International News, WHat's Happening, Out There?

[DeYaKen]

There are many tax havens around the world, including in some US States. The Panama Papers are the very small tip of the enormous iceberg.

Switzerland, Luxemburg, the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Monaco, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Hong Kong... I could go on and on with a list of places that offer significant tax advantages depending on where you live and what taxes you are trying to avoid.

Most are perfectly legitimate, but some will accept proceeds of crime.

Prominent US citizens hardly showed in the Panama papers. The Icelandic Prime Minister Resigned, The British Prime minister is forced to reveal details of his income and tax payments. Putin's aides and half the Chinese government are caught hiding their cash. Still no prominent Americans. Are citizens of the US more upright, honest and committed to paying their taxes? It seems not. They have better secret tax havens in their own backyard.

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/united-states-panama-tax-haven/2016/04/10/id/723175/

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Tax-media-Panama-Geffen/2016/04/07/id/722873/

 

[PoisonedChalice]

Prominent US citizens hardly showed in the Panama papers. The Icelandic Prime Minister Resigned, The British Prime minister is forced to reveal details of his income and tax payments. Putin's aides and half the Chinese government are caught hiding their cash. Still no prominent Americans. Are citizens of the US more upright, honest and committed to paying their taxes? It seems not. They have better secret tax havens in their own backyard.

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/united-states-panama-tax-haven/2016/04/10/id/723175/

http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Tax-media-Panama-Geffen/2016/04/07/id/722873/

Our Prime Minister has been caught up in it now, which is excellent news as I dislike him: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pol...y-with-company-specialising-in-foreign-trusts

 

[JackLuis]

Panama Papers reveal spies used Mossack Fonseca — including the CIA

Suprise! Oh well, I guess not.

Secret agents from several countries, including intermediaries of the CIA, have used the services of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in order to “conceal” their activities, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday.

“Secret agents and their informants have made wide use of the company’s services,” wrote the newspaper, which obtained a massive stash of 11.5 million documents from the company that is sending shockwaves around the globe.

“Agents have opened shell companies to conceal their activities… Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA,” the newspaper reported.

The Munich-based newspaper said Mossack Fonseca’s clients included “several players” in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which saw senior US officials facilitate secret arms sales to Iran in a bid to secure the release of American hostages and fund Nicaragua’s Contra rebels.

I know it's not the same as finding the Clinton Foundation has been shuffling funds to pornographic publishers, but it's early yet the leak only happened a week ago.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Thanks to Lancecastor,the Attawapiskat suicide crisis was brought to our attention, on the General Board.

PBS reports on where, when, why the crisis was announced, but does not elaborate.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown...of-emergency-after-spate-of-suicide-attempts/

gsgs comment-

A long list of pleas for help from the people of Attawapiskat were met with "Sorry, we cannot help you, at this time."

This disregard for human beings is matched in the Flint water crisis, in America.

For pity's sake, what excuse did Canadian government officials give, for this callous response ?

/end gsgs comment

NEWS: Water crisis in Attawapiskat
30 novembre, 2011

July 11, 2009 – A massive sewage flood dumps waste into eight buildings, which house 90 people. Both the provincial and federal government do not consider the sewage an emergency and do not evacuate the families."

http://canadians.org/fr/node/8010

" An Assembly of First Nations resolution from July 2000 stated, "The people of Attawapiskat for the past 3 years, have been unable to use tap water, as the water is untreated and the people must obtain their drinking and cooking water from Culligan units in the hospitals, schools, and the water plant..."

GlobalNews notes, "October 2006 – Community officials accuse the federal government of refusing to sign a letter indicating the community’s water is safe to drink. ...

The community is also waiting for Ottawa to approve upgrades to its water treatment plant at the time; July 11, 2009 – A massive sewage flood dumps waste into eight buildings, which house 90 people.

Both the provincial and federal government do not consider the sewage an emergency and do not evacuate the families."

Severe flooding causes this to happen, over and over, again.

