Posts Tagged ‘multinational’
The French telecommunication multinational Orange joined the battle front with Israeli units bombing Gaza people
Posted on: April 13, 2015
The French telecommunication multinational Orange joined the battle front with Israeli units bombing Gaza people
Orange, previously France Telecom, with its Israeli subsidiary Partner Communications Ltd, has been directly aiding Israeli military units for a decade now.
Orange participated in providing all the necessary advanced telecommunication equipment and subsidising Israeli soldiers under the adoption project “Ametz Lohem” for the tank division EZUZ since 2005 and the division for Shachar since 2008.
During Israel savage preemptive war on Gaza in the summer of 2014, Orange was on the battle front, particularly with the tank division Ezuz and commanded by Aryeh Berger, and provided all the facilities and communication batteries needed to resume the bombing of Gaza for an entire month. Free of charge.
Israel dropped what amounted to an atomic bomb during these 51 days of horror and total genocide tactics. Tanks were ordered to cross over gardens, cultivated lands and houses as training learning sessions.
Orange is an important mobile and internet supplier in Europe, Africa, the Middle-East, including Jordan and Egypt (Mobinil)
If the International Penal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity is serious in investigating and prosecuting the calamities in Gaza, all it has to do is subpoena Orange for all the direct videos and communication that were taken during the war.
The Israeli affiliate of Orange, the French multinational telecom company, provided direct material support to Israeli soldiers who participated in the deadly assault on Gaza last summer.
The firm has also sponsored two Israeli military units for several years, evidence of its deep complicity in Israeli military occupation and human rights abuses.
One of these units, the “Ezuz” tank company, took part in last summer’s attack on Gaza and was active in specific locations where hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed.
Orange, previously known as France Telecom, is a major provider of mobile phone, land line and Internet services in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, including in Jordan and Egypt (through its subsidiary Mobinil). In the UK, Orange operates as part of a joint venture called EE, and in Belgium it owns a big stake of Mobistar.
In Israel, Orange makes its profits by licensing its brand to an independently owned Israeli company called Partner Communications Ltd. and selling equipment and other services to it.
Helping the attack on Gaza
Israeli warplanes and artillery dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb on Gaza during 51 days last July and August, killing more than 2,200 Palestinians, among them more than 500 children, and destroying vast areas.
According to Amnesty International, Israeli forces operated with “callous indifference to the carnage caused” by their attacks.
Entire families were wiped out as Israeli forces systematically and deliberately targeted civilian homes.
Throughout this horror, which Israel dubbed “Operation Protective Edge,” Orange was on the front lines providing material support and boosting the morale of those carrying out the assault.
Orange waived service fees for soldiers “located in the area around Gaza” during the attack, Israel Hayom reported.
Every day during the assault, Orange sent “three mobile units to the soldiers’ gathering spots around Gaza,” the website Frumline reported in a 22 July 2014 article headlined “Orange in action on the border due to Operation Protective Edge.”
“The mobile units are equipped with generators, chargers for all types of devices, hundreds of fully charged batteries, and cellular devices, to allow soldiers to be in contact with their homes,” Frumline stated.
In Gaza, Palestinians who survived the assault have told of Israeli soldiers executing their relatives in cold blood.
Meanwhile in Israel, dozens of Orange employees fanned out across the country, visiting Israeli soldiers “and distributing tablet computers, to make their time in the hospital more pleasant.”
“Adopt a soldier”
Orange’s support for the Israeli military long predates last summer’s attack on Gaza.
“Our ongoing association with the soldier population began with the establishment of the Adopt A Soldier project by the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers,” Orange says on the “corporate responsibility” page of its Israel website.
As part of this project, the company has “adopted” two units: the “Ezuz” armored company, since 2005 and, since 2008, the “Shachar” search and rescue unit.
Dozens of firms, the vast majority Israeli, take part in the Adopt A Soldier project – “Ametz Lohem” in Hebrew. Among the more well-known internationally are the Israeli airline El Al and Strauss, the maker of Sabra brand hummus.
The participation of a multinational like Orange stands out – the only other readily recognizable international firm is the business services company Ernst & Young, which sponsors a drone unit.
