[Anarchafeminists] Corporate Watch Olympics Special

[nickdrake]

Hi all

Check out Corporate Watch's Olympics Special: www.corporatewatch.org

We'll be adding more articles during the Games and then printing them 
all in a briefing,
complete with more art work from Edd Baldry and others.

Watch this space.

All the best

Corporate Watch

contact at corporatewatch.org



CORPORATE GAMES

As the Olympics opening ceremony is about to start, Corporate Watch
bring you a news update special on the Corporate Games.

- Preparing London for the corporate Games: the Docklands planning
model

- Greenwash Gold 2012 campaign

- The real environmental impacts of holding the Olympics in East
London

- Bread and circuses: the shady business of the Inernational Olympic
Committee

- G4S company profile

Preparing London for the corporate Games: the Docklands planning 
model

/Ian Blunt explains how legislation and 'democratic' processes were
adapted to enable London to fit into the IOC's global game and how
London's history of questionable planning made the city an ideal
location for the Olympics./

Given the sums of money involved, it is not surprising to find that
considerable planning and manoeuvering went into London's successful
bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The simple sequence of events -
the British Olympic Committee decided on a London bid, the Mayor of
London supported it, then the Government supported it and then the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded it - is by no means the
whole story. Ian Blunt and Beth Lawrence describe how certain key
planning mechanisms, essential to the hosting of the Games, had
already been put in place by the time the IOC announced, in Singapore
on 6 July 2005, that London's bid had been successful.

Read more at:
http://corporatewatch.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=NkpUBF1MCwhVTAlRAgRR

Greenwash Gold 2012 campaign

Richard Solly tells Corporate Watch about the Greenwash Gold 2012
Campaign, which aims to expose the unethical and unsustainable
practices of some of the companies sponsoring the Olympics: BP, Dow
Chemical and Rio Tinto. Richard is the Co-ordinator of the London
Mining Network and has worked on Indigenous rights and mining issues
for over twenty years and is also an active member of the Colombia
Solidarity Campaign.

Read more at:
http://corporatewatch.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=NkpUBFJMCwhVTAlRAgRR

The real environmental impacts of holding the Olympics in East London

Tom Antebi from the Ecologist and the Counter Olympics Network
outlines some history of the green spaces and ecology in the five
Olympic boroughs, investigates the environmental impacts of the Games
in East London and looks at how the Games have a history of 
greenwash.
An earlier version of this investigation appeared on the Ecologist
magazine website on 16th March 2011. Beth Lawrence from Corporate
Watch updates the article with environmental issues that have arisen
since March 2011.

Read more at:
http://corporatewatch.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=NkpUBFNMCwhVTAlRAgRR

Bread and circuses: the shady business of the Inernational Olympic
Committee

Ian Blunt and Beth Lawrence outline some key events in the history of
the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and explain how it operates
as a global brand and generates and uses its funds.

Bread and circuses were mainstays of the domestic politics of ancient
Rome: keep down the price of food and put on a good show and the
masses would be happy and the emperor would have a decent chance of
not being overthrown or assassinated.

Read more at:
http://corporatewatch.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=NkpUBFxMCwhVTAlRAgRR

G4S company profile

G4S has grown to be the largest employer on the London Stock Exchange
and has expanded its operations to 125 countries. The biggest 
security
company in the world, it is focused on taking over more public
services and using the experience and power gained in its 'core',
European and US markets, to expand to what it calls 'developing'
markets through an aggressive and ambitious series of acquisitions.

Read more at:
http://corporatewatch.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=NkpVBBgCCA8fAQhQBgQ%3D



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