World Minister

Turkish US air base commander arrested	Jul 17, 2016
Turkish US air base commander arrested over coup plot. General Bekir Ercan Van, the commander of Turkey's Incirlik air base, has been arrested over links to a failed coup against the Turkish government. Turkish US air base commander	Turkish security forces have arrested the head of the Incirlik air base in the south of the country over allegations that he was involved in the attempted military coup against the government on the night of July 15. Turkish US air base commander
A Turkish Government official confirmed the arrest of General Bekir Ercan Van on Sunday. He is among 6,000 people arrested across the country after a coup attempt that started on Friday evening was foiled on Saturday morning. Some 10 other soldiers and one police officer based in Incirlik were also detained. Turkish US air base commander	The government has accused US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, of being responsible. Gulen is accused of leading an underground movement which has infiltrated key government institutions in a bid to undermine Turkey’s democracy. Turkish US air base commander

91% of Canadians

Want

A National Pharmacare

Program

 It’s time

The Council of Canadians

Your universal public health care system is at the most important crossroads in its history.

The federal government and premiers from across the country are discussing the future of medicare. With our national Health Accord set to expire in 2017, there are two paths these discussions could take.

One path continues the Harper legacy of privatization and American-style, two-tier health care. The other path protects, strengthens and expands our public health care for everyone.

I think you and I probably agree about which path our political leaders should take.

Did you know that Canada is the only developed country that does not include prescription drugs in its universal health care system? This means higher drug costs for your family and mine, with Big Pharma pocketing the profits.

Canadians know that now is the time for a national pharmacare program – recent polls show 91% of us want one. Let’s make sure everyone gets the medicine they need with pharmacare that puts people before profits.

Send a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and your premier now demanding that our governments protect Canada’s most cherished social program and implement universal pharmacare.

Together, we can protect our public health care and strengthen it with pharmacare.

Dear Prime Minister I call on you to protect, strength and expand Canada’s public health care system by showing the political leadership necessary to develop a national pharmacare program. All Canadians require access to the prescription medicines they need, regardless of age, employment, income or location. That’s why I ask you to work together with the premiers to implement a universal, comprehensive pharmacare program with no charges to patients. I also ask you to create a national formulary to achieve equitable, evidence-based drug coverage across Canada. Further, you can improve the safety, monitoring and quality of prescription drugs through the creation of a publicly funded national drug approval agency. To make pharmacare a reality, you’ll need to protect health care and pharmaceutical policies from international trade agreements.  Not only will trade agreements like CETA and the TPP drive up drug prices, they’ll open up your government to corporate lawsuits from Big Pharma companies. Thank you for taking action to protect health care and introduce pharmacare.< /div>

The Council of Canadians 300-251 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON K2P 1X3, Tel.: 613-233-2773, 1-800-387-7177, Fax: 613-233-6776, inquiries@canadians.org



Source:

91% of Canadians want a National Pharmacare Program

Hillary Clinton Picks TPP and Fracking Advocate To Set Up Her White House

Zaid Jilani, Naomi LaChance

16 August 2016

Two big issues dogged Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP) and fracking. She had a long history of supporting both.

Under fire from Bernie Sanders, she came out against the TPP and took a more critical position on fracking. But critics wondered if this was a sincere conversion or simply campaign rhetoric.

Now, in two of the most significant personnel moves she will ever make, she has signaled a lack of sincerity.

She chose as her vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine, who voted to authorize fast-track powers for the TPP and praised the agreement just two days before he was chosen.

And now she has named former Colorado Democratic Senator and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to be the chair of her presidential transition team — the group tasked with helping set up the new administration should she win in November. That includes identifying, selecting, and vetting candidates for over 4,000 presidential appointments.

As a senator, Salazar was widely considered a reliable friend to the oil, gas, ranching and mining industries.

As interior secretary, he opened the Arctic Ocean for oil drilling, and oversaw the botched response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Since returning to the private sector, he has been an ardent supporter of the TPP, while pushing back against curbs on fracking.

The TPP would enhance the ability of corporations to sue to overturn environmental regulations, but Salazar helped a pro-TPP front group, the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs,” argue the opposite.

In a November 2015 USA Today op-ed that Salazar co-wrote with Bruce Babbitt, the two men argued that the TPP would be the “the greenest trade deal ever” by promoting sustainable energy. Both Salazar and Babbitt cited their former positions as interior secretaries to boost their credibility.

The following month, Salazar authored a Denver Post op-ed with two former Colorado governors also affiliated with PCAJ, arguing that the agreement would protect the state’s scenic beauty: “And as a state rich with natural wonder and a long history of conservation, Colorado can be proud that the TPP includes the highest environmental standards of any trade agreement in history.”

Shortly after leaving his post at the Obama administration, Salazar appeared at an oil and gas industry conference to argue in favor of fracking.

“We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone,” Salazar told the attendees, who included the vice president of BP America, another keynote speaker at the conference. “We need to make sure that story is told.”

The EPA acknowledged in 2015 that fracking has contaminated drinking water wells. And methane, a gas with a climate impact 86 times that of carbon dioxide, is known to leak from fracked gas infrastructure.