According to the Orange website, the “adoption” consists of “joint activities of the soldiers with employees of the company, such as: sports, use of company facilities for training and conferences, support for lone soldiers, accompanying discharged soldiers on their pathway to civilian life and financing battalion-wide entertainment activities: hikes, athletics days, awards ceremonies for outstanding soldiers, and more.”
Ezuz in the attack on Gaza
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An article in Shiryon (Armor) glorifies the role of the Orange-sponsored “Ezuz” armored brigade in the summer 2014 assault on Gaza.
An article in the November 2014 edition of the Israeli military magazine Shiryon (Hebrew for “Armor”) reveals that the Ezuz unit directly participated in the attack on Gaza and was present at times and places where hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of homes destroyed.
Unit commander Lt. Colonel Aryeh Berger tells Shiryon that Ezuz was part of a force that invaded Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. There, he says that his men “attacked homes of Hamas activists” and “purified” buildings.
Human Rights Watch condemned Israel’s deliberate targeting of homes, merely under the pretext that they allegedly belonged to the families of persons associated with Hamas or other armed resistance organizations, as “unlawful.”
Berger also reveals that his unit was active in the area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza at the same time that an Israeli soldier, Hadar Goldin of the Givati brigade, was reported captured near the city of Rafah, to the south. That capture occurred on 1 August 2014.
This places the Ezuz unit in two specific areas where mass killings took place.
In the Khan Younis area, Berger says his forces were tasked to “isolate” a village – which he does not name. Once the report of Goldin’s capture came, Berger says “we had to leave our task urgently and reinforce the Givati brigade, and we got there within three hours.”
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Palestinians search through rubble of their destroyed houses hit by Israeli strikes in Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, 5 August 2014.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that dozens of civilians were killed in and around Khan Younis by airstrikes and shelling from tanks and gunboats.
On 1 August, during a short-lived “humanitarian ceasefire,” medical crews, journalists and residents entered the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, which had been besieged by Israeli forces. They found the bodies of dozens of dead civilians.
Some had been killed while trying to leave, waving white flags. Others died as their homes were destroyed on top of them.
The UK’s Channel 4 documented scenes of destruction and carnage as people entered the village on 1 August:
In Rafah – presumably where Ezuz redeployed to reinforce the Givati brigade following the reported capture of Goldin – Israeli forces implemented the so-called “Hannibal Directive”: they carpet bombed the town by land, sea and air, killing more than two hundred civilians and destroying more than 2,500 homes.
There were so many dead that local hospitals were forced to store corpses and body parts in ice cream coolers.
While in Gaza, Ezuz commander Berger says he ordered his men not to drive on roads or through intersections.
When tank commanders asked where they should drive, Berger replied “Everywhere else!”
He saw the assault on Gaza as a rare training opportunity:
“I assigned one of my company commanders to document some of this by video, so we can illustrate it in training, show them for example how a tank drives through a grove of trees, because they don’t believe this is possible, or how the tank shoots in different situations. Because in training we don’t have planted grove areas we can keep running over, or a variety of ‘live’ houses to shoot at.”
This is the unit Orange has sponsored for a decade.
“Corporate social responsibility”
Orange says it has a comprehensive global program on “corporate social responsibility.”
The company claims that “our commitment to corporate citizenship means that everything we do is for a single purpose: using digital technologies to speed up progress for society.”
But by supporting the Israeli army through its Israeli affiliate, Orange has been helping to speed up the destruction of Palestinian society and to kill and injure thousands of people.
Although Orange does not own Partner Communications Ltd., it remains responsible and liable for Partner’s activities done in its name and with its brand.
Orange directly derives profits from Partner’s activities through its royalty agreement, supplies Partner with equipment and is responsible for the stewardship and reputation of the Orange brand worldwide.
Brand Israel
The parent company, moreover, appears to be fully complicit in helping Israel whitewash its reputation. In May 2014, its Orange Institute think-tank sponsored a conference in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem called “How Israel became a Tech Lab for the World.”
The promotional material says that in 2014 “the brand of ‘Israel as Startup Nation’ is shining even more brightly than when Orange Institute first visited in 2011.”
