09.04.11

Africans Insulted by Philanthrocapitalism

Posted in Africa, Bill Gates at 1:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Genuine African blogs explain that they wish not to be treated like they are desperate for American corporations and aristocrats to ‘save’ them

MAKING MONEY by pretending to help the poor is one of the specialities of the Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates is hijacking the voice of Africans to impose negative things on them. We’ve covered this in posts such as:

Here is an African voice explaining why this is wrong.

Society has a very one dimentional conversation about privilege.
Looking at me from an American perspective, it would be easy to assume that I hold no privilege.
I’m Black, a woman, from the third world. All these things are true and indeed if you were to base your evaluation of me on popular media images of Africans and particularly African women, I’m a miserable creature indeed.
However, if you take seriously Chimamanda Achidie’s call for a balance of stories you might take a different perspective of me.
As an educated, professor of Politics at an American university, I do wield considerable class, educational and other privileges relative to the rest of the world’s population.
You see, the problem is that society as a whole tends to have very narrow views of privilege.
This narrow view of privilege pervades philanthropy as well.

Gates Keppers found this article about rich Americans who treat Africa like it’s some kind of a zoo. They are posing for the camera to boast about superiority and alleged generosity. Africans are not stupid and they can see what’s wrong with it. As Gates Keppers points out, Bill Gates is sponsoring this, too:

Water First International
Date: November 2010
Purpose: for general operating support
Amount: $2,500
Term: 1 month
Topic: Advocacy & Public Policy
Region Served: Global, North America
Program: Foundation
Grantee Location: Seattle, Washington
Grantee Web site: Not available

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2010/Pages/Water-First-International-OPP1029939.aspx

“Advocacy & Public Policy” means lobbying and PR. We have already explained this before. How low can one sink? Even the press in African is bought by Gates. Monsanto et al. approve. █

Permalink Leave Your Comment Mail Send this to a friend

08.28.11

Mo Ibrahim to Bill Gates et al.: “We Are Not Sick People.”

Posted in Africa, Bill Gates, Patents at 9:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Shoeshiners

Summary: Antagonism towards Gates’ staged care for the poor and resistance against his push to make impoverished populations dependent on expensive drugs he Mo Ibrahim in and lobbies for

THE CORPORATE press might not be paying attention to the reality of whitewashing/reputation laundering operations, but some people do cover the issue. They don’t play along with public relations (PR). One valuable new quote goes like this: ‘Speaking to the efforts of the Bill Gateses and the Bonos of the world, Ibrahim says, “We thank all the philanthropic [institutions], the wonderful people who are helping the needy in Africa. But the job in our foundation is to really stop all that by changing the political outlook of Africa, changing the way we’re managing our affairs. There’s no need for us to beg for money.” He adds, “I don’t want Africa to forever be the recipient of aid. Aid is also humiliating for the recipient. And it touches a human indignity. Why? We are able-bodied people. We are not sick people.”’

“Aid is also humiliating for the recipient. And it touches a human indignity.”
–Mo Ibrahim It’s actually worse than that. Gates is exploiting the perception that they are sick to impose clinical trials on them, at the behest of people whom he employed (e.g. from GSK) and companies he invests his money in. Any clinical trials on Africans have lower risk of litigation when things go awry, as they often do (but again, this is barely being reported on because it happens remotely). This is helping everyone spend money on drugs, creating an addiction/dependence on those expensive drugs. One magazine has just had this to say (also about Africa): ‘To learn to live with it calls for an entirely different solution. Eradication calls for a laboratory-based strategy. You look for isolated human communities, like islands with small populations and invest all your resources in it – which is what the Gates Foundation and WHO did. But living with malaria requires you to spend your monies in communities with large, representative populations.

‘The Gates Foundation and WHO money was spent mostly on small islands. A WHO expert called it ‘a public health disaster’. The moral of the story is that diagnosis is more important than prescription. Research is diagnosis.”‘

Techrights has written a lot more and provided more evidence to show the sad reality of the ‘donation’ of medicine (temporary access to patents valid in another country). More journalists need to do their job and actually report on these issues properly; they are being marginalised by Gates’ ‘donations’ (bribes) to many publishers. He spends over $1,000,000 per day on “advocacy” (PR alone). █

Permalink Leave Your Comment Mail Send this to a friend

07.20.11

Microsoft Contracts Run Out as National Budgets Run Dry

Posted in Africa, Microsoft at 11:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Deficit and debt lead to cuts in the public sector, which in turn puts Microsoft out of the acceptable price range

SOME MONTHS ago we wrote about the South African dilemma and Microsoft's fight against Free software in that nation. While the budget was there, it was possible for cronies to defend Microsoft contracts, but what happens amid depression or at least a recession?

