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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/7/2017 12:19:53 AM

Paradise Papers: Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed

  • 6 November 2017 |
  • UK
  • From the section

EPA
Image captionThe leaks show about £10m of the Queen's private money was invested offshore

A huge new leak of financial documents has revealed how the powerful and ultra-wealthy, including the Queen's private estate, secretly invest vast amounts of cash in offshore tax havens.

Donald Trump's commerce secretary is shown to have a stake in a firm dealing with Russians sanctioned by the US.

The leak, dubbed the Paradise Papers, contains 13.4m documents, mostly from one leading firm in offshore finance.

BBC Panorama is part of nearly 100 media groups investigating the papers.

Follow live updates

As with last year's Panama Papers leak, the documents were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which called in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to oversee the investigation. TheGuardian is also among the organisations investigating the documents.

Sunday's revelations form only a small part of a week of disclosures that will expose the tax and financial affairs of some of the hundreds of people and companies named in the data, some with strong UK connections.

Many of the stories focus on how politicians, multinationals, celebrities and high-net-worth individuals use complex structures of trusts, foundations and shell companies to protect their cash from tax officials or hide their dealings behind a veil of secrecy.

Paradise Papers: How to hide your cash offshore

The vast majority of the transactions involve no legal wrongdoing.

Other key stories released on Sunday were:

  • A key aide of Canada's PM has been linked to offshore schemes that may have cost the nation millions of dollars in taxes, threatening to embarrass Justin Trudeau, who has campaigned to shut tax havens. Read the full story here
  • Lord Ashcroft, a former Conservative party deputy chairman and a significant donor, may have ignored rules around how his offshore investments were managed. Read the full story here Other papers suggest he retained his non-dom status while in the House of Lords, despite reports he had become a permanent tax resident in the UK. Read the full story here
  • How questions were raised about the funding of a major shareholding in Everton FC. Read the full story here
  • An oligarch with close links to the Kremlin, Alisher Usmanov, may have secretly taken ownership of a company responsible for anti-money laundering checks on Russian cash. Read the full story here

The other media partners may be covering different stories affecting their regions.

How is the Queen involved?

The Paradise Papers show that about £10m ($13m) of the Queen's private money was invested offshore.

It was put into funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda by the Duchy of Lancaster, which provides the Queen with an income and handles investments for her £500m private estate.

There is nothing illegal in the investments and no suggestion that the Queen is avoiding tax, but questions may be asked about whether the monarch should be investing offshore.

There were small investments in the rent-to-buy retailer BrightHouse, which has been accused of exploiting the poor, and the Threshers chain of off-licences, which later went bust owing £17.5m in tax and costing almost 6,000 people their jobs.

ALAMY

The Duchy said it was not involved in decisions made by funds and there is no suggestion the Queen had any knowledge of the specific investments made on her behalf.

The Duchy has in the past said it gives "ongoing consideration regarding any of its acts or omissions that could adversely impact the reputation" of the Queen, who it says takes "a keen interest" in the estate.

The BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell says it is extraordinary and puzzling that the Queen's advisers could have felt that it was appropriate - for somebody whose reputation is based so much on setting a good example - to invest in these offshore funds.

Questions will now be being asked inside Buckingham Palace about how that decision was made, he added.

Read the full story here

Embarrassment for Ross and Trump?

Wilbur Ross helped stave off bankruptcy for Donald Trump in the 1990s and was later appointed commerce secretary in Mr Trump's administration.

Graphic - Wilbur Ross; The Russian Connection
Presentational white space

The documents reveal Mr Ross has retained an interest in a shipping company which earns millions of dollars a year transporting oil and gas for a Russian energy firm whose shareholders include Vladimir Putin's son-in-law and two men subject to US sanctions.

It will again raise questions about the Russian connections of Donald Trump's team. His presidency has been dogged by allegations that Russians colluded to try to influence the outcome of last year's US election. He has called the allegations "fake news".

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal has called for an investigation, telling NBC News that Mr Ross had given Congress the impression he no longer held shares in the shipping company.

"Our committee was misled, the American people were misled by the concealment of those companies."

Read the full story here

Questions for the UK government

Opposition politicians have said the government must stop "dragging its feet"and curb the use of offshore tax havens, and Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has called for a public inquiry.

