NEW NGO SCANDAL - PASOK NGO now obligated to return foreign aid - 200,000 missing!

State grant to Pasok think tank Istame for the "restructuring" of Georgian parliament was signed off by the director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou. The grants were approved while Papandreou was foreign minister.

Auditors in 2013 recommended the return of 200,000 Euros in grants which the Greek state provided, via PASOK's party research foundation, for a “restructuring” of the Georgian parliament that may have never taken place, Eleftherotypia revealed at the weekend.

In 2002, the foreign ministry's developmental agency, Hellenic Aid, agreed to fund 75% of a 413,399-program Euros to assist in the revamping of the legal, the organisational and operational framework of the parliament and to contribute to computerising the body's work.

The grant was approved by the new director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou, who appointed him to the position.

Last week it emerged that Rondos, who served as the European Union’s special representative for the Horn of Africa from 2012 to 2013, is also suspected by police of involvement in a 8.9 million Euros fraud at another NGO, International Mining Initiative, from 2000 to 2004.

The Greek NGO which would oversee the program was the PASOK-affiliated think tank, the Andreas Papandreou Institute of Strategic and Development Studies (Istame).

The 18-month program had a total budget of 413,399 Euros three-quarters of which came from Hellenic Aid. It was to run March 2004, the year in which, according to reports, Rondos he became advisor to the then Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Following reports in 2012 about corruption in NGOs affiliated with Hellenic Aid, the ministry ordered an audit of all 600 organisations in receipt of funding.

According to the audit into the Georgian parliament "restructuting" program, Istame was unable to account for 340,400 Euros in grants. In addition, the audit was unable to ascertain from the files whether the project was ever completed. Its conclusion was that Istame must return 199,445 Euros to Hellenic Aid.

As the report was completed in 2013, it raises the question as to why it is now only coming to light, given that the current foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, is now the PASOK leader.

What the audit found

• According to the documentation seen by the auditors, the ministerial decision authorising the first tranche of the grant (amounting to 155,000 Euros) was signed on 12 July 2002, six weeks before the contract was signed between Hellenic Aid and Istame, on August 30th, 2002.
• The file also contains a letter from the Georgian parliament saying that the works had not been completed by December 6, 2007. The same letter also said that he had received an official invitation to visit from the Georgian parliament, the director of the NGO [Istame], never paid a visit to Georgia, as was foreseen by the program.
• The audit found that much of the documentation submitted to support the grant were photocopies of certified documents, not originals. Other documents were not certified at all.
• The file also showed that Istame did not seek official translations of foreign documents.
• According to the file, Istame also signed a contract with an NGO called Iason, but the documentation does not make it clear where this organisation was based.
• When it came to the program’s accounts, it listed five different categories of expenses which were all broadly similar, such as printing and stationary. Thus, the budget provided for 12,500 Euros for "Accessories and supplies", 12,000 Euros for “Routine costs”, about 9,000 Euros for “Other costs”, 17,893 Euros for “Unexpected costs” and 37,575 Euros for the “NGO’s operating and administrative expenses".
• A further 8,713 Euros was budgeted for “Services”, such as legal advice, drafting costs, IT and accounting work. For the latter two services, there are no contracts to show where that money went.
• A Georgian invoice for 2,250 Euros for catering services was not signed by the person who received the money.
• Although 259,000 Euros was purportedly to be spent on labour costs, the file contains no evidence that staff contracts were signed. Payslips were mostly unsigned by their recipients.

New building

If any Hellenic Aid money was spent on Georgia's parliament, it's no longer used for that purpose. In 2009, construction began on a new building to house the Georgian parliament. The huge glass domed structure, located in the second city of Kutaisi, was inaugurated in 2012. Some reports said the bill for the controversial building and associated costs came to around USD 200 million.

Eleftherotypia, EnetEnglish

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Conspiracy or Truth - Ukrainian Mob Call To “Kill All Jews” Horrifies Russia

CLICK ON BOLD LINKS TO CROSS REFERENCE ARTICLE WITH MAINSTREAM NEWS

A terrifying report prepared for President Putin by Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin that is circulating in the Kremlin is confirming the event that has horrified all of Russian television viewers this week of a Ukrainian fascist mob chanting “kill all Jews” after last Sunday’s firebombing of the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia, located 250 miles southeast of Kiev, by forces loyal to Ukraine’s “new government” that Prime Minister Medvedev labeled as “terrorists.”