Recently we learned that the NHS is having problems signing the outrageous UK-wide deals with Microsoft. As the economy weakens in the West, it becomes harder for governments to justify just blindly renewing Microsoft deals. We are going to see more of that in years to come because national debts keep growing along with unemployment and there is public pressure to cut expenses at the federal level. Coming from the South African press we have this interesting new article titled “Govt to ditch Microsoft?” It says:

“Microsoft wants money from us all of a sudden and we don’t have the budget for it,” says Rayner.

He adds that a national contract was signed in 2002 as a two-year deal for the SA Software Donation Programme. “I was part of the negotiating committee at the time. As far as I was aware at the time, perpetuity applied.”

The contract was signed for two years and then extended twice for three-year periods and eventually expired in June 2010.

“Then Microsoft announced its intention to charge us for what they’ve been giving us for free all this time. They’re now demanding a subscription fee.”

Anti-competitive donation?

However, education lead at Microsoft SA Reza Bardien says Microsoft is surprised at this reaction since the six-year extension on the deal was given to allow the department to budget for the monetised structure.

“Moving from a free to a monetised agreement requires time on the part of the Department of Education so they can budget and this is why the extension was given. A two-year software agreement grew to an eight-year one and so we’re surprised at this take.”
Click here

He adds that it was agreed after the second three-year extension that the deal would then definitely come to an end. “We were explicit that it would definitely end in June 2010.”

“It is important for Microsoft to move the department to a paying model, as per original intent, as we run the risk of being deemed as behaving in an anti-competitive manner by offering free software,” says the company.

It is only a matter of time before/until the public sector widely adopts Free software (at all levels, not just operating systems) and Brazil provides an example in the sense that it’s a large nation that values libre, not just libra (gold), Microsoft has been busy trying to make Free/libre software expensive, first using copyrights e.g. (the SCO case, which still refuses to go away based on PJ’s update) and then software patents — a subject that Techrights tackles as a matter of high priority. The next few posts will be dedicated to this subject. █

Permalink A Single Comment Mail Send this to a friend

01.14.11

ES: Fundación Gates No Es Africana, Sino que Habla y Decide por África

Posted in Africa, Bill Gates at 3:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: África se debate en harapos de Rupert Murdoch, en donde se ruega a la población africana a arrodillarse delante de Bill y aceptar sus planes para el continente.

Hace unos días hemos demostrado que la Fundación Gates sigue comprando los medios de comunicación en África [http://techrights.org/2011/01/11/africa-bill-gates-pr/]. El “tío rico de América” síndrome significa que ellos “saben” lo que es mejor para otras personas e insistir en el uso de dinero para promover el plan que ellos consideran “mejor”. Vea los enlaces en la parte inferior para el fondo adicional.

Con el fin de distanciarse – por lo menos algo – desde el proceso de toma de decisiones, la Fundación Gates crea todo tipo de organizaciones como AGRA [http://techrights.org/2011/01/10/monsanto-gmo-and-agra/], que la última vez cubiertos hace unos días. Decir que algunos de shell llamado “AGRA” gestiona la agricultura africana es simplemente suena mejor que decir que Bill Gates gestiona la agricultura en África (para el beneficio de las empresas Gates respaldado como Monsanto).

Techrights está preocupado porque esta estrategia es engañosa, pero también porque Gates compró los medios de comunicación que podría exponer el error y llevarlo a la atención de más personas (en cambio, se alimenta con cuchara de relaciones públicas de Gates). En el post de hoy añadimos a nuestro registro de algunos de los últimos artículos sobre el tema, acumulados gradualmente desde finales de octubre.

