Lost List Latest Blunder in Greece’s War on Tax Dodgers
You do not need to be a god to wonder how Greece is going to get out of trouble if the Financial and Economic Crimes Unit can lose a list of 2000 alleged Swiss bank account holders.
The parliament has ordered a full inquiry into how the list slipped through their fingers. It was supplied two years ago by the-then French finance minister Christine Lagarde who, as IMF boss today, is one of Greece’s lead creditors.
Add to that a second list that has emerged naming 30 former and present politicians it is alleged took bribes and dodged taxes, and it is clear corruption is a many-headed hydra that will need a lot of killing.
It goes deep into Greek society. In fact, everyone’s at it.
“Fakelaki”, or little brown envelopes, change hands at every level of society, from tax and planning inspectors to doctors and businessmen.
More than 23 billion euros in tax escapes Greece every year. For example, 20% of Greek petrol is thought to sell on the black market. And now illegal gold buyers are cashing in on people selling the family jewels and smuggling the metal out of the country.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Troika Insists Greek Professions be Liberalized
Fighting contraband also on agenda
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 3 — Representatives from the troika (EU-ECB-IMF) met with Greek Minister of Development Kostas Hatzidakis on Wednesday. They discussed normalizing the fuel market, fighting contraband, and liberalizing the so-called closed professions, according to media indiscretions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jared Taylor, editor of the “racial realism” online news site American Renaissance, said he hoped to spread a message about the importance of racial separateness.
“I believe in complete freedom of association, and when given that choice most people prefer the company of people of their own race,” said Taylor, when reached by phone Wednesday. “We’re always being told to celebrate diversity and I think diversity is a source of tension.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Americans Putting Noose Around Their Own Necks
Former Presidential candidate and Reform Party founder Ross Perot broke his self-imposed public retirement to make a bold warning: America could be taken over.
Perot was the last man to make a serious independent run for President. That was back in 1992. He withdrew from the race after he and his family had received serious threats against their lives. By the time he had gathered himself enough to reenter the race, all of his momentum was lost and Republican hacks like Rush Limbaugh had a heyday making sport of him. But the things Perot tried to warn us about back then have all come to pass. The economic malaise that currently envelopes this country could have been averted had Presidents and Congresses from both major parties over the past two decades had the sagacity and courage to heed Ross Perot and Ron Paul’s warnings. In fact, looking back, Bill Clinton looks like a fiscal saint compared to fiscal sinners G.W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Yahoo! News covers the story: “Former presidential contender and billionaire Ross Perot is worried that America is a sitting duck for an unnamed foreign invader.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
George Zimmerman Sues NBC Over Edited 911 Tape
In March, NewsBusters broke the story about NBC’s Today show airing an edited audiotape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call the day he shot Trayvon Martin in Florida.
On Thursday, the New York Post reported Zimmerman is suing the Peacock Network.
According to the Post, the complaint will be filed against NBC News President Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen who was the Today reporter involved in the March 27 broadcast.
A source told the Post, “The suit will be filed imminently against NBC and its news executives. The network’s legal department has put everybody in the news department involved with this incident on notice, telling them not to comment.”
As NewsBusters noted at the time, Today played an audiotape with Zimmerman saying on a 911 call, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good…he looks black.”
But this was the fuller text of the call:
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining, and he’s just walking around, looking about.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
NBC deceptively removed the question from the 911 dispatcher to make it appear Zimmerman was racist, a mistake the network ended up apologizing for.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Golden Dawn to Form Employment Agency for Greeks
As unemployment continues to rise in Greece against the background of a deepening recession, the ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) plans to open an employment agency for Greek citizens.
As the latest figures show that youth unemployment in Greece has now soared to 55.4 percent, the highest in the European Union, To Vima reported “Golden Dawn announced the creation of ‘recruiters for Greeks’“.
