Breaking News: British ‘Paradise Papers’ Exposes the Rich

8 Comments

1. 

   Oui on November 5, 2017 at 4:22 pm

   Revealed: Glencore’s secret loan to secure DRC mining rights  

   The world’s largest mining company, Glencore, secretly loaned tens of millions of dollars to an Israeli billionaire after it enlisted him to secure a controversial mining agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Paradise Papers reveal.

   The documents show in forensic detail how the mining magnate Dan Gertler held Glencore’s imprimatur as key negotiator with DRC authorities.

   The Paradise Papers, a leaked cache of documents including more than 6m from within Appleby, one of the world’s leading and most secretive offshore law firms, lay bare the arcane multi-jurisdictional dealings of Glencore, a scandal-plagued Swiss multinational with mining interests across the globe, but particularly in Africa.

   The documents confirm that in 2009, Glencore loaned Gertler $45m with the caveat that it would be repayable if agreement with DRC authorities was not reached to secure a mining contract for a company linked to Glencore.

   Gertler’s notoriety in the resource-rich but conflict-riven and corrupt DRC spans nearly two decades. He was cited by a 2001 UN investigation that said he had given the DRC president, Joseph Kabila, $20m to buy weapons to equip his army against rebel groups in exchange for a monopoly on the country’s diamonds, and a 2013 Africa Progress Panel report said a string of mining deals struck by companies linked to him had deprived the country of more than $1.3bn in potential revenue.

   He is also alleged to be the unnamed “DRC Partner” cited in a 2016 US Department of Justice deferred prosecution agreement who, along with others, paid more than $100m in bribes over a decade to DRC government officials “to obtain special access to and preferential prices for opportunities” in the country’s mining sector for a US hedge fund.  

   ○ Capitalism Sucks – Marc Rich and Glencore Billions
   ○ Diamonds forever: Will Israel stay away from Congo?
   ○ Netanyahu’s diplomatic charm offensive in Africa is bound to fail
   ○ Death of U.N. chief Dag Hammarskjöld and civil war in mineral-rich Congolese province of Katanga

   • 

     Oui on November 5, 2017 at 4:40 pm

     Israeli Intelligence Assets Aid African Dictators | Tikun Olam – July 2013 |

     Today, Israeli billionaires like Lev Leviev and Dan Gertler work hand in glove with military regimes and corrupt politicians in Congo, Angola and elsewhere to pry blood diamonds from African soil, which glitter on the necks and bosoms of the 1% in fashion capitals throughout the world.  They reinforce the wealth and power of blood-sucking tyrants and the continuing degradation of the poor peasants who share none of this wealth.

     Israel’s retrograde influence in southern Africa continues to this day.  Retired Israeli intelligence officers are plying their trade in countries like Zimbabwe, where they offer the ruling party their expertise in running elections.  They collect data, register voters, maintain voter rolls, conduct the elections and count the votes-all for a substantial fee of course.  On their websites they can boast about their role in furthering the budding of African democracy.  But in reality, they’re working hand in glove with the dictator, Robert Mugabe.

2. 

   Marie3 on November 5, 2017 at 5:34 pm

   We’ll have to wait and see how many the German newspaper exposes.  This initial report (and it stresses that these financial activities aren’t illegal) is sounding too much like the Panama Papers reports — name the usual suspects and any that are within five degrees of Putin.  Through in a few that it won’t hurt like the Queen, Trudeau, and Bono for a veneer of full disclosure.

   What gets sidestepped in revelations like this is that this is how globalized capitalism in the financial arena operates and is supposed to operate: capital seeking the highest rate of return and maximizing tax avoidance.  In some way it’s all dirty money because down at the primary collection point, there are have-nots that are being exploited.    

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on November 7, 2017 at 12:46 pm

     Excellent. Thank you.  Fact-based…for a long, long time… distrust of the mass media on all levels. Being adept at the “limited hangout” is a major part of the job description of anyone in any position of real power in the major media.

     And who invented the concept, the term and then perfected its practice?

     Guess.

     Limited hangout

     A limited hangout or partial hangout is, according to former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Victor Marchetti, “spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting–sometimes even volunteering–some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.”[1][2]

     Modified limited hangout
     In a March 22, 1973 meeting between Richard Nixon, John Dean, John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and H. R. Haldeman, Ehrlichman incorporated the term into a new and related one, “modified limited hangout”.[3][4]

     The phrase was coined in the following exchange:[5]

     “PRESIDENT: You think, you think we want to, want to go this route now? And the — let it hang out, so to speak?
     DEAN: Well, it’s, it isn’t really that —
     HALDEMAN: It’s a limited hang out.
     DEAN: It’s a limited hang out.
     EHRLICHMAN: It’s a modified limited hang out.
     PRESIDENT: Well, it’s only the questions of the thing hanging out publicly or privately.”

     Before this exchange, the discussion captures Nixon outlining to Dean the content of a report that Dean would create, laying out a misleading view of the role of the White House staff in events surrounding the Watergate burglary. In Ehrlichman’s words: “And the report says, ‘Nobody was involved,'”. The document would then be shared with the United States Senate Watergate Committee investigating the affair. The report would serve the administration’s goals by protecting the President, providing documentary support for his false statements should information come to light that contradicted his stated position. Further, the group discusses having information on the report leaked by those on the Committee sympathetic to the President, to put exculpatory information into the public sphere.[5]

     The phrase has been cited as a summation of the strategy of mixing partial admissions with misinformation and resistance to further investigation, and is used in political commentary to accuse people or groups of following a Nixon-like strategy.[6]

     Nice.

     Mainstream disinfo/misinfo/partial info action.

     Business as usual…as was the recent so-called “release” of the JFK files.

     Believe none of it.

     it is all “false news” if it is any way promulgated by the mass media.

     The mass media of any major power.

     Bet on it.

     Trust only the cooking sections. Even then, only after you have tried the recipe.

     AG

     • 

       Marie3 on November 7, 2017 at 2:22 pm

       It’s not all false or fake.  And dismissing all of it as such makes one a total know nothing.  Admittedly a better condition than knowing mostly things that ain’t so.  

       The task is critical reading and thinking.  To sort the wheat (and generally there is some) from the chaff.  And to ponder what is missing from the reports.  We should be good with stringing up all of the crooks and liars and not satisfied with selective revelations and enforcement.  For example, Ross is probably dirty — get him — but no dirtier than many big buck VIPs.  Get Manafort but also get the Podestas and all the Clinton and Obama affiliated Ukrainians and anti-Russian, pro-Kiev Nazi associates.  Also the Israeli and Saudi Arabian officials that interfered in the US election (the former would include almost every member of Congress.)  Still waiting to see exactly what the Awans were up to with their direct pipeline to DWS.  

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on November 7, 2017 at 6:38 pm

         Yeah.

         But, Marie…

         The limited hangout is predicated on the half-truth. You are correct…it’s not all “false or fake.” But a half-truth is faking it.

         Like the bait on a hook…just enough truth to hook the fish.

         AG

3. 

   Marie3 on November 8, 2017 at 10:32 am

   Yes!

   To those who say "the #ParadisePapers are no big deal, because the practices they reveal are legal", I say: it's the legality of tax avoidance that makes it such a scandal.

   — GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) November 8, 2017

   Exactly – just as was true of the Snowden reporting & Panama Papers, what's scandalous isn't what's illegal: it's what's been made legal https:/t.co/7PvVBL4E8o https:/t.co/DKxfzVZQqu

   — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 8, 2017

4. 

   Marie3 on November 8, 2017 at 12:14 pm

   Have you run across the following before?

   Marina Acton Charity Fund.