zaterdag 10 september 2022

Opvang en zorg Oekraïners kosten Nederland tot dusver 2,3 miljard

 

Oekraïne

Opvang en zorg Oekraïners kosten Nederland tot dusver 2,3 miljard

ANP Opvang en zorg Oekraïners kosten Nederland tot dusver 2,3 miljard

De opvang en zorg voor de tienduizenden gevluchte Oekraïners kosten Nederland tot dusver naar schatting 2,3 miljard euro. Pakweg de helft daarvan gaat naar de gemeentelijke en particuliere opvang (1,2 miljard euro), staat in een brief van staatssecretaris Eric van der Burg (Asielzaken) aan de Tweede Kamer. Hij geeft daarin een opsomming van de bedragen die al zijn betaald of gereserveerd voor Oekraïners.

Grote kostenposten zijn verder de tijdelijke onderwijshuisvesting, onderwijs aan de nieuwkomers, medische zorg en de realisatie van extra woningen. Het gaat onder meer om ramingen die doorlopen tot in verschillende tijdvakken. De kosten zijn verspreid over de ministeries van Justitie en Veiligheid, Onderwijs, Volksgezondheid, Binnenlandse Zaken en Sociale Zaken.

Van der Burg meldt ook dat verscheidene regelingen voor Oekraïners die aflopen of al zijn afgelopen, worden verlengd. Omdat na ruim een half jaar nog geen einde aan het Russische geweld in Oekraïne is te verwachten, werkt het kabinet ook aan de opvang voor langere duur. In het najaar zal meer bekend worden over maatregelen op langere termijn wat betreft huisvesting, onderwijs, werk en zorg.

Lees ook: 

giro 555

Giro 555 verlengt actie voor Oekraïne, ruim 173 miljoen opgehaald

77.000 Oekraïners ingeschreven bij gemeenten

Momenteel zijn er ruim 77.000 Oekraïners ingeschreven bij gemeenten.

https://www.hartvannederland.nl/oekraine/opvang-en-zorg-oekrainers-kosten-nederland-tot-dusver-2-3-miljard

Zelensky is literally selling Ukraine to US corporations on Wall Street

 

Zelensky is literally selling Ukraine to US corporations on Wall Street

Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky opened the New York Stock Exchange telling Wall Street his country is “open” for foreign corporations to exploit it with $400 billion in state selloffs.

NYSE Zelensky Ukraine
Ukraine's Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on September 6


Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky virtually opened the New York Stock Exchange on the morning of September 6, symbolically ringing the bell via video stream.

Zelensky announced that his country is “open for business” – that is to say, that foreign corporations are free to come and exploit its plentiful resources and low-paid labor.

In a speech launching the neoliberal selloff program Advantage Ukraine, Zelensky offered Wall Street “a chance for you to invest now in projects worth of hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The financial news service Business Wire published a press release from the Ukrainian government in which Zelensky boasted:

The $400+ [billion] in investment options featured on AdvantageUkraine.com span public private partnerships, privatization and private ventures. A USAID-supported project team of investment bankers and researchers appointed by Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy will work with businesses interested in investing.

It also quoted the president of NYSE Group, Lynn Martin, who said:

As the largest exchange globally, we stand for freedom, investor protection and unfettered access to capital. We are pleased to welcome President Zelenskyy virtually to the NYSE bell podium, a symbol of the freedom and opportunity our U.S. capital markets have enabled around the globe. We are honored the President has chosen the NYSE to mark the kickoff of Advantage Ukraine and engage with the world’s business community.

The press release cited executives of US corporate giants Google, Alphabet, and Microsoft, who salivated over the economic possibilities offered by Ukraine.

Reuters noted that the Ukrainian government hired British public relations firm WPP to run the marketing operation for Advantage Ukraine.

Zelensky coordinated his New York Stock Exchange publicity stunt with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal imploring US capitalists to “Invest in the Future of Ukraine.”

