“Entrepreneurship” commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, right, is the latest in a parade of EU officials heading to Israel to reward it for its crimes. (via Twitter)Ali Abunimah-4 September 2017
Palestinian academics are urging their European counterparts to end their cooperation with a European Union project that funds Israeli torturers.
The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees and PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, are calling on Belgium’s KU Leuven university and Portugal’s INESC-ID research institute to pull out of the EU-funded LAW-TRAIN program.
They also urge three British academics listed as advisors– Portsmouth University’s Claire Nee and Jo Taylor and William Finn, both of the College of Policing – to end their roles in the project.
LAW-TRAIN began in May 2015 with the ostensible aim of “harmonizing and sharing interrogation techniques between the countries involved in order to face the new challenges in transnational criminality.”
It is a joint project with the Israeli public security ministry, police and Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.
But international legal experts said in June that LAW-TRAIN violates EU regulations and international law because Israel’s public security ministry “is responsible for or complicit in torture, other crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
Funding war crimes
Israel’s police and Bar-Ilan University are also directly involved in numerous transgressions, including extrajudicial executions, torture, war crimes and collusion with Israel’s secret police, the Palestinian academics say.
“Cooperation with these institutions through LAW-TRAIN not only disregards Palestinians’ human rights,” they add, “it provides a green light for these torture methods to continue, and worse yet, presents them as an example to follow in Europe.”
EU officials claim that LAW-TRAIN passed an ethical review and evaluation, but according to the legal experts, the process was flawed and ignored key EU regulations that prohibit funding to individuals and entities engaged in grave misconduct.
LAW-TRAIN is funded under Horizon 2020, an EU program that provides millions of dollars to Israeli arms makers and human rights violators under the guise of supporting “research.”
Earlier this year EU science commissioner Carlos Moedas visited Israel to celebrate Israel’s role in Horizon 2020.
European appeasement policy
The official logic of the EU’s unconditional support for Israel seems to be that by engaging in “dialogue” and reassuring Israel, that Israel will feel safe enough to take steps towards “peace” and the mythical two-state solution.
But EU appeasement has had precisely the opposite effect, merely emboldening Israel to commit more crimes. In 2014, for instance, the EU launched a “dialogue” aimed at convincing Israel to freeze demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures in the occupied West Bank.
Last month, Israel demolished several European taxpayer-funded schools and projects in the West Bank. The EU’s response was a weakly worded statement, followed by more rewards for Israel.
Ironically, one of the most sharply worded – though still toothless – protests against the demolitions came from the government of Belgium, which is deeply complicit in LAW-TRAIN: several Belgian judicial officials are involved in the program.
But the most spectacular failure of the EU’s appeasement policy came in the form of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent vow that Israel will never remove any settlements from the occupied West Bank – demolishing the cover of even the most naive and complicit EU officials that Israel is interested in a two-state solution.
All of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law, and even the EU claims to oppose them.
But it’s hardly surprising that Israel is accelerating its theft and colonization of West Bank land: the EU ambassador to Tel Aviv publicly stated last year that goods made in Israel’s settlements are “welcome” in European markets – even as major human rights groups are calling for a totalban on business with settlements.
Oblivious
Acting as if they are oblivious, EU bureaucrats continue to reward Israel this week with the visit of Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the 28-member bloc’s “entrepreneurship” commissioner.
Her goal is to promote further “cooperation” in such fields as science and technology – often code for weapons development and the arms trade.
Bieńkowska’s visit is the latest of a high-profile parade of EU officials to Tel Aviv that included science commissioner Moedas.
Another senior official recently pledged EU support for Israel’s efforts to silence criticism of its policies, under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.
EU officials also continue to smear the nonviolent boycott, divestment and sanctions movement with claims the EU cannot substantiate, like the assertion that BDS activities have led to a rise in anti-Semitic incidents.
The clear and consistent message from Brussels to Tel Aviv is that the EU not only tolerates Israel’s crimes, but enthusiastically supports them.
