Tuesday, 24 July 2018

TRUMP - WORLD WAR 3 - IRAN

Image by Lisa Fuller.

17th May 2019.


https://twitter.com/i/status/1128795393112854528  - Trump marches to war. World War Three.

Trump & Co want to raid the tax-payer funded “Defense Industry” and siphon more billions to the super-rich (and boost the NRA by arming schools) no matter how many are slaughtered. The US (35% yearning for “The Rapture”) is most likely to start a major war; particularly as Trump’s grip on power fails and he panics his way to grab more Emergency Powers.

Iran is a safe 12,000 miles from the USA. Surely this primitive race can be wiped out without Homeland consequences? (NB that's Sarcasm or Irony, take your pick). Iran is a 4,000 years old civilization. China, The Sleeping Giant, is 3,600 years old. Does Donald of The Bronx know more than these ancient cultures? 

TRUMP-V-CHINA - I was a consultant to BT 1990-2000 on the, then, cutting edge of “Teleworking”; working with BT boffins at Martlesham Heath. They bought, and buy, masses of infrastructure equipment from Huawei (Huawei should be banned from 5G network – report – Guardian 17 May 2019) which helped Europe roll out broadband and Direct-Dialling across EU telecoms. 4 days ago I got a Huawei Tablet KOB-LO9 which performs as does my Apple I-Pad. It costs ¼ the Apple price – AND it’s a cell-phone. It seems that the USA cannot now compete on price or high-tech – so President Trump is banning Huawei. On Trump’s charge of “stealing US patents”, will the West pay 250 years’ back-royalties on the silk-processes, stolen from China for our Industrial Revolution? They also invented the wheelbarrow - have we paid them royalties? 

Do I prefer the NSA, GCHQ or China harvesting all my data?

Noel Hodson
Author - Teleworking Explained 1992 – Wiley & Sons


The Medes unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. ... The Achaemenid Empire was the only civilization in all of history to connect over 40% of the global population, accounting for approximately 49.4 million of the world's 112.4 million people in around 480 BC.
Prehistory of Iran: Ancient Times–4000
Akkadian Empire: 2400–2150
Neo-Assyrian Empire: 911–609
Jiroft culture: c. 3100 – c. 2200

END TIMES:  “The LifeWay poll found that 80 percent of evangelicals believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ’s return.”

24TH JULY 2018.  Why would Demented Donald risk starting a nuclear war with Iran, an ancient civilization of 80 million souls? He fired off his insulting, provocative Tweet on 23rd July (below). 

Reason number one is that it diverts attention from his own possibly treasonable acts at home, which will get him impeached and maybe imprisoned. Declaring war gives Trump dictatorial powers as Commander-in-Chief. 

Secondly, it drives up the price of oil & gas, which the USA is now selling from its shale-gas-fields. Thirdly, I conjecture, it stops the proposed Iran oil & gas pipeline to Europe, which is a direct, major competitor to Russia's (and America's) oil & gas sales to Europe; it is probable that this was the main topic of his secret two hour meeting with Putin last week. 

Russia has Donald by the short & curlys, and Russia urgently needs the revenues from its oil and gas pipelines. Putin could be tightening his grip on Donald's privates. The lobbyists, AVAAZ, set out (below), the possible reasons why Trump kowtows to Putin. Add to their analysis - the Christopher Steele MI6 report of  Trump's Moscow hotel bed-wetting orgy videos. 

And last but not least, Iran is about as far from America as is possible on our small, precious planet - so heroic Mr Trump and his crazed pals won't have their golf inconvenienced by nuclear war-heads or battles as millions of young Americans go to die, a long way away. The middle-east will of course be blown to bits and be uninhabitable for thousands of years. 