“I committed my administration to creating a favorable environment for investment that would make Ukraine the greatest growth opportunity in Europe since the end of World War II,” Zelensky wrote.

He continued:

To create a safe, transparent environment for business engagement, Ukraine is pursuing investment guarantees from both the Group of Seven and the European Union, reforming the country’s tax system, and establishing a strong new legal framework. Our country has already adopted rules and laws to allow companies to build transparent corporate structures, attract foreign investment more easily, and use additional mechanisms to protect intangible assets. Favorable conditions will allow us to establish Ukraine as a powerful IT hub and implement innovative business ideas quickly and effectively.

Multipolarista previously reported on a meeting by Western governments and corporations in Switzerland in July in which they planned harsh neoliberal economic policies to impose on Ukraine.

The Western participants published documents calling to cut labor laws, “open markets,” drop tariffs, deregulate industries, and “sell state-owned enterprises to private investors.”

In an interview with Multipolarista, economist Michael Hudson compared the new emergency anti-labor laws imposed by the Ukrainian government to the brutal neoliberal policies implemented by Chile’s far-right Pinochet dictatorship after a CIA-backed coup in 1973.

“It’s jaw dropping,” Hudson said of Zelensky’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. “It’s like a parody of what a socialist would have written about how the class war would be put in into action by a fascist government.”

“So of course he was welcomed on the stock exchange for abolishing labor’s rights,” Hudson added. “You could not have a more black-and-white example” of class war.

“This is exactly what [French President] Macron said when he said the ‘end of abundance.’ The Ukrainian labor force has just experienced the end of affluence, neoliberal style.

“And as Mr. Zelensky said, it may be the end of affluence for the labor force, but it’s going to be a bonanza for you investors in the New York Stock Exchange. Come on in and join the party!”

“Somebody’s loss is turned into somebody else’s game. And that’s what happens in a class war. It’s a zero-sum game. There is no attempt at all to raise living standards.”

“Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe – but Zelensky said it’s not poor enough. He said, you think this is something, wait until our new law takes effect. That’ll really show you what it means to be the poorest country in Europe.”

“But it’ll also be the richest country in Europe for the 1%,” Hudson concluded.

SEE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEZBOaPKWjw&t=2s

De Corrupte Nederlandse Hoogleraren Kaste

 Even op de gang van zaken terugkomend:

https://nos.nl/artikel/2431130-honderden-wetenschappers-steunen-jaap-van-dissel-na-aanval-fvd-kamerlid

ANP
NOS NieuwsAangepast 

Honderden wetenschappers steunen Jaap van Dissel na aanval FvD-Kamerlid

Honderden wetenschappers hebben het opgenomen voor Jaap van Dissel, directeur van het Centrum Infectieziektenbestrijding van het RIVM. Aanleiding is een beschuldiging van FvD-Kamerlid Gideon van Meijeren, die vorige week in de Kamer bij herhaling stelde dat Van Dissel 'corrupt' is en aandrong op zijn ontslag.

Van Meijeren deed zijn uitspraken in een debat over de politieke invloed die is uitgeoefend op adviezen van het Outbreak Management Team (OMT), waarvan Van Dissel voorzitter is. Van Dissel heeft dat toegelaten, zei Van Meijeren, daarmee is hij beïnvloedbaar en dus corrupt.

Overigens kreeg Van Meijeren meteen al tegengas van andere Kamerleden, onder wie Martin Bosma (PVV), die het debat voorzat. "Ho, ho, ho, ho. Ik vind dit iets te bikkelharde taal: woorden als 'corrupt', "leugens", 'leugenaar' etcetera", zei Bosma.

Microbioloog Marc Bonten en viroloog Marion Koopmans schrijven nu in een ingezonden brief in de Volkskrant namens honderden wetenschappers dat dergelijke aantijgingen vaker voorkomen in het parlement en op sociale media aan de orde van de dag zijn. Dat ondermijnt het vertrouwen in de wetenschap, schrijven Bonten en Koopmans.

