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Vandana Shiva on the taking down of Bill Gates’ empires

<div dir="ltr"> <div style="font-family:Helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(73,73,73);text-align:justify;font-size:13px"> <h3>STORY AT-A-GLANCE</h3> <ul><li>Bill Gates is entering every field that has to do with sustaining life and, for over a decade, has undermined vitality in all its forms, in an effort to seize control over and profit from it</li><li>By funding research and financing public institutions, Gates is able to force those institutions down a path where they can only use his patented intellectual property</li><li>While pretending to save the world through philanthropy, Gates' solutions perpetuate and worsen the world's problems. They may even threaten the future of humanity, as they're driving us closer to extinction</li><li>Through his company, Gates Ag One, Gates is pushing for one type of agriculture for the whole world, organized top, down. This includes digital farming, in which farmers are surveilled and mined for their agricultural data, which is then repackaged and sold back to them</li><li>The answer to the environmental problems we face is not more of the very things that created the problems in the first place, which is what Gates proposes. The answer is regenerative agriculture and real food</li></ul> In this interview, Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., discusses the importance and benefits of regenerative agriculture and a future Regeneration International project that we'll be collaborating on. We're currently facing enormously powerful technocrats who are hell-bent on ushering in <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/10/28/the-great-reset.aspx" target="_blank">the Great Reset</a>, which will complete the ongoing transfer of wealth and resource ownership from the poor and middle classes to the ultra-rich. Perhaps the most well-known of the individuals pushing for this is Bill Gates who, like John Rockefeller a century before him, rehabilitated his sorely tarnished image by turning to philanthropy. However, Gates' brand of philanthropy, so far, has helped few and harmed many. While his PR machine has managed to turn public opinion about him such that many now view him as a global savior who donates his wealth for the good of the planet, nothing could be further from the truth. <h3>Gates' Stranglehold on Global Health</h3> The magnitude of Gates' role over global health recently dawned on me. I believe the COVID-19 catastrophe would not have been possible had it not been for the World Health Organization, which Gates appears to exert shadow-control over. Remember, it was primarily the WHO that facilitated this global shutdown and adoption of freedom-robbing, economy-destroying measures by virtually every government on the planet. When then-President Trump halted U.S. funding of the WHO in 2020, Gates became the biggest funder of the WHO. As explained in "<a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/19/gavi-bill-gates-world-health-organization.aspx" target="_blank">WHO Insider Blows Whistle on Gates and GAVI</a>," the WHO has turned global health security into a dictatorship, where the director general has assumed sole power to make decisions that member states must abide by, but according to a long-term WHO insider, Gates' vaccine alliance GAVI actually appears to be the directing power behind the WHO. The two — Gates and the WHO — have been working hand in hand pushing for a global vaccination campaign, and Gates has a great deal of money invested in these vaccines. We've also seen extraordinary efforts to censor natural alternatives and inexpensive, readily available and clearly effective drugs, such as <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/07/15/hydroxychloroquine-for-coronavirus.aspx" target="_blank">hydroxychloroquine</a> and <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/25/ivermectin-for-coronavirus.aspx" target="_blank">ivermectin</a>, and it appears the reason for this is probably because they're competitors to the vaccine. Emergency use authorization for pandemic vaccines are only given when there are no other treatments, so vilifying alternatives has been a key strategy to protect vaccine profits. <h3>The Parallels Between Rockefeller and Gates</h3> As noted by Shiva, the comparisons between Rockefeller and Gates are quite apt. Rockefeller created not just Big Oil but also Big Finance and Big Pharma. He had intimate connections with IG Farben.1 There was a Standard Oil IG Farben company. Without the fossil fuels of Standard Oil, IG Farben couldn't have made synthetic fertilizers or fuels. In 1910, Rockefeller and Carnegie produced The Flexner Report,2 which was the beginning of the end for natural medicine in the conventional medical school curriculum. They eliminated it because it saw natural medicine as a hugely competitive threat to the new pharmaceuticals that were primarily derived from the oil industry. Much of Rockefeller's history has been captured by Lily Kay,3 who sifted through Molecular Vision of Life's archives. There, she discovered that the Nazi regime, which was a eugenics regime that thought some people were inferior and needed to be exterminated to keep the superior race pure, didn't vanish when Germany lost the war. <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/13/oxford-astrazeneca-eugenics-links.aspx" target="_blank">Eugenics simply migrated to the U.S.