That is unlikely to change until European citizens amplify the message that they will no longer allow their money to be misused by EU officials and European academic institutions to support Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.
One of the more curious and troubling developments in the course of the Syrian civil war has been Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia and cooperation with Iran.
For centuries, Turkey and Russia were enemies, regardless of who ruled each country. To begin with, Russia considered itself (and still considers itself) the custodian of the true Eastern Orthodox Church after the fall of Byzantium to the Turks. The Ottomans regularly fought the czars, especially over Russian attempts to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey remained neutral in World War II, which benefitted Nazi Germany as much if not more than Soviet Russia. And Turkey joined NATO, giving the alliance its longest border with the Soviet Union. There was never much love between the two countries.
Turkish relations with Iran were nearly as antagonistic for some 150 years, but subsequently transformed into mutual caution and suspicion. After all, Shia Persia never came under the control of the Sunni Ottomans. That the three countries have begun to work closely together to contain the Syrian civil war is more a function of their perceived perception of American weakness than of any upsurge in mutual love.
While the Trump administration has been more active in Syria than its predecessor, supplying weapons and support to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, and responding to Syrian use of chemical weapons with the April 2017 cruise missile attack on Syria’s Shayrat airbase, the memory of the Obama “red line” still lingers. It is not at all clear how much further Washington is willing to get enmeshed in Syria in the short-term, much less in the medium and long-term.
Russia, on the other hand, has new, long-term leases for its bases in Syria. Iran has a much deeper vested interest in Syria and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than Washington does in the ever-weaker Syrian opposition. And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fears Russia far less than his Ottoman and republican predecessors did, while his relations with NATO and the EU continue to deteriorate, commensurate with the increase in Turkey’s human rights violations. Erdogan has actually threatened to review Turkey’s alliance with NATO, something that would have been unheard of during the Cold War.
Russian relations with Turkey have grown increasingly warmer since a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24M all-weather attack aircraft over the Turkish border on Nov. 24, 2016. Turkey’s relations with Iran remain proper, if cautious. And the Astana agreement that the three countries reached in May 2017, without active American involvement, has already resulted in three de-escalation zones in Syria.
It is certainly possible that this three-way partnership will be short-lived. The national interests of the three are not congruent. Much will depend on the United States, however. Should Washington remain active in Syria, or increase its efforts there, Turkey will be far less likely to abandon the West for other partners. If, however, the United States washes its hands of Syria, the Turkish-Russian-Iranian connection may be the start of a beautiful friendship.
(Evan Vucci/AP) By John WagnerSeptember 3
President Trump pardoned a tough-on-immigration Arizona sheriff accused of racial profiling. He threatened a government shutdown if Congress won’t deliver border wall funding. He banned transgender people from serving in the military. And he is expected to end a program that shields from deportation young undocumented immigrants who consider the United States home.
These and other moves — all since Trump’s widely repudiated remarks about the hate-fueled violence in Charlottesville less than a month ago — are being heartily cheered by many of his core supporters. But collectively, they have helped cement an image of a president, seven months into his term, who is playing only to his political base.
Trump’s job-approval numbers remain mired in the 30s in most polls, and several new findings last week gave Republicans interested in expanding the party’s appeal fresh reason to worry. A Fox News survey, for example, found that majorities of voters think that Trump is “tearing the country apart” and does not respect racial minorities.
The findings come ahead of what could be another turbulent stretch in Trump’s presidency. He and Congress are seeking this month to keep the government funded and raise the nation’s debt ceiling, amid a Russia probe that is gaining steam and feuds between Trump and fellow Republicans.
In interviews, White House aides and advisers played down concerns about Trump’s standing in the polls, with some suggesting his numbers are more a reflection of broader disgust with Washington. Some also said it is important to keep Trump’s base energized at a time when he has yet to deliver on legislative promises and has seen some erosion among key constituencies, including working-class whites.