“From this small country of eight million people,” Orange Institute gushes, “we continue to see oversized returns.”
The conference promoted such topics as “civilian drone use” and “cyber-security innovations within the Israeli cyber ecosystem.”
Orange wants to claim credit for initiatives “supporting digital literacy” and promoting “eco-friendly solutions.”
It should also be held accountable for its complicity in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Consumers might do that by refusing to be Orange customers.
Orange has already come under pressure from French civil society over its Israeli affiliate’s complicity in Israeli colonization of the occupied West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights.
A statement signed by dozens of French groups calls on Orange to end its deal with Partner Communications Ltd. over the latter’s operations on occupied lands.
Last year, the French government warned French businesses of the risks of doing business in Israeli settlements in occupied territories that are illegal under international law.
But there is also the possibility that Palestinian individuals or human rights groups could seek to hold Orange accountable for providing material support to war crimes – including in the form of equipment it supplies to Partner – under the emerging doctrine of corporate liability for gross human rights abuses.
Orange’s press office at its headquarters in Paris did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
With thanks to Dena Shunra for providing research and translation
Does Your Boss Thinks You’re Awesome? Ask him to just say you’re awesome
Posted on: January 29, 2015
Does Your Boss Thinks You’re Awesome? Ask him to just say you’re awesome
If your boss thinks you’re awesome, will that make you more awesome?
This question came to us recently, when we were working with the top 3 levels of management in a multinational.
When asked to rate their direct reports on 360 evaluations, some managers consistently rated everyone higher, and others consistently lower, than the average. We wondered if this was a result of bias, and what effect it had on the people who worked for them.
If Your Boss Thinks You’re Awesome, You Will Become More Awesome
To understand this better we looked at a larger set of 360 data to identify 50 of the company’s managers who rated their direct reports significantly more positively than everyone else on a five-point scale (that is, they gave a higher percentage of their subordinates top marks than their colleagues did, skewing the curve to the right, as in Lake Woebegone, where everyone is above average).
We also identified 31 managers who consistently rated their direct reports significantly lower than their colleagues, skewing their curves to the left.
The difference is stark: Only 18.4% of the people working for the “positive-rating” managers, or the easy graders, were judged as merely “competent” (that is, just average) compared with fully 51.4% of those working for the “negative-rating” managers, clearly the harder graders.
While neither group judged even 1% of their workers as truly problematic and in need of significant improvement, almost 14% of those working for the negative-rating managers were judged to need some improvement compared with only 3% of those working for the positive-rating bosses.
It’s hard to parse the meaning of these data.
Are the positive-rating managers indulging in grade inflation?
Do the lower ratings actually represent a more objective and deserved analysis of a subordinate’s performance? (After all, it does follow the standard bell curve.)
Or perhaps the ratings are in some way self-fulfilling, and the leaders who see the best in their people actually make them better, while those who look more critically make their subordinates worse.
We favor that second interpretation, since whether deserved or not, the psychological effect of these ratings was dramatic.
Anyone who joined us in the discussions with the subordinates of these two sets of managers would have instantly seen the impact. The people who’d received more positive ratings felt lifted up and supported. And that vote of confidence made them more optimistic about future improvement. Conversely, subordinates rated by the consistently tougher managers were confused or discouraged—often both. They felt they were not valued or trusted, and that it was impossible to succeed.
These feelings directly translated into higher or lower levels of engagement: engagement scores for those working under the negative raters averaged in the 47th percentile, whereas scores for those reporting to the positive raters averaged in the 60th percentile. This difference is statistically significant.
It’s possible that the negative-rating managers simply had more than their share of less-engaged employees, but we believe the far more likely explanation is that everyone’s engagement levels started out roughly the same and that widely different daily interactions, culminating in extremely divergent performance reviews, had a strong impact on engagement levels.
This is a particularly alarming possibility when you consider the seemingly reasonable motives of those who gave consistently lower ratings.
We frequently heard them say something like, “I want my people to get the message that I have high expectations.” Those who gave high marks to their people also had high expectations, but they were more focused on sending the message that they had confidence in their people. They truly felt that they had selected the best people for those positions, and they expected them to succeed.
And did they SUCCEED?