Minister Lukin’s report further notes that these fascist Neo-Nazi mobs have begun a systematic destruction of some of Ukraine’s most historic monuments, including the monument to Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, who is praised in Russia as one of the best military commanders in the country’s history who fought against invading Napoleon troops and chased them back to Paris, that was demolished in the city of Brody, and the monument to Soviet troops fighting against Nazi Germany that was torn down in the town of Stary.

Critical to note about Ukraine’s current turmoil, this report continues, was that it began on 15 January when over 15,000 Neo-Nazi Ukrainians marched in Kiev to celebrate the 105th birthday of Stepan Bandera who was a leader of Ukraine’s liberation movement and Nazi collaborator during World War II, and who on 22 January 2010 was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine (posthumously) by the outgoing pro-Western President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko.

The award was condemned by the European Parliament, Russian, Polish and Jewish organizations, and was declared illegal by a pro-Russian Ukrainian government and court in April 2010.

Following the 15 January march honoring Bandera, this report says, thousands of Neo-Nazis wearing the uniform of a Ukrainian division of the German army during World War II chanting “Ukraine above all!” and “Bandera, come and bring order!” began their fascist siege against the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych whom the Obama regime unilaterally declared earlier today “is no longer the leader of Ukraine,” but who won his 2010 election with 48,95% of the 25 493 529 expressed votes, against 45,47% of the votes for the Western-backed Yulia Tymoshenko.

Important to note about Tymoshenko, and as we had previously reported on, is that she is the ruthless and corrupt former Neo-Nazi Ukrainian Prime Minister, who aside from her Hitler –like obsession with horoscopes and psychics, was also an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a 2006 corruption trial held in the US that jailed another former Ukrainian Prime Minister, Pavel Lazarenko, for embezzling $200 million.

Also important to note, this report continues, is that the Svoboda Party currently holding government in Kiev, and supported by the Obama regime, has been declared by Jewish organizations in and outside of Ukraine of open Nazi sympathies and being anti-Semitic.

Minister Lukin in his report further states that Ukraine’s Jewish population of 360,000 to 400,000 people, about a quarter of whom live in Kiev, have become “alarmed” over the increasing levels of attacks against them, including the savage 11 January assault against Hillel Wertheimer, an Orthodox Jewish and Israeli teacher of Hebrew and Jewish tradition who was severely attacked by men with their fists and legs on his way home from a Shabbat meal.

Another attack against the Jewish community by these fascist Neo-Nazi Ukrainian mobs, this report notes, was the 19 January attack of Dov Ber Glickman, 30, a member of Kiev's Jewish community, was assaulted by three youngsters as he was making his way home from a Shabbat meal at Yeshivat Orach Chaim in the Ukrainian capital's Podil neighborhood.

After knocking him to the ground, Glickman's assailants stabbed him three times, apparently in his arms and legs. His screams apparently scared them off. Bleeding, Glickman managed to make his way back to the main synagogue building, where the yeshiva is located, and collapsed at the mikveh (ritual bath). He received initial treatment at the scene, while the synagogue guard alerted rescue personnel who took him to hospital.

Even before the recent unrest, this report notes, Jews in the Ukraine have been the targets of anti-Semitic acts.  Last year, the president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress narrowly escaped with his life after a bomb was hurled at his car as it pulled out from an office. Recent reports further indicate that these fascist extremists have been targeting the Jewish community in Ukraine, including a member of the Opposition. However, this is the first time that the police forces themselves have been implicated in anti-Semitic activity.

As Putin had ordered Russian military forces to protect the vital Isthmus of Perekop in the Crimea oblast against these fascist Western-backed forces, this report concludes, additional military ships carrying soldiers have arrived on Ukraine’s Crimean coast as “all-out” war may be needed to protect Ukrainian Russians and Jewish peoples against yet another Obama regime onslaught against what was once a free and openly religious nation.