Ze wijzen erop dat in de coronapandemie dankzij de wetenschap binnen enkele weken een betrouwbare coronatest is ontwikkeld, binnen een half jaar een effectieve behandeling die tot een verlaagd sterftecijfer leidde en later ook de vaccins tegen het coronavirus.

"De polariserende toon van het debat en het verspreiden van desinformatie hebben ertoe bijgedragen dat sommigen zich van vaccinatie hebben afgekeerd", aldus de wetenschappers. Dat heeft levens gekost, zeggen ze.

'We zien bedreigingen en daar maken we ons zorgen over'

Ze roepen de parlementariërs op hun immuniteit niet te misbruiken om mensen zonder meer te beschuldigen en verdacht te maken. Het pleidooi wordt onderschreven door honderden hoogleraren, alle veertien rectoren van de Nederlandse universiteiten en alle decanen van de studierichting geneeskunde.

'Dagelijkse ophitsing'

"Mede door berichten op sociale media hebben mensen zich moedwillig blootgesteld aan onwerkzame en zelfs schadelijke behandelingen", betogen de wetenschappers in hun brief. "Door dagelijkse ophitsing achtte de nationale veiligheidsdienst zelfs persoonlijke beveiliging nodig voor wetenschappers." Hier maken ze zich grote zorgen over.

De wetenschap zal zich blijven inzetten voor het welzijn van iedereen "met de hoogst mogelijke kwaliteitseisen en volledige transparantie over de manier waarop dat gebeurt, en met uiteraard de erkenning dat daarbij immer ruimte voor verbetering is." Continue kritiek, door collega's en vanuit de samenleving, is een van de fundamenten van de wetenschap, concluderen ze.

Koopmans zegt in een toelichting in het NOS Radio 1 Journaal dat de aanleiding voor het stuk in de Volkskrant weliswaar het Kamerdebat is, maar dat de wetenschappers een steeds vaker voorkomend patroon zien.

Ze vindt dat in de Kamer, maar ook elders moet worden nagedacht over dergelijke kwalificaties. "Vanuit de debatten wordt twijfel gezaaid over de wetenschap." Koopmans merkt op dat de wetenschap ook zelf aan zet is: wetenschappers moeten misschien beter nadenken voor ze zich in de publiciteit over allerlei zaken uitspreken.

Aldus de staatsomroep de NOS. Hier zien we opnieuw iets merkwaardigs, maar toch typisch Nederlands. Talloze hoogleraren staan als één man achter de heer Van Dissel. Maar hebben zij allen deze zaak serieus en wetenschappelijk verantwoord onderzocht? Zo ja, waarom krijgt de samenleving van deze dames en heren geen feiten en waarom begon Van Dissel geen civielrechtelijke procedure vanwege smaad, of deed hij geen aangifte? Ik kan niet anders dan concluderen dat een deel van de Nederlandse hoogleraren-kaste zelf corrupt is. 
















Churchill's Vanity


As thunderous applause and cheers drowned out the final words of his maiden public speech, a young Winston Churchill reminded his nation of its uniquely bequeathed past and its duty to uphold the civilizing mission’s divinely inspired future. Waving off wisps of unruly hair that animated his oratory, Churchill laid waste to radical Liberals and other critics on the country’s political fringe, declaring: 

'There are not wanting those who say that in this Jubilee year our Empire has reached the heights of its glory and power, and that now we shall begin to decline, as Babylon, Carthage, Rome declined. Do not believe these croakers but give the lie to their dismal croaking by showing by our actions that the vigour and vitality of our race is unimpaired and that our determination is to uphold the Empire that we have inherited from our fathers as Englishmen [cheers], that our flag shall fly high upon the sea, our voice be heard in the councils of Europe, our Sovereign supported by the love of her subjects, then shall we continue to pursue that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilization and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth.'

Elkins, Caroline. Legacy of Violence (p. 33). Random House. Kindle Edition. 