To see, we looked at the overall leadership ratings the two groups’ 360 evaluations. We were not surprised, by now, to see that the bosses who rated everyone lower on their performance also rated them lower on their leadership abilities, while the bosses who gave the highest marks to their teams in general gave high marks on leadership as well.
The degree of difference was startling, though—with leadership ratings averaging only in the 19th percentile for the low raters and 76% for the high raters.
And the thing is, the peers, subordinates, and other associates also rated the leadership skills of the employees working for the low-rating managers lower than those working for the high raters.
The gap was not nearly as great, as you can see in the chart below, but it was consistent and significant.
The fact that the ratings given by both the low- and high-rating managers were so different from the ratings given by others suggests that both sets of managers are biased (or that managers trying to force rank their staffs are judging them unfairly).
And it also shows that these biases and rankings have become self-fulfilling, influencing subordinates’ behavior to the extent that others ultimately can see it.
If this is so, these tough graders aren’t doing the organization any favors.
There’s an interesting study that is related to this issue called “Predicting non-marital romantic relationship dissolution: A meta-analytic synthesis.” This was a meta-analysis of 137 studies collected over 33 years with 37,761 participants.
These studies were looking at factors that cause non-married couples to break up or stay together. The number one factor that kept people together was something they called “positive illusion” – essentially that the person you’re dating thinks you’re awesome.
Is it possible, then, that if a boss thinks you’re awesome you will become more awesome? On a personal level, it’s hard to dismiss.
We’ve spoken with hundreds of leaders whose bosses thought they were awesome, we know the impact is real.
China: the main Capitalist partner to the US (January 11, 2009)
“Communist” China is the largest accumulator of dollars with a reserve of two trillions or two third of its GNP. With such a reserve China is currently the main capitalist partner to the USA; China has interest that the dollar does not devalue, that its currency the Yuan does not increase in value which would make Chinese products less competitive, and that the financial system does not break down. “Communist” China is catching up quickly on Japan for the purchase of Treasury Bonds, a way of lending the US the needed cash to resume a Capitalist financial policy. China is not only the factory of the world but also the prime banker to the US.
The Chinese Wen Jiabao PM stated after the financial crash of Wall Street: “We have got to unite. In these difficult times, China has joined the USA. We believe that our financial rescue will aid at stabilizing the economy and world financial system and thus, preventing a major chaos. I believe that cooperation is indispensable”. China is expecting full cooperation of the US in erecting a new Capitalist system and it has more muscles than the European Union in enforcing the re-structuring of the financial system that would guarantee its investments in the USA that amount by the trillions of dollars.
Many of Chinese investments in the USA are in the red after the crash. The US multinationals that China invested heavily in have been saved with Chinese influx; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were saved too. Lehman Brothers was not spared for reasons. The Bush Junior Administration had selected Lehman Brothers to artificially increase oil prices to $150 through speculation in order to hurt the ever voracious China in oil demands. China reacted vigorously. The world financial system was rotten and China demanded to cooperate in the timing of the crash if the US wanted China to stabilize the financial system after the crash. Lehman Brothers was the sacrificial messenger of the impending financial crash.
The financial strength of the US was based on the dollars as the universal currency in world economical exchange. Bretton Woods (in New Hampshire) agreements in 1944 on the financial rules consecrated the pivotal power of the dollars; the British economist John Maynard Keynes tried hard during this conference to create a new world currency the “Bancor” but the US imposed its hegemony. Since then “the US administrators could decide what they wanted and it was up to the rest of the world to pay up the deficit”; Treasury Secretary John Connally stated it clearly “The dollar is our currency, but it is your problem”.
In 1960, the French President De Gaulle denounced the “exorbitant privilege of the dollars”. Since the 1980’s investment capitals have been going into the USA and then the US multinationals would re-invest the borrowed capitals wherever they desired; 90% of US Treasury Bonds are purchased by foreign States. Nixon was very comfortable de-linking the dollars from the value of gold and the world had to go along with whatever the US Administrations thought was beneficial to the US regardless of the ultimate danger that exposed the world financial system.