At the same time, Trump allies pointed to his visits to areas ravaged by Hurricane Harvey — the latest on Saturday as he sought to show empathy for victims and emergency responders in Texas and Louisiana — as evidence of a president seeking to unite the country. The crisis in North Korea presents another test of Trump’s ability to bring the nation together.
And heading into the fall, Trump aides and advisers say that a major push for tax cuts has the potential to boost Trump’s standing among Americans well beyond his base. Although there is no concrete plan and many thorny issues remain, Republicans in Congress are hoping to rally behind legislation that would demonstrate an ability to govern that so far has been elusive during Trump’s tenure.
“Voters are very skeptical it will happen,” said Tony Fabrizio, who served as Trump’s pollster during last year’s election. “If the president can get a tax-reform package passed, it will confound their expectations and be a huge win.”
Trump plans to pitch the idea of tax legislation this week in North Dakota, marking the second trip in as many weeks aimed at building momentum for both corporate and personal income tax cuts. This visit, as with one last week to Missouri, is to a state Trump won last year and where there is a Democratic senator whose support could be crucial to the fate of any legislation.
For an unorthodox president, such trips are a fairly traditional way to build pressure on Congress to act and have given more-mainstream Republicans some reason for hope about Trump’s engagement after the GOP failure to pass health-care legislation.
In the meantime, though, many in the GOP are openly questioning Trump’s words and actions on issues that are divisive, even among Republicans. Trump’s assertion that many “fine people” marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville drew condemnation across party lines.
And some in the GOP say other recent choices appear designed to bolster the president’s standing only among his most loyal supporters. In recent weeks, Trump has continued his practice of holding campaign-style rallies in states he won, creating an echo chamber of support with his most loyal backers.
“It’s almost as if he’s the pilot of a plane that’s in a terrible downward spiral and he’s insisting on continuing to do things to make it worse,” said John Weaver, who was chief strategist for the 2016 presidential campaign of Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio). “You can’t govern like that, and you can’t win reelection like that, and you can’t take your party into the 2018 midterms like that.”
Recent polling has underscored the narrow band of support Trump enjoys for some of the policies he is advocating.
Only 34 percent said Trump did the right thing by pardoning former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, while 60 percent said he did the wrong thing, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released last week. Arpaio, a major Trump booster during last year’s campaign, was convicted of criminal contempt for ignoring a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people because he merely suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.
In the same survey, only 30 percent said they oppose the policy begun under President Barack Obama that has provided two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 immigrants known as “Dreamers” who have been in the country illegally since they were children. Sixty-four percent voiced support for the policy, which Trump has threatened to dismantle. He plans to announce his intentions on Tuesday.
Some leading Republicans, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), on Friday urged Trump not to rescind the program.
Speaking more broadly, White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said that Trump “is a president for all Americans, and his agenda reflects that.”
“This fall, he will be focused on funding recovery efforts for Texas and Louisiana following Hurricane Harvey and bringing real tax relief to American families,” she said. “He’s also been focused on renegotiating unfair trade deals, rebuilding our nation’s military and many issues that all Americans, regardless of their party identification or who they voted for, can get behind.”
Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly taken actions that have little crossover appeal to Democrats or independents but that are strongly backed by Trump voters — including efforts to ban people from a group of majority Muslim countries from entering the United States and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.
Polls have also shown support for a border wall from majorities of Republicans but only small percentages of Democrats. In the Fox News poll, only 18 percent of voters overall thought it was a good idea to shut down the federal government to force the issue — an idea Trump appears to have backed away from, at least for now.
Trump boosters say he is merely following through on his campaign promises.
“He is part of his base,” said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who advised Trump during the general election. “When he does these things, the base likes it, but he’s doing it because he believes it.”
Others suggest there is more political calculation involved.
“He’s stoking his base with rhetorical messaging in part because it’s taking longer than hoped to get some of his major campaign promises checked off,” said one Republican strategist close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly.
Trump associates say it’s also important to keep the base energized so that they turn out for Republicans in next year’s midterm elections and for Trump’s reelection bid. Some of Trump’s supporters last year were not regular voters.
