The destruction seems unbounded: People can assist the larger and larger spreading of the flames which stays without precedent in the history of Brasil. The government does not take any action, while the man made flames do not only devour the Amazon but now also the Pantanal. The Amazon is near a tipping point of turning into a Savannah. read here and here: Multiple factors, seen separated or conjoint, contribute to the massive drought in the Pantanal, which is a large swamp area. … These ecosystems are interconnected: While the Cerrado is known as water basin of Brasil, where multiple rivers originate, the Amazon is known to provide multiple ecosystem services for the country. One of these services are the “flying rivers” which bring rain to distant locations. … donate now for Greenpeace or a similar organization that does something against the fires. Since Bolsonaro has withdrawn all the public money for environmental protection government agencies can no more fulfill their job!
online-film [en,fr,de,es,it,pl] The Penan people live in the last virgin rainforest in Sarawak, the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo. The forest, on which their traditional way of life depends, is under threat from the palm oil industry which is destroying it at an alarming rate.
Swiss companies are exporting pesticides that have long been banned in Switzerland, just so that crops doused with these chemicals are re-imported into the EU on large scale. Companies that have their headquarters in Switzerland and that commit human rights violations and environmental crimes cannot be prosecuted there. The corporate responsibility initiative aims to change that. Before this comes to the Swiss vote, the corporate lobby is mobilizing against it with a campaign of uncertainty targeting the Swiss business location. That is why the corporate responsibility initiative asks to write postcards to friends in Switzerland to get them to vote. It could be close! If it was passed in Switzerland that could be a precedent for the whole world!
The Swiss Parliament passed the “Federal Law on Police Measures to Combat Terrorism” unnoticed by the public - despite sharp criticism from five UN special rapporteurs and over 60 Swiss legal experts. Measures against “terrorist threats” could now be taken, even if no criminal offense has yet been committed. The definition of “endangerers” is dangerously imprecise. Amnesty International therefore warns that legitimate activities by journalists, political activists and civil society could also be affected. The classification of who is an endangerer will not done by an independent judge, but by the police themselves. A scandal!
CumEx was the largest tax fraud in German history. Overall, it is estimated that the state has suffered damage of 31.8 billion euros as a result. The tax was paid once and then refunded several times. Shares from abroad were sold to Germany and back just to plunder the state. The whole thing was originally invented by Hanno Berger, son of a pastor who had previously worked as a public servant in the Frankfurt am Main Stock Exchange tax office. Despite repeated whistleblowers, the fraud that had existed since 1992 was not abolished until 2012. Big banks have set up the business and had laws on tax fraud written for themselves: “The law has been adopted exactly as the banking lobby wrote it.” (abgeordnetenwatch.de). Although the state will never get all of the money back, more prosecutors would be required to deal with it: to the petition.
