General Politics Thread

[strichener]

1 hour ago, GNU_Linux said:

Dutch court orders Shell to cut it's global emissions by 45% by 2030
 

 

This will 100% get overturned on appeal.

[jamamafegan]

https://news.sky.com/story/william-amos-deeply-embarrassed-canadian-mp-who-appeared-naked-in-virtual-meeting-caught-out-again-12319247

Second time he’s been caught doing something like this, what a massive plonker

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Nap that he's the type of guy who walks around the comunal changing rooms naked for prolonged periods occasionally stopping to put one leg on the bench before applying talcum powder to his nether regions.

[GNU_Linux]

Mass grave of 215 indigenous children found on the grounds of an Indian Residential School in Kamloops, British Colombia
 

Quote

An Indigenous community says it has found evidence that 215 children were buried on the grounds of a British Columbia school, one of the many in Canada set up to forcibly assimilate them.

OTTAWA — For decades, most Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families and forced into boarding schools. A large number never returned home, their families given only vague explanations, or none at all.

Now an Indigenous community in British Columbia says it has found evidence of what happened to some of its missing children: a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children on the grounds of a former residential school.

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said on Friday that ground-penetrating radar had discovered the remains near the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which operated from 1890 until the late 1970s.

“It’s a harsh reality and it’s our truth, it’s our history,” Chief Casimir said at a news conference. “And it’s something that we’ve always had to fight to prove. To me, it’s always been a horrible, horrible history.”

The remains, which Chief Casimir described as “many, many years old — decades,” included those of children as young as 3.

Starting in the 19th century, Canada was home to a system of residential schools, mostly operated by churches, that Indigenous children were forced to attend. The system went into decline during the 1970s, with the last school closing in 1996.

A National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up as part of a government apology and settlement over the schools, concluded that at least 4,100 students died while attending the schools, many from mistreatment or neglect, others from disease or accident. It found that in many cases, families never learned the fate of their offspring, who are now known as the missing children.

While there have long been rumors of unmarked graves at schools, if the findings in a preliminary report presented to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation this week are confirmed, it will be the first time a major burial site has been discovered.

Kamloops, once the largest residential school in Canada, with about 500 pupils at its peak, was operated by the Catholic Church until 1969, when the federal government took over.

“The pain that such news causes reminds us of our ongoing need to bring to light every tragic situation that occurred in residential schools run by the Church,” Archbishop J. Michael Miller of the Vancouver Archdiocese said in a statement. “The passage of time does not erase the suffering.”

Unlike other religious groups that operated the residential schools, the Catholic Church has refused to formally apologize for abuses that occurred within them. In 2018, Pope Francis rejected a direct appeal for an apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded in 2015 that residential schools were a program of “cultural genocide.” The use of Indigenous languages was banned at the schools, sometimes through the use of violence, as were Indigenous cultural practices.

The commission found evidence of neglect and maltreatment spanning decades at Kamloops. In 1918, a government official who inspected the school reported his “suspicion that the vitality of the children is not sufficiently sustained from a lack of nutritious food.”

Geraldine Bob, a former student, told the commission that the staff members “would just start beating you and lose control and hurl you against the wall, throw you on the floor, kick you, punch you.”

Chief Casimir said the search for remains at Kamloops began in the early 2000s, in part because official explanations — including suggestions that the missing children had simply run away — did not match with the stories conveyed by former students.

“There had to be more to the story,” she said. “It’s about bringing in the advanced technology today to be able to look beneath the surface of the soil and to confirm some of the stories that were once told.”

She said that the radar scanning is not yet complete. “We have not done all our grounds, and we do know that there is still more to be discovered,” Chief Casimir said.

“The loss of 215 children found on the grounds of a residential school is a national tragedy,” Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indian Nations in Saskatchewan said in a statement. He asked the federal government to work with Indigenous groups on researching the fates of missing children.

The office of Carolyn Bennett, the federal minister responsible for Indigenous relations, said in a statement that the “discovery reflects a dark and painful chapter in our country’s history.” Her department and health officials in British Columbia will set up support services for the First Nation, it said.

Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner of British Columbia, said in an email that her office had been told of the radar findings on Thursday. “We are early in the process of gathering information and will continue to work collaboratively with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and others as this sensitive work progresses,” she said.

John Horgan, the premier of British Columbia, said that he was “horrified and heartbroken” and that he supported the efforts of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc to bring to “light the full extent of this loss.”

Indigenous communities throughout Canada, Chief Casimir said, had children who were forced into residential schools only to vanish.