</a>, and was taken up by Rockefeller under the term of "social psychology as biological determinants." The word gene did not exist at that time. Instead, they called it "atoms of determinism." Rockefeller paid for much of the eugenics research, which ultimately resulted in the silencing and suppression of true health. To be healthy means to be whole, and wholeness refers to the "self-organized brilliance of your integrated body as a complex system," Shiva says. That's what Ayurveda is based on, and even this ancient system of medicine has been attacked in recent times. The notion of genetic determination ignores this foundational wholeness, seeking instead to divide the human body into mechanical components controlled by your genes. "Coming back to the parallels, Rockefeller was behind it because he was driving the chemical industry. When the wars were over, they said, 'Oh my gosh, we have all these chemicals to sell.' And they invented the Green Revolution and pushed the Green Revolution on India. Rockefeller, the World Bank, the USA all worked together, and if the farmers of India are protesting today, it's a result of Rockefeller's initiative, the Green Revolution in India. Most people don't realize what high cost India has borne; what high cost the state of Panjon has born. Then you have Gates joining up with Rockefeller and creating the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) … which pretends to be his solution to climate change. I say, 'My god, what kind of stage has the world reached that absolute nonsense can pass the science?' I'll give you just three examples from his chapter on agriculture, in which he talks about how we grow things. First of all, plants are not things. Plants are sentient beings. Our culture knows it. We have the sacred tulsi. We have the sacred neem. We have the sacred banyan. They are sentient beings. So many people are awake to animal rights. I think we need more people awake to plant rights and really tell Mr. Gates, 'No, plants are not things.' He goes on to celebrate Norman Borlaug, who was in the DuPont defense lab, whose job it was to push these four chemicals by adapting the plants [to them]. So, he created the dwarf variety, because the tall varieties are free varieties … [Gates] says we're eating food because of Borlaug. No, people are starving because of Borlaug. The farmers are dying because of Borlaug." <h3>Gates Offers Problems as Solutions</h3> Gates hails synthetic fertilizer is the greatest agricultural invention. "Doesn't he realize synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are creating desertification, dead zones in the ocean, and nitrous oxide, which is a greenhouse gas?" Shiva says. In short, he's offering the problem as the solution. Gates also, apparently, does not understand that nitrogen-fixing plants can fix nitrogen. He incorrectly claims that plants cannot fix nitrogen. <blockquote>There's an extinction taking place. Most people think the sixth mass extinction is about other species. They don't realize large parts of humanity are being pushed to extinction. ~ Vandana Shiva</blockquote> Gates is equally wrong about methane production from livestock. "Have you smelt methane behind nomadic tribes?" Shiva asks. "Have you ever smelt methane behind our sacred cow in India? No, they don't emit methane." The reason cows in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) emit methane that stinks to high heaven is because they're fed an unnatural diet of grains and placed in crowded quarters. It's not a natural phenomenon. It's a man-made one. "You know what Mr. Gates wants to teach us? He says cows make methane because of their poor stomachs," Shiva says. "They call them containers. I think we should sue him for undoing basic biology 101. You've talked about how he controls the WHO. He's also trying to take control of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). [FAO] has recognized ecological agriculture is the way to go and supported [regenerative] agriculture up until last year, when Gates started to take charge. Now he's moving the food summit to New York. Five hundred organizations have said, 'This is no longer a food summit, it's a poison summit. The poison cartel and Bill Gates are running it to push more poisons, now under new names. So, we have a lot of work to do.'" The answer to the environmental problems we face is not more of the very things that created the problems in the first place, which is what Gates proposes. The answer is <a href="https://www.mercola.com/ebook/regenerative-agriculture.htm" target="_blank">regenerative agriculture</a> and real food. "When people are eating healthy food, there is no problem," Shiva says. "[Gates] wants to commit a crime against our gut microbiome, pushing more fake food through Impossible Food. And he wants to create conditions so that real food will disappear. That's why we all have to organize together and the scientists have to start being protected. There's an extinction taking place. They call it the sixth mass extinction. Most people think the sixth mass extinction is about other species. They don't realize large parts of humanity are being pushed to extinction. Food is health, as Hippocrates said, [and that requires] indigenous systems of learning, ecological agriculture, small farmers. In Bill Gates' design, all this that makes life, life, that makes society, society, that makes community, community, that makes healthy beings, he would like to push this to extinction because he's afraid of independence, freedom, health and our beingness. He wants us to be 'thingness,' but we are beings … The worst crime against the Earth