Posted by seumasach on December 20, 2018
As with Mahathir in Malaysia so, now with Imran Khan: both are driving hard bargains with China and the Belt and Road Initiative is by no means one-way traffic. A genuine multipolarity is emerging with strategic autonomy as the watchword as all players seek to benefit from the greatest development project in human history.
Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
20th December, 2018
On top of the graceful Baltit Fort, overlooking the Hunza Valley’s Shangri-La-style splendor, it’s impossible not to feel dizzy at the view: an overwhelming collision of millennia of geology and centuries of history.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 18, 2018
Tom Luongo
14th December, 2018
It is increasingly clear the global economy is slowing down. And a few months ago the epicenter for that slowdown was Turkey.
The Turkish Lira melted down as fears over its massive pile of corporate debt, most of it denominated in dollars, began selling off. And that had contagion effects into Europe since yield-starved banks went looking for some thanks to the ECB’s negative interest rate policy.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: turkey looks east | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 16, 2018
Talk about the shift of power from West to East!
Asia Times
14th december, 2018
Prosecutors in Malaysia filed yet another round of new graft charges against disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak this week after investigators questioned him and Arul Kanda Kandasamy, a former chief executive at 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), over allegations of tampering with a 2016 government audit of the graft-linked state fund.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Goldman Sachs | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 16, 2018
Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
13th december, 2018
The concept of Greater Eurasia has been discussed at the highest levels of Russian academia and policy-making for some time. This week the policy was presented at the Council of Ministers and looks set to be enshrined, without fanfare, as the main guideline of Russian foreign policy for the foreseeable future.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: eurasian project, Greater Eurasia, New Eurasian Century | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
RT
14th December, 2018
Forces are aligning against Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, lead by elements within the CIA and strong players in the mainstream media. But what is really behind this deterioration in relationship, and what are its implications?
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Posted in Currency Wars | Tagged: petro-yuan, saudi russia rapprochement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
Britain is descending into political chaos as May is seemingly playing for time. Meanwhile, attempts to unseat Trump reach a crescendo at least in the press. The impeachment of Trump would restore the Special Relationship and perhaps put Brexit back on the road to Oceania.
Independent
15th December, 2018
The interview that Michael Cohen gave ABC News on Friday morning should show Donald Trump one thing; that until he surrenders to begin a three-year prison sentence next March, he is unlikely to go away.
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Posted in brexit crisis, Oceania | Tagged: oceania, tripping up trump, Trump impeachment | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
It is clear now that the meaning of this statement has to be revisited in the light growing American hostility to UK financial interests culminating in Trump’s election and embodied in his tax reforms, and the growing campaign to render British Overseas Territories more transparent finally concretised in 2018 legislation. Dodgy financial operations are not only under threat by EU regulations but by US competition. and have been for some time. Hence the need for a deepening of the City of London’s role as a haven for illicit money flows.
Guardian
15th January, 2017
The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has suggested Britain could transform its economic model into that of a corporate tax haven if the EU fails to provide it with an agreement on market access after Brexit.
In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hammond said that if Britain were closed off from European markets after leaving the EU, it would consider abandoning a European-style social model with European-style taxation and regulation systems, and “become something different”.
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Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: Brexit and the hedge funds, City of London, End of empire, UK as offshore tax haven | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
Guardian
7th April, 2016
David Cameron intervened personally to prevent offshore trusts from being dragged into an EU-wide crackdown on tax avoidance, it has emerged.
In a 2013 letter to the then president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, the prime minister said that trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as companies.
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Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: offshore trusts | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
“The disclosure measure had originally been proposed by David Cameron and George Osborne in 2013, but the commitment was dropped when May became prime minister, prompting Hodge and Mitchell to act in concert to get the measure on the statute book.”
Interesting that the UK government has acted against these tax havens although they still have the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. May, then, is a safe pair of hands as far as City interests are concerned and, by the look of it, not a closet Remainer.
Guardian
1st May, 2018
Britain’s overseas territories will be forced to adopt public registers of company ownership at the end of the decade after the government conceded it would have to support a backbench amendment designed to stem the global flow of “dirty money”.
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Posted in brexit crisis, British economy | Tagged: British Overseas Territories, City of London | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
New African
6th January, 2017
For over 40 years, African countries have been haemorrhaging more money than they receive in aid and foreign investment. 80 per cent of these illicit financial flows are siphoned through London, giving the lie to the idea that tax havens function independently. Over the last decade alone, $1 trillion of African money has been squirrelled away into secret jurisdictions, with the full knowledge of Western governments. Khadija Sharife has spent a year examining the Panama Papers and now reveals the inner workings of a monumental scandal.
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Posted in British economy | Tagged: City of London, looting of Africa, offshore finance | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 15, 2018
“Almost 40 percent of the funds are located in the United Kingdom or its Caribbean offshore territories such as the British Virgin Islands, UNCTAD said, citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.”
This hit by Trump against City of London and UK offshore interests has received little commentary but goes a long way to explaining the wall of hostility towards him in the UK press. This is also confirmation of my contention that Trump has ended the special relationship at a time when the UK itself is trying to throw off the regulatory fetters of the EU (I refer, of course, to the regulation of finance). It also goes a long way to explaining why the UK has descended into political chaos, finding itself caught between the EU and the USA, between a rock and a hard place.
Japan Times
6th February, 2018
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax reform could bring almost $2 trillion back to the United States as U.S. firms repatriate cash piles from foreign affiliates, a U.N. report said on Monday.
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Posted in Battle for Europe, British economy | Tagged: end of special relationship, trump agenda, Trump v. UK offshore interests, UK-US financial turf war | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 