But at the CBI conference on Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May did not commit to a public inquiry. She also did not directly answer when asked whether she would insist on British overseas territories publishing a list of who owns companies and trusts registered in crown dependencies.

She said the UK government was working with its dependences "to ensure we're seeing greater transparency."

Where does the leak come from?

Most of the data comes from a company called Appleby, a Bermuda-founded legal services provider at the top end of the offshore industry, helping clients set up in overseas jurisdictions with low or zero tax rates.

Its documents, and others mainly from corporate registries in Caribbean jurisdictions, were obtained by Süddeutsche Zeitung. It has not revealed the source.

The media partners say the investigation is in the public interest because data leaks from the world of offshore have repeatedly exposed wrongdoing.

In response to the leaks, Appleby said it was "satisfied that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or our clients", adding: "We do not tolerate illegal behaviour." Read the Appleby story here

What exactly is offshore finance?

Essentially it's about a place outside of your own nation's regulations to which companies or individuals can reroute money, assets or profits to take advantage of lower taxes.

Graphic showing who is hiding their cash
Presentational white space

These jurisdictions are known as tax havens to the layman, or the more stately offshore financial centres (OFCs) to the industry. They are generally stable, secretive and reliable, often small islands but not exclusively so, and can vary on how rigorously they carry out checks on wrongdoing.

The UK is a big player here, not simply because so many of its overseas territories and Crown dependencies are OFCs, but many of the lawyers, accountants and bankers working in the offshore industry are in the City of London.

It's also about the mega-rich. Brooke Harrington, author of Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, says offshore finance is not for the 1% but the .001%. Assets of around $500,000 (£380,000) would just not meet the offshore fees the schemes would need, she says.

Are we taming offshore?

What is the effect on us and should we care?

Well, it is a lot of cash. The Boston Consulting Group says $10tn is held offshore. That's about the equivalent of the gross domestic products of the UK, Japan and France - combined. It may also be a conservative estimate.


Labour MP Meg Hillier: “If offshore wasn’t secret then this stuff couldn’t happen”

Critics of offshore say it is mainly about secrecy - which opens the door to wrongdoing - and inequality. They also say the action of governments to curb it has often been slow and ineffective.

Brooke Harrington says if the rich are avoiding tax, the poor pick up the bill: "There's a minimal amount the governments need to function and they recoup what they lose from the rich and from corporations by taking it out of our hides."

Meg Hillier, UK Labour MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told Panorama: "We need to see what's going offshore; if offshore was not secret then some of this stuff just couldn't happen... we need transparency and we need sunlight shone on this."

Your guide to a history of financial leaks

What is the defence of offshore?

The offshore financial centres say that if they did not exist, there would be no constraint on taxes governments might levy. They say they do not sit on hoards of cash, but act as agents that help pump money around the globe.

Ex-Bermuda Finance Minister defends tax practice

Bob Richards, who was Bermuda's finance minister when Panorama interviewed him for its programme, said it was not up to him to collect other nations' taxes and that they should sort themselves out.

Both he and Howard Quayle, the chief minister for the Isle of Man, who was also interviewed for Panorama and whose Crown dependency plays a big part in the leaks, denied their jurisdictions could even be considered tax havens as they were well regulated and fully conformed to international financial reporting rules.

Appleby itself has in the past said OFCs "protect people victimised by crime, corruption, or persecution by shielding them from venal governments".

presentational grey line

Find out more about the words and phrases found in the Paradise Papers.

Paradise Papers explainer box

The papers are a huge batch of leaked documents mostly from offshore law firm Appleby, along with corporate registries in 19 tax jurisdictions, which reveal the financial dealings of politicians, celebrities, corporate giants and business leaders.

The 13.4 million records were passed to German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Panorama has led research for the BBC as part of a global investigation involving nearly 100 other media organisations, including theGuardian, in 67 countries. The BBC does not know the identity of the source.

Paradise Papers: Full coverage; follow reaction on Twitter using #ParadisePapers; in the BBC News app, follow the tag "Paradise Papers"

Watch Panorama on the BBC iPlayer (UK viewers only)



(bbc.com)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/7/2017 9:50:22 AM

Las Vegas Eyewitness Blows Up Official Story!

