company:western european

Israel Courting Energy Heavyweights to Seek Offshore Gas - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-31/israel-courting-energy-heavyweights-to-seek-offshore-gas

Israel’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz is out to persuade big energy explorers put off by years of regulatory turmoil to search for natural gas off his country’s shores.
At a road show in London this week, Steinitz will sit down with executives from large and mid-sized energy companies to make his case that prospects for finding big reserves are good.
“According to geological and seismological surveys, it is very probable that most of the natural gas is yet to be found,” Steinitz said in an interview late Tuesday, on the eve of his London trip. “We hope to see at least two or three large companies submitting bids.”
A report by French consultants Beicip-Franlab SA estimated that Israel’s waters hold 2,200 billion cubic meters of undiscovered gas, about 2 1/2 times the amount contained in known fields, Steinitz said. In the past 12 months, he said, he’s met with chairmen, executives and directors of almost all of the world’s major gas companies to promote new exploration.
[…]
Foreign companies shied from Israel during the years of regulatory turmoil, which ended with higher taxes and forced divestitures for investors in Leviathan and Tamar, the country’s second-biggest field. Amos Hochstein, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for global energy affairs, said in an interview this month that big explorers will need to be reassured that the Israeli government won’t start changing regulation and tax laws.
[…]
Solid diplomatic relations with potential energy partners in the region are also central to bringing large companies to Israel, he said. Israel has held gas talks with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, and is considering building a pipeline to Turkey and using idle LNG facilities in Egypt.
“We need to see the clearing of the geopolitical path, with obstacles removed for export deals in the region and that is already happening,” Hochstein said. He singled out the recent Israel-Turkey reconciliation deal as a major step forward and expressed optimism about talks for a reunification of Cyprus, which a pipeline to Turkey would traverse.

Why Individualist Cultures Are Happier Than Collectivist Ones - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/why-individualist-cultures-are-happier-than-collectivist-ones

http://static.nautil.us/8961_9523147e5a6707baf674941812ee5c94.jpg

The American dream is a self-oriented one. Fulfilling it means getting everything you want out of life. But it is not necessarily a call to live selfishly. It is a call to sanctify what you can achieve and desire—to ennoble the pursuit of happiness. This way of understanding happiness—getting what you want—is hardly unique to America; it’s more or less common in what Mohsen Joshanloo, a psychologist at Keimyung University, in South Korea, calls “individualist countries.” In Canada, Australia, and many “Western European cultures,” he says, people tend to believe internal efforts and “pleasure-seeking” lead to happiness. This individualistic way of conceiving a happy life isn’t culturally universal, of course, he says. There’s another predominant way to understand happiness and how to attain it. (...)

The American-Western European values gap (2011)
►http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/11/17/the-american-western-european-values-gap

Companies Sue Developing States through Western Europe
▻http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/12/companies-sue-developing-states-through-western-europe

Canada, the US and Mexico are on the top list of most-sued states. The reason is NAFTA, the free trade agreement of which #ISDS is a part. However, the US has never lost a case. If we exclude the cases won by the state, a completely different picture emerges: Argentina, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Bolivia. In other words, developing and emerging countries. Many of these countries have now come to the conclusion that this arbitration system is unfair, or even #neocolonial.

Dutch sandwich

Where do the claims originate from? In the list of home countries of investors the US is still number one, but in the last few years they have been surpassed by Western Europe. In 2014, more than half of all claims were filed by Western European investors. Claimant country number one is the Netherlands, with more claims than the United States.

However, a closer look at the companies involved shows that more than two-thirds of all Dutch claims have actually been filed by so-called mailbox companies. They choose to settle in the Netherlands for its attractive network of investment treaties, 95 in total, which are deemed investor-friendly.

“This is known as the Dutch sandwich,” says George Kahale III, an American top lawyer, who defends states in large investment cases. “You put a Dutch holding in between, and you can call yourself Dutch. This is how the system is misused.”