and against humanity is using gene editing technologies for gene drives, which is a collaboration of Gates with DARPA, the defense research system. Gene drives are deliberately driving [us] to extinction. Now he does it in the name of ending malaria. No. It's about driving to extinction. Amaranth is a sacred food for us. It's a very, very important source of nutrition … There's an application in that DARPA-Gates report of driving the amaranth to extinction through gene rights. And when this was raised at the Convention on Biological Diversity, do you know what he did? He actually hired a public relations agency and bribed government representatives to not say no. Can you imagine?" <h3>Gates' Long-Term Play</h3> Gates clearly had a long-term vision in mind from the start. His growing control of the WHO began over a decade ago. Over this span of time, he also started transitioning into Big Pharma and the <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/03/10/synthetic-fake-meat.aspx" target="_blank">fake food industry</a>, which would allow his influence over the WHO's global health recommendations to really pay off. While fake foods have many potential problems, one in particular is elevated levels of the omega-6 fat <a href="https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/12/27/linoleic-acid-health-effects.aspx" target="_blank">linoleic acid</a> (LA). If you eat real food, you're going to get more than enough LA. Our industrial Western diet, however, provides far more than is needed for optimal health already, and engineered meats are particularly loaded with LA, as they're made with genetically modified soy oil and canola oil. This massive excess of LA will encourage and promote virtually all degenerative diseases, thereby accelerating the destruction of human health. In addition to that, Gates is also investing in pharmaceuticals, which of course are touted as the answer to degenerative disease. Again, his solutions to ill health are actually the problem. Shiva says: "Gates … [is] entering every field that has to do with life. Our work in Navdanya, which means nine seeds, is basically work on biodiversity in agriculture. We started to bring together all the work that he's doing in taking over. I mentioned the Rockefeller Green Revolution, now the Gates-Rockefeller Green Revolution in Africa. The next step he wants to push is … digital agriculture. He calls it Gates Ag One,4 and the headquarters of this is exactly where the Monsanto headquarters are, in St. Louis, Missouri. Gates Ag One is one [type of] agriculture for the whole world, organized top down. He's written about it. We have a whole section on it in our new report,5 'Gates to a Global Empire.'" <h3>Stolen Farmer Data Is Repackaged and Sold Back to Them</h3> What does digital agriculture entail? For starters, it entails the introduction of a digital surveillance system. So far, Shiva's organization has managed to prevent Gates from introducing a seed surveillance startup, where farmers would not be allowed to grow seeds unless approved by Gates surveillance system. The data mining, Shiva says, is needed because they don't actually know agriculture. This is why Gates finances the policing of farmers. He needs to mine their data to learn how farming is actually done. This knowledge is then repackaged and sold back to the farmers. It's evil genius at its finest. Through his funding, Gates now also controls the world's seed supply, and his financing of gene editing research has undercut biosafety laws across the world. As explained by Shiva, the only country that doesn't have biosafety laws is the U.S. "The rest of the world does because we have a treaty called the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety," she says. "While he created the appearance of philanthropy, what he's doing is giving tiny bits of money to very vital institutions. But with those bits of money, they attract government money, which was running those institutions. Now, because of his clout, he is taking control of the agenda of these institutions. In the meantime, he's pushing patenting, be it on drugs, vaccines or on seeds." Taken together, Gates ends up wielding enormous control over global agriculture and food production, and there's virtually no evidence to suggest he has good intentions. <h3>The Anatomy of Monopolization</h3> The company that collects patents on gene-edited organisms, both in health and agriculture, is Editas, founded by a main financial investor for the Gates Foundation. Gates is also a big investor in Editas. "So, here's a company called Editas to edit the world as if it is a Word program. The two scientists who got the Nobel Prize this year have both been funded in their research by Gates. My mind went back to how Rockefeller financed the research, got the Nobel Prize, and then made the money. So, you finance the research. Then you finance the public institutions, whether they be national or international. You invest and force them down the path where they can only use what is your patented intellectual property. And, as he has said in an interview, his smartest investment was vaccines, because it is a 1-to-20 return. Put $1 in and make $20. How many billions of dollars have been put in? You can imagine how many trillions will be made. At the end of it, where does food come from? It comes from seed. He wants to control it. It comes from land. He's controlling that. He's became the biggest farmland owner [in the U.S.]