Sorcha Faal
WhatDoesItMean

Balkan Mafias Broaden Their Reach Via Greece

HellasFrappe would like to apologize if the following article is a little difficult to understand at some points, but we refused to edit this article because of its sensitive nature and because it was written by one the foremost experts in his field. We did, however, correct a few sentences so that they can be more grammatically correct.

Ioannis Michaletos (RIMSE) - Greek organized crime networks and Balkan ones, most especially from Albania, have for several years competed amongst each other for illicit revenues and for staking a claim in urban "turfs" that were viewed as locales for raising substantial amounts of revenue from sectors such as narcotics, prostitution and racketeering.

The financial depression in the country along with decades-old buildup of common interests has matured in merges to a great extent creating hybrid networks that have a greater reach not only nationally but regionally. In addition the criminal groups based in Athens especially, tend to supply terrorist groups with weaponry, while being able to "cut deals" for a variety of criminal actors from afar as Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Gulf states, Czech republic and Latin America.

Arms trafficking in and off the country are becoming a menace for Greek security authorities, since it is directly related to the social threat posed by criminal groups and to the supply of terrorist groups.

Over the past 5 years Greek Police has increased more than 500% the number of hand grenades been confiscated compared to a previous period. AK-47, Tokarev, Makarov and Zastava semi-automatic pistols, as well as, RPG's and plastic explosives are routinely found in the hands of criminal groups that are often of mixed Greek-Balkan composition.

In 2012 the authorities confiscated 194 automatic rifles, in 2011 172, in 2010 200, in 2009 110 and in 2008 165. Regarding pistols, in 2012 there were 512 confiscations, in 2011 549, in 2010 565, in 2009 538 and in 2008 501. The number of revolvers were 138, 126,159,124,134 for the respective years.

In hand grenades a noticeable increase is recorded. From 166 units in 2009 there were 817 in 2012. Moreover in 2008 174 kilos of explosives were confiscated versus, 1653 kilos in 2009, 67,630 kilos in 2010, 3,675 in 2011 and 100 Kg in 2012.

Despite the above, it is assessed than less than 5% of weaponry and explosives imported annually mostly from Albania, Kosovo, FYROM and Bulgaria is able to be detected by the authorities.

In the Athens metropolitan region with more than 5.5 million residents, there are estimated to be -at any given moment- more than 1000 weapons hideouts used by mafia networks to traffic their product. In each “cache” a few dozens of weapons are stashed so even if a Police operation results in a confiscation, the dealers can easily continue supplying the market by turning into their other locations.

Mobile arms caches in cars and vans, is also widely suspected.

The profits can be substantial, and the supply has dropped the prices to a rather low value. An AK-47 delivered with 60 bullets costs on average 1,500 Euros with each additional bullet to be priced for one Euro.

Between 2010 and 2011 around 40 organized gangs of robbers using AK-47 have been disbanded by the Greek Police, and almost in all cases they were composed by Albanians, or mixed groups along with Greeks, Bulgarians and Georgians.

Another 20 groups of such nature are believed to be at large. They target individual residences, banks, post offices and money transfer security vehicles. What is a more worrying trend is the nexus between these types of criminal action with local far Left terrorist organizations.

An Albanian citizen, operating as a contract killer between Greece, Albania and Italy with more than 30 "hits" in his record, named Julian Sinanaj, confessed that he placed bombs in Greece on behalf of terrorist groups under the guidance of a Greek political official of an unnamed party. Sinanaj collaborated with the Mehilli criminal group from Vlore-Albania where a number of contacts between Greeks and Albanians have flourished over the years either in weapons smuggling, illegal immigration schemes and cannabis & tobacco contraband.

Over the past few years there were 6-7,000 armed robberies, 90% of which involved Balkan or mixed groups. The analogy with a country such as USA where 350,000 armed robberies occurred, shows that Greece a country with 12 million residents has almost the same amount of robberies per capita, while the trend is high compared to that of most EU members.

Moreover, on an average month there are more than 10 incidents nationwide of fire exchange between criminal gangs and Police forces with occasional casualties from both sides. The existence of strong weaponry in the hands of mafias ensures they are at least on par with those of the legal forces.