Trump’s job approval rating dipped to 34 percent last week in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, matching his low mark for the year. Recent polls have shown erosion among Republicans and subgroups such as white working-class voters, who were key to Trump’s election last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton. A poll by Fabrizio’s firm, for example, showed the number of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance rising from 19 percent in June to 25 percent in August.
Fabrizio, who said he has not done work for Trump since the election, characterized the erosion as “negligible” and pointed to a Fox News finding that 96 percent of Trump voters remain satisfied with their vote from last year. That is higher than the 93 percent of Clinton voters who remain satisfied.
Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster and strategist, argued that after an uptick following the election, Trump’s favorability has basically fallen back to where it was during a campaign season in which voters faced a choice between two largely unpopular candidates.
The good news for Trump, Goeas suggested, is that many people who don’t like Trump are turned off by his personality rather than the issues he’s pushing. That creates the possibility of broader acceptance if he’s successful on tax cuts.
Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said the deterioration in Trump’s overall job approval has been fairly typical of recent presidents during their opening stretch in office. What’s different, he said, is that Trump started from a much lower point than other presidents.
Even Trump’s detractors acknowledge that he seems to have a core group of supporters unlikely to abandon him regardless of what transpires in Washington. That in part explains Trump’s frequent travel for campaign-style rallies, said Rick Wilson, a GOP strategist and frequent Trump critic.
“There’s nothing he’s got right now except adulation from his base,” Wilson said. “He could eat a live baby onstage and they’d forgive him. He can do no wrong.”
A Monmouth University poll released last month showed about a quarter of respondents saying that not only do they approve of Trump, they also “cannot see Trump doing anything that would make them disapprove of him.”
Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant, said Trump appears to be battening down with his base in anticipation of fallout from the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election. If things get rough for Trump, the defense by core supporters becomes even more crucial, she said.
“If you look at it through that lens, it makes sense,” Marsh said. “Any other president would have spent their time trying to expand their support.”
Commuters pass by the front of the Bangladesh central bank building in Dhaka March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Ashikur Rahman/Files
Krishna N. Das -SEPTEMBER 4, 2017
DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh’s central bank will send a team of officials to the Philippines on Tuesday to push for the recovery of more of the $81 million stolen from its account at the New York Federal Reserve last year and routed through a bank in Manila.
Bangladesh Bank has been able to retrieve only about $15 million of the money stolen in one of the world’s biggest cyber heists.
A Bangladesh Bank lawyer, Ajmalul Hossain, told Reuters on Monday the bank was working on “various ways” to get back the rest of the money from institutions in the Philippines.
Hossain said two officials from Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, controlled by the central bank, would meet representatives of the Philippine Department of Justice, Anti-Money Laundering Council and a presidential commission, among others.
“All the money that was lost has been frozen ... we’re trying to expedite the process of recovery,” Hossain told Reuters by telephone from London.
Hossain declined to give details of the strategy to recover the money from the heist, which according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was state-sponsored.
On the evening of Feb. 4 last year, the yet-to-be-identified hackers initiated fake transfer orders which sought to move nearly $1 billion from Bangladesh Bank’s New York Fed account mostly to accounts at the Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC).
Many of the transfer orders initiated by the hackers were blocked or reversed by intermediary banks, but $81 million made it to accounts in fake names at RCBC. Most of the funds then disappeared into Manila’s loosely regulated casino industry.
The Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Council has accused several RCBC officials of money-laundering in a complaint filed at its Justice Department, though the bank has blamed only a couple of rogue officials.
Bangladesh Bank and RCBC have exchanged accusations of responsibility for the crime.
RCBC was fined a record one billion pesos ($19.54 million) by the Philippine central bank for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen money through its bank, while a top Bangladeshi investigator has said he suspected some IT technicians from the Dhaka-based bank helped the hackers carry out the heist.
The $15 million that Bangladesh has been able to recover is part of $35 million that Manila casino boss Kim Wong had told a Philippines Senate inquiry he received from two Chinese gamblers without knowing it was stolen.