Xryshavgh announced the new measure is a non-profit charitable effort to support and show solidarity for Greek compatriots. Employers who wish to recruit Greeks in their businesses can contact the local organizations of Golden Dawn, which are now established in many towns. Golden Dawn further noted that much work is offered exclusively to illegal immigrants
According to figures released by the Ministry of Labour, cited by Keep Talking Greece, 47.4 percent of the foreign laborers work without insurance and social security, compared to just over one third of Greeks working without insurance.
The move follows Golden Dawn’s calls for blood donors to donate blood for Greeks only, a move slammed by doctors, and the distribution of food to needy Greeks.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Dacco’ Sentenced to 10 Years in Milan Hospital Embezzlement
Formigoni associate guilty of tax fraud
(ANSA) — Milan, October 3 — Italian businessman Pierangelo Dacco’ was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for embezzling money through the San Raffaele hospital in Milan.
According to the court, Dacco’ helped create the so-called “San Raffaele system”, whereby entrepreneurs who worked under contract for the hospital would intentionally overbill clients and give the difference to Dacco’ who used the money for slush funds. He was also found guilty of misappropriating assets and tax fraud. The court absolved businessman Andrea Bezziccheri. Mario Valsecchi, the former director of the hospital, has already served 2 years and 10 months in prison. Dacco’ is also part of a separate multi-million-euro fraud investigation into the Pavia-based Maugeri health-care foundation. Prosecutors say Dacco’ spent 4.5 million euros on three yachts and lent them to Lombardy Governor Roberto Formigoni, a close ally of former premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Formigoni has denied wrongdoing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Analysis by Oxfam of several thousand land deals completed in the last decade shows that an area eight times the size of the UK has been left idle by speculators or is being used largely to grow biofuels for US or European vehicles.
In a report, published on Thursday, Oxfam says the global land rush is out of control and urges the World Bank to freeze its investments in large-scale land acquisitions to send a strong signal to global investors to stop “land grabs”.
“More than 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. But two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on the land. Nearly 60% of the deals have been to grow crops that can be used for biofuels,” says the report.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Scotsman Dies: Taking Town’s Dialect With Him
LONDON (AP) —- In a remote fishing town on the tip of Scotland’s Black Isle, the last native speaker of the Cromarty dialect has died, taking with him another little piece of the English linguistic mosaic.
Scottish academics said Wednesday that Bobby Hogg, who passed away last week at age 92, was the last person fluent in the dialect once common in the seaside town of Cromarty, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) north of Scottish capital Edinburgh.
The Biblically-influenced speech —- complete with “thee” and “thou” —- is one of many fading dialects which have been snuffed out across the British Isles.
Across the world, regional languages and dialects have disappeared as rural populations move to urban areas and compulsory education and mass media combine to iron out the kinks in local speech.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Tuscany Massacre Survivors to Appeal Against German Ruling
Mayor says court decision ‘absurd and unjust’
(ANSA) Sant’Anna di Stazzema, October 2; Survivors and relatives of the victims of a notorious World War II massacre in Tuscany are to appeal against a German court decision not to prosecute surviving Nazi military officers suspected of being responsible. On Monday German magistrates said a lack of evidence made them drop the case against eight surviving Nazi soldiers for the murder of hundreds of civilians in the Tuscan village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, near Lucca, in 1944, following investigations lasting 10 years. The decision sparked anger and disbelief among the local community and Italian politicians, with mayor Michele Silicani describing it as “absurd and unjust”. In its own investigation and trial, the Italian military court condemned 10 of the ex-Nazi officers to life in prison in absentia, including the eight who remain alive. Germany refused to grant Italy’s request for the men’s arrest.
Mayor Siliciani on Tuesday said he also planned to meet with Justice Minister Paola Severino to ask for her intervention.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gary Glitter raped a girl of 13 in Sir Jimmy Savile’s BBC dressing room, it was claimed last night.
The attack in the 1970s allegedly took place as Savile was himself groping a 14-year-old in the same room.
A third star — a household-name entertainer who still performs — was also abusing a schoolgirl, according to the claims.
They were made by Karin Ward, a former pupil of the Surrey school where Savile is accused of preying on under-age girls.