“Es un tipo de lenguaje orwelliano, porque Gates se relaciona con BREAD en el sentido de los monopolios intelectuales.”La Fundación Gates tiene este programa que se llama BREAD [http://www.keionline.org/node/1049] (pan), que cubrimos aquí antes. Es una especie de lenguaje orwelliano, porque Gates se relaciona con BREAD en el sentido de los monopolios intelectuales. Este último título es La indicación de esta manera muy explícita: “NSF, las políticas de la Fundación Gates sobre el intercambio de datos y propiedad intelectual de productos agrícolas básicos del programa de becas de investigación (BREAD)”

¿Acaso monopolios intelectuales pertenecen aquí? A los países no productores que se duermen en sus laureles les encanta usar los monopolios intelectuales con el fin de mantener a África en la Edad Media y, con un éxito muy limitado, obstaculizar la revolución china. China ha ganado mucha influencia sobre el Occidente en los últimos años y podemos dar algunas noticias sobre el tema en busca de ayer y en el de esta semana los documentos que dicen:

* Las Reservas de Cambio de China Golpearón un Nivel Récord [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107043.html?wprss=rss_business/economy]

El asunto es el desequilibrio en su relación financiera. banco central de China dijo el martes que Pekín las tenencias de efectivo y valores extranjeros ascienden a $ 2850000000000 – un salto de 20 por ciento respecto al año anterior – pese a las promesas de China para tratar de equilibrar sus relaciones comerciales y de inversión con los Estados Unidos y otros países.

* Banco Chino Lanza Servicio de Yuanes en Nueva York [http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_PROMOTING_THE_YUAN?SITE=CAANG&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT]

Un banco estatal china dice que su rama de la Ciudad de Nueva York ha comenzado a ofrecer cuentas denominadas en yuanes estrechamente controlada por China en un nuevo movimiento para expandir el alcance global de su moneda.

China también ha comenzado la explotación de África, pero eso es otro tema. Vamos a cubrir este poco cuando se habla de los efectos de las patentes en China.

Si hay un punto que es importante hacer entender aquí, es siempre comprobar lo que los organismos que se llaman nombres como el BREAD (pan), AGRA, o GAVI realmente hacen, los que las fundaron, y lo que los financia les dicen que hacer. Ahí se encuentran muchas respuestas. Ahora que Gates está pagando millones de dólares a ALLÁfrica (sitio de noticias más importante en todo el continente), no busquen respuestas en la prensa corporativa. La cobardía y la autocensura son parte del patrocinio.

Ground Report conocido como otra fuente importante, publicó un interesante comentario [http://www.groundreport.com/Politics/Bill-Gates-or-Matt-Ridley-whose-idea-is-right-for-_1/2931894] acerca de dos personas de raza blanca discutiendo sobre lo que es más bueno para África en la plataforma de Rupert Murdoch. Sí, están haciendo caso omiso de los africanos y cualquier periodista decente puede ver inmediatamente esto. Como Gates Keepers dijo, “¿Dónde estaban los africanos cuando Bill Gates y Matt Ridley estaban discutiendo? [http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2010/12/16/4705008.html]”

Aquí es una pieza bien pensada de un africano preguntandose donde se encontraban los africanos en el debate de Gates/Ridley haciendo algunos puntos importantes. Tal vez un interno de Bill, el que escribió su obra era africano.

Gates Keepers afirma que un interno tiene que haber compuesto el artículo de Bill en este debate patrocinado por Murdoch sobre África [1 [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704648604575621122887824544.html], 2[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630761699028330.html]]. Cherish este hermoso ejemplo donde los africanos son tratados como un niños pequeños y los occidentales blancos compran a las mismas personas a quienes explotan, jugando softbol en la ‘prensa’ de Murdoch (un millonario que ayuda a otro, es la regla implícita). También existe la condición para la propaganda de CNN [http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/17/gates.millennium.goals/], pero no es tan clásico como la prensa de Murdoch.

Aquí hay más de la ‘prensa’ de Murdoch Gideon Rachman se reunió con Bill Gates y Gates Keepers afirma que “Bill Gates trata de pagar Gideon Rachman al igual que cualquier otro periodista [http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2010/11/8/4674605.html]” (en relación con otra pieza del puff [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/67672314-e2e0-11df-9735-00144feabdc0.html#axzz14Sb8XjdH]):

Gates Keeper se echó a reír cuando Bill Gates trató de invitar a un periodista a almorzar. ¿No sabe mejor? Un periodista paga por sus propios almuerzos. De esa manera no se puede comprarlo por el precio de una hamburguesa. Tal vez la financiación de la Fundación Gates de los periodistas esta escrito en un gran almuerzo.

