Coke And Pepsi Among Ten Companies Sued For Plastic Pollution “Nuisance”

The environmental non-profit Earth Island Institute has filed a lawsuit against the companies who are responsible for a very large portion of the world’s plastic waste. These companies are Coca Cola, Pepsi, Nestle, Clorox, Crystal Geyser, Mars, Danone, Mondelez International, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble.

The lawsuit alleges that a large amount of the plastic that ends up in the oceans can be traced back to these companies, the largest producers of single-use plastics.

David Phillips, executive director of Earth Island Institute, has accused these companies of continuing to push single-use plastics despite knowing that recycling is no longer feasible since countries like China and Malaysia have stopped importing recycled waste.

https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/03/coke-and-pepsi-among-ten-companies-sued-for-plastic-pollution-nuisance.html

Obama and Comey's FBI Dropped Investigation on 6 Domestic Terrorists Shortly Before Attacks

Six times during an almost eight-year span when either Robert Mueller or James Comey were running the FBI for former President Barack Obama, the nation’s premier law enforcement agency had its eyes locked on potential terrorists.

But then it blinked, according to a Justice Department report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The report covered the time from November 2009 to January 2017. Mueller was head of the FBI from 2001 until 2013, when Comey took the reins until he was fired in May 2017 by President Donald Trump. The attacks in question included the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting in 2016.

The report’s measured tones summarize the issue.

“The FBI has acknowledged that various weaknesses related to its assessment process may have impacted its ability to fully investigate certain counterterrorism assessment subjects who later committed terrorist attacks in the United States. Following these attacks, the FBI made various efforts to evaluate and improve its assessment process. However, it has not ensured that identified areas for improvement were formalized and implemented into enhanced policies and procedures,” the report said.

“During our audit, we found at least six attacks committed in the United States by individuals who the FBI had previously assessed or investigated and who were subsequently categorized as HVEs,” it said. The initials stand for “homegrown violent extremists.”

The report said that even when the FBI tried to right the ship, it failed.

“[I]n 2017, the FBI conducted an enterprise-wide review and identified potential terrorist threats that may not have been adequately assessed during calendar years (CY) 2014 through 2016, which amounted to 6 percent of the total assessments reviewed. We found that the FBI did not take adequate action on nearly 40 percent of these assessments for 18 months. After we inquired about the lack of action, the FBI reexamined these assessments and, in some instances, the reexamination resulted in the opening of an investigation,” the report said.

The report’s release drew a scorching tweet from Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

More

http://www.hideoutnow.com/2020/03/obama-and-comeys-fbi-dropped.html

Israel Confiscates Sole Medical Vehicle Serving 1,500 Palestinians

Israeli occupation forces have confiscated the only vehicle available to a medical team serving the needs of some 1,500 Palestinians in an isolated region of the southern West Bank, reported Haaretz.

According to the paper, this is the second time that the vehicle – which serves the residents of Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills – has been seized within a year, “cutting off healthcare to an isolated and impoverished population” living inside an Israeli military firing zone.

The medical team make weekly visits to the area’s Palestinian communities, which lie roughly one hour’s drive on dirt roads from the nearest town of Yatta. The jeep in question “is the only vehicle available for providing medical services to these communities”.

Last Thursday, Haaretz reported, Israeli occupation forces intercepted the medical team at Khirbet Al-Majaz, claiming that they were not allowed there “without prior coordination”. The patrol then impounded the jeep and held the medics for half an hour.

In February 2019 the vehicle was confiscated “under similar circumstances”, stated the paper, and only returned six months later after the medical team paid a 3,000 shekel ($865) fine. On that occasion, the team were unable to provide medical care for the entire six months.

The Israeli military commented that “the vehicle was impounded by supervisors at the Civil Administration since it was traveling in a fire zone, a forbidden area for vehicles by law”.

The Israeli military’s “Firing zone 918” was established in the 1980s, and the army has repeatedly sought to remove Palestinians from the area.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-confiscates-sole-medical-vehicle-serving-1500-palestinians/5705900

International Court Approves Probe of US War Crimes in Afghanistan

An appellate panel of the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled Thursday that an investigation leading to the potential prosecution of US officials for war crimes during Washington’s nearly two-decade-old war in Afghanistan can move forward.

Fatou Bensouda, the court’s Gambian-born chief prosecutor, whose US visa was revoked for her pursuit of the probe, praised Thursday’s ruling, stating, “Today is an important day for the cause of justice in Afghanistan.”

The ruling overturned a decision by ICC pretrial judges last year that a case involving crimes by the US and its puppet regime in Afghanistan “would not serve the interests of justice” because of the abject refusal of Washington and Kabul to cooperate. This decision was taken in the context of US threats of retaliation against the court, including economic sanctions and even the arrest of its members if the investigation was allowed to move forward.

The appeals judges ruled that last year’s decision was in contradiction to the ICC’s own statutes, holding that “It is for the prosecutor to determine whether there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation.” The appeals judges said that the pretrial panel had no business deciding whether the case served the “interests of justice,” but only whether there were grounds to believe that crimes had been committed and that they fell under the court’s jurisdiction.

The investigation is one of the first to be launched against a major imperialist power by the ICC, whose prosecutions have largely been limited to crimes committed by regimes and leaders in impoverished African countries. A preliminary investigation has also been launched into war crimes carried out by British forces in the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Unlike the US, the UK is a signatory to the agreement establishing the international court.

The ICC’s prosecutors first opened a preliminary probe into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Afghanistan nearly 14 years ago.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to Thursday’s ruling with the bellicose threats that have been the trademark of Washington toward the ICC since its founding by a decision of the United Nations in 2002. Describing the investigation as a “political vendetta” by an “unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body,” the secretary of state vowed that Washington would “take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, unlawful so-called court.”

He characterized the ICC appeals judges’ ruling as “reckless” because it was issued after Washington had signed a so-called “peace deal” with the Taliban five days earlier. That agreement has already begun to unravel, with the US military carrying out air strikes against the Taliban after the Islamist movement launched multiple attacks on forces of Afghanistan’s US-backed puppet regime. The unstated assumption in Pompeo’s remarks is that “peace” in Afghanistan can be achieved only based on a cover-up of Washington’s crimes.

Asked whether the Trump administration would retaliate against the court, the secretary of state said that measures would be announced within “a couple of weeks about the path that we’re going to take to ensure that we protect American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, our intelligence warriors, the diplomats that have worked for the State Department over the years to ensure that the ICC doesn’t impose… pressure on them in a way that doesn’t reflect the noble nature of the undertakings of every one of those Americans.”

https://www.globalresearch.ca/international-court-approves-probe-us-war-crimes-afghanistan/5705849