She waived her anonymity to tell an ITV documentary screened last night how the Jim’ll Fix It star was in cahoots with pop paedophile Glitter.
Her devastating story was aired as:
- The BBC faced fresh claims it hushed up Savile’s abuse.
- Newsnight was plunged into a row over why it failed to pass allegations to police.
- More women came forward to tell how Savile molested them as teenagers.
- It was claimed the star abused girls as young as nine at Jersey’s notorious Haut de la Garenne children’s home.
‘He humiliated me in front of everyone in the dressing room by saying something really unkind about my lack of breasts.’
Her testimony comes after more than ten other women stepped forward earlier in the week to allege the Top of the Pops presenter abused them when they were children.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bedel: Mechanic Walks Free Over Child Porn Stash
HACKNEY, EAST LONDON A mechanic caught with a stash of pornographic pictures and videos of children as young as two being abused has walked free from court. Abbas Bedel, 53, had 1,134 child porn images and videos on his home computer, including 154 of the most serious levels of abuse. One of the videos lasted nearly 50 minutes of an adult sexually abusing a seven-year-old child, while other pictures and videos featured toddlers and young children.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Graphic content.]
A retired accountant who turned to escort girls after the death of his wife was brutally murdered by one at his £1million home, a court heard yesterday.
The body of Winston Fernandez, 69, lay undiscovered for almost a month after 38-year-old Russian prostitute Natalia Woolley beat him to death, it is alleged.
The £600-a-night vice girl, who describes herself online as ‘alluring to all men and incredibly sexy’, is said to have descended into a rage after an argument over what services she would provide.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It wasn’t quite serious enough to warrant calling the Flying Squad.
But when faced with a middle-aged man refusing to get out of the pool at a leisure centre, one over-eager police force did deem it appropriate to send in the ‘Swimming Squad’.
As many as eight officers and four police cars were dispatched to the scene, before two policemen jumped into the water in full uniform to subdue the man.
[…]
Witnesses said the trouble at the pool in Bournemouth, Dorset, began when the man began shouting and swearing at children who had been splashing him in the water.
Lifeguards asked him to leave but when he refused, police were called to help.
Sharese Taylor, who was in the spectator area of the pool after having a swim, filmed the incident on her mobile phone.
The 19-year-old sales assistant said the man had reacted angrily towards the children but claimed the police’s handling of the situation was ‘ridiculous’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hunt for Southampton Sex Attack Suspect Mohammed Islam
HE is one of Hampshire’s most wanted men.
This is the face of suspected serial sex attacker Mohammed Islam, who police are trying to find in connection with a series of terrifying assaults on lone women.
But the 22-year-old is today at the centre of a major police appeal after he failed to answer bail and vanished from his home.
Detectives had arrested Islam in March this year, in the weeks after several women were attacked and indecently assaulted as they walked in Southampton, and questioned him about the allegations.
However, despite being on bail and asked to return to a police station to discover his fate in May this year, Islam has disappeared
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Judge Slams ‘Unthinkable’ EU Human Rights Cases
Rapist Desmond Grant, 30 and child rapist Roger Gleaves, 79 — a paedophile notorious under the name Bishop of Medway — brought their claim for the end of slopping out with the help of taxpayer-funded legal aid.
They said that the use of buckets in cells at night and the failure to provide round-the-clock flushing toilets at Albany prison on the Isle of Wight was a breach of their human rights.
Slopping out is used by prisoners in 2000 cells in 10 prisons in England and Wales.
The evidence presented by a rapist and a paedophile was false, exaggerated and a travesty, the judge declared.
Lord Justice Davis said: ‘It is more or less unthinkable that an action of this kind could have troubled this court, even a few years ago, but the European Convention on Human Rights has changed that.
‘This case has occupied the time of a High Court judge and, notwithstanding his detailed judgement, this case is now the subject of an application for permission to appeal.’
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jon Cruddas: Some of My Friends Vote BNP. I Understand Their Concerns
Labour’s policy review chief has admitted some of his friends vote for the BNP and he understands their concerns, in a signal of how deep the effort in the Labour party to reconnect with the white working class goes.