The consolidation of these mixed groups has evolved in the crucial illicit sector of racketeering and loan sharking which is booming due to the economic dire straits the country is facing. In Athens more than 100 "heads” composed by Greeks, Albanians and ex-Soviet states, are controlling the proceedings of hundreds of businesses using 500 "strong men" as muscle to enforce their will.

Media reports from time to time have pin-pointed around 50 night clubs used as command centers, and situated in lucrative spots in the beach front of the capital and in the main commercial avenues, such as Syggrou and Piraeus avenues. Those in turn are related to extensive drug and sex trafficking rings that accumulate more than 500,000 Euros in cash daily, while illegal casinos -that are related to the networks mentioned- are pumping further amounts to the hands of the heads and their enforcers.

Contrary to popular belief the entire money trail does not need to be laundered, since there is a vibrant and extremely extensive "cash economy" in the country where the need for large amounts of cash, especially in the Athenian underworld, is being met by these proceedings. Lesser amounts are being directed to Balkan destinations.

What lies ahead?

As long as the real economy is decreasing to a pace of more than minus 7% annually (GDP drop + deflation) so will black (and also very much real) economy flourish undeterred by official regulations and with strong links to deteriorating legal business entities due to loan sharking schemes and buyout by mafias of controlling stakes of companies through the pretext of international funds and under the form of foreign investors. At the same time Albanian groups are becoming tightly integrated to the local underworld and in turn provide ample space for Greek criminals to either hide in Albania or expand their businesses there, especially in the vicinities of Vlore, Fieri and Sarande.

Points of interest

• - More than 200 Greek citizens of young age have been arrested as “drug mules” mostly in international airports across the planet in the last 18 months. Almost all were recruited by local Greek-Balkan criminals and lured with the motive of fast cash with minimum effort. The rapidness and easiness the recruitment took place was astonishing. In most cases the youth was approached by night-life patrons in a specific operation to replenish the “drug mule population” with clean record citizens from a country that rarely produced such kind of trafficking services.
• - Sex tourism: Greece and especially Athens are becoming steadily a tourist hot spot for sex tourism. More than 600 illegal sex premises operate in metropolitan Athens region with a daily cash flow estimated at more than 1 million Euros, excluding other levels of the illicit sex industry.
• - Tobacco contraband in the county is estimated at 1 billion Euros annually and has resulted in the empowerment of the links between Greeks mafias and those of Albania, Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria ones. It is directly related to drug contraband using established infrastructure and human resources
• - Oil smuggling runs at 1 billion Euros annually and encompasses in terms of deals geographically most of the Balkan states
• - Illegal immigration in the county has resulted in around 500,000 undocumented foreign nationals (at any given moment) who raise funds continuously to support themselves and in dubious sectors. In the vast majority of the cases the revenues are being collected by Greek-Balkan groups. Street vendors in Athens, numbering more than 10,000 people raise daily 500,000 Euros minimum, which is directed 70% to Greek, Balkan and Chinese criminal groups. Likewise more amounts are raised when immigrants are trying to leave the country to other destinations or for meeting their daily needs for housing. The illegal immigration sector is gradually been consolidated into the hands of mafia groups, while an array of NGO's has been established that it is used as a "protective base" for covering up, abetting and protecting such activities.
• - The total organized crime activities in Greece are able to generate at least 15 billion Euros annually in cash, thus becoming a sector of importance and on a regional level. Districts such as the Lazarati town in Albania live-off by massive cannabis trade exported to Greece and Italy, while Southern FYROM and Bulgaria profit to a great extent by providing "services & goods" to Greek-based networks.
• - As it was noted above a large amount of the cash generated is not laundered because it is needed to support a cash-based parallel society. The amounts that do need to be "washed" and then come back to the local economy or destined to be invested to the international markets, follow a labyrinth-like procedure and end up in different jurisdictions such as Montenegro, Czech Republic, Moldavia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Albania, FYROM, Bulgaria, Hungary. It can be roughly assessed that more than 3 billion Euros annually are being directed in that manner. Once into the international legal system they are being leveraged through financial instruments and further support the liquidity of the banking system worldwide, in similar fashion like most of the way modern day organized crime functions.