Zelensky's Zelfmoord

 


    vrijdag 9 september 2022

    21ST CENTURY BRITAIN HAS NEVER LOOKED SO MEDIEVAL

    THE QUEEN AND HER LEGACY:  21ST CENTURY BRITAIN HAS NEVER LOOKED SO MEDIEVAL


    Anyone in the UK who imagined they lived in a representative democracy – one in which leaders are elected and accountable to the people – will be in for a rude awakening over the next days and weeks.

    TV schedules have been swept aside. Presenters must wear black and talk in hushed tones. Front pages are uniformly somber. Britain’s media speak with a single, respectful voice about the Queen and her unimpeachable legacy.

    Westminster, meanwhile, has been stripped of left and right. The Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties have set aside politics to grieve as one. Even the Scottish nationalists – supposedly trying to rid themselves of the yoke of centuries of English rule presided over by the monarch – appear to be in effusive mourning.

    The world’s urgent problems – from the war in Europe to a looming climate catastrophe – are no longer of interest or relevance. They can wait till Britons emerge from a more pressing national trauma.

    Domestically, the BBC has told those facing a long winter in which they will not be able to afford to heat their homes that their suffering is “insignificant” compared to that of the family of a 96-year-old woman who died peacefully in the lap of luxury. They can wait too.

    In this moment there is no public room for ambivalence or indifference, for reticence, for critical thinking – and most certainly not for Republicanism, even if nearly a third of the public, mostly the young, desire the monarchy’s abolition. The British establishment expects every man, woman, and child to do their duty by lowering their head.

    Twenty-first-century Britain never felt so medieval.

     

    WALL-TO-WALL EULOGIES

    There are reasons a critical gaze is needed right now, as the British public is corralled into reverential mourning.

    The wall-to-wall eulogies are intended to fill our nostrils with the perfume of nostalgia to cover the stench of a rotting institution, one at the heart of the very establishment doing the eulogising.

    The demand is that everyone shows respect for the Queen and her family and that now is not the time for criticism or even analysis.

    Indeed, the Royal Family have every right to be left in peace to grieve. But privacy is not what they, or the establishment they belong to, crave.

    The Royals’ loss is public in every sense. There will be a lavish state funeral, paid for by the taxpayer. There will be an equally lavish coronation of her son, Charles, also paid for by the taxpayer.

    And in the meantime, the British public will be force-fed the same official messages by every TV channel – not neutrally, impartially or objectively, but as state propaganda – paid for, once again, by the British taxpayer.

    Reverence and veneration are the only types of coverage of the Queen and her family that is now allowed.

    But there is a deeper sense in which the Royals are public figures – more so even than those thrust into the spotlight by their celebrity or talent for accumulating money.

    The British public has entirely footed the bill for the Royals’ lives of privilege and pampered luxury. Like the kings of old, they have given themselves the right to enclose vast tracts of the British Isles as their private dominion. The Queen’s death, for example, means the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have just added the whole of Cornwall to their estate.

    If anyone is public property, it is the British Royals. They have no right to claim an exemption from scrutiny just when scrutiny is most needed – as the anti-democratic privileges of monarchy pass from one set of hands to another.

    The demand for silence is not a politically neutral act. It is a demand that we collude in a corrupt system of establishment rule and hierarchical privilege.

    The establishment has a vested interest in enforcing silence and obedience until the public’s attention has moved on to other matters. Anyone who complies leaves the terrain open over the coming weeks for the establishment to reinforce and deepen the public’s deference to elite privilege.

     

    CONTINUITY OF RULE

    Undoubtedly, the Queen carried out her duties supremely well during her 70 years on the throne. As BBC pundits keep telling us, she helped maintain social “stability” and ensured “continuity” of rule.

    The start of her reign in 1952 coincided with her government ordering the suppression of the Mau Mau independence uprising in Kenya. Much of the population were put in concentration camps and used as slave labour – if they weren’t murdered by British soldiers.