. But you need weather [control]. You need a stable climate. So, what could be a weapon of control of agriculture? Weather modification. He calls it geoengineering. This is engineering of the climate. Again, making it look like he's going to solve global warming by creating global cooling." As explained by Shiva, Gates is also heavily invested in climate modification technologies that not only will destabilize the earth's climate systems more, but also can be weaponized against the people by controlling rainfall and drought. In India, they've been having massive hail during harvest time, which destroys the harvest. <h3>Is the UN Subservient to Gates?</h3> According to Shiva, Gates is also corrupting the United Nations system, just like he's corrupted world governments and the WHO, and in so doing, he's destroying the efforts built over the last three decades to protect the global environment. "Whether it be the climate treaty, the biodiversity treaty or the atmospheric treaties, he is absolutely behaving as if the UN is his subservient institution," Shiva says. "[He thinks] governments and regulatory bodies should not exist … and that people in democracy have no business to speak. [If they do], they're conspiracy theorists." <h3>Taking Down Gates' Empires</h3> As it stands right now, ordinary people are forced to fight battles that are in actuality rooted in institutional, structural and societal crimes. These crimes really need to be addressed the way Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire was addressed. In the case of Gates, his empire is actually multiple empires, and they all need to be dismantled. To that end, I will be collaborating with Shiva and Regeneration International, which she co-founded, on a project to boycott Gates' empires. "I've noticed that no matter what the movement, they're using the word regeneration now. It could be a health movement, a democracy movement, a peace movement, a women's movement — everyone has realized that regeneration is what we have to shift to," Shiva says. "So, what do we need to be doing in the next decade? For me, the next decade is the determining decade, because these petty minds' insatiable greed want to go so fast that if, in the next decade, we don't protect what has to be protected, build resilient alternatives and take away the sainthood from this criminal, they will leave nothing much to be saved. The poison cartel is also big pharma. People think agriculture is here, medicine is there. No. The same criminal corporations gave us agrichemicals. They gave us bad medicine that creates more disease than it solves. So, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Poison — it's all one. And Bill Gates is holding it all together even more, and trying to make them bigger because he has investments in all of them … I think [seeds] is where we have to begin … I'm hoping that we will be able, together, to launch a global movement soon to take back our seeds from the international seed banks. The strategy is we need to remind the world that these are public institutions [and] that they're accountable to the farmers whose collections these [seeds] are … On the food question, I think that's the big one because food and health go [together]. In Ayurveda, it says food is the best medicine, and if you don't eat good food, then no medicine can cure whatever disease you have. The best medicine is good eating. And Hippocrates said 'Let food be thy medicine.' So, I think this is the time to really grow a very big global campaign for food freedom. Food freedom means you cannot destroy our right to grow food. Secondly, you cannot destroy our governments' obligations to us to support regenerative agriculture rather than support degenerative agriculture and subsidize it. And third, I think we should call for a worldwide boycott of lab foods … Another part of this should be, don't let big tech enter our bodies. Let big tech not enter life sciences … These guys will make life illegal. Living will be illegal except as a little piece in their machine through their permission." Each year, Navdanya holds a two-week campaign on food freedom starting October 2, which is nonviolence day. We now need to take that campaign to the global stage, and I will do my part to aid this effort. So, mark your calendar and prepare to join us in a global boycott of food that makes you sick — processed food, GMO foods, lab-created foods, fake meats, all of it. <h2>More Information</h2> You can learn more about Shiva's work and her many projects on <a href="https://navdanya.org/site/index.php" target="_blank">Navdanya.org</a>. During the first week of April every year, Navdanya gives a five-day course called <a href="https://navdanyainternational.org/calendar/annam-food-as-health/" target="_blank">Annam, Food as Health</a>, via Zoom. In this course, you'll learn about soil and plant biodiversity and healthy eating for optimal health. You can also learn more by reading the report "<a href="https://navdanya.org/site/eco-feminism/the-earth-rising,-women-rising" target="_blank">Earth Rising, Women Rising: Regenerating the Earth, Seeding the Future</a>," written by female farmers. And, again, mark your calendars and plan your participation in the food freedom campaign, starting October 2, 2021. "When all the spiritual forces, all of nature's forces and most of people's forces are aligned together, what can [a few] billionaires, technocrats — who want to be richer than they are, greedier than they are, more violent than they are — do?" Shiva says. "They don't count in the long run, really. It's just that we cannot afford to not do the things that we can do."</div> </div>