Saturday, November 4, 2017 13:31




Las Vegas Eyewitness – They’re Lying About All Of It! from Truth Warriors on Vimeo.

Youtuber “OroraMonroe” just blew up the official story on the Las Vegas shooting! Notice how they’ve taken the Las Vegas shooting totally out of the news cycle now? That’s what they do when their lies aren’t working! She sums it up best by saying, “They are lying about EVERYTHING!” in this video she goes over what really happened versus the fairy tale they’ve told us.


She was in Planet Hollywood when automatic gunfire rang out just outside on the strip. The shots were so loud everybody in the casino heard it and began running for safety. People on the street poured into the casino also for shelter. She and many others ran into a service corridor to get away from the gunfire. They waited there until armed security guards met them and escorted them to safety back inside the casino. Armed guards were now everywhere and ready for battle! They were taken into a big conference and held until 5 in the morning because there were literally shooters being reported by police everywhere on the strip! She listened to the guards radios as they reported incidents all over the strip and far after the patsy “lone gunman” was killed at Mandalay Bay. There were shooters at the front desk in one of the hotels, she heard this on the radio! There was a shooter escaping down an escalator in one of the hotels. She couldn’t believe what she saw the next morning when she turned on the news in her hotel room and they only talked about one shooter! Fake News!

In fact when she went back to Planet Hollywood the next day a cashier confided in her that all employees had been threatened not to talk about it! Everybody who was there in Las Vegas KNOWS 100% the FBI and the mainstream news is lying about everything. One thing she noticed was there wasn’t a single news crew on the street interviewing anybody! I guess they didn’t want the truth getting out. I urge everybody to share this testimony as she wants the world to know they are lying about that night.


(beforeitsnews.com)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/7/2017 10:46:57 AM

Saudi Arabia intercepts ballistic missile over capital

Updated 0447 GMT (1247 HKT) November 5, 2017


(CNN) Yemeni rebels on Saturday targeted an airport in Saudi Arabia's capital with a ballistic missile, according to Yemen's Houthi-controlled Defense Ministry.

But the missile was intercepted over northeast Riyadh, the Saudi Ministry of Defense said in a statement carried on government-backed Al-Arabiya television.
Yemen's Defense Ministry said the missile attack "shook the Saudi capital" and the operation was successful. The attack was conducted using a Yemeni-made, long-range missile called the Burqan 2H, it said.
The Riyadh airport tweeted that it hadn't been affected.
"Travelers across King Khalid international airport in Riyadh, we assure you that the movement is going on as normal and usual, and trips going according to time," the airport said on Twitter.
Airstrikes later in the day targeted Yemen's capital Sanaa, shaking homes and breaking windows. This is the first night attack on Sanaa in weeks, according to CNN's Hakim al-Masmari from Sanaa.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of states against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who toppled Yemen's internationally recognized government in 2015.
The missile launch on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh was the first time the heart of the Saudi capital has been attacked and represents a major escalation of the ongoing war in the region.

No injuries

The Saudi-led coalition accused a regional state of providing material support to the Houthi rebels, saying the firing of a ballistic missile at Riyadh "threatens the security of the Kingdom and regional and international security," according to a statement carried by Saudi state-TV al-Ekbariya.
The coalition didn't name the country. Saudi Arabia has been fighting a proxy war in Yemen against Iran, which it accuses of arming the Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia has led a military operation in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized government, which was driven out of the capital by the Shiite Houthi rebels and is now based in the southern city of Aden.
"This hostile and random act by the Houthis proves that one of the terrorism-supporting countries in the region supports the Houthis," the statement said.
The missile was fired at 8:07 p.m. local time (1:07 p.m. ET) and targeted civilian areas in Riyadh, the coalition said. It was intercepted by the Patriot missile defense system, leading to shrapnel falling over an uninhabited area east of the airport, the statement said.
There were no injuries, it said.
US President Donald Trump praised the US-made Patriot missile defense system.
"We make the best military equipment in the world," he said. "... You saw the missile that went out? And our system knocked the missile out of the air. That's how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we're selling it all over the world," Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One en route to Japan.

