risks

If I was not sceptic nor a sarcastic old kook as I am, I would suggest that "the Chinese government had an influence on the collapse of the Western financial markets in 2008"... I know this is a long shot, but imagine that a bright young mathematician, called Li Xianglin, received a master's degree in economics from Nankai University, one of the most prestigious universities in China...

 

papers

The revelations in the ICIJ’s 2016 Panama Papers’ data dump shone a light on tax crimes taking place via offshore tax havens – many of which, such as Panama itself, have since tightened rules, including joining international tax transparency efforts.

The 2017 Paradise Papers in turn tended to focus more on companies’ creative tax avoidance – which the OECD is now seeking to address via a global agreement on a minimum corporate tax rate.

The Pandora Papers reveal current rules provide wealthy individuals with mechanisms to purchase property or hide their wealth that aren’t available to other folks.

— Daniel Bunn