news noq Vandana Shiva on the taking down of Bill Gates’ empires

STORY AT-A-GLANCE Bill Gates is entering every field that has to do with sustaining life and, fo...

Biggest Volcano Explosion Yet Hits Tiny Caribbean Island

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Biggest Volcano Explosion Yet Hits Tiny Caribbean Island" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-04/kl8aiim_la-soufriere-volcano-caribbean-island-reuters_625x300_13_April_21.jpg" title="Biggest Volcano Explosion Yet Hits Tiny Caribbean Island" /></div>
Ash and smoke billow as La Soufriere volcano erupts in Kingstown on the eastern Caribbean island.
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Kingstown, Saint Vincent And The Grenadines:
Hot flows of ash, rock fragments and gas tore down the flanks of the La Soufriere volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Saint Vincent on Monday after its most powerful explosion yet, four days after it first started erupting.
La Soufriere erupted back into life on Friday after decades of inactivity, pumping dark clouds of ash some 10 km (6 miles) into the air and prompting an evacuation by sea and land of thousands of nearby residents.
No deaths have been reported so far but a roughly a third of the island is off limits and airspace remains closed while power and water supply is intermittent in some communities.
Several Vincentians told Reuters they were avoiding venturing outdoors as the ash was clogging the air and turning into what looked like cement in the rain, making it difficult to walk or drive.
"We are having a lot of ashfall, and it is hard to breathe sometimes," said Aria Scott, 19, a student living in the capital of Kingstown of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. "I'm not going outside because I don't want to take the risk."
Monday's explosion at around 4 a.m. local time was the most powerful to date, said Erouscilla Joseph, director at the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre, which warned the eruption could cause mudflows as ash was swept into rivers.
"We expect more explosions are possible in the next days to weeks," she said.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where just over 100,000 people live, had not experienced volcanic activity since 1979, when an eruption caused approximately $100 million in damages. The eruption of La Soufriere - which means "sulfur outlet" in French - in 1902 killed more than 1,000 people.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency said on Monday it estimated around 16,000-20,000 people would be displaced by volcanic activity, with 3,600 currently in shelters and others staying at the homes of relatives and friends.
Neighboring countries, have pledged aid. A navy ship from Venezuela arrived on Monday bringing 20 tonnes of supplies and over 12 trained emergency medical personnel, the government said.
Primary school teaching assistant Clea Westfield, 20, said her family was coping with the water supply outages because they had stocked up ahead of the eruption on Friday but were running low on food after panic buying emptied supermarket shelves over the weekend.
"I am just hoping that the explosions would ease down and get back to normalcy within the next month or so," she said. "When we do get back, there will be a lot of cleaning to do".
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world Biggest Volcano Explosion Yet Hits Tiny Caribbean Island

Ash and smoke billow as La Soufriere volcano erupts in Kingstown on the eastern Caribbean island. Kingstown, Saint Vincent And The Grena...

Watch: Mary Millben, US Singer Greets Indians, Recites Sanskrit Shlokas

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Hindu New Year 2021: Mary Milliben greets India ''Happy New Year'', sings Sankrit shlokas
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India is celebrating Gudi Padwa, Ugadi and a host of other auspicious New Years today. On the happy occasion, popular American singer, Mary Millben greeted the Indian communities across the globe, particularly in India, by reciting Sanskrit shlokas. According to the Hindu calendar, several I<a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/happy-baisakhi-2021-wishes-quotes-images-status-sms-messages-wallpapers-here-2412262" target="_self">ndian states ushered in the New Year on Tuesday</a>. Mary Milliben posted a wonderful video on Twitter and wrote: "Happy New Year to my beloved India, the Indian-American community, and Indian communities across the world. Today, I hope you are blessed with the new spirit of the new year. May this new year bring much joy and happiness."
Watch Mary Milliben singing sanskrit shlokas here:  
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Happy New Year to my beloved <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/India?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#India</a>, the Indian-American community, and Indian communities across the world. Today, I hope you are blessed with the new spirit of the new year. May this new year bring much joy and happiness. My greeting: <a href="https://t.co/lSQjSYw7re">https://t.co/lSQjSYw7re</a>.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HinduNewYear?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HinduNewYear</a> ????????????????
— Mary Millben (@MaryMillben) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryMillben/status/1381825046914592768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2021</a></blockquote>
Ms Millben, 39, after releasing the video on shlokas said, "After performing for Diwali 2020 last year, I wanted to learn more about the traditional festivals and religious observances in India. My relationship with the Indian culture and love for India has grown through my learning and study of Hindi," she said. 
Last November, Ms Milliben had sung the popular aarti song, ''Om Jai Jagdish Hare'', as her Diwali greetings to the Indian communities worldwide. The video was instantly popular with over a million views.
Thanking her Hindi teacher, Dr Moxraj, Ms Milliben said, "It has been enlightening to continue learning about the importance of Diwali, Holi, and especially today's celebration. A celebration of the new year on the Hindu calendar and the entrance of spring," she said.
"During today's chanting, I lifted prayers for India, communities across the world, and I will continue to pray for your safety," she said. "May the Almighty bring healing to our homes and our planet. I hope today, as you are gathered in your homes, you are blessed with the new spirit of the new year. May time with family, reflection, your favourite foods, and the energy of a new year bring you much joy and happiness," she added.
Mary Millben has performed for three consecutive US Presidents - George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
 