Speaking to The Huffington Post UK at Labour’s conference, Jon Cruddas said he associated with people who vote BNP, adding “I can understand a lot of my friends’ concerns.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Warning Over Future of Higher Education as Just 10 UK Institutions Make it Into Top 100 List
UK universities face a ‘perfect storm’ as dropping investment, hostile visa conditions and a ‘vacuum’ of postgraduate study are contributing to their slump in international rankings.
The higher education institutions have dropped in an international league table, putting the nation’s reputation for higher education at risk, it has been suggested.
While the UK currently still has the second best university system in the world behind the United States, a number of leading institutions have tumbled down the rankings this year.
Top spot was retained for the second time by the California Institute of Technology which excels in science and engineering.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Butler Reports “Inhuman Conditions in Prison”
(AGI) Vatican City — During a dramatic hearing in the trial in which he is charged with aggravated burglary, the Pope’s ‘disloyal’ butler Paolo Gabriele reported that he has experienced inhuman conditions in prison at the barracks of the Vatican Gendarmerie, especially during the first days following his arrest. “The cell was so narrow I could not stretch my arms, the light was on 24/7 and I was even denied a pillow,” he told the judges. Court President Giuseppe della Torre asked judge Nicola Picardi to investigate these allegations.
Accepting the presiding judge’s invitation the prosecutor specified that “every possible was done to find a more suitable cell, unavailable at the time because two people were under arrest, Gabriele and Sciarpelletti.” Picardi added that the situation “lasted less than 20 days” and meals were not served to the detainee through the small opening on the cell door.
Paolo Gabriele asked for records to show that he had reported that having the lights on 24/7 has damaged his eyesight. This precaution is applied when a detainee is considered a suicide risk.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Price of Hate: Radical Israeli Settlers Vandalize Christian Monastery
Radical Jewish settlers vandalized a Christian church outside of Jerusalem, spray-painting “Jesus is a bastard” and “price tag” on its outer door. Such attacks have been on the rise despite police promises to curb hate crimes in the Holy Land.
The blue graffiti denigrating the central figure to the Christian religion was scrawled on the door of the Franciscan Convent near the Dormition Abbey Church early on Tuesday. It was removed soon after.
The Dormition Abbey Church, located on Mount Zion just outside the walls of the Old City, is believed by many Christians to be the site where the Virgin Mary died.
Tuesday’s attack was the second targeting a Christian site in less than a month.
In September, pro-settlement vandals defaced the Latrun monastery in the West Bank, writing “Jesus is a monkey” in large orange letters on its outer wall. The also torched the wooden door at the monastery entrance following the evacuation of the Migron output.
In February two cars and a stone fence at the Valley of the Cross Monastery in Jerusalem were also vandalized with phrases like “Jesus drop dead” and “Death to Christians.”
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Protesters in Tehran yesterday chanted ‘Death to the dictator’ in a fierce stand against President Ahmadinejad.
The rare public outpouring of anger against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad followed strikes by currency traders and bazaar merchants over the financial crisis in Iran.
Today, the streets were filled with riot police as the government showed it was determined not to allow another day of violence.
It was a complete contrast to yesterday’s scenes, which saw banks and public buildings vandalised amid clashes with police as protestors blamed their president for the country’s economic decay.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syria-Turkey: More Bombings: Risk of a War
Erdogan seeks parliament’s ok to one-year military operations
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — The situation remains tense today on the border between Syria and Turkey. Ankara’s artillery is continuing to hit Syrian army targets in response to Syria’s shelling yesterday of the Turkish border town of Akcakale in which five people died.
Islamic nationalist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented this morning an urgent motion to the Great Assembly in Ankara in a closed-door meeting in which he sought a one-year authorization for cross-border military operations in Syria. In the motion, Erdogan said that ‘the ongoing crisis in Syria threatens stability and security in the region’.