In reality, President Trump, America doesn't want your war. Your fascist tattooed low-brow fan-base doesn't want a war. Even your Republican owners of the Defense-Industrial complex don't want this war. Europe doesn't want a war. The middle-east has had more than enough of war. The Pacific Rim nations don't want a war. South America doesn't want war. China would rather get on peacefully with wealth creation. Can I suggest that you instead personally challenge the leader/s you detest to a televised naked wrestling match - to the death - and let the other 7 billion people who also live on planet Earth, get on with our humdrum boring lives in peace.

------------------

To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!

Iran–Iraq–Syria pipeline

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline
Location
CountryIranIraqSyria[1]
General directioneast–west
FromAsalouyehIran
Passes throughDamascusSyria
General information
TypeNatural gas
Technical information
Length5,600 km (3,500 mi)
Maximum discharge110 million cubic metres of natural gas per day[1]
Diameter56 in (1,422 mm)
The Iran–Iraq–Syria pipeline (called the Friendship Pipeline by the governments involved and the Islamic gas pipeline by some Western sources[2]) is a proposed natural gas pipeline running from the Iranian South Pars/North Dome Gas-Condensate field towards Europe via IranIraqSyria and Lebanon to supply European customers as well as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[1] The pipeline was planned to be 5,600 km (3,500 mi) long and have a diameter of 142 centimetres (56 in).[1] 





from Avaaz - What has Putin got on Trump?

22nd July 2018   Dear friends, It’s now shockingly clear that Donald Trump is Putin’s poodle.
The Shocking Truth about TrumpBut we need the world to understand why, before it’s too late…
Trump's businesses went bankrupt so many times in the 1990s that many legitimate banks wouldn’t lend to him anymore. He turned to Russian oligarchs -- Putin’s ruling clique -- to bankroll his projects, and launder their dirty money for them. This was, and continues to be, a huge part of his business. He’s a Russian money launderer.
"We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia."
Donald Trump JR, 2014
This isn’t speculation or hyperbole. There's mountains of evidence. Trump’s former election campaign Chairman, Paul Manafort, has deep ties to Russian oligarchs, and is currently in jail awaiting trial on, among other charges, money laundering!

Here are 5 more top facts everyone should know about Trump's long collusion with Russian organised criminals -- forward this email and share it on Facebook -- we all deserve to know the truth:

Share on Facebook


1Trump’s main financial backer for the Trump Tower Toronto was a Russian-Canadian billionaire who got the money by selling a massive steel mill in Ukraine for nearly a billion dollars. $100 million of that money was paid to a Kremlin-backed fixer, likely as a bribe to VERY high Russian officials. The Chairman of the Bank who financed the deal? Vladimir Putin.


2Trump bought his home in Palm Beach, Florida for $41 million. A few years later, with no real increase in the value -- he sold it for $95 million -- the most expensive home in America at the time! Why? A major Russian oligarch bought it -- we don’t know yet why he effectively ‘gave’ Trump $54 million. But it’s classic money laundering practice.


3Trump's real estate deals were often fuelled by Russian money, typically passed through shady shell companies. 77% of Trump Soho apartments were bought with cash by such mysterious companies. At least 13 people with links to Russian oligarchs or mobsters lived in Trump properties, including one of Russia's top mobsters. One even ran a high-stakes illegal gambling ring in the apartment right below Trump's!
"Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets"
Donald Trump JR, 2008


4Trump’s financial broker and “Senior Advisor” was a Russian convicted felon named Felix Sater, widely known as a mafia figure who once stabbed someone in the face with a broken margarita glass, requiring over 100 stitches. Sater helped set up shell companies, and arranged funding for Trump’s projects, including plans for Trump Tower Moscow. He’s also part of Putin’s inner circle. Here’s one email he wrote to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen in November, 2015:
"Michael I arranged for Ivanka to sit in Putins private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin. I will get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected. We both know no one else knows how to pull this off without stupidity or greed getting in the way. I know how to play it and we will get this done. Buddy our boy can become President of the USA and we can engineer it. I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will."
New York Times, August 27, 2017


5Trump’s other main business is casinos -- which are classic money laundering vehicles. One of his casinos was 100 times found in violation of federal rules protecting against money laundering, and paid the largest fine ever levied against a casino for having “willfully violated” anti-money laundering rules. Trump has a legal obligation to do “due diligence” for all his businesses to prevent laundering. His senior executive’s comment on this was “Donald doesn’t do diligence”.


