Tim Montgomerie of the Conservative Home website, recently blogged that his readers had voted 'David Cameron's veto of the EU Treaty' as the political event of 2011. "Proposals for a Europe-only financial transactions tax are a bullet aimed at the heart of London," said George Osborne in an article for the Evening Standard prior to the EU Council of Ministers meeting in December last year.
Two questions raised by this announcement, which were not answered by the British media, are: who is promoting the introduction of a financial transactions tax, and, for what purpose will any collected revenue be applied?
Reuters reported in December, 2009 that "the European Union increased pressure on the International Monetary Fund ... to consider a global tax on financial transactions to limit the risk of another economic crisis [and that] Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for consideration of such a tax ... saying the proceeds could be used to fund future financial bailouts".
Three months later Reuters reported that "French President Sarkozy repeated his support for a tax on financial transactions to support [Agenda 21] sustainable development, saying that ... new sources of funding would be needed for the $100 billion committed at the Copenhagen climate conference".
The World Health Assembly, May 2011.
It can now be revealed that The World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes. Among global taxes under consideration include:
- a "digital" or "bit" tax on Internet activity
- a financial transaction tax (including a currency transaction levy, taxing current account credits and debits)
- airline taxes that already exist in 13 countries
- sin taxes on tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods
These proposals came from a 25-member panel of medical experts, academics and health care bureaucrats, when it was presented to a meeting of WHO's 34-member Executive Board in Geneva.
The proposals were considered by the World Health Assembly, WHO's unelected chief legislative organ, at its meeting in May 2011. The purpose of these proposals appears to be the reorganisation of the world's medical research, development, production and distribution system-making the world's consumers and taxpayers pick up most of the multi billion-pound cost. Background Paper 13, World Health Report 2010 stresses that "the richer countries must channel more resources into the development of health systems in poorer countries".
The Taskforce on Innovative Financing for Health Systems, set up in September 2008, was chaired by the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown. This taskforce was also focusing on North-South resource transfers.
In effect it is the Health version of the UN sponsored climate-change deal that failed to win global approval in Copenhagen in December 2010.
The G20 Cannes Summit, November 2011.
On Thursday, 3 November, 2011, at the Cannes Summit there was a bilateral meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of the French Republic and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, entrusted by the French Presidency of the G20 to report on financing for development. Gates' report, entitled Innovation with Impact: Financing 21st Century Development, outlined the proposal of a tobacco tax, an idea promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and also suggested taxes on aviation and bunker fuels, which would serve the dual purpose of addressing environmental concerns about pollution and over-exploitation of natural resources, as well as generating substantial revenue. Finally, the report called outright on the G20 governments to commit to the Financial Transaction Tax. According to the report, even taxing financial transactions at the minimal scale of 0.001 percent would mobilise billions of dollars towards developing countries.
Bilderberg Conferences, 2010 & 2011.
Gates had attended the Bilderberg Conference in Stiges, Spain (3-6 June, 2010). Among the participants of the Bilderberg Conference held at St. Moritz, Switzerland (9-12, June, 2011) we discovered Thierry de Montbrial. De Montbrial is President of the French Institute for International Relations and President and founder of the World Policy Conference.
World Policy Conference, Vienna, 9, 10, 11 December, 2011.
This event, following on closely behind the EU Council of Ministers meeting, was unreported by the British Media.
According to their website the World Policy Conference is the "only large-scale international conference entirely devoted to the issue of global governance in all its aspects". It also tells us that "Globalisation has contributed to an increase in the number of non-state international stakeholders (companies, NGOs, think tanks etc). Good Governance should encourage their bottom-up initiatives for the Common Good and allow deeper cooperation among these stakeholders, states and international organisations ... The European Union deserves special attention as a laboratory for producing a new type of organised political entity, based on a contractual sharing of sovereignty among member states".
Attendees at their December 2011 Conference included current and former heads of state (among them Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Heinz Fischer, President of the Republic of Austria and Ireland's Mary Robinson), a slew of former foreign ministers (including Germany's Joschka Fischer, Russia's Igor Ivanov and France's Hubert Vedrine), and major business figures like Bruno Lafont, Chairman and CEO of Lafarge Group & Jacob A. Fenkel, Chairman of JP Morgan Chase International, former Governor of the Bank of Israel. Plenary sessions looked at topics ranging from Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Governance, Global Governance and its current state, Europe as a laboratory for Global Governance and the Future of the G20.
It has already been reported in the British Media that 'from 1 January 2012 there will be savage rises in Air Passenger Duty and new airline taxes imposed under the emissions trading scheme'. In addition, we have been told that despite Cameron's veto French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were moving towards the introduction of an EU wide Financial Transaction Tax. As usual the EU is solely blamed for introducing additional taxation burdens whilst we now know that the true culprits have been meeting behind closed doors elsewhere.
From what source springs the authority of unelected and unaccountable bodies, such as the Council of Ministers, Bilderbergers, the G20, and the World Health Assembly, to formulate and introduce global taxation without an express mandate from the global public?
The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this enquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?' - Lord Justice Leveson.
This article clearly evidences the failure of the media to fully report matters of 'significant public interest' whilst employing questionable methods to fill their pages with celebrity indiscretions and other 'tittle-tattle'. One essential ingredient missing from the British media is the honest reporting of facts. Will the Leveson Inquiry miss this key point altogether?
