Editing by Carolyn Bennett
“Olympics Disaster: The [formerly Group 4 Securicor British multinational security
services company headquartered in Crawley] G4S Security Scandal and Corporate Sponsors’
£600 Million Tax Avoidance,” July 16, 2012: Investigative journalist, author,
filmmaker, photographer and Guantanamo expert Andy Worthington, http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/07/16/olympics-disaster-the-g4s-security-scandal-and-corporate-sponsors-600-million-tax-avoidance/
Referencing a report
published by Ethical Consumer, Worthington writes, “the Olympic Games’ corporate
partners and service providers are exempted from UK corporation tax and UK
income tax during the Games; and even though they are expected to bring in
£2.7bn in revenues, they will avoid paying over £600m in tax.
“The Worldwide Olympic
Partners are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic,
P&G, Samsung and Visa, and the London 2012 Olympic Partners are Adidas,
BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB.”
Legislation “also exempts all foreign nationals working on the games in
the UK from paying income tax on any earnings. Thousands will be exempt from
taxation from competitors to media workers (including journalists, technicians
and producers) to representatives of official Games bodies and technical
officials (including judges, referees and classifiers) along with the athletes
themselves.”
“Our Olympic Hell: A Militarized, Corporate, Jingoistic Disgrace,” May
16, 2012, http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/05/16/our-olympic-hell-a-militarised-corporate-jingoistic-disgrace/
“[In May], when it was revealed that the MoD was placing surface-to-air
missiles on the roofs of residential buildings as part of the bloated security
measures for the Olympics — estimated to cost at least £1.4 billion, to be paid
for by taxpayers — there was a brief flurry of outrage, although not enough to
bring the plans to an end,” Andy Worthington wrote.
“With the required numbers of security staff more than doubling in the
last year, estimates of the Games’ immediate security costs have doubled from
£282m to £553m. Even these figures are likely to end up as dramatic
underestimates: the final security budget of the 2004 Athens Olympics were
around £1bn.
“All this in a city convulsed by massive cuts in welfare, housing
benefit and legal aid; spiraling unemployment and rising social protests. It is
darkly ironic, indeed, that large swaths of London and the UK are being thrown
into ever deeper insecurity while being asked to pay for a massive security
operation, of unprecedented scale, largely to protect wealthy and powerful
people and corporations.”
THUS Olympics 2012 street demonstrations planned
Thursday July 26
The International Counter Olympics Network is launched (ICON) in London.
Friday July 27
A Counter Olympics
Protest Torch Relay will be run. The Vancouver Poverty Olympics Torch, says its press release, “will make
its journey around the streets of Hackney starting from the cafe in Clissold
Park, Stoke Newington Church Street and ending at Leyton Marsh.”
A Day of Mass Action sets off, involving the Counter Olympics Network
(CON) and representatives from “Our Olympics, No UK Tar Sands, Coalition of
Resistance, Occupy London, Save Leyton Marsh, Drop DOW Now, and others.”
OurOlympics: Reclaim London 2012
Our Olympics exists “to provide a hub for creating and promoting acts
of civil disobedience around the London 2012 Olympics.” Their online mission further states:
We believe that the London 2012 Olympics are an £11bn tax payer funded ad campaign for some of the worst offending corporations in our world.
We believe that public funds should be spent on public services, not redirected to private profits.
We believe the policy of Austerity is a lie. It is a means of imposing an economic apartheid upon the UK.
We believe that it is time for us to come together and make London 2012 the greatest act of non violent civil disobedience of our time.
Sources
http://ourolympics.org/Our_Olympics.html
http://ourolympics.org/MASS_ACTION__J28_2012.htmlhttp://counterolympicsnetwork.wordpress.com/
http://stoptheolympicmissiles.org/
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