Consequently, States opted to save the surpluses of their dollar in “Sovereign Funds” meant to purchase foreign companies and enhance the flux of technology and know how and the latest management and financial methods. In one decade, the weight of the dollars in the reserve of world exchange has decreased from 71% to less than 61%. Still, the currencies of the EU, China, and Japan are not that widely used and adopted to counterweight the power of the dollar in trade exchange; but the center of gravity is clearly shifting toward China.
President Elect Barak Obama wants to re-invigorate US economy with major State investment (with Chinese cash); he must be closely cooperating with the Chinese on the amount and ways of re-launching the US economy.
Note: The Chinese regime was mute on the atrocities committed in Gaza; apparently, China is not hot on matter of human rights and crimes of wars and does not want to open the Pandora Box of its own horror stories.
Wall Street Multinationals milking the cows (October 11, 2008)
Note: The talking heads in host shows would like you to believe that by explaining the mechanism of the crash of Wall Street then that should be an excellent alternative to avoiding telling their version of main cause of the crush; or at best, they expect you to draw your own conclusion so that the main cause becomes essentially an individual deductive prowess. The three following articles are meant to stating simply the main cause of the financial crash of the century and then to offering a well tested resolution that add real values to the economy.
The American multinationals and many in Europe affiliated to them saw the financial crash coming in the speed of a bullet train since before September 11, 2001. Do you remember that in 1999 the US government and Congress passed a revised law of 1933 (that was meant to regulate the stock market after the crush of 1929) that allowed commercial banks to switch to investment banking with much looser accounting and regulatory rules? Well, many multinational commercial banks jumped to the opportunity that suited their pleasures according to the development of the markets worldwide under the code name “Free Trade Agreement”. It is then that the US multinationals, in tandem with the US Administration, knew that in order to conquer the world financially they would ultimately pay a price but it won’t be that expensive financially to the US treasury since all the stock markets would be linked and sharing in the risks; though the multinationals opted not to analyze seriously or didn’t pay much attention to the angry political backlash and an eventual change in the capitalist system.
The multinationals foresaw the catastrophe but they wanted first to milk the cows in the Asian markets and the petrodollar sovereign funds of the oil producing countries. They figured that, in due time, when the free non-regulated financial system fails then the other developed and rich States would participate in the bail out. Fundamentally, if you do the math then you will discover that the swindled profit that the multinationals generated during a decade correspond to the long term bail out funds that Europe, Asia and the petrodollars countries would pay from their citizens tax money to bail out their failing institution in order to stabilize the markets that should take quite a long time. I suggest that you start adding all the money shelled out by the world States and also include what the US government contributed since 1999 and you would get the general figure of the astronomical super highway robbery of the century.
It is this vast pool of middle class investors worldwide in stock markets that accounts for the biggest financial loss. If you are not in the board of directors for at least one multinational company then you should not play Russian roulette with stock market. Casual, naïve and smart ass investors in stocks remind me of a story involving chimpanzees. A white colonizer paid $10 for every chimpanzee caught; the natives were glad and worked hard to satisfy the demand of the purchaser. By and by as the number of chimpanzees dwindled and the commercial minds on both sides settled for a higher price of say $40 per chimpanzee then the manager of the colonizer convinced the natives to buy back the whole lot of chimpanzees for $30 apiece on the ground that when his boss returns then the natives would resell the chimpanzees to him for $50 apiece. The natives shared their funds and did the deal. The trick is that the white boss never returned!
Congress passed a monstrous bailout package where the white bosses are not to be prosecuted! Everyone is a sucker once in his life but in capitalist America the odds of repeat “suckered ness” is very high and the plain American citizen is the most prone to fall frequently in these easy to play games of stock gimmicks. Well, all you need is a computer hooked to internet and plenty of happy satisfied greed stories propagated in all the media! If you have noticed that the most recurring remedy of the talking heads is to regain “trust” in the financial market system! Yes, trusting multinational professional embezzlers is a sure way to stabilize your life saving balance to zero dollars.
Now the US government wants the world citizens of tax payers to share in the resolution of world financial stability! Why? Is it so that the few hundreds of billionaires and the select classes of capitalists around the world may maintain their high life style? Have we reached a new phase of world class capitalism versus the other hard working nationals?
