statism watch

Flashback: Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters” | Troops patrolling Italian cities alongside police

Ian Simpson, Reuters
July 4, 2009

Protest targets U.S. military base expansion plans

Anti-G8 demonstrators clashed briefly with Italian police on Saturday in the first big protest ahead of next week’s summit of the world’s richest nations.

Police in riot gear fired teargas at protesters to prevent them from crossing a bridge and moving closer to a contested U.S. military base in the northeastern city of Vicenza.

The demonstrators, some of them wearing motorcycle helmets and with their faces covered, threw bottles and lit fireworks as they were pushed back on the bridge.

Several thousand people, most of them marching peacefully, are attending the protest, launched against expansion plans that would make the U.S. base one of the biggest in Europe and more generally against the July 8-10 G8 summit which Italy chairs.

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Flashback: Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | 10 U.S. banks to repay U.S. bailout money | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Barclays, Lloyd’s, RBS join Goldman-Sachs in the black | Goldman-Sachs to repay TARP loan, resume private operations, bonuses, at “earliest time” possible | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System

Daniel Tencer, RawStory.com
July 4, 2009

The New York Stock Exchange quietly announced last week that it would end its practice of requiring companies to report all their program trading — a move that helps shield large investment banks, particularly Goldman Sachs, from public scrutiny.

The new rule means the public will no longer be able to tell if large investment banks are manipulating the stock market for their own gain, says Matt Taibbi, the journalist whose Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs’ role in asset bubbles over the past century has rocked the financial world.

According to previous NYSE rules, any company that carried out program trading — essentially, large computer-automated trades worth more than $1 million — had to report the trades to the NYSE, which then made the information publicly available.

But, under new regulations (PDF) published last week, that requirement has been removed.

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Flashback: Canadian Parliament votes again to let U.S. war resisters stay | War resister Kimberly Rivera gets 11th hour stay from deportation | U.S. war resister gets temporary stay of removal | Resisters of a ‘dumb’ war | Kenney’s comments prejudice hearings for war resisters, critics say | U.S. war resister, mother of 3 must leave Canada | Federal government orders U.S. war resister deportedAnother U.S. War Resister to be deported | U.S. War Resister ’surprised’ deportation order stayed | National Day of Action as Protesters Urge Vote to Let War Resisters Stay | U.S. deserter feared torture orders | Early U.S. war deserter ordered deported | U.S. army war resister’s deportation sparks outrage | U.S. war resister Corey Glass granted stay of deportation order | U.S. deserter wins appeal | MPs vote to give asylum to U.S. deserters, Tories say no | U.S. soldier who fled to Canada ordered deported

Sue Bailey, The Globe and Mail
July 4, 2009

Harper government denying claims it stripped section on Vietnam from federal website to boost its case for deporting Iraq war resisters

The Harper government is denying claims that it stripped a section on Vietnam from a federal website to boost its case for deporting Iraq war resisters.

Text on how both draft dodgers and resisters of the Vietnam War were ultimately allowed to stay in Canada suddenly vanished from the Citizenship and Immigration site earlier this year.

“Starting in 1965, Canada became a choice haven for American draft-dodgers and deserters,” said the passage as it appeared online in February.

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