(Unfit drinking water due to contamination that caused skin disease and intestinal disease, periodically discoveed and exposed to the public eye.)

Why were people moved to a flood plain, in 1957 ?
Why does the Canadian government refuse to allow the Attawapiskat people to move to a much healthier and safer place, of their choosing?

They had to fight for fourteen years, for a grade school to be built.

What is bizarre, is the presence of the De Beers diamond mine, 50 miles away from the site of such misery and suffering.

De Beers has a history of ignoring human misery and suffering.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

A Forestry bill was fast tracked through Finland's parliament
30 March 2016

"The new Act will take effect when signed by President Sauli
Niinistö. This is expected to happen on 15th April, 2016."

" The Forestry Act in its current form will cause severe negative impacts to Sámi society as we know it,” says Mustonen.

"Speaking after the vote, Tero Mustonen, a scientist from the Snowchange Cooperative said that the Finnish Parliament’s decision to pass the new Act represents “a dark hour for Finland, for the Arctic and for climate change.”

http://www.yestolifenotomining.org/new-finnish-forest-act-passes-in-the-finnish-parliament/


"...could lead to an explosion in fishing, logging, and mining on state-managed waters and lands, which include more than 30,000 square miles of forest."


“We are witnessing a handful of politicians pushing through legislation that will significantly weaken the Sámi communities,” he added. “That’s something you are not supposed to be able to do in Europe.”


http://www.takepart.com/article/201...c-boreal-forest-reindeer-sami-indigenous-land


Old growth forests are the target of exploitation-


The boreal forest, which stretches around the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere, is the largest land-based ecosystem in the world, and accounts for about a third of all forests.

Logging and other development of boreal forests diminishes their capacity to store carbon and nurture biodiversity, said forest ecologist Brian Milakovsky, a consultant for the World Wildlife Fund.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Above two posts^^

Mixed in together. The plight of aboriginal people worldwide, loss of lands, exploitation of resources. The northern Ontario natives don't shit up there. The diamond mine closed down under pressure from bad practices and leaks. Maybe in another 20 years when the ore deposits in northern Ontario become worth it to build roads too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ontario_Ring_of_Fire#Ring_of_Fire_as_Ontario.27s_Oil_Sands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people#Finland

Finland has denied any aboriginal rights or land rights to the Sami people;[79] in Finland, non-Sami can herd reindeer as well: there are Finnish reindeer herders as well. Sami people have had very little representation in Finnish national politics. In fact, as of 2007, Janne Seurujärvi, a Finnish Centre Party representative, was the first Sami ever to be elected to the Finnish Parliament.

B.C. First Nations have fishing rights and old growth rain forest. Now they have LNG pipelines and ports. Some land in B.C. is un-ceded land, treaties still being signed. Lots more political power than northern Ontario natives.

Yet still most missing prostitutes in Vancouver are native.

Oil Sand's are poisoning the Athabasca River. The James Bay lowlands are the second largest wetland in the world.

Native rights, resource exploitation and environmental issues. Common story around the world.

 

[JackLuis]

Germany Could Charge Comic for Insulting Turkey’s President

Americans wondering what life might be like in the near future — after a President Donald Trump acts on his promise to “open up our libels laws,” so that politicians with easily bruised egos can sue reporters or commentators for hurting their feelings — should pay attention to what is happening this week in Germany.

That’s because German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that her government, while being fully committed to the principle of free speech, is considering a request from Turkey to file criminal charges against the host of a late-night television show on the state broadcaster, ZDF. His alleged crime? Joking about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s thin skin by reading examples of actual slanderous statements about him, in the form of a poem.

The poem, performed last month by the German satirist Jan Böhmermann, was a carefully calibrated insult. The host began the sketch by telling viewers of his show, “Neo Magazin Royale,” that he would read aloud from a text called “Defamatory,” in order to demonstrate the difference between the sort of satirical insults of the notoriously prickly Erdogan that are permitted under German law and legally prohibited slander.