The propaganda war over the Gaza crisis | Al Jazeera America

▻http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/gaza-war-israel-palestinianspropaganda.html

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/gzbh4om2qyjs2r7/gazaaljezira.png

In response to the Israeli military attack against Hamas, the dominant narrative formulated by the United States and the main Western European governments has combined two elements: first, unquestioning support for the core Israeli claim that it is legal and reasonable to attack Hamas in Gaza as a response to the launch from Gaza of rockets directed at Israel’s cities and towns and, second, that the violence unleashed is tragic, since it makes innocent civilians on both sides bear the burden of Hamas wrongdoing.

#gaza

Top 10 Ways the US Is the Most Corrupt Country in the World
▻http://www.alternet.org/print/top-10-ways-us-most-corrupt-country-world

Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly “corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt.

While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.

1. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system. House Majority leader John Boehner has actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco industry to other representatives.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L’Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven’t been anywhere near his house.

American politicians don’t represent “the people.” With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.

2. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking (what is called “regulatory capture”) means that they will be so bribed. Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to remove cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled financial corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and government auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt practices that caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can’t just legislate their corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way Wall street did.

3. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of Americans have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of corruption.

...

Americans are not seen as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and you aren’t corrupt, you’re respectable.

#corruption #corruption_légale #États-Unis

Israel must be included in Western nations’ group on UN human rights council, allies say
Haaretz, By Barak Ravid | Nov. 18, 2013

▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.558730

Six of Israel’s allies in the West have demanded an upgrade of its status on the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A Western diplomat said the demand by these six countries, members of the Western European and Others Group in the UN, was made in the wake of Israel’s agreement to resume ties with the UNHRC and appear two weeks ago at the council’s Universal Periodic Review on human rights issues.

On November 6, the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, France and the United States sent a letter to the UN’s institutions in Geneva and to the ambassador of Spain, who heads the group of Western countries on the HRC. In the letter, a copy of which was sent to Haaretz, the six ambassadors wrote that the time had come to bring Israel into the WEOG.

“We, the undersigned, would like by this letter to recall Israel’s longstanding request to join the WEOG regional group in Geneva. We are strongly supportive of Israel’s membership at the earliest opportunity. We request that you kindly include this issue on the agenda of the next WEOG meeting in Geneva, to be held as soon as possible,” the letter read in part.

If the bid to bring Israel into the WEOG succeeds, it will be more difficult to isolate and condemn Israel. It will also be easier for Israel to propose diplomatic initiatives of its own in the HRC.

A Western diplomat told Haaretz that the effort is likely to succeed because most of the WEOG’s countries do not oppose Israel’s inclusion. Only two countries, Iceland and Liechtenstein, had reservations about it, while two others, Ireland and Turkey, expressed neither opposition nor support. “We will persuade the undecided countries too,” the Western diplomat said.

On October 29, Israel attended the Universal Periodic Review in the UNHRC in Geneva. This was after Israel boycotted the UNHRC for more than a year and a half because of its decision to establish an international investigative committee about the settlements.

In recent months, negotiations took place between Israel and the WEOG for Israel’s return to the HRC. Allies such as the U.S., Australia, Germany and the U.K. put heavy pressure on Israel to attend the hearing. In exchange, the Western countries promised to restrict the use of Agenda Item 7, which stipulates that a separate discussion on human rights in Israel and in the West Bank take place at every session of the HRC. Israel is the only country in the world regarding which such a rule exists.

The Western European countries promised to make no statements or speeches during sessions that would come under Agenda Item 7, and to render any such statements empty of content. This promise will apply to the HRC’s next two sessions, which will take place over the next two years. A unanimous decision of all the group’s members will be required to lift the restrictions on Agenda Item 7 — and unanimous decisions are difficult to obtain.

The Western countries also promised to bring Israel’s inclusion in the WEOG as a full member up for a vote in November. Israel is not a member of any regional group, which results in its isolation and makes it very difficult for Israel to garner support for diplomatic positions or actions.

15 Major Corporations You Never Knew Profited from Slavery - Atlanta Black Star

▻http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery

The enslavement of African people in the Americas by the nations and peoples of Western Europe, created the economic engine that funded modern capitalism. Therefore it comes as no surprise that most of the major corporations that were founded by Western European and American merchants prior to roughly 100 years ago, benefited directly from slavery.

#états-unis #esclavage #corporations #multinationales