 
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news world Watch: Mary Millben, US Singer Greets Indians, Recites Sanskrit Shlokas

Hindu New Year 2021: Mary Milliben greets India ''Happy New Year'', sings Sankrit shlokas India is celebrating Gudi Padw...

World's 8 Richest Now Worth $1 Trillion, Added $110 Billion This Year

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In 2017, Amazon.com Inc.'s Jeff Bezos was the first to hit the $100 billion milestone.
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<h3>Highlights</h3>
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<li>In 2017, Jeff Bezos was the first to hit the $100 billion milestone</li>
<li>Tesla's Elon Musk, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg joined the club last year</li>
<li>World's 8 richest people together hold fortunes of more than $1 trillion</li>
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The rally in tech shares has taken the number of people with fortunes of more than $100 billion to eight.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin joined the exclusive club last week, entering a group dominated by U.S. tech entrepreneurs, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The world's eight richest people together hold fortunes of more than $1 trillion and have added $110 billion combined this year.
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In 2017, Amazon.com Inc.'s Jeff Bezos was the first to hit the $100 billion milestone since Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates back in 1999. Gates's wealth then slumped with the dot-com bubble burst, and he regained the title of centibillionaire only in 2019. Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk and Facebook Inc.'s Mark Zuckerberg joined the club last year as the tech industry led a boost in wealth creation with the coronavirus pandemic accelerating a switch to online.
Billionaires with wealth of at least $100 billion are mostly U.S.-based. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressive lawmakers recently revived plans to introduce a wealth tax, though the proposal is unlikely to go anywhere in a narrowly divided Congress.
"The U.S. economy is the world's most powerful engine of wealth creation and prosperity," John Lettieri, president and chief executive officer of Washington D.C.-based think tank Economic Innovation Group, told U.S. lawmakers March 17. "In spite of this, the lack of wealth at the bottom remains a troubling and persistent fact of life in this country."
U.S. shares climbed to a fresh record Friday on optimism over the economic recovery. The tech-focused Nasdaq 100 Index has risen more than 7% this year, with Google parent Alphabet Inc. rallying for the past two weeks as it won a copyright ruling. Page and Brin have added more than $20 billion each to their wealth this year, some of the biggest gains.
Warren Buffett briefly reached the $100 billion mark in March before hitting it again last week, while Bernard Arnault of France's luxury group LVMH has been part of the elite group on and off since 2019.
--With assistance from Ben Stupples.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world World's 8 Richest Now Worth $1 Trillion, Added $110 Billion This Year

In 2017, Amazon.com Inc.'s Jeff Bezos was the first to hit the $100 billion milestone. Highlights In 2017, Jeff Bezos was the fir...

Release Of Fukushima Water "Extremely Irresponsible": China

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Release Of Fukushima Water 'Extremely Irresponsible': China" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-04/joprlo8_fukushima-nuclear-plant-afp_625x300_13_April_21.jpg" title="Release Of Fukushima Water 'Extremely Irresponsible': China" /></div>
China said Japan's plan would be damaging to public health. (File)
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Beijing, China:
China on Tuesday hit out at Japan's plan to release more than one million tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean as "extremely irresponsible".
The Japanese government insists the release from the stricken plant which has stored the large volume of water for years is safe because it has been processed to remove almost all radioactive elements and will be diluted.
But the process -- not likely to begin for several years -- has already prompted concern from neighbouring countries and anger from fishing communities.
China said Japan's plan would be damaging to public health and complained Tokyo had decided to dispose of the nuclear waste water "without regard for domestic and foreign doubts and opposition."
"This approach is extremely irresponsible and will seriously damage international public health and safety and the vital interests of the people of neighbouring countries," the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.
Beijing said the ocean was the "common property of mankind" and the disposal of the nuclear waste water "is not just Japan's domestic issue."
"China will continue to closely follow the developments together with the international community and reserves the right to make further responses," the foreign ministry said.
Around 1.25 million tonnes of water has accumulated in tanks at the nuclear plant, which was crippled after going into meltdown following a tsunami in 2011.
Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that disposing of the water was an "inevitable task" in the decades-long process of decommissioning the nuclear plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has endorsed the release, which it says is similar to disposal of waste water at nuclear plants elsewhere in the world.
Relations between Japan and China have stuttered in recent months as Tokyo is courted by Washington as an ally t box-in the regional superpower in the Pacific.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world Release Of Fukushima Water "Extremely Irresponsible": China

China said Japan's plan would be damaging to public health. (File) Beijing, China: China on Tuesday hit out at Japan's plan to ...