“What I’m about to read is not allowed. If it were to be read in public, that would be forbidden in Germany,” Böhmermann said, before launching nonetheless into a recitation of the full text, which describes Erdogan as a foul monster who has sex with goats and “watches child porn while kicking Kurds.”

Erdogan’s inability to take a joke was in the news last month because his government had reacted to an earlier satirical sketch about him on German television — a spoof music video about his crackdown on free speech at home — by demanding that the authorities in Berlin have it removed from the internet. After Germany’s ambassador to Turkey rejected that request on free speech grounds, Böhmermann crafted his sketch to explain, and test, the legal limits of satire on German television.

 

[JackLuis]

Blackwater's Back with and Air Force

Long article

For four months, Airborne’s team had worked nearly nonstop to modify an American-made Thrush 510G crop duster to the exact specifications of an unnamed client. Everything about the project was cloaked in secrecy. The company’s executives would refer to the client only as “Echo Papa,” and instructed employees to use code words to discuss certain modifications made to the plane. Now the employees would learn that Echo Papa also owned more than a quarter of their company.

A fit, handsome man with blond hair and blue eyes got out of the Mercedes and entered Airborne’s hanger. Echo Papa, who was often just called EP, shook hands with a dozen Airborne employees and looked over the plane. “He was the sun, and all the management were planets rotating around him,” said one person present that day.

One of the mechanics soon recognized Echo Papa from news photos — he was Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater. Several of the Airborne staff whispered among themselves, astonished that they had been working for America’s best-known mercenary. The secrecy and strange modification requests of the past four months began to make sense. In addition to surveillance and laser-targeting equipment, Airborne had outfitted the plane with bulletproof cockpit windows, an armored engine block, anti-explosive mesh for the fuel tank, and specialized wiring that could control rockets and bombs. The company also installed pods for mounting two high-powered 23 mm machine guns. By this point, the engineers and mechanics were concerned that they had broken several Austrian laws but were advised that everything would be fine as long as they all kept the secret.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"We have to make that very clear.”

(I should say so!)

 

[hashtag45]

Long ago I was tapped to moderate sites dealing with UFO-paranormal-conspiracy stuff. (I was the designated "voice of reason". Ha.) I learned the basis of disinformation: build an onion. The onion is skin after skin of conspiracies and half-truths. Peel away a layer to see what's underneath. Peel away enough layers and we reach the truth at its center -- except it's empty. Layer after layer of deceit, concealing... nothing. Truth is somewhere else.

If, like good little conspiratologists, we assume these media leaks (Wikileaks, Snowden, Panama, etc) revealing massive wrongdoing are managed and manipulated to distract us from what's REALLY happening, it all makes sense. In the past, new technologies provided pols and propagandists with new tools to mislead the public. Modern digital technologies allow anyone with the chops to create their own bubble of (dis)information, create public terror by hacking personal financial accounts, and otherwise discombobulate reality. The REALLY powerful sit on the sidelines laughing and tweaking their little marionettes. Consider who these leaks hurt, and benefit. Follow the money.

Wow indeed ...

I so hope that you and the OP would start posting more often in the GB forum. You bring such interesting ideas and knowledge, and you might also balance a bit the existing R-L political split.

 

[Hypoxia]

Wow indeed ...

I so hope that you and the OP would start posting more often in the GB forum. You bring such interesting ideas and knowledge, and you might also balance a bit the existing R-L political split.

I'm fairly active on the parts of the GB I can stomach (although Story Ideas is really my home here) and the OP is posting more on GB.

Yeah, a few of us are apparently not doctrinaire. I proudly wear the Rad-Lib / Green label but I'm also a pragmatic card-carrying capitalist. Guess I'm a Jerry Brown Dem. When someone is criticized as partisan I ask, "But are they *accurate*?" I prefer truthful GOPs to lying Dems -- but the former have been very rare lately -- last one I voted for was a congresscritter in 1992.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” —H.L. Mencken

 

[JackLuis]

Japan hit by second powerful earthquake with fears of worse ahead

A second major earthquake in less than two days has shaken Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, with at least 20 people thought to have been killed and more feared buried in building collapses and landslides.