Exclusive: Leaked data reveals thousands of covert payments, including to European politicians and journalists Some of the money went towards an international lobbying operation to deflect criticism of Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, pictured with his wife Mehriban outside 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters-Luca Volontè. Photograph: Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images Luke Harding, Caelainn Barrand Dina Nagapetyants-Monday 4 September 2017
Azerbaijan’s ruling elite operated a secret $2.9bn (£2.2bn) scheme to pay prominent Europeans, buy luxury goods and launder money through a network of opaque British companies, an investigation by the Guardian reveals.
Leaked data shows that the Azerbaijani leadership, accused of serial human rights abuses, systemic corruption and rigging elections, made more than 16,000 covert payments from 2012 to 2014.
Some of this money went to politicians and journalists, as part of an international lobbying operation to deflect criticism of Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, and to promote a positive image of his oil-rich country. There is no suggestion that all the recipients were aware of the original source of the money. It arrived via a disguised route.
But the revelations once again highlight the use of the lightly regulated British corporate landscape to move large sums of money around, beyond the purview of regulators and tax authorities. Seven million pounds was spent in Britain on luxury goods and private school fees.
The cash, contributed by an opaque array of paymasters in Azerbaijan and Russia, travelled to the British companies – all limited partnerships registered at Companies House in London – via the western financial system without raising red flags. One of Europe’s leading banks, Danske, processed the payments via its branch office in Estonia.
Danske Bank said “money laundering and other illegal practices” had taken place. It first noticed the irregular payments in 2014. Estonia’s financial regulator said systems designed to stop money laundering at the branch had failed.
The leaked bank records show multiple payments to several former members of the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly, Pace. One is Eduard Lintner, a German ex-MP and member of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats. Another is the Italian former chair of the centre-right group in Pace, Luca Volontè.
This intensive lobbying operation was so successful that Council of Europe members voted against a 2013 report critical of Azerbaijan.
Lintner stood down as an MP in 2010, but remained a firm supporter of Azerbaijan. He founded the Society for the Promotion of German-Azerbaijani Relations in Berlin, which received €819,500 (£755,000). One €61,000 payment was made two weeks after Lintner returned to Berlin from a trip to Azerbaijanwhere he monitored the country’s 2013 presidential election. He said the poll was up to “German standards” – in direct contrast to official election observers who found “significant problems”.
Lintner says he received the money for his society, did not personally benefit, and was not an MP or Council of Europe member at the time. An Azerbaijani NGO paid for his election trip, he says. He says he has no knowledge of the original source of the payments received.
Luca Volontè. Photograph: Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images
Details of cash given to Volontè emerged in 2016 and caused outrage. He received more than €2m in instalments via his Italian-based Novae Terrae foundation. Prosecutors in Milan have indicted him for money laundering and corruption.
Volontè denies wrongdoing. He is seeking to have the case thrown out.
The data also shows money being paid via the British companies to Kalin Mitrev, a Bulgarian appointed last year to the board of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Mitrev received at least €425,000 for private consulting work from a local Azeri company, Avuar Co. He acknowledges the payments and says they were for legitimate business consultancy. He denies all knowledge of the conduit used to execute them or the original source of the funds.
“All the income, generated by activities in different countries, was duly reported and taxed in my country of residence, Bulgaria,” Mitrev said. His consultancy work stopped when he joined the London bank, he said.
Asked by the Guardian whether there was a conflict between her husband’s work and her UN role, she strongly denied this, saying she had no knowledge of her husband’s business affairs. “As a director general of a UN agency, my duty is to develop sound working relations with all members of the organisation in conformity with the policies set by member states. Azerbaijan is not an exception in this respect.”
“I am immensely proud of my determined pursuit of the mandate of Unesco, including in the area of human rights, freedom of expression and the safety of journalists.”