    At the height of her rule, 20 years later, British troops were given a green light to massacre 14 civilians in Northern Ireland on a protest march against Britain’s policy of jailing Catholics without trial. Those shot and killed were fleeing or tending the wounded. The British establishment oversaw cover-up inquiries into what became known as “Bloody Sunday”.

    And in the twilight years of her rule, her government rode roughshod over international law, invading Iraq on the pretext of destroying non-existent weapons of mass destruction. During the long years of a joint British and US occupation, it is likely that more than a million Iraqis died and millions more were driven from their homes.

    The Queen, of course, was not personally responsible for any of those events – nor the many others that occurred while she maintained a dignified silence.

    But she did provide regal cover for those crimes – in life, just as she is now being recruited to do in death.

    It was her Royal Armed Forces that killed Johnny Foreigner.

    It was her Commonwealth that repackaged the jackbooted British empire as a new, more media-savvy form of colonialism.

    It was the Union Jacks, Beefeaters, black cabs, bowler hats – the ludicrous paraphernalia somehow associated with the Royals in the rest of the world’s mind – that the new power across the Atlantic regularly relied on from its sidekick to add a veneer of supposed civility to its ugly imperial designs.

    Paradoxically, given US history, the special-ness of the special relationship hinged on having a much-beloved, esteemed Queen providing “continuity” as the British and US governments went about tearing up the rulebook on the laws of war in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

     

    TEFLON QUEEN

    And therein lies the rub. The Queen is dead. Long live the King!

    But King Charles III is not Queen Elizabeth II.

    The Queen had the advantage of ascending to the throne in a very different era, when the media avoided Royal scandals unless they were entirely unavoidable, such as when Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis in 1936 by announcing his plan to marry an American “commoner”.

    With the arrival of 24-hour rolling news in the 1980s and the later advent of digital media, the Royals became just another celebrity family like the Kardashians. They were fair game for the paparazzi. Their scandals sold newspapers. Their indiscretions and feuds chimed with the period’s ever more salacious and incendiary soap opera plots on TV.

    But none of that dirt stuck to the Queen, even when recently it was revealed – to no consequence – that her officials had secretly and regularly rigged legislation to exempt her from the rules that applied to everyone else, under a principle known as Queen’s Consent. An apartheid system benefiting the Royal Family alone.

    By remaining above the fray, she offered “continuity”. Even the recent revelation that her son, Prince Andrew, consorted with young girls alongside the late Jeffrey Epstein, and kept up the friendship even after Epstein was convicted of paedophilia, did nothing to harm the Teflon Monarch.

    Charles III, by contrast, is best remembered – at least by the older half of the population – for screwing up his marriage to a fairy-tale princess, Diana, killed in tragic circumstances. In preferring Camilla, Charles traded Cinderella for the evil stepmother, Lady Tremaine.

    If the monarch is the narrative glue holding society and empire together, Charles could represent the moment when that project starts to come unstuck.

    Which is why the black suits, hushed tones, and air of reverence are needed so desperately right now. The establishment is in frantic holding mode as they prepare to begin the difficult task of reinventing Charles and Camilla in the public imagination. Charles must now do the heavy lifting for the establishment that the Queen managed for so long, even as she grew increasingly frail physically.

    The outlines of that plan have been visible for a while. Charles will be rechristened the King of the Green New Deal. He will symbolise Britain’s global leadership against the climate crisis.

    If the Queen’s job was to rebrand empire as Commonwealth, transmuting the Mau Mau massacre into gold medals for Kenyan long-distance runners, Charles’ job will be to rebrand as a Green Renewal the death march led by transnational corporations.

    Which is why now is no time for silence or obedience. Now is precisely the moment – as the mask slips, as the establishment needs time to refortify its claim to deference – to go on the attack.

    Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

    Jonathan Cook is a MintPress contributor. Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

    https://www.mintpressnews.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-her-legacy-21st-century-britain-never-looked-so-medieval/281898/?fbclid=IwAR0JI76XqXiKwfjSeWubQMU4INhbrTwC7o7hlN3BimLJm2eg_Qta6O4S9Ws