The 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck at around 1.30am on Saturday, waking people across the island – including the thousands already in crisis centres. It caused widespread damage, with several landslides and a village evacuated over fears a dam might burst.
Japan earthquake: tens of thousands flee in fear of aftershocks and volcanoes
Read more

On Thursday a weaker magnitude 6.5 earthquake in the same region of Kumamoto brought down buildings, killed nine people and injured about 800. More than 100 aftershocks followed until the ultimately bigger quake on Saturday morning that led to the earlier, smaller event being reclassified as a foreshock.

The government planned to send 20,000 self-defence troops to Kumamoto by Sunday, Abe said. In addition, 5,500 police officers and members of the fire service would be sent to the prefecture. “Securing the safety of citizens is our top priority,” the prime minister told media.

On Saturday the latest destruction and aftershocks had left Kyushu on tenterhooks. The national broadcaster NHK showed people in evacuation centres once again in shock, fearing for the worst and unable to sleep.

“The earthquake last night was much worse than the one on Thursday,” said Yumiko Ogata at the Mashiki gymnastics centre, one of the evacuation stations. “People are holding up psychologically but nobody slept last night.”

We only have Trump and Cruz to worry about!

 

[BotanyBoy]

We only have Trump and Cruz to worry about!

Sucks for Japan....hope they pull through ok and without radiating the pacific again.

Shit scares me seeing all that activity over there as the years click by without feeling much over here.

We're overdue to get a righteous beat down along a number of faults.

 

[JackLuis]

Pussy Obama Refuses To Start WWIII, Is That Even Legal?

While you were all eating cornflakes and thinking about hamster porn early this week, Vladimir Putin was being a dick. I know, right, what is up with that?

Specifically, Putin was being a dick by sending a couple of Russian fighter planes and a helicopter to fly around an American destroyer operating in the Baltic Sea. This resulted in some pretty good Youtube video of said dickery, which was Unsafe and a Menace to Navigation.

Or maybe, just MAYBE, Navy ship commanders remember that dickhead Russian pilots have sometimes acted like assholes for the past 70 years, and that has resulted in zero U.S. Navy casualties.

Why don’t you ask one, Navy Times?

“Well, we’re not at war with Russia,” [retired] Capt. Rick Hoffman said. “It would be one thing to be operating and have a threatening attack profile from someone who might not recognize me — that’s not the case here.”

“You don’t get to kill people just because they’re being annoying,” said Hoffman, who commanded frigate DeWert and cruiser Hue City.

Yeah, whatever, Obama shill.

 

[JackLuis]

Heavy rains and aftershocks hamper Japan rescue efforts after massive earthquake

Heavy rain in Japan’s Kyushu Island has hampered rescue efforts in regions affected by two earthquakes in Kumamoto Prefecture —one on Thursday and the second on Saturday — that have killed at least 28 people so far, public broadcaster NHK reported. Several buildings were destroyed in the earthquakes while a report by NHK said that at least 760 people were injured.

According to a report by Jiji Press, the terminal building of Kumamoto Airport was shut down after a part of the building collapsed. Flights scheduled to leave and arrive at the airport were cancelled Saturday while the report added that the flight control room’s equipment also suffered damage due to the tremors. However, the runway was reportedly intact.

According to Jiji Press, massive landslides in the region have also cut off two major traffic routes – Kyushu Railway Co.'s Hohi Line and National Route 57. A part of the Oita Expressway in the city of Yufu also suffered damage while several other roads and railway lines were severely damaged.

The 7.3 magnitude earthquake early Saturday killed at least 19 people in the Kumamoto Prefecture. The total death toll since Thursday, when the first earthquake of magnitude-6.4 struck the region, stood at 28. Several aftershocks followed and experts have warned of more. John Bellini, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said, according to the Japan Times: “We would not be surprised to see more earthquakes of this size.”