The Big Picture

Putin is a former KGB officer who has used chemical weapons, assassinated people in other countries, invaded the Ukraine, occupied Crimea, shot down the MH17 airliner with almost 300 passengers on board, aided a murderous regime in Syria, condoned the beating and torture of gays, stolen up to $200 billion from his own people, hacked foreign elections and launched what NATO calls the largest hybrid warfare campaign in history to undermine western liberal democracies. He is also widely believed to have ordered the murder of Russian journalists and critics, and bombed hundreds of Russian civilians to fake a terrorist attack and justify a war in Chechnya.
Yet when asked at their press conference if Trump had any criticism of Putin, he had none, and ridiculed US law enforcement for investigating Russian attacks on US democracy!
Why? Trump has been working for Putin's corrupt inner circle for almost 20 years. And it's that corrupt circle that promises to make him rich for the next 20 (he's refused, in violation of all ethics, to divest from his businesses as President).
Trump *may* be a Russian intelligence asset, he *may* have colluded with Putin to sabotage the US election. But what is clear is that he is a corrupt Russian money launderer, in the pocket of a KGB dictator. The whole world needs to know this, and rally together to prevent the damage this corrupt alliance threatens. Share this email with everyone…

Share on Facebook

With hope,
Ricken, Emma, Rewan, Joseph, Morgan, Spyro, Flora and the whole Avaaz team
PS -- scroll down for a TON of credible, trustworthy, fact-checked sources for everything in this email. Avaaz isn't one of those absurd troll publications that slings lies for profit -- we're a nonprofit, and every time we make an error anywhere, we publish the correction on our accuracy page, linked from the front of our website.
PPS -- if Trump the 'organized criminal money launderer' sounds like a stretch to you, consider it just the tip of the iceberg of Trump's known corruption:
  • His 'charitable foundation' is likely to be shut down for multiple examples of fraud.
  • Trump 'University' scammed legions of vulnerable people out of their money.
  • He had an affair with a pornstar and paid her to keep quiet -- she says she was also threatened with physical violence.
  • His ex-wife attested in court documents that he brutally raped her while tearing out her hair after he didn't like the hair replacement doctor she recommended.
  • He bragged, on tape, about sexually assaulting multiple women.
  • Hundreds of people hired by Trump say he simply decided not to pay them for their work -- including dishwashers, painters and waiters, some of whom were making minimum wage.
  • He has been sued, and forced to pay out settlements, over a hundred times.
Trump is not a devil -- he's a human being, and like all people he has positive qualities and legitimate views. But anyone who denies that he is deeply corrupt, isn't looking at the facts. To understand Trump, and protect our world from him, we need to understand his corruption.

MORE INFORMATION
Trump’s Russian Laundromat (The New Republic)
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

Everything We Know About Russia and President Trump (Committee to Investigate Russia)
https://investigaterussia.org/timelines/everything-we-know-about-russia-and-president-trump

Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers (Buzzfeed News)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/thomasfrank/secret-money-how-trump-made-millions-selling-condos-to

Trump’s Russian connections (Financial Times)
https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/

Dirty money: Trump and the Kazakh connection (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/33285dfa-9231-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923

Trump's oldest son said a decade ago that a lot of the family's assets came from Russia (Business Insider)
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-said-money-pouring-in-from-russia-2018-2

Sales of Trump properties suggestive of money-laundering - researcher (Reuters)
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-russia-fusion/sales-of-trump-properties-suggestive-of-money-laundering-researcher-idUKKBN1F8058