“Many other First Nations who had residential schools within their communities also want to learn and want to use new technology to be able to find their loved ones,” she said. “It is definitely an honor to be taking care of these children.”

Edited May 29, 2021 by GNU_Linux

[madwullie]

Jesus f**k that is absolutely awful 

[Granny Danger]

14 hours ago, madwullie said:

Jesus f**k that is absolutely awful 

... and yet not surprising.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

... and yet not surprising.

It’s basically the same as this story from Ireland that surfaced four years ago only with added racism

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/mass-grave-of-babies-and-children-found-at-tuam-orphanage-in-ireland

[Baxter Parp]

We should start a "Leopard face-eating party" thread.

[BFTD]

4 minutes ago, Baxter Parp said:

We should start a "Leopard face-eating party" thread.

The existing one seems to be working just fine.

Perhaps we could split the vote with something even nastier? "Leopard ate your face and life in Britain is still shit for you? Vote for us, the Battery Acid Enema Party, and see if that helps any."

[SANTAN]

I'm enjoying everyone getting annoyed at Gove being able to avoid isolation, the Spectator reporting that the government found a loophole to avoid isolation cue every man and their dogs logging on to Twitter.com to bleat about "one rule for them another for us" etc.... people saying how they had to isolate 2 months ago and never got an option to patch it off. 

I can confirm that this is a scheme that's been running for the past week or so and every single person I've spoken to over the phone has also been offered this scheme to avoid people having to isolate. It's not some rule that's put in to aide top earners or the like it's literally an opt in scheme that you can be offered if you're on Universal Credit or if you're the CEO of a top 100 company. 

[SANTAN]

39 minutes ago, Pato said:

A good minute of me thinking those two types of person were the only ones eligible

Lol 

I think the reoccurring theme of poor messaging has confused this one, people don't know this is an option, one lady I spoke to the other day who is doing this process had her neighbours call the police on her because they thought she was breaking the rules. 

[Baxter Parp]

 

[Florentine_Pogen]

^^^^ "Behind every great fortune is a great crime." Balzac

[coprolite]

Good to see Rishi Sunak getting his multinational tax proposals accepted. Or if you're in the US Joe Biden's minimum global tax proposal going through.

Or if you're from anywhere else, the UK and the US being shamed into putting similar rules in place to other developed countries to tax their multinationals properly, as recommended by the OECD last October. 

Incidentally we did have these rules until George Osborne scrapped them in a crackdown on tax avoidance. 

[Crùbag]

Christ... Alba is full of heidcases.

 

[BigDoddyKane]

Ireland, Holland (maybe was only few years back and not recently?), Luxembourg under Juncker used to be the EU countries fecking it up for all the other eu countries taxwise

 

Will that still be the case after this agreement, does this have any impact on them?

[coprolite]

16 minutes ago, BigDoddyKane said:

Ireland, Holland (maybe was only few years back and not recently?), Luxembourg under Juncker used to be the EU countries fecking it up for all the other eu countries taxwise

 

Will that still be the case after this agreement, does this have any impact on them?

They're not bound by anything the G7 agree but it's an OECD initiative and they've historically been signed up to them.

Nobody's signed up to anything on this yet. 

Netherlands still as bad as they've ever been but UK measures to compete have made them less effective. 

[coprolite]

41 minutes ago, Pato said:

Luxembourg's standard rate of corporation tax is actually higher than the minimum global rate being talked about just now, it's all the loopholes they exploit that turn it into a haven. I'd imagine they'll be doing whatever they can to retain all these exemptions but we'll see.

The proposals rely on the effective tax rate of the whole multinational group and effectively tax any shortfall in the parent company's jurisdiction. 

They won't affect the operation of Luxembourg tax rules much, except for any very large, very profitable groups that might happen to be based there. 

So if a US multinational company uses a luxembourg finance company and  avoids tax at 30% in its african raw material supply chain then again at 40% in its South Asian  manufacturers then again when selling into a 28% European jurisdiction, it will pay 21% on the sheltered income in the states. 

So it is still worth head office juridictions competing on rates, and still worth having the avoidance vehicle. 

Plus any non-massive or non-superprofitable groups will be fine to carry on using the Duchy

So luxembourg will be less affected than may first appear. 

[Terry_Tibbs]

Anne Marie Waters is standing in Batley & Spen with Tommy Robinson as her right hand man.

[sparky88]

2 hours ago, Terry_Tibbs said:

Anne Marie Waters is standing in Batley & Spen with Tommy Robinson as her right hand man.

That'll be the Tory vote split then.