 

[JackLuis]

Hundreds killed in powerful Ecuador earthquake

Rescue teams race to find survivors after 7.8-magnitude tremor kills more than 200 people in Ecuador.

The death toll from Ecuador's strongest earthquake in decades has risen to at least 238 as rescue teams raced to dig out people trapped under the rubble in shattered coastal towns.

The powerful 7.8-magnitude quake struck off the Pacific coast on Saturday and was felt around the country, flattening buildings and buckling roads in several western towns.

Officials had previously put the toll at 77 dead and nearly 600 injured.

"The immediate priority is to rescue people in the rubble," President Rafael Correa, who was rushing home from a trip to Italy, said on Sunday via Twitter.

More than 1,500 people were injured, authorities said.

The US Geological Survey said the shallow quake was centred 27km south-southeast of Muisne, a sparsely populated area of fishing ports that is popular with tourists.

Coastal areas nearest the quake were worst affected, especially Pedernales, a town of 40,000.

 

[JackLuis]

Heavy fighting rages in Afghanistan's Kunduz

Both the Taliban and the Afghan government have claimed major advances as intense fighting continues for the strategic city of Kunduz.

Battles erupted earlier this week in six districts in Kunduz province, a key northern stronghold close to the Tajikistan border, as well as around the provincial capital, which the Taliban captured and held for several days last year.

The Taliban said on Sunday fighters were besieging Kunduz from three directions - east, north and west - and had made significant gains in their efforts to recapture it.

"We have advanced in Khanabad and Imam-Saheb districts and have captured 55 government security forces," Mullah Hamidi, a Taliban member, told Al Jazeera.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

UK version of The ONION ?

That Schindler was a meddling do-gooder, say Tories

RESCUING child refugees is the sort of sentimental nonsense that belongs in films, senior Tories have confirmed.


The pressure grows on the government to accept 3,000 vulnerable children into the UK, ministers are insisting they are all naughty little tinkers like the Artful Dodger, and should be kept away.

Tory MP Denys Finch-Hatton said: “Before you know it, the whole country will be overrun by gangs of marauding children.

“I’ve seen this sort of thing at the cinema. Fagin rescued abandoned children and they were a menace to society. Bugsy Malone and his gang were a terrible influence, and the Lost Boys just took advantage of Wendy’s kindness.

“And as for Schindler’s List, that film was about him having to take care of lots of kids that didn’t belong to him, because he meddled in other people’s business.

“Children should be isolated and alone, like when Mr Bumble locked Oliver in a cellar, but the cellar is actually France.”

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/polit...-meddling-do-gooder-say-tories-20160427108346

27-04-16

 

[JackLuis]

Teacher Killings Ignite Calls for Revolution in Mexico

Police crackdown on rural educator protest spurs wide rebuke of government privatization and repression

The Mexican government's deadly crackdown on a teacher's union protest has rattled the nation in recent days, as 200,000 doctors on Wednesday joined the ongoing national strike against President Enrique Peña Nieto's neoliberal reforms.

Anti-government sentiment is mounting after police forces opened fire on a teacher protest in Oaxaca on Sunday, killing at least eight.

Since then, two high level government officials from that state, Oaxaca Minister of Indigenous Affairs Adelfo Regino Montes and Secretary of Labor Daniel Gutierrez, have resigned in protest of the "authoritarian actions that repress and kill Oaxacan people who defend their rights and the government’s negligence to any possibility of dialogue," as Gutierrez put it.

If Mexico has a revolution, how big a wall will we need to build to keep the revolution from coming here, Mr Trump?

Neo-lib's in Mexico are showing what a Trump or Clinton regime would mean to America.

 

[someoneyouknow]

ISL expelled from of Falluja

A senior Iraqi general has announced on state TV that the battle for Falluja is over as Iraqi troops retook the final ISIS holdout in the city.

Lt. General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi said the city was liberated Sunday after recapturing the neighborhood of al-Jolan from ISIS. It was the last area of Falluja that ISIS had controlled, he said while standing in the neighborhood.

