-amazon-oil-toxic-waste-dump-ecuador-boycott

#StevenDonziger: The man who stood up to an oil giant, and paid the price

Rex Weyler
26 February 2020

"The link between #ecological protection and #HumanRights is evident in #Ecuador’s #Amazon basin, where massive #OilPollution has destroyed #forests and #farms and left some of the world’s poorest people with #BirthDefects and a #cancer epidemic. In 1993, Ecuador’s Frente de Defensa de la Amazonía (FDA), representing 30,000 victims of #Chevron’s toxic oil waste, asked Donziger to help them win compensation for what is likely the largest oil-related human disaster in history."

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste #EnvironmentalPollution #EnvironmentalRacism
Read more:
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/28741/steven-donziger-chevron-oil-amazon-contamination-injustice/

Jury returns $63M verdict after finding #Chevron covered up toxic pit on #California land

A California jury has returned a $63 million verdict against Chevron after finding the oil giant covered up a toxic chemical pit on land purchased by a man who built a house on it and was later diagnosed with a blood cancer

ByThe Associated Press
June 8, 2023, 5:49 PM

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- A California jury has returned a $63 million verdict against Chevron after finding the oil giant covered up a toxic chemical pit on land purchased by a man who built a house on it and was later diagnosed with a blood cancer.

Kevin Wright, who has multiple myeloma, unknowingly built his home directly over the chemical pit near Santa Barbara in 1985, according to his lawsuit.

Starting in 1974, Chevron subsidiary Union Oil Company of California had operated a sump pit for oil and gas production, a process that left the carcinogenic chemical #benzene on the property, court papers said.

Wright bought the land and built the house in 1985. Nearly three decades later, he was diagnosed with the cancer that attacks plasma cells in the blood and can be caused by benzene exposure, court documents said.

The jurors in Santa Barbara on Wednesday returned the $63 million verdict, said Jakob Norman, an attorney for Wright. Norman called the case a “blatant example of #EnvironmentalPollution and #corporate malfeasance.”

Chevron said #UnionOilCompany would appeal the judgment.

“We strongly disagree with the jury’s decisions to award compensatory and punitive damages," Chevron said in a statement Thursday.

Wright’s cancer is in remission, his attorneys said, but he regularly undergoes chemotherapy treatments to hold the illness at bay.

“They cut corners, and my life was turned upside down as a result,” Wright said in a statement provided by his attorneys. “Chevron’s continued denial of the harm they caused is a shameful reminder that this company values only profits, not people.”

#PeopleNotProfits #Pollution #ToxicWaste
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/jury-returns-63m-verdict-after-finding-chevron-covered-99951867

Ali died days before he could challenge BP’s CEO on the dangers of gas flaring

The 21-year-old Iraqi, who lived by a smoke-choked oilfield, died of cancer before he got to address the fossil fuel giant’s shareholders.

His message must be heard.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/27/ali-smoke-choked-bp-oilfield-death-gas-flaring

#BP #FossilFuels #cancer #CorporateTerrorism #pollution #BritishPetroleum #CorporateManslaughter #Iraq #oilfields #CorporateGreed #greed #PeopleNotProfits

RT @foeeurope
🔥 NEW report 🔥 reveals banks invested over 💶 25.9 billion in companies linked to

⭕️ deforestation
⭕️ land grabbing
⭕️ pollution
⭕️ labour rights abuses

👀➡️ http://bit.ly/41nFSef

#HoldBizAccountable #PeopleNotProfits

Get Big Oil’s hands off my money
Governor Gavin Newsom and California Legislature It’s time to hold polluters accountable. Pass #SBX12 to keep gas prices low and affordable for Californians as we transition off fossil fuels. #StopBigOilGreed #PeopleNotProfits

Private Eye's number-crunching feature is very illuminating this week:

129% - rise in UK gas prices in 2022
127% - rise in Shell's profits in 2022

I'm sure that's just a coincidence. 🧐 😡 #PeopleNotProfits #UKPolitics #CostOfLivingCrisis #TaxTheRich #EnoughIsEnough #FuckTheTories

Remember when we heard them bleating "It's not who we are" about the forced installation of pre-payment meters? (Of course you do, it was only two weeks ago). Turns out it's exactly who they fucking are:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/16/british-gas-owner-centrica-reports-record-profits-of-33bn
This afternoon's example of parasitic capitalism in action.
#CostOfLivingCrisis #UKPolitics #TaxTheRich #PeopleNotProfits #KeepItInTheGround #EnoughIsEnough #ClimateCatastrophe #Greed #WeAreThe99Percent

@endfuelpoverty When the contractors are people like this (from Marina Hyde's column)
" .. a guy who prefaced setting a locksmith on the door of a single father-of-three by telling the undercover reporter: 'I love this bit.'"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/03/british-gas-bailiffs-meters-poor-people-electricity #PovertyIsNotACrime #PeopleNotProfits #CostOfLivingCrisis #TaxTheRich #FuckTheTories #EnoughIsEnough #UKPolitics

RT @WZN_de@twitter.com

Morgen um 11 findet unsere Pressekonferenz statt!
Dabei stellen wir die Kampagne vor.
Den Link gibts per Dm

#WirZahlenNicht
#PeopleNotProfits
#EnergiekonzerneEnteignen

People thrive when they have the resources to do so. So many people are not provided the resources because our current system deliberately creates artificial scarcity and creates idols out of the greedy that hoard wealth and resources.

People are worth more than the meagre scraps the greedy deign to give them. People can do so much better when provided the means to do so and aren't focused on simply surviving. 6/6

#Rant #Equality #AntiOppressive #PeopleNotProfits

Steht da etwa der Feierabendverkehr am Carolaplatz in #dresden? #fff #peoplenotprofits