Another beneficiary is a London-based Azeri, Jovdat Guliyev, who received 25 payments totalling almost £400,000. Guliyev is a member of the Anglo-Azerbaijani Society, a lobby group co-chaired by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord German. Guliyev did not respond to repeated messages asking him for a comment.
The British connection
The four firms at the centre of the Azerbaijani Laundromat were all limited partnerships registered in the UK. They were: Metastar Invest, based at a service address in Birmingham; Hilux Services and Polux Management, set up in Glasgow; and LCM Alliance, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Their corporate “partners” are anonymous tax haven entities based in the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles and Belize.
Glasgow, where two of the four firms at the centre of the Azerbaijani Laundromat were set up. Photograph: Mark Liddell#118848/Flickr Vision
L Burke Files, an international financial investigator, said these company structures were “purposefully opaque”. Foreign criminals used Scottish limited partnerships, or SLPs, he said. In June the government announced SLPs would have to name their significant owners, or pay fines, amid evidence of growing fraud.
“No one suspects Scotland. It’s never been on the Financial Action Task Force(FATF) list of non-compliant countries,” Files said. “If you are going to launder money it’s probably best not to run it between Russia, Malta and the Cayman Islands. Does Scotland raise a red flag in your mind? No.”
All four British companies are named as payment channels in the Italian prosecution case against Volontè. They have since been dissolved.
Luxury services
The banking data shows that the Azerbaijani fund was used for a wide variety of purposes. More than $2.9bn went to companies, with about $50m paid out to individuals. Many beneficiaries were retail and service firms in western Europe. In all probability, they would have been unaware of the origins of the payments they were receiving.
Some of the 200 money transfers to the UK concerned education. In 2014 £89,800 was transferred to Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, a private boarding school in York. The school would not identify the pupil or pupils involved or comment.
Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate. Photograph: PR
There were payments to the tuition college Bellerbys and to the ICS international school in London. Bellerbys said it was investigating. The data suggests there were a number of relatively modest bursaries to regime-connected Azerbaijani students studying in Britain, as well as rental deposits on upmarket London flats. Other purchases included designer dresses, luxury cars and legal fees. There is no suggestion the UK recipients should have known about the provenance of the money.
Azerbaijan’s ruling family is not directly named. But the evidence of a connection is overwhelming. Large sums come via the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan. This is the largest bank in an oil-wealthy country, and yet earlier this summer it filed for bankruptcy protection in New York. The defence and emergency situations ministries in Baku all chip in cash.
The scheme was used to pay for the government’s incidental expenses including the medical bills of Yaqub Eyyubov, Azerbaijan’s first deputy prime minister. There were separate payments to Eyyubov’s son Emin, Azerbaijan’s EU ambassador, and to the president’s press secretary, Azer Gasimov.
Business partners of the US president, Donald Trump, in a project to build a luxury Trump Tower in Baku also appear in the Laundromat scheme.
The hotel’s local developer was Anar Mammadov, the billionaire son of Azerbaijan’s ex-transport minister Ziya Mammadov. At the time the scheme operated, the Mammadovs were one of the country’s most powerful and wealthy families. The Mammadovs’ Baghlan holding company is linked to Laundromat transactions.
Anar Mammadov posts a picture of himself with Ivanka Trump after her father’s US election winIn 2012 the Trump Organisation signed a deal with the Mammadovs to build a 33-floor, 130-metre-high “ultra-modern” skyscraper. In October 2014 Ivanka Trump toured Trump Tower Baku, posting photos of the unfinished building on her Instagram account. The hotel never opened. Trump has since cut his connection with the project. The Laundromat scheme does not link to Trump but raises questions about his choice of business partners.
The paymasters
It is not entirely clear where the money used in the scheme comes from. The Russian government paid $29.4m into the Laundromat via its main weapons company, Rosoboronexport. Several transactions link to another $20bn money-laundering scheme, which operated out of Moscow between 2010 and 2014. The scheme, the Global Laundromat, was exposed in March by the OCCRP, Novaya Gazeta and the Guardian.