Over 1,800 ISIS militants were killed during the military operations by the Iraqi forces to recapture the city and villages surrounding it, al-Saadi, commander of the liberation of Falluja operations, told al-Iraqiya TV.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/26/middleeast/falluja-liberated-isis/index.html

I don't think that number is correct. Most likely for internal consumption. Reports indicated ISL wasn't fighting to the death. Regardless, a few hundred more dead isn't a bad thing.

 

[JackLuis]

What’s at Stake in Spain

A guide to tomorrow’s Spanish election.

The outcome of tomorrow’s Spanish general election is uncertain.

Unidos Podemos — the coalition between Podemos and the United Left (IU) — has increased its chances of governing. With this alliance, Podemos has defined itself as a party of the Left.

Leader Pablo Iglesias has declared that Unidos Podemos carries the banner of social democracy that most European socialist parties have abandoned.

Unidos Podemos aims to expel Mariano Rajoy from the Palace of La Moncloa and — with the support of the Socialist Party (PSOE) — form a government of the Left. This alliance is the only option the coalition will consider.

If elected, Unidos Podemos promises to increase social expenditure by €60 billion (6 percent of GDP) over the next four years.

It plans to pay for this expansion with a fiscal reform package that includes implementing progressive taxation, with sharp raises in corporate taxes for large companies, fighting tax fraud and evasion, and imposing a financial transactions tax.

It also plans to audit the public debt and to extend the period of fiscal consolidation beyond what the European Commission imposed.

Another state rejecting neo-lib austerity!

 

[underguy1]

What’s at Stake in Spain

A guide to tomorrow’s Spanish election.




Another state rejecting neo-lib austerity!

Not really. Podemos are fakes like Syriza.

 

[JackLuis]

Security Video Shows Suicide Bomber Exploding Himself at Istanbul Airport

The attack left nearly 50 people dead, with at least another 60 injured, and has been claimed by the terrorist group Daesh, also known as IS/Islamic State, according to Dogan News Agency.

A great smoking hole in Istanbul!

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

"Why Are You Here?": EU Official Asks Nigel Farage During Emergency Meeting in Brussels

"That's the last time you're applauding here."

-Jean-Claude Juncker said to Nigel Farage in Brussels

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/nigel-farage-why-are-you-here

Mr Farage made his comments after the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, rounded on UKIP members, asking them: “Why are you here?”

"We must respect British democracy and the way it has expressed its view," he said to rare applause from the UKIP group.

To this he responded: "That's the last time you are applauding here... and to some extent I'm really surprised you are here.

"You are fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favour of the exit. Why are you here?"


(Those gathered, applauded Juncker's words)

Mr Juncker went on to say he was banning any informal and secretive negotiations on Britain's departure from the EU.

He said there will be no secret meetings between UK, national governments and commissioners in the corridors. "I ban that."

http://news.sky.com/story/1718503/farage-tells-meps-youre-not-laughing-now

 

[underguy1]

"Why Are You Here?": EU Official Asks Nigel Farage During Emergency Meeting in Brussels

"That's the last time you're applauding here."

-Jean-Claude Juncker said to Nigel Farage in Brussels

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/nigel-farage-why-are-you-here

Mr Farage made his comments after the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, rounded on UKIP members, asking them: “Why are you here?”

"We must respect British democracy and the way it has expressed its view," he said to rare applause from the UKIP group.

To this he responded: "That's the last time you are applauding here... and to some extent I'm really surprised you are here.

"You are fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favour of the exit. Why are you here?"


(Those gathered, applauded Juncker's words)

Mr Juncker went on to say he was banning any informal and secretive negotiations on Britain's departure from the EU.

He said there will be no secret meetings between UK, national governments and commissioners in the corridors. "I ban that."

http://news.sky.com/story/1718503/farage-tells-meps-youre-not-laughing-now

Yeah, that's pretty indicative of the standard of the EU 'leadership'.

What a childish prat.