Tower of secrets: the Russian money behind a Donald Trump skyscraper (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/trumptoronto

Trump Tower Toronto Was 'Investment Scheme And Conspiracy': Lawsuit (Huffington Post)
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/07/trump-tower-toronto-lawsuit_n_12849150.html?guccounter=1

If Trump Is Laundering Russian Money, Here’s How It Works (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-money-heres-how-it-works/

Trump's casino was a money laundering concern shortly after it opened (CNN)
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html

Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king (Miami Herald)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article135187364.html

Everything you want to know about Donald Trump's bankruptcies (CNN)
https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/31/news/companies/donald-trump-bankruptcy/

Canada's highest court upholds ruling that Donald Trump did mislead investors (The Independent)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-lawsuit-canada-court-approves-legal-case-against-us-president-a7623566.html

Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/

Why did a Russian pay $95M to buy Trump’s Palm Beach mansion? (The Seattle Times)
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-did-a-russian-pay-95m-to-buy-trumps-palm-beach-mansion/

The Russia investigation and Donald Trump: a timeline from on-the-record sources (updated) (Politifact)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jul/16/russia-investigation-donald-trump-timeline-updated/

Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8507f77dfcb1

A Brief History of Attempted Russian Assassinations by Poison (Foreign Policy)
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/09/a-brief-history-of-attempted-russian-assassinations-by-poison/

International Criminal Court: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine Is A 'Crime,' Not A Civil War (Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/11/20/international-criminal-court-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-a-crime-not-a-civil-war/#1cf1ce247ddb

Donald Trump’s Worst Deal: The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (The New Yorker)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal

Trump’s Business of Corruption (The New Yorker)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/trumps-business-of-corruption

Trump lawyer 'paid by Ukraine' to arrange White House talks (BBC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44215656

After becoming President, Trump has sold millions in real estate in secret deals (Newsweek)
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-real-estate-secret-buyers-777276

Just What Were Donald Trump's Ties to the Mob? (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910

Russian lawyer from infamous Trump Tower meeting admits to being an informant for the Kremlin: Report (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/emails-show-new-ties-between-trump-tower-russian-and-kremlin-nbc.html



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Thursday, 12 July 2018

THE BIG-4 - GOOD ADVICE OR DANGEROUS FRAUD?


Accounting for influence 

by CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVATORY 11 July 2018


TAX JUSTICE & CURBS ON CAPITAL-FLIGHT
My editorial introduction: TAX-HAVENS - ADVICE OR FRAUDULENT CONSPIRACY? 

Once upon  a time, when there were the Big-5, the giant auditors and tax-planners Arthur Andersen led the global field. That huge firm of 85,000 accountants  was struck-off by the USA for their corporate structuring and auditing role in the notorious ENRON affair, one of the costliest scams in corporate history. "Then there were 4..." as the nursery rhyme goes. 

The international corporate world is now audited, reported and tax-planned by just four organisations, THE BIG 4, each with about 250,000 employees worldwide - KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young (EY), and Deloitte. Due to their global dominance in the business world, it is hardly surprising that each of them is increasingly scandal prone; accused of blinkered auditing, suppressed reporting of awkward facts and dodgy tax-planning. The tax-planning skirts the claimed alleged legality of Tax-Avoidance and Tax-Minimisation, drawing ever closer to dangerous and perilous Tax-Evasion.  Some say Avoidance - some say Evasion. The latter is criminal behavior, with huge fines and long prison sentences. 


Government paid Big Four more than half a billion pounds Deloitte ...

https://economia.icaew.com/.../government-paid-big-four-more-than-half-a-billion-po...

24 Oct 2016 - The UK government has paid PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG more than half a billion pounds in fees over the past three years.

Big Four accused of "feasting" on Carillion as ... - Consultancy.uk

https://www.consultancy.uk/.../big-four-accused-of-feasting-on-carillion-as-combined...