A mysterious private firm in Baku, Baktelekom MMC, pays in more than $1.4bn. The firm is what fraud experts call a doppelganger entity. It sounds like the state telecoms firm with the same name but bears no relation to it. It doesn’t have a website. Its function is unclear. According to the OCCRP, Baktelekom MMC is linked to Mehriban Aliyeva. In January the company was let off a $17.4m tax bill.
The Danish bank Danske said it had not been good enough at monitoring suspicious transactions at its Estonian branch. The bank has since “tightened procedures and controls” and “terminated relationships” with some customers.
“We will not accept Danske being exploited for money laundering or other criminal purposes. We will do everything to prevent it from happening again,” it said.
Madis Reimand, the head of Estonia’s financial intelligence unit, said his office had come across the suspicious Azerbaijani cash flows in 2013 while analysing a separate case. “From there we followed the tracks,” he said. “We tried to cooperate with the source country in order to ascertain where the money came from. This, however, didn’t work out.”
Reimand said Estonia’s financial supervisory authority had identified what had gone wrong and taken steps to prevent similar fraud in the future.
Malala waves as she arrives for an event with students at Tecnologico de Monterrey University in Mexico City, Mexico, on Aug 31, 2017. Source: Reuters/ Edgard Garrido
4th September 2017
HUMAN rights activist Malala Yousafzai has called on fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to condemn the “shameful” treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Burma and put an end to violence in Rakhine State.
The 20-year-old, who survived being shot by the Taliban in Pakistan, said her “heart breaks” when she hears of the suffering of the minority group and questioned, if Burma is not their home, “then where is it?”
In the statement released on Twitter on Monday, Malala called on Burma to grant citizenship to the Rohingya people who have lived in the region for generations but are still considered by many in the Buddhist majority country to be illegal immigrants.
Burma’s de facto leader Suu Kyi has remained noticeably silent on the issue of Rohingya persecution leaving many to see her as complicit in the abuses being carried out by the military.
Through the statement, Malala asked Suu Kyi her to denounce the violence that has risen in recent weeks.
“Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting,” she said.
The Rohingya have faced decades of persecution in Burma, whose government continues to deny the group official documents essentially rendering the group stateless.
Fresh violence erupted over a week ago in a dramatic escalation of the conflict that has simmered since October when Rohingya insurgents allegedly carried out attacks on border checkpoints. Though Burmese authorities have not found the culprits that left nine officers dead, the army started what it called “clearance operations” to “restore the rule of law” in Rakhine villages near the border with Bangladesh.
The latest clashes come after insurgents made coordinated attacks against series of security posts. This prompted an army crackdown that has proven to one of the deadliest bouts of violence in decades.
Aid agencies estimate that about 73,000 Rohingya have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh from Burma in the last week, Vivian Tan, regional spokeswoman for UN refugee agency UNHCR, told Reuters on Sunday.
A police officer stands in a house that was burnt down during the days of violence in Maungdaw, Myanmar, on Aug 30, 2017. Source: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun
Nearly 400 people are believed to have been killed. Eyewitness accounts have emerged of the army beheading and burning people alive fuelling claims the Burmese military is committing genocide.
Soldiers reportedly arrested a large group of Rohingya men in the village of Chut Pyin in Rathedaung township, marched them into a nearby bamboo hut, and set it on fire, burning them to death, rights group Fortify Rights said on Friday.
Suu Kyi has faced growing international criticism for her failure to stop the attacks and for the inflammatory online statements coming from her “information committee” that have stoked public anger against the wider Rohingya population and aid workers in the country.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned the former political prisoner on Saturday that the violence was “besmirching” the reputation of her country.
“Aung Sang Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma,” he said.
