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HOUSING ACTIVISTS MADE a surprise visit this afternoon to the Irish offices of one of the world’s largest private equity funds.
The Irish Housing Network (IHN) said it took over the reception area of Blackstone’s Dublin 2 offices for close to an hour as part of a day of demonstrations in solidarity with victims of the Spanish mortgage crisis.
The Blackstone Group has been the target of a string of protests in recent months over its investments in the Spanish property market.
Anti-eviction activist group Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca has accused the New York-based firm, which spent €6.4 billion on Spanish home loans in 2014, of hiking rents and evicting residents in the Spanish properties it controls.
Blackstone has denied the allegations, maintaining the company has not carried out a single eviction in the country.
The firm paid around €100 million for three Dublin properties in Nama’s so-called ‘Platinum Portfolio’ last year.
Members of IHN said they had hoped to present a representative of the company’s Irish arm with ”a short statement in solidarity with those suffering evictions across Spain”.
“While Blackstone staff appeared reluctant to show their faces in public, [we] engaged in friendly banter about the recent budget cuts with a somewhat bewildered receptionist and security agent,” the activists said in a statement.
Blackstone staff never came out of hiding and the action ended very peacefully shortly after 2pm.
The group said the demonstration was also aimed at highlighting how private equity firms take advantage of “knockdown” property prices here in Ireland.
“The arrival of vulture funds into the Irish property sector could not be coming at a worse time,” IHN’s Niamh McDonald said.
This is the last thing we need in the context of a full-blown housing crisis.
Blackstone offices were targeted in demonstrations in 16 other cities today, according to organisers, with protesters using the hashtag #BlackstoneEvicts on social media to draw attention to the campaign.
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The general of the presidential guard was going to lose his job and was not happy about it. Calling this high treason is ironic when he is the one who did a coup against a democratically elected president and government. The coup is high treason.
@ForrestG45: Yes, it is, in this case, and in every other case. But at some point (I’m not talking about this one), if someone is committing treason or doing something so bad, like declaring war when the people don’t want it, or malnutrition its people, kind of like Kim Jong Un, then only by committing treason you can depose a tyrant. The people in power write the laws and defines treason.
This should be done here with the current cabinet.
Am sure some democracy bombs will sort them out. Just like Libya.
Under the Bazoum ‘democracy’ the natural resources were taken by France under the guns of the French and US military. Bazoum was handsomely rewarded for this treachory while the people of (name of country censored) go hungry. This coup was carried out without a single death because it had he support of the people of (name of country censored).
@Fearg: (name of country censored)? NIGER is the name of the country it’s clearly not sensored so why claim it is?.
@Fearg: I think you will find that resources were bought with hard currency rather that ‘taken’ (stolen) as you suggest
@donal O’brien: They were not bought they were taken. French companies own the mines. Niger only gets 14% of the value of what France takes. 1 in every 3 houses in France is powered by uranium from Niger while 90% of Niger’s population don’t even have electricity.
The people of Niger are 100% correct to take back the resources from any western nation that claims them and charge a fair price for them. Will the military junta do that remains to be seen but that’s nothing to do with us
@Roy Dowling: incorrect. Less than 10% of Niger’s uranium is used in French nuclear plants. France and the EU have diversified their supply in the last while to counter such risks, with the likes of Kazakhstan, Canada and soon Uzbekistan.
@ForrestG45: sorry meant less than 10% of uranium used in French nuclear plants is coming from Niger.
Any chance of a report on the voter fraud operation in Michigan that was operating during the 2020 election? A paid election worker has been indicted after she registered approx 10,000 dubious voters. That was in one Michigan county. She was also operating in several other Michigan counties.
Plus she was part of a larger team of paid election operatives.
@Monetpenny: She was operating in several different counties at once? Right. Is she there with you now?
@F Fitzgerald. Yes she was. She didn’t perform the miracle of bi-location but you do understand people can operate on different counties at the same time? I have a friend who is a business rep for Kerry, Limerick & Clare. That is possible. It doesn’t mean he is in the same county at the same time nor does his employer expect him to be in the three counties at the same time.
Perhaps if the Journal did a report on it you might understsnd.
have your say