Countermeasures

Until recently the Greek security system and most importantly the leading governmental structures, refused to accept the notion that Mafia-type criminal structures are indeed flourishing in the country, and that consequently these criminals are well-embedded into the local social and economic life and increasingly in collaboration with Balkan and Turkish similar criminal structures. The avalanche of security concerns though has forced into a rethinking and re-engineering of the system which develops into more coherent structures aiming into combating criminal structures by heavy handed approach, use of high-technology and by specialization amongst Police divisions.

Furthermore, Police collaboration between Balkan states is increasing steadily, while links and bonds between Mafias, legal businesses, and terrorism and front organizations are being scrutinized and exposed thereafter. It can be safely estimated that in 2014 and the coming period, major criminal cases of Pan - Balkan nature are going to be revealed, based on wrongdoings in Greece that will eventually shake up and upturn entire sectors of the “elite” stratum in several countries.

THE BEAR IS AWAKE - Russian Military Units Move to Ukraine Border

Here is an interesting report. Military sources report that units of the Russian forces which formed a steel ring around the Olympic Winter Games that ended in Sochi last weekend were flown and shipped (on Monday, Feb. 24, 2014) to Russian bases at the Ukrainian Crimean port of Sevastopol, as Moscow refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new authorities in Kiev.

According to debkafile, giant Russian Air Force transports and rapid deployment forces were placed on alert at the Rostov on-Don base east of the predominantly Russian-speaking southeastern Ukrainian town of Donetsk.

    Russian military movements were also sighted near Belgorod, a Russian town 40 kilometers from the Ukraine border and north of its second largest town of Kharkov. There, too, most of the inhabitants are Russian speaking with a strong affinity to Moscow – in contrast to their European-oriented compatriots in the capital, Kiev.
    These military movements were accompanied by sharp Russian rhetoric in Moscow’s first direct response to the tumult in Kiev and ouster of the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, against whom Kiev police Monday issued a warrant for mass murder.
    Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday: “Today I see no legitimate Ukrainian partners for a dialogue. If people crossing Kyiv in black masks and Kalashnikov rifles are considered a government, it will be difficult for us to work with such a government,” he said, calling it “the result of a mutiny.”
    The prime minister spoke of a “real threat to our interests, and to our citizens’ lives and health.”

Full article: Russian units transferred from securing the Sochi games to the Ukraine border (DEBKAfile)

GREEK HEALTH SYSTEM - Death by a thousand (health) cuts

(PressProject) - Greek and European officials are accused of being in denial over the effects of spending cuts in health care. “Greece no longer has a health system,” says president of Medecins du Monde, Greece Dr Anna Maili as stillbirths increase by 21% and infant mortality by 43% after the state cuts assistance for uninsured pregnant women.

In the early 1950’s nearly 30,000 children were infected by the poliovirus every year in Europe according to UNICEF. Polio is a serious disease transmitted from person to person that can cause lifelong paralysis and death. To this day there is no known cure. Yet in 2002 Europe was declared a polio free zone for the first time in history. The reason? Vaccines.

But polio could now make a comeback due to irresponsible cuts to health care programs, the NGO Medecins du Monde (MdM) warned in a recent press conference about the effects of austerity on public health.

In terms of the advances made by modern medicine over the past century-and-a-half, few could claim to be nearly as important and effective as vaccination programs. Aside from polio, vaccines have protected generations of children from a host of potentially fatal diseases including measles, mumps, rubella and others. That they are a highly cost effective public health measure is beyond doubt.

Yet even these objective facts have not prevented the Greek Ministry of Health from terminating state programs to vaccinate uninsured children. Uninsured Greek families are now required to cover the cost of the vaccination of their children. This, over a period of years and including necessary booster shots can amount to over 1,000 euros. Needless to say in a country with 28% unemployment and an estimated 3 to 4 million without health coverage, increasing numbers of families cannot afford this cost. As a result more and more children are going without vaccinations.