( September 5, 2017, Geneva, Sri Lanka Guardian) Extreme poverty remains one of the world’s biggest challenges. According to the United Nations, 767 million people live in extreme poverty around the world. Although world society has managed to lift nearly 1 billion people out of extreme poverty – in 1999 it was estimated that 1.7 billion were affected by extreme poverty – the unprecedented rise of conflict and of violence in the Arab region has worsened the socioeconomic situation of vulnerable population segments in many countries. On 22 February 2017, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator of the United Nations –Stephen O’Brien – stated to the United Nations Security Council that 67% of the population in Syria is living under conditions considered as extreme poverty. In another Arab country affected by war and conflict – Yemen – the World Bank estimates that poverty affects 62% of the population, whereas the World Bank’s estimates this number to be at approximately 22% for Iraq or even as high as 40% in territories controlled by DAESH. Inevitably, conflict and violence have worsened the situation in the Arab region.
The 2017 World Charity Day is an opportunity to highlight the potential for an increased role by charity organizations and philanthropies in eradicating poverty worldwide through volunteer work and charitable activities. The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is an encouraging example of a wealthy businessman who has devoted his life to addressing poverty and humanitarian issues through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The think tank, According to Purpose in Action – specialized in enhancing donor contributions – estimates that the “annual global charitable giving amounts” is at least USD $410.71 billion a year. Put in a wider context, the amount given annually for charitable causes is higher than the nominal GDP of countries such as of the United Arab Emirates (USD 407 billion), Norway (USD 391 billion) and South Africa (USD 317 billion).
The Charities Aid Foundation World Giving Index for 2016 – measuring charitable activities in 140 countries – show that charitable causes motivate people from all over the world to contribute to advancing common causes and address poverty. Countries from the Arab region score high in this index: The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were among the leading countries in the world that promoted charitable causes. When the survey respondents were asked whether they would participate in helping a stranger, 81%, 79% and 78% of the respondents in Iraq, Libya, Kuwait respectively stated that they would commit themselves to help someone in need. Helping people in need is inherent to the spirit of the Arabs and is in line with the teachings of the Holy Quran in which Muslims are obliged to give Zakat – charity to the poor in specific amounts. Surat Al-Isra from the Holy Quran [17:26] says:
“You shall give the due alms to the relatives, the needy, the poor, and the travelling alien, but do not be excessive, extravagant.”
The war in Syria has had a tremendous negative impact on the civilian population. More than 12 million people have been forced on the move. Although countries from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have donated significant funds to alleviate the miseries of the Syrian people, the real impact is delivered through the active involvement of NGOs, IGOs, UN entities and grass-root movements working on the ground. According to the latest donor report provided by Islamic Relief USA, more than 9 million people have benefited from charitable contributions channelled through this organization. The International Rescue Committee has also assisted more than 1 million Syrian civilians in need of aid and support. Other relief organizations – such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration – are working tirelessly to provide support to Syrians desperately in need of humanitarian assistance.
The war in Yemen is another example of a country that has benefitted from the goodwill of charities working to alleviate extreme poverty and to provide humanitarian assistance to the civilian population. The ongoing famine in the country is currently affecting up to 17 million people. In response, Saudi Arabia allocated USD 66.7 million to UNICEF and WHO in June this year in response to the cholera outbreak in the country. Other countries in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates has disbursed over USD 2 billion in humanitarian and in development aid – for the period of 2015 – 2017 – to Yemen and USD 200 million for Palestine partly through charities.
These examples show that charitable organizations and governments can work jointly to provide assistance and protection to Syrian and Yemeni civilians living in extreme poverty and distressing situations in their respective countries. It also indicates that charitable organizations can play the role as a mediator – without being regarded with suspicion by the belligerents – in offering assistance to the civilian population on the ground.
Although the praiseworthy activities of charities contribute to alleviate poverty in the short-term, identifying a long-term solution to address extreme poverty requires a more holistic and inclusive approach to deal with its root causes. Peace and stability in the Middle East need to be restored so as to accelerate economic growth and to enable societies to stand on their feet. The implementation of unilateral coercive measures on countries affected by war continues to further exacerbate poverty, curb economic growth and destroy the middle class whether in Syria or in Gaza. The return to peace is the first required step.
(Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim, Chairman of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue)
Ali Abunimah-4 September 2017