George Floyd's Brother's Emotional Testimony In Ex-Cop's Murder Trial

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="George Floyd's Brother's Emotional Testimony In Ex-Cop's Murder Trial" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2020-06/vf11ennc_george-floyd-brother-philonise-floyd_625x300_17_June_20.jpg" title="George Floyd's Brother's Emotional Testimony In Ex-Cop's Murder Trial" /></div>
Philonise Floyd called to the stand as a "spark of life" witness to humanize George Floyd before a jury.
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Minneapolis:
Prosecutors in the Derek Chauvin murder trial will formally rest their case Tuesday after capping two weeks of intense and often excruciating testimony with an appearance Monday from George Floyd's younger brother, who tearfully recalled their childhood in poverty and his brother's anguish at their mother's death.
Philonise Floyd, 39, recounted growing up with George Floyd, whom he described as a father figure in a household where their single mother struggled to make ends meet. George Floyd made ensured that his younger siblings were dressed for school, were out the door on time and had eaten something - even though he "couldn't cook."
The Philonise Floyd, called to the stand as a "spark of life" witness to humanize George Floyd before a jury considering whether to punish the police officer charged with murder in his death, burst into tears when prosecutors displayed a photo of George Floyd and their mother.
Philonise Floyd said his brother was a "mama's boy" and had been devastated by her death. He told the jury that the last time he saw his brother alive was at her funeral in May 2018. Floyd, who had moved to Minnesota in 2017, did not make it back to Texas before her death. In a quiet, shaking voice, Philonise Floyd told the jury about seeing his brother crouched at her casket in grief.
"He just said, 'Mama, Mama,' over and over again," Philonise Floyd recalled, in an echo of his brother's final words as he was pinned last year on a Minneapolis street, with Chauvin's knee on his neck. "I didn't know what to tell him, because I was in pain, too. We all were hurting. And he was just kissing it, just kissing it. He didn't want to leave the casket."
Philonise Floyd was one of three dozen people who took the stand over two weeks to deliver testimony against Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on the Black man's neck for nearly nine and half minutes on May 25. Chauvin was subsequently fired and charged with murder.
Chauvin will formally begin his defense Tuesday; it could end as early as Thursday, said Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill. He said closing arguments are expected to take place April 19 - earlier than many involved in the case had predicted.
Eric Nelson, Chauvin's attorney, has not offered the full scope of his planned defense for the former officer, though he told the jury that he plans to bring in medical and use-of-force experts to dispute the prosecution's arguments that Chauvin's restraint of Floyd was excessive and a "substantial causal factor" in the man's death. He has not said whether Chauvin will testify in his own defense.
Observers have questioned whether Nelson can overcome the weeks of emotional testimony - including from witnesses at the scene who told of their fear and trauma from seeing Floyd slowly die under Chauvin's knee; from a litany of Minneapolis police officers including the chief, who spoke of how Chauvin violated department training and policy; and from medical experts who testified in graphic terms about how Floyd strained his wrists and fingers trying to grab for air.
But Nelson, who has argued that his client was following his training, needs just one juror to agree that there is reasonable doubt that Chauvin's actions contributed to Floyd's death.
On Monday, Cahill rejected Nelson's request to sequester the jury immediately. The request came a day after Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, igniting fresh protests and looting in parts of the city, including areas of South Minneapolis damaged in the unrest after Floyd's death last May.
Nelson, who previously had asked that the jury be sequestered because of widespread publicity about his client's case, renewed his request, citing concerns that jurors could be influenced in their deliberations by fears of what might happen in the city as a result of their verdict.
While Nelson acknowledged that the latest police killing had nothing to do with the Chauvin case, he described the cases as emotionally linked and pointed out that one of the seated jurors lives in the city where Wright was killed.
"The problem is that the emotional response that the case creates sets the stage for a jury to say, 'I'm not going to vote not guilty because I'm concerned about the outcome,' " Nelson argued. "This incident last night highlights, and I think brings it to the forefront of the jury's mind-set, that a verdict in this case is going to have consequences."
In addition to sequestration, Nelson pressed Cahill to question the jurors on what they had heard about the Wright shooting and whether it would affect their ability to be impartial toward Chauvin - moves that prosecutors vigorously opposed.