'New phase'

The UN Human Rights Office has documented 13,829 civilian casualties in Yemen, including 5,110 people killed, from the beginning of the fighting into late August.
An airstrike in Sanaa in August destroyed two residential buildings, which a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said was an "unintentional accident." An airstrike days earlier destroyed a hotel on the outskirts of Sanaa, leaving dozens dead.
"We previously warned that capitals of countries attacking Yemen will not be safe from our ballistic missiles," Houthi spokesman Mohammed AbdulSalam said. "Today's missile attack comes in response to Saudi killing innocent Yemeni civilians."
A senior Yemeni air force official told CNN that the claim that Saudi Arabia intercepted the ballistic missile is false.
"The Saudi regime cannot hide the heavy fires that was seen by thousands of Saudi nationals in the King Khalid Airport premises as result of the Yemeni missile," the official said.
"This is not the end. Saudi cities will be a continuous target. We are entering a new phase," he said.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/7/2017 4:16:06 PM

Absolute Proof That Our Elections Are Bought

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
11/7/2017 4:58:18 PM

Child abuse, animal cruelty: Texas gunman's violent past

By Joseph Ax and Gina Cherelus

By Joseph Ax and Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) - Years before he walked into a Texas church and gunned down 26 Sunday worshippers, Devin Kelley proved capable of fearsome violence, convicted of fracturing his infant stepson's skull and accused of beating his dog with his fists.

In 2012, while stationed at an Air Force base in New Mexico, Kelley was court-martialed and sentenced to a year's confinement for abusing his wife and child. The Air Force's chief prosecutor at the time told the New York Times and NBC News that Kelley broke his stepson's skull.

Two years later, soon after he was given a bad conduct discharge for his crime, Kelley was cited for animal cruelty after neighbours told police he viciously punched his dog outside his trailer home, according to a report from the El Paso County sheriff's office. Court records show the case was dismissed after he paid a fine.

His behavioural problems appear to have started much earlier. A former girlfriend said Kelley engaged in years of harassment, bordering on stalking, after a brief relationship nearly a decade ago, and classmates from his Texas hometown described a "loner" who became increasingly disturbed as a teenager.

Domestic problems may have triggered Sunday's shooting, as well. Authorities said on Monday that he had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs but was not there on Sunday when Kelley opened fire.

"There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws," Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told reporters. Kelly was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after fleeing the church.

HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS

The former girlfriend, Brittany Adcock, said she dated Kelley nearly a decade ago, when he was 18 and she was only 13.

The relationship lasted for about four months, but Kelley would harass her with phone calls from blocked numbers and Facebook messages from fake accounts for years afterward, she said in an interview.

Adcock said she once called police to try to file a complaint and had to change her number to stop Kelley's calls.

"He just started getting really weird," Adcock, now 22, said.

He last contacted Adcock about six months ago via Facebook, when he sent her a topless photo of someone else he had found online and appeared to think it was her, she said.

Kelley graduated from New Braunfels High School in Texas in 2009 and joined the Air Force soon thereafter, serving on a base in New Mexico. He and his first wife divorced in 2012, the same year of his court-martial, and he was discharged in 2014.

That year, he married Danielle Shields in Texas, and they lived in Colorado Springs for a time before returning to New Braunfels, according to public records. Attempts to reach Shields or her parents were unsuccessful.

MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

Former schoolmates of Kelley said he may have had some mental health problems even as a teenager.

Reid Mosis, 26, who attended school in New Braunfels with Kelley from 6th through 9th grades, said in an interview that Kelley was "always a bit of a loner."

"I know his parents had him on heavy doses of meds in middle school," Mosis said. "A lot of friends that knew him said he was too sick in the head to deal with by senior year of high school."

In recent years, Kelley shared posts on Facebook about atheism and his assault weapon, Mosis said. A cached photo of Kelley's Facebook page, which was deleted in the wake of the shooting, showed a photo of a rifle under which Kelley wrote, "She's a bad *****."

Another New Braunfels native, Courtney Kleiber, said on Facebook she was close with Kelley in middle and high schools and that he had slowly changed from a "normal" kid into one with emotional or mental problems.

"Over the years we all saw him change into something that he wasn't," she wrote. "To be completely honest, I'm really not surprised this happened, and I don't think anyone who knew him is very surprised either."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Gina Cherelus in New York; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)

(Yahoo)



"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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