Of course the Greek government is not solely to blame for the cuts. Many of them have come as part of Greece’s attempt to meet the troika mandated target that health spending must not exceed 6% of GDP. Given that Greece’s GDP has been shrinking for over 6 years and is now 25% smaller than it was in 2007, it is target that is also continually shifting. Also it should be pointed out that the populace does not necessarily require 25% less health-care when the economy is 25% smaller. In fact the opposite tends to hold true with social spending more crucial to vulnerable groups in hard economic times.

For the moment, according to MDM doctors, unvaccinated children are still protected in part by the so-called ‘herd immunity’: as a significant portion of the population is still immune to many diseases it is harder for these to take hold and for epidemics to spread. However with every year that passes as more children remain unvaccinated the threat of outbreaks of serious diseases increases. Such outbreaks of measles have already occurred in other countries after parents refused to vaccinate their children following unfounded fears that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism.

In other words, with the current policies in place it is not a matter of if, but when, more children will be infected by deadly diseases preventable by simple vaccinations.

Yet the Ministry of Health remains blissfully and willingly oblivious to this simple fact. So untroubled is it by the effects of its policies that it does not even have a system in place to monitor them according to MdM. As a result nobody actually knows how many children are currently unvaccinated.

“As MdM we vaccinated about 9,000 children in Greece in 2013,” Dr Anna Maili, the president of MdM Greece said. “But those are only the people who have come to our clinics. As a country we do not know how many children are going without vaccinations. The ministry has shown absolutely no desire to monitor the situation.” That willful blindness appears to extend to Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis himself who, according to Dr Maili, when asked recently at a meeting with the NGO about the issue of vaccinations simply denied that there was any problem.

If denying children vaccinations wasn’t counter-productive enough, the ministry has also seen fit to charge uninsured pregnant women for the cost of their prenatal scans, antenatal care (about €650 each) as well as the cost for delivering their children (1,200 euros for a normal delivery, 1,400 in the case of a Caesarian section).

Giving the state a new citizen is not enough apparently, even in a country with a critically low birthrate, and uninsured women must now pay to do so. Any bills that cannot be covered by the women are added to their tax bills, leaving such mothers open to additional fines and even prison sentences if they are unable to pay the cost to the state of giving birth. MdM has even reported cases of hospitals denying children birth certificates until the bill for the delivery is paid. MdM provided support to 450 pregnant women in 2013 but again there are no official statistics for uninsured women unable to afford the cost of having their children in hospital. The government, presumably, was not that interested in knowing.

This, incidentally, is the same government that recently decided to bail-out the Athens Concert Hall Organization, a private NGO managed by well-connected media barons, to the tune of 230 million euros with no questions asked. Of the bailout the culture minister said, “culture cannot be for sale.” It’s only a pity that pregnant women and children are not afforded the same privilege.

Denying uninsured children and pregnant women basic health care are just two of the more egregious examples of spending cuts in the sector that will cost the nation more in the long run than they will save in the short term. The effects of the cuts in a number of areas are already becoming apparent according to a study by the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that was published in the Lancet medical journal and released last week.

Among the study’s findings is that the number of new HIV cases has spiked in recent years due to decreases in funding for programs giving needles and condoms to IV drug users. Stillbirths have risen 21% from 2008 to 2011. Perhaps most shockingly infant mortality jumped 43% in only two years between 2008 and 2010.

While Greece is by far the most seriously affected country, other European nations imposing austerity are also beginning to see similar problems. Aside from European citizens, immigrants are also suffering as they are being completely frozen out of the system and increasingly subject to blame and xenophobia.

Doctors of MdM highlighted as indicative of the callousness demonstrated by European health systems the example of a young irregular migrant in Spain who, after being turned away six times from public hospitals, eventually died from tuberculosis. Aside from the tragedy of a young man losing his life to a treatable disease, there is also the public health issue of allowing an infectious disease to go untreated and thereby increasing the chance that it will spread.

The argument of MdM and other European health professionals is clear: austerity imposed health care cuts are not only morally repugnant but ultimately a false economy. ‘Health is not a luxury,’ Professor Jochen Zenker, President of MdM Germany told TPPi, “it can be very effective and efficient to keep people healthy. It is something that also benefits businesses and the area of employment.”

For who seriously believes that a country can be healthy economically when its citizens physically are not?