URL copied to clipboard
The government’s new ministerial ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, is paid by the global arms company BAE Systems, openDemocracy can reveal.
As former private secretary to the Queen, the government said Christopher Geidt had a “distinguished record of impartial public service” and would clear up the sleaze scandal engulfing Westminster.
But Geidt is also a member of the International Advisory Board for BAE Systems, which has long faced allegations of corruption and bribery.
The newly appointed independent adviser on ministerial interests also holds paid positions at telecoms company Theia Group Inc, and multi-billion-pound asset management giant Schroders PLC, which has wide-ranging financial interests across a huge range of sectors, according to the Register of Members Interests.
URL copied to clipboard
In June 2020, a statement signed by more than 200 organizations around the world publicly denounced transnational mining companies for ignoring the threat of the pandemic and continuing to operate as normal.
The statement, which was based on a report jointly produced by non-profit and activist groups, such as the US-based Earthworks and the Bolivia-based Terra Justa, criticised the extraordinary measures being taken by some governments to suppress protests against mining activity, as well as attempts to push through regulatory changes in favour of the mining sector.
Transnational mining hasn’t gone into quarantine, and neither have the conflicts over how and where it operates. As in the past, activists have focused their attention on Glencore, the giant Anglo-Swiss commodities trading and mining company. The issues raised are familiar.
In the name of the mother: the fight over naming politics in Central Asia opendemocracy.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from opendemocracy.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
URL copied to clipboard
In February 2020, shortly before the escalation of the COVID-19 crisis across Europe, I speculated on the prospects of the ‘right-wing faction’ within Greece’s ruling party, the centre-Right, conservative New Democracy, to shift the party further to the Right. This faction has a more nationalist orientation and socially conservative outlooks on areas such as foreign policy and security issues; relations between Church and the state; and the implementation of a stricter ‘law and order’ agenda.
Back then, the conclusion was that although this faction s operation within New Democracy was of a crucial significance for the attraction of conservative voters, its potential to engineer a fully fledged shift of the entire party to the Right was regulated by intra-party constraints.
A triple pandemic strikes the Ecuadorian Amazon opendemocracy.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from opendemocracy.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.