Por último, las tajantes observaciones de Gideon Rachman de el estilo del discurso de Bill son brillantes. Uno tiene la impresión de que el almuerzo dio acidez a Rachman.

La misma persona que escribió más tarde sobre el “último grito [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bf69a220-ed27-11df-8cc9-00144feab49a.html#axzz15GwPocRX]“, que algunos llaman “segundo imperio de Bill Gates [http://www.smartcompany.com.au/wealth/20101122-bills-gates.html]” (reflejado en [1 [http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/11/25/bill-gates-charity-philanthropy-second-empire/], 2 [http://www.mobile-financial.com/node/13141/Bill-Gates%E2%80%99-second-empire]]). Ningún imperio ha logrado extenderse a muchos continentes y Rachman llama internacionalismo (“globalización” sin la connotación negativa). Para citar a:

Una vez dentro de los portales de la Fundación Gates se siente como un cruce entre una agencia de las Naciones Unidas y un “start up” de alta tecnología. Al cierto estilo de Silicon Valley, nadie lleva una corbata y el personal es alegremente multinacional. Sin embargo, en lugar de ser expertos en computadoras, la gente de la fundación son más propensos a ser médicos, o expertos en tecnología de semillas – y que trabajó por última vez en el gobierno, o la investigación agrícola, o de un hospital universitario, en lugar de en el mundo corporativo.

El material de promoción y presentaciones de PowerPoint se muestran a los visitantes que toda la profesionalidad brillante de un gráfico de ventas para un producto de Microsoft. Pero aquí los gráficos normalmente ilustrar el progreso de la fundación en la reducción de la mortalidad infantil en todo el mundo, en lugar del éxito en la migración a la última versión de Microsoft Office.

[...]

En ese sentido, la fundación se está comportando como un negocio, en busca de nichos descuidados en el mercado. Pero, quizás por encima de todo, la Fundación Gates refleja al fundador de la energía intelectual inquieto – y su determinación de llevar su visión optimista de la unidad, y el talento para la tecnología que creó Microsoft en áreas completamente nuevas.

[...]

Es un momento problemático para los EE.UU. y el mundo occidental, es difícil salir de las oficinas de la Fundación Gates, sin sentirse un poco más positivo. Es un ejemplo muy al oeste de la costa mezcla de optimismo sobre el futuro, el internacionalismo, y la creencia en el progreso tecnológico.

Sin embargo, deje Seattle preguntándome si la fundación también representa un último hurra por un mundo que ahora está pasando. En el viejo mundo, las ideas, dinero y conocimiento fluia del mundo occidental al mundo en desarrollo. Durante las próximas décadas, como Bill Gates, felizmente reconocería, gran parte del dinamismo es probable que venga desde el otro lado del Océano Pacífico.

El “último hurra por un mundo que está ahora pasando”, ¿eh? hurra ¿De quién es? Vamos a cerrar con esta pregunta retórica y con una cita de China. █

“Gates ha creado una gigantesca operación de compra de sangre que sólo se preocupa por el dinero, y no de las personas.”

-SIDA-gerente de organización [http://techrights.org/2009/12/04/needle-business-china/]

Many thanks to Eduardo Landaveri of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

Permalink Leave Your Comment Mail Send this to a friend

01.13.11

Gates Foundation is Not African But Speaks and Decides for Africa

Posted in Africa, Bill Gates at 4:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Africa is debated in Rupert Murdoch’s rags, wherein the African population is kindly asked to kneel for Bill and accept his plans for the continent

A FEW days ago we showed that the Gates Foundation continues to buy the media in Africa (there is also a translation into Spanish). The “rich uncle from America” syndrome means that they “know” what’s best for other people and insist on using money to promote the plan which they consider to be “best”. See the links at the very bottom for additional background.

In order to distance itself — at least somewhat — from the decision-making process, the Gates Foundation creates all sorts of organisations such as AGRA, which we last covered some days ago. To say that some shell called “AGRA” manages African’s agriculture would simply sound better than saying that Bill Gates manages African’s agriculture (for the benefit of Gates-backed companies like Monsanto).