"Things continue to happen in the state despite the fact that we're all here in trial. That's just what happens. And we can't have every single world event that might affect somebody's attitude or emotional state . . . be the grounds to come back" and restart jury selection, prosecutor Steve Schleicher said.
Cahill said he understood the defense's concerns. "But I think sequestering them would only aggravate that," he said. The judge, who has ordered jurors to not watch the news, said those who did hear about the latest civil unrest could interpret being sequestered ahead of the verdict to mean there is a "greater threat to our security."
In addition to Philonise Floyd, prosecutors rounded out their case with two other witnesses: a Chicago cardiologist who testified that neither George Floyd's heart issues nor drug use contributed to his death, and a former police-officer-turned-law-professor who joined other experts in arguing that Floyd was no longer a threat to officers when he was handcuffed and face down on the ground.
Jonathan Rich, a cardiologist who practices at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, testified that Floyd died of low oxygen levels caused by the way he was restrained by police. He rejected defense theories that Floyd died of existing heart issues or a drug overdose. An autopsy found fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd's system.
Rich, who said he reviewed Floyd's medical records as well as autopsy results and video from the scene, said he found that Floyd had high blood pressure, suffered from anxiety and struggled with substance abuse. He agreed with other medical experts who said Floyd had partially clogged arteries, but said he had never been diagnosed with heart disease and in fact "had an exceptionally strong heart."
"Reviewing all of the facts and evidence of the case, I can state with a high degree of medical certainty that George Floyd did not die from a primary cardiac event, and he did not die from a drug overdose," Rich said, adding that it was "truly the prone restraint and positional restraints" that led to the asphyxiation that caused his death.
Rich testified that Floyd's death was "absolutely preventable." He and Seth Stoughton, a former Tallahassee, Fla., police officer who is now an associate professor at the University of South Carolina's law school, called the jury's attention to two crucial moments at the scene when Chauvin could have lifted his knees from Floyd's neck and back but chose not to.
In police body camera footage, which was played for the jury during Stoughton's testimony, Thomas Lane, the officer who was holding Floyd's legs, asked Chauvin whether they should roll the unconscious man over - a move that Chauvin resisted. A few minutes later, Alexander Kueng, the officer holding Floyd's back, told Chauvin that he could not find a pulse. "Huh," replied Chauvin, who did not remove his knee for several more minutes.
Rich argued that officers should have started lifesaving measures including CPR at that moment and suggested that they could have saved Floyd's life.
Under defense cross-examination, Nelson tried to shift blame to Floyd. He pressed Rich on whether Floyd would have survived "if he had simply gotten into the back seat of the squad car."
"Had he not been restrained in the way in which he was, I think he would have survived that day. I think he would have gone home or wherever he was going to go," Rich said.
"So, in other words, if he had gotten in the squad car, he'd be alive," Nelson replied.
The prosecution closed its case with testimony from Stoughton, a use-of-force expert who echoed others in the case in saying Chauvin used "deadly force" on Floyd.
Stoughton was called to testify in response to the "objectively reasonable" defense often invoked in police prosecutions. The defense stems from the Supreme Court's Graham v. Connor decision in 1989, which established that a police officer's actions must be judged against what another reasonable officer would do when facing the same scene.
Stoughton repeatedly argued that Chauvin had not behaved in a "reasonable" manner - including in the way he restrained Floyd and his decision not to render medical aid when the Black man appeared to be in "medical distress."
"Somebody who does not have a pulse does not present a threat in any way," Stoughton said.
Nelson challenged Stoughton's views, including the professor's belief that Chauvin and the other officers should have known that the prone position was dangerous.
"He did not present a threat to the officers or their interests. He did not present a threat of escape," Stoughton said. "Putting him in the prone position, especially on the street side of the car, was unreasonable and excessive and contrary to generally accepted police practices."
"Reasonable minds can disagree, agreed?" Nelson asked.
"On this particular point?" the professor replied. "No."
- - -
The Washington Post's Mark Berman contributed to this report.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
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news world George Floyd's Brother's Emotional Testimony In Ex-Cop's Murder Trial

Philonise Floyd called to the stand as a "spark of life" witness to humanize George Floyd before a jury. Minneapolis: Prosecu...