Salazar is on the leadership team of a business group in Colorado fighting against a pair of ballot initiatives that could limit fracking.

The Denver Post referred to the group as the “political equivalent of a tested military reserve unit that the [Denver Chamber of Commerce] calls into action when it believes business interests in the state face a serious threat.”

Environmentalists are alarmed. “If Clinton plans to effectively tackle climate change, the last thing her team needs is an industry insider like Ken Salazar.

Salazar has long been criticized for his connections to the industries he regulates.

For example, in a 2010 Salon post, Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald highlighted Salazar’s connections to BP, noting that “even as BP continues to spew oil in unfathomable quantities into the Gulf,” Salazar was waiving environmental reviews and approving new wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

Salazar currently works as partner at WilmerHale, a D.C.-based law and lobbying firm. His clients are not public, but his firm lists his job as giving “policy advice to national and international clients, particularly on matters at the intersection of law, business and public policy.” Staff at the firm have been involved in TPP negotiations.

Members of the presidential transition team are not required to disclose their finances — meaning we may never know if and how much Salazar is paid for all of the advocacy outside his salary at WilmerHale.

Salazar has long been criticized for his connections to the industries he regulates.

For example, in a 2010 Salon post, Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald highlighted Salazar’s connections to BP, noting that “even as BP continues to spew oil in unfathomable quantities into the Gulf,” Salazar was waiving environmental reviews and approving new wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

Source:	Please Click This Link: Hillary Clinton Picks TPP and Fracking Advocate
Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald (a 2010 Salon post): Salazar’s connections to BP, noting that “even as BP continues to spew oil in unfathomable quantities into the Gulf,” Salazar was waiving environmental reviews and approving new wells in the Gulf of Mexico.	Members of the presidential transition team are not required to disclose their finances .

Donald Trump Proposes Banning Immigrants Based on Ideology, But Bush and Obama Got There First

Alex Emmons

17 August 2016

Donald Trump’s plan to apply an “ideological screening test” on would-be immigrants has been denounced as “un-American,” and “a nonstarter.” But the U.S. government already can and does bar immigration on ideological grounds – and has abused that power.[1]

In addition to dramatically expanding government surveillance, the Patriot Act passed by Congress soon after the 9/11 terror attacks allows the State Department to exclude anyone who it determines “undermines the United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities.”[1]

The Bush administration used that power to deny entry to leftist activists and administration critics. The list of those denied visas includes South African anti-apartheid activist Adam Habib, Greek economist Yoannis Milios, Nicaraguan reformist and academic Dora Maria Tellez, Bolivian scholar Waskar Ari, and English hip-hop singer M.I.A, — just to name a few.[1]

In 2004, the Bush administration denied entry to Tariq Ramadan, an internationally renowned scholar of Islam and prominent Iraq war critic, who had accepted a tenured position at the University of Notre Dame. Two years later, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Ramadan — and won — after the government failed to demonstrate any terrorism connection.[1]

But the court did not rule on whether the section of the Patriot Act is constitutional, and it remains on the books to this day.[1]


The Obama administration has also blocked people of certain viewpoints from entering the United States.[1]

In 2011, the State Department denied a visa for Kermin Yeldiz, a prominent Kurdish rights activist who lives in Britain and was traveling to the United States to accept an award. After the ACLU and PEN sent a joint letter of protest, the State Department issued Yeldiz a visa.[1]

In 2013, Palestinian film director Emad Burnat was detained in the Los Angeles Airport, and threatened with deportation. He was allowed to enter the United States after security learned he was on his way to the Oscars.[1]

Trump’s proposal would go much further, of course. Trump is calling for every immigrant to be given an actual test, to screen out not only “sympathizers of terrorist groups,” but anyone with “hostile attitudes towards our country and its principles.”[1]

Trump also suggested he was a fan of the McCarran-Walter Act. “In the Cold War, we had an ideological screening test. The time is overdue to develop a new screening test for the threats we face today,” Trump said Monday.[1]

After it was passed in 1952, the act quickly became a tool to bar leftist intellectuals and peace activists — including Palestinian poet Mahmood Darish and Nobel-laureate authors Carlos Fuentes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In the 1950s, the U.S. even blocked Pierre Trudeau, a progressive intellectual from Canada who went on to become the country’s prime minister in 1968.[1]

Civil liberties advocates have promised to fight any return to Cold War era policies of exclusion.[1]

“It would raise serious concerns if the government were to decide on a list of acceptable viewpoints, thoughts, and beliefs for Americans, and exclude anyone who failed to conform,” said Dror Ladin, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, in an email to The Intercept.[1]

Trump’s proposal was greeted with widespread condemnation — and mockery — with some critics saying Trump would not pass his own test. Hillary Clinton released an ad highlighting his past proposal to ban Muslims, his racial comments about a Mexican judge, and his refusal to denounce David Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK.[1]

[1]https://theintercept.com/2016/08/17/
donald-trump-proposes-banning-immigrants
-based-on-ideology-but-bush-and-obama-got-there-first/

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