Techrights is troubled not just because this strategy is deceitful but also because Gates bought the media which could potentially expose the blunder and bring it to more people’s attention (instead, it spoon-feeds Gates’ PR). In today’s post we add to our record some of the latest articles on the subject, accumulated gradually since late October.

“It’s an Orwellian sort of language because Gates relates to BREAD in the intellectual monopolies sense.”The Gates Foundation has this programme called BREAD, which we covered here before. It’s an Orwellian sort of language because Gates relates to BREAD in the intellectual monopolies sense. This latest headline is stating this quite explicitly: “NSF, Gates Foundation policies on sharing data and intellectual property in agricultural basic research grant program (BREAD)”

Do intellectual monopolies belong here at all? Non-producing countries that rest on their laurels love to use intellectual monopolies in order to keep Africa in the dark ages and, with very limited success, hinder the Chinese revolution. China has gained a lot of leverage over the West in recent years and we can give some news on the subject by looking at yesterday’s/this week’s papers which say:

China’s exchange reserves hit record level

At issue is the imbalance in their financial relationship. China’s central bank said Tuesday that Beijing’s holdings of foreign cash and securities amount to $2.85 trillion – a jump of 20 percent over the year before – despite Chinese promises to try to balance its trade and investment relations with the United States and other countries.
Chinese bank launches yuan service in New York

A state-owned Chinese bank says its New York City branch has begun offering accounts denominated in China’s tightly controlled yuan in a new move to expand the currency’s global reach.

China too has begun exploiting Africa, but that’s another subject. We’ll cover this shortly when discussing the purpose of Chinese patents.

If there is a point which is important to get across here, always check what bodies that are called names like BREAD, AGRA, or GAVI actually do, who founded them, and who funds them. Therein lie many answers. Now that Gates is paying millions of dollars to All Africa (major news site), do not look at the corporate press for answers. Cowardice and self-censorship are part of the sponsorship.

Ground Report is known as another leading source and it published interesting commentary about two white people arguing over what’s good for Africa over at Rupert Murdoch’s platform. Yes, they are ignoring Africans and any decent reporter can immediately see this. As Gates Keepers put it, “Where were the Africans when Bill Gates and Matt Ridley were arguing?”

Here is a well thought-out piece from an African wondering where the Africans were in the Gates/Ridley debate and making some important points. Maybe Bill’s intern who wrote his piece was African.

Gates Keepers alleges that an intern must have composed Bill’s article in this Murdoch-hosted debate about Africa [1, 2]. Cherish this beautiful example where Africans get treated like a toddlers and white Westerners patronise the very same people whom they exploit, playing softball in Murdoch’s ‘press’ (one billionaire helping another, as the implicit rule goes). There is also the obligatory CNN propaganda, but it’s not as classic as the one over at Murdoch’s.

Here is more of Murdoch’s ‘press’: Gideon Rachman met Bill Gates and Gates Keepers claims that “Bill Gates tries to pay off Gideon Rachman just like any other journalist” (regarding another puff piece):

Gates Keepers laughed when Bill tried to treat a journalist to lunch. Doesn’t he know any better? Journalist pay for their own lunches. That way they cannot be bought for the price of a burger. Maybe the Gates Foundation funding of journalists is just lunch writ large.

Finally, Gideon Rachman’s trenchant observations on Bill’s style of discourse are brilliant. One gets the impression that the lunch gave Rachman heartburn.

The same person later wrote about the “last hurrah”, which some call “Bill Gates’ second empire” (mirrored in [1, 2]). No empire has managed to spread to so many continents and Rachman calls it internationalism (“globalisation” without the negative connotation). To quote:

Once inside the portals, the Gates Foundation feels like a cross between a United Nations agency and a high-tech start up. In true Silicon Valley style, nobody ever wears a tie and the staff is cheerily multinational. Yet rather than being computer geeks, the foundation’s people are more likely to be medics, or experts on seed technology – and to have last worked in government, or agricultural research, or a teaching hospital, rather than in the corporate world.

The promotional material and PowerPoint presentations shown to visitors have all the bright professionalism of a sales graph for a Microsoft product. But here the graphs will typically illustrate the foundation’s progress in reducing infant mortality around the world rather than success in shifting the latest version of Microsoft Office.