A war between the two countries, with unforeseeable consequences for the entire Middle East, has never appeared this close. At Turkey’s request, NATO and the UN Security Council held emergency meetings last night. The Atlantic Alliance sided with Ankara denouncing the ‘flagrant breach of international law’ by Damascus. The Security Council is expected to take a stance today.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which is close to Sunni rebels, several Syrian troops were killed by Turkish fire along the border. The Syrian government has announced an inquiry into the mortar attack against Akcakale yesterday. It is still unclear who is behind the shelling. The area has been at the centre of fierce fighting between the army and Sunni rebels for the past 15 days.
Syria’s Information Minister Omran Zoabi expressed Damascus’ condolences to the families of the Turkish victims.
Syria has ruled out that Akcakale was deliberately hit by its troops. Ankara’s stance remains muscular. Erdogan, who supports Sunni rebels in Syria fighting his former ally Assad, said that Turkey ‘will never leave unanswered this type of provocation by the Syrian regime against our national security’. The Turkish premier asked parliament to authorize for a year possible military action in Syria, an indication that Ankara could go beyond its current retaliatory artillery strikes.
The motion should be approved with the votes of Erdogan’s party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) — known as the Grey Wolves — in spite of the opposition of the Social Democrats with CHP and Kurds with BDP. According to the Turkish press, Erdogan has been considering the option of a no-fly zone in Syria and a ‘buffer area’ along the border, as repeatedly requested by anti-Assad Sunni rebels, which is however opposed by the US.
Turkish analyst Asli Aydintasbs wrote today in the Milliyet newspaper that Turkey could not fail to respond to the incident in Akcale.
‘Denouncing it to the UN and NATO without doing anything would have destroyed Turkey’s aspirations to become a regional power and would have damaged its prestige’, he wrote.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: R200m Splurge on Zuma Homestead
Zuma to pay just 5% for Nkandla revamp, taxpayers the rest.
The extensive and very hush-hush revamp of President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead is set to cost taxpayers a whopping R203 million.
[…]
According to official departmental documentation, the president will only pay R10.6 million himself. This is less than 5% of the total cost to revamp his family compound in Nxamalala village.
The work — which includes the building of a helipad, underground bunkers and fencing around the entire complex — was started by contractors in 2010.
[…]
It is not clear whether the entire contract has been paid for as yet.
The presidency and public works have declined to comment on the project, which is titled Prestige Project A, citing security concerns.
[…]
The Nkandla compound was built by Zuma in 2000.
The corruption trial of Schabir Shaik, Zuma’s former financial adviser, heard that money from French arms dealer Thales was used to fund the building of the complex, which included several thatched houses and staff quarters.
In 2009, the Mail & Guardian (M&G) revealed that the compound would be upgraded to the tune of R65 million — a bill that has since dramatically increased.
Plans included the construction of three sets of underground living quarters with 10 air-conditioned rooms, a clinic for Zuma and his family [6 billion wives and counting], 10 houses for security personnel, a helipad, houses for air force and police units, underground parking, playgrounds and a visitors’ centre.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Gay Pride Banned for Security Reasons
All homophobic events banned as well, second year in a row
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, OCTOBER 3 — For the second year in a row, Serbian authorities have canceled next Saturday’s Gay Pride march for security reasons, the Interior ministry made known on Wednesday. The march as well as all ultra-nationalist homophobic events or activities against the march are banned, the authorities said. This follows on comments by Serbian Premier Ivica Dacic, who is also the interior minister, that the march might be canceled if the authorities thought it might threaten public safety.
The 2010 Gay Pride march in the Serbian capital ended with violent clashes between ultra-nationalists and police in the center of Belgrade, in which dozens were injured and hundreds were arrested.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Graphic content.]
A killer scattered gay DVDs, a Bible and party popper streamers over the body of a murdered vicar, a court heard yesterday.
Stephen Farrow, 48, then stayed at the vicarage for several hours watching an Indiana Jones DVD and drinking beer.
The stabbed body of Reverend John Suddards, 59, was later discovered by workmen next to a carefully propped-up painting of Jesus.
A Bible was left on the dead man’s chest, opened at the Letter of Jude.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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