12 Mar 2018 - Executives from the Big Four of PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte have come under ... PwCwas paid most of the four in fees, bringing in a total of £21.1 million, ... PwC brought in a further £6.5 million from government contracts i

Advice on evading taxes is not confined to ENRON type corporations. THE BIG 4 have units to advise individuals - Private Persons - on "Wealth Management" which naturally includes tax-planning - because "Only Little People Pay Tax".  This (long) article below, on NEVIS, coincides with that archetypal Englishman, 78 years old comedian John Cleese, announcing he will move to Nevis in November; "They are such nice people". I guess he has moved his Intellectual Property to Nevis a long time ago - and thus his (not taxable) income from a lifetime of fame stemming from Monty Python. The lost tax is a blow to national treasuries, but the far greater national damage is from the accompanying Capital-Flight. Usually, efficient tax-planning requires that all the capital is shifted to tax-havens - depleting the assets of nations and communities. The estimate of such tax-unpaid assets is more than $32 Trillion (80 million good jobs). In turn, Capital-Flight causes "austerity" in the source regions. The UK's Capital-Flight is estimated at £2.3 Trillion - a vast sum; which is why I think that UK ViP Quitters are in fact tax-evaders escaping EU restrictions from European Courts - the freedom to not pay tax. 


DUMMY OFFSHORE COMPANIES - ONLY $79.99


On one hand THE BIG 4 advise clients how to reduce taxes and frustrate government rules, while on the other hand they are deeply embedded as consultants to, and in committees for, those same governments about how to devise tax-policies and collect taxes. An Alice-in-Wonderland world of revolving doors and conflicts of interest. The Tax-Justice-Network says the Big-4 should not do both. 

Nevis: how the world's most secretive offshore haven ... - The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/.../nevis-how-the-worlds-most-secretive-offshore-haven...

8 hours ago - The long read: The years since 2008 have seen a global crackdown on ... In short, he said, “A bright light needs to be shone on this cockroach.




Click here for the English media-release

Accounting for influence 

by CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVATORY

How the Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance




We pay our taxes, so why don’t corporations? This new report shows how the Big Four are embedded in EU policy-making on tax avoidance, and concludes that it is time to kick this industry out of EU anti-tax avoidance policy.









Download the full report. The summary briefing is available in EnglishDeutschEspañol, and Français.
EU policy towards corporate tax avoidance is informed by an advisory system littered with conflicts of interest. Despite all the evidence – from the various tax leaks, scandals, and parliamentary enquiries and reports – of the role the 'Big Four' global accountancy firms play in facilitating, encouraging, and profiting from corporate tax avoidance strategies, they continue to be treated in policy-making circles as neutral and legitimate partners.
Advisory groups giving the Commission 'expert' opinions on its tax policy are populated by both corporate interests and members of the tax avoidance industry. At the same time the EU is paying millions for private ‘expertise’ in the form of tax-related policy research from the Big Four. The tax avoidance industry, particularly the Big Four, also have ‘informal’ channels of influence, using lobby vehicles like the European Business Initiative for Taxation, the European Contact Group, Accountancy Europe, and AmCham EU. And a normalised revolving door between the Big Four and EU institutions perpetuates a shared culture and ideology.
The lobbying and influence of tax intermediaries like the Big Four (and the multinational corporations they sell tax avoidance schemes to) is illustrated by two EU case studies: on new transparency rules for tax planning intermediaries, and on public country-by-country tax reporting, a proposal which is yet to be agreed by the EU institutions.
This report concludes that it is time to kick the Big Four and other players in the tax avoidance industry out of EU anti-tax avoidance policy. The starting point for this must be recognition of the conflict of interest in allowing tax intermediaries to advise on tackling tax avoidance. Only then can an effective framework emerge to ensure public-interest tax policy-making is protected from vested interests.

http://www.eurodad.org/policy-forum-2018