[...]

In that sense, the foundation is behaving like a business, looking for neglected niches in the market. But, perhaps above all, the Gates Foundation reflects the founder’s restless intellectual energy – and his determination to bring the optimistic vision, drive and flair for technology that created Microsoft into entirely new areas.

[...]

At a troubled time for the US and the western world, it is difficult to leave the Gates Foundation’s offices without feeling a little more positive. It exemplifies a very west-coast blend of optimism about the future, internationalism, and belief in technological progress.

Yet I left Seattle wondering whether the foundation also represents a last hurrah for a world that is now passing. In the old world, ideas, money and expertise flowed from the western world into the developing world. Over the next decades, as Bill Gates himself would happily acknowledge, much of the dynamism is likely to come from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

The “last hurrah for a world that is now passing,” eh? Whose hurrah is it? We’ll close with this rhetorical question and a quote from China. █

“Gates has created a huge blood-buying operation that only cares about money, not about people.”

–AIDS organisation manager, December 2009

01.10.11

Bill Gates Pays Millions to AllAfrica (“Largest Electronic Distributor of African News and Information Worldwide”) to Push His Agenda

Posted in Africa, Bill Gates, Deception, Patents at 10:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Gates Foundation poisons the little press that exists in Africa using another cash injection which tilts coverage and yields self-censorship

THIS MORNING we wrote about Gates' use of AGRA, which he contributed to creating in order to advance his investments in Africa (seeds with patents, expanding a monopoly to more continents). On previous occasions about a year ago we also showed that Bill Gates had paid a lot of money for African journalists to cover his work the way he likes it. The veil of “training” was used and James Love mentioned this rather recently, in a very comprehensive summary of his.

We are saddened to find that Mr. Gates just cannot let journalists do their work independently. Using his tax-exempt bank account (Gates Foundation) he targets a very major channel of communication in Africa:

A $2.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will enable AllAfrica to move from periodic to consistent coverage of development issues and to increase institutional capacity to support future projects.

To African journalists that is a lot of money. Just how much coverage will that pay for? Will AllAfrica risk this funnelling of money (at present or future) by criticising/challenging/questioning AGRA, Gates, or Monsanto? Will there be self-censorship? Gates worship? Our readers are smart enough to decide, but what about those who will read AllAfrica without knowing that Gates pays it millions of dollars? Techrights is extremely concerned about this and so should everyone in Africa (many are unaware of the situation and therefore trust the media, unlike in Russia for example).

A journalist whose work we admire has has highlighted the problem in his article titled “Gates Foundation partners with African media group AllAfrica.com“, starting with:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has entered into another media partnership, this time with AllAfrica.com, to enhance international and African coverage of global health and development issues.

AllAfrica.com describes itself as the “largest electronic distributor of African news and information worldwide,” a multi-media content service provider, systems technology developer and a mega-aggregator of news publishing an average of 1,000 stories a day.

Gates Keepers explains that “The Gates Foundation buys a part of AllAfrica dot com“. As we explained some days ago (also in Spanish), Gates need only pay the journalists who cover areas which affect his business, so it is an affordable injection of bias.

Here they go again. The Gates Foundation funds AllAfrica dot com. Now this African media giant will not criticise the Foundation.

Is there an African organisation that can take on an ‘AllAfricaWatch’ watchdog role by counting AllAfrica stories praising the Gates Foundation and the stories criticising it?

When you control the channels of communication/information, you control people’s minds. Does Gates control yours? █

“In the fall of 1982, Pam Edstrom [of Waggener Edstrom], a diminutive woman with piercing blue eyes, was recruited by Microsoft. [...] In modern-day business, flacks were responsible not only for avoiding bad press, but for spinning the good. [...] Hanson and Edstrom would spin a whole new image for Gates himself. They would tap the best and worst of Chairman Bill, changing his clothes, his voice, and his allegiances, driving him to become not just the boss, but, essentially, the company mascot—a sort of high-technology Colonel Sanders.” –Pam Edstrom’s daughter

Permalink Leave Your Comment Mail Send this to a friend

12.29.10

Inkululeko Technologies — Once Funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation — Has Gone Rogue

Posted in Africa, Free/Libre Software, Ubuntu, Vista, Windows at 5:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Sangari sells antagonism to freedom, delivering to schools exactly the opposite of what Mark Shuttleworth had in mind when he supported Inkululeko Technologies, which now redirects to Sangari

“I found something fishy,” wrote to us a person who goes by the name SA dude, “Inkululeko Technologies, a company in South Africa that originated from the Shuttleworth tuxLabs linux-schools project’s site now redirects to a Sangari Worldwide website, a seller of closed source education software such as “how to use windows vista”" (we have looked at the sites to verify these claims).

