It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
It’s been a bad year for the reputation of international aid. In the wake of the “Me Too” movement, no field was spared from uncomfortable reckonings with how some among their powerful were getting away with sexual abuse and harassment. That period of reckoning was replete with shocks. But it was particularly appalling in the humanitarian world.
In early 2018, stories broke that some humanitarian aid workers, including from major organizations such as Oxfam and the United Nations, had demanded sex in exchange for aid, or had hired prostitutes. Many of these incidents were outright cases of sexual coercion. But even in the more ambiguous instances of prostitution, the power relations involved were clearly troubling. Whether it is a sex worker’s choice to work for wealthy expatriates or not, in the midst of natural disaster, conflict or extreme poverty, their limited set of choices to earn money may be tantamount to no choice at all.
Some studies suggest that paedophiles actually target jobs in the humanitarian sector, so as to be able to prey on underage children with greater ease than they would at home.
However, the recurring pattern of abuse in the UN points to some serious flaws in the institution
In the two years following the Bosnian case, a team of researchers documented further allegations of UN employees who were effectively trading aid for sex in West African refugee camps. The team interviewed about 1,500 people in camps in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Large numbers of the respondents reported that having to have sex with an aid worker in order to get food, building materials or education was commonplace.
In 2016, horrific allegations emerged of French forces sexually abusing minors while acting as peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.
The peacekeepers reportedly tied up four girls and forced them to perform sex acts with animals.
The UN spokesman confirmed that 108 complaints had been recorded against the peacekeepers in Central African Republic, and that the vast majority of these complaints came from minors.
However, Code Blue said that the reports showed that the UN “filtered” the cases it would investigate at a very early stage. Ten of these 14 cases were handled exclusively by the UN, leaving potential victims in the position of having to convince UN personnel to prosecute their fellows.
But this lack of prosecutions exists largely because of the extraordinary degree of legal protection that UN staff receive. UN peacekeepers, the troops that are provided by member states to uphold peacekeeping mandates, cannot face justice in the country that they operate in.
originally posted by: RelSciHistItSufi
I'll take a look with my wake up coffee in few hours.
originally posted by: Trillium
New Q Drop
files.abovetopsecret.com...
Q Boad
More here
Linky
Devin Nunes Verified account
@DevinNunes Follow
Can anyone tell me who the DOJ lawyer is that speaks French via text in the IG report? This will save a lot of time in the hearings this week so my colleagues won’t have to ask this question...
9:06 PM - 17 Jun 2018
Former France Telecom CEO to Stand Trial After Wave of Suicides
Didier Lombard, the former chief executive officer of France Telecom, will stand trial for moral harassment, a decade after a wave of employee suicides coincided with the restructuring he led.
Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes indicted on criminal charges
Federal prosecutors have indicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and the company’s former president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors claim that the pair defrauded investors, doctors, and patients while promoting and running their now disgraced blood-testing startup.
In the new court filing—submitted Thursday, June 14 in federal court in San Jose, and unsealed on Friday—prosecutors allege that Holmes and Balwani engaged in a scheme to mislead investors about the state and capabilities of the company’s blood-testing technology and defrauded them out of more than $100 million. The prosecutors also allege that the pair defrauded doctors and patients by knowingly misleading them with false advertising and marketing that stated that their company could provide accurate and reliable health tests on just drops of blood from a finger-prick with their proprietary technology.
Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of the embattled blood-testing startup Theranos, has struggled with commercial partners, shed board members and a lot of credibility over the last few months. Prize-winning reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicates that her multibillion dollar startup’s highly publicized blood-testing technology isn’t as successful as Theranos has made it seem.
One person Holmes hasn’t lost? Hillary Clinton, apparently.
Next Monday, Holmes is hosting a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Palo Alto. The event includes a conversation with former First Family member Chelsea Clinton, and participants who pay $2,700 get to go to a “host reception” with Chelsea.
Clinton's Campaign Did Little To "Distance Themselves From" Holmes, Using Her "Clout To Raise Money." "The Clintons didn't try very hard to distance themselves from Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Instead, they graciously used her clout to raise money." (Arielle Duhaime-Ross, "Here's A Picture Of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes And Chelsea Clinton,"The Verge , 3/22/16)
Holmes Was Scheduled To Host The Fundraiser At The Theranos Headquarters, But In An "Abrupt About-Face, The Campaign Relocated The Event To Holmes' Home. "Chief executive Elizabeth Holmes was scheduled to host a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at Theranos' headquarters in Silicon Valley on Monday. But in an abrupt about-face, the campaign relocated the event to the private home of a tech entrepreneur." (Sharon Begley, "Clinton Campaign Relocates Fundraiser Away From Theranos," Stat News, 3/21/16)
Between January 1, 2016 And March 31, 2016, Lobbyist Irene Bueno Bundled $27,560 For Clinton's Campaign, Having Never Previously Bundled For Clinton's 2016 Run. (Federal Election Commission, Accessed 4/16/16)
Bueno Lobbied For Theranos As Recently As The Third Quarter Of 2015, And The Firm She Works For, NVG, LLC Lobbied On Behalf Of Theranos In The Fourth Quarter Of 2015. (Query The Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, The United States Senate , Accessed 4/16/16)
"Boies Schiller and Flexner [BSF] announced today that partner Kirsten Gillibrand was elected…She raised some $3 million in campaign contributions, including substantial support from colleagues at BSF…The Firm issued the following statement: `We are extremely proud of our partner…' Ms. Gillibrand…is on leave while she serves in Washington.'…"
Italy Rejects Two More NGO Migrant Ships; Merkel Scrambles To Keep Job As German Lawmakers Revolt
“They should know that Italy no longer wants to be an accomplice in the business of illegal immigration and therefore they will have to aim for other, non-Italian, ports,” Salvini said in a Friday post on Facebook.
The blocked NGO ships come on the heels of Italy's refusal to take in a boat full of 629 shipwrecked migrants picked up off the coast of Libya - a move ushered in by the Italian government's new populist coalition headed by Salvini. "We are finished being doormats," tweeted Salvini on Sunday.
After Salvini's comments, one of the Dutch-flagged NGOs, Mission Lifeline, tweeted in German "When fascists promote us..." to which Salvini fired back over Twitter "insults and threats will not stop us."
originally posted by: Skyfloating
Elizabeth Holmes charged with massive fraud
Another Clinton and Podesta friend facing decades in Prison. She is the CEO of a blood testing company.
But again, all coincidence, these are lovely humanitarians and liberals, not at all criminally insane sociopaths.
originally posted by: LanceCorvette
Correction, she is (was) the CEO of a company that *claimed* to do blood testing. Turns out it was all a fraud, they either didn't do the tests, did them wrong, and/or used third parties to do the tests. Thus the fraud charges.
originally posted by: wanderingconfusion
Change is coming to Europe?
Italy Rejects Two More NGO Migrant Ships; Merkel Scrambles To Keep Job As German Lawmakers Revolt
“They should know that Italy no longer wants to be an accomplice in the business of illegal immigration and therefore they will have to aim for other, non-Italian, ports,” Salvini said in a Friday post on Facebook.
The blocked NGO ships come on the heels of Italy's refusal to take in a boat full of 629 shipwrecked migrants picked up off the coast of Libya - a move ushered in by the Italian government's new populist coalition headed by Salvini. "We are finished being doormats," tweeted Salvini on Sunday.
After Salvini's comments, one of the Dutch-flagged NGOs, Mission Lifeline, tweeted in German "When fascists promote us..." to which Salvini fired back over Twitter "insults and threats will not stop us."