Earlier in the year we transcribed a South African podcast where Microsoft’s dirty tricks in this nation were revisited and explained. We have already done a lot to show how Microsoft derailed GNU/Linux migrations in South African schools. To give some more links of relevance:

For background about the tuXlab project:

The tuXlab project was initiated by the Shuttleworth Foundation in 2002 aiming to open up new opportunities and to encourage sharing of information and resources in the education sector. Between 2004 and 2006, after the success of the pilot, tuXlabs were rolled out to more than a 100 Western Cape schools.

The Foundation encourages successful pilot projects to become self-sustainable and leave the Foundation stable. The tuXlab programme was identified as one such project. Inkululeko Technologies was formed in June 2006 and the tuXlab team moved to this new entity. Inkululeko became responsible for the day-to-day operational management of the tuXlab programme, including the sustainability of the tuXlab programme as a model. The Foundation exited from its direct involvement in the tuXlab programme at this point. Against this background the Shuttleworth Foundation commissioned a report on the state of tuXlabs.

Just look what happened after intervention from proprietary giants that want to indoctrinate children at taxpayers’ expense, with schoolteachers as their training staff whom they need not pay for. What an appalling sight. █

Permalink Leave Your Comment Mail Send this to a friend

12.20.10

Wikileaks/Cablegate Sheds Bad Light on Bill Gates’ Rogue Patent Investments

Posted in Africa, America, Bill Gates, Patents at 1:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Pfizer’s impact on the Nigerian population serves to show that Bill Gates’ actions in the country can be counter productive and beneficial to large American business

A FEW months ago we wrote about Pfizer's connections with the Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is a shareholder and his investment in experiments performed on Nigerian people can result in massive profits, which rely on Pfizer patents and medication that can be tested on a population that would not sue back when things go awry^*. This victimisation of Nigeria is a subject we more recently covered in various posts but did not have time to continue covering in recent weeks. Fortunately enough, with Wikileaks’ help Democracy Now is currently covering what it titled “WikiLeaks Cables: Pfizer Targeted Nigerian Attorney General to Undermine Suit over Fatal Drug Tests”

“The Gates Foundation is about control, not charity.”“Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general to pressure him to drop a $6 billion lawsuit over fraudulent drug tests on Nigerian children,” says the summary. Democracy Now helped explain how Gates increases polio in Nigeria, too. That was a few years back.

It’s not just Nigeria which gets this type of treatment. The Gates Foundation is about control, not charity. Dr. Ravitch, for example, has warned [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] that Bill Gates uses it as a vehicle to take over American schools and Alternet.org, which is not ‘for sale’, slags him off for it right now, summarising its article as follows:

Gates’ suggested short-changing of the nation’s education system is just another strain of the oligarchs trying to take over another sector of society.

The above refers to the United States, but Gates took this agenda to Canada too. That was some months ago. It’s all about power, it’s a question of control. It goes global, gradually. Real issues like safety for example are being ignored.

Last week the Ontario Auditor General released its report with respect to the Ontario Governments “Safe Schools initiatives”. The overall report centers on the lack of information relating to the success of programs implemented in the Safe Schools initiatives, and lack of accountability with respect to where the money the province allocated to these programs went when school boards got their hands on it.

It’s a shame that we no longer cover Gates Foundation news. Hopefully we will return to showing what Bill Gates does not want people to know, maybe some time this month (he spends about a million dollars per day just controlling the press and glorifying himself, quite effectively in fact). How about paying tax like ‘normal’ people? █

“My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. […] However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates and Buffet remain the same. […] The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes.”

The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game

___
^* We wrote about pharmaceutical fallacies in 2009 (in the context of patent debates).

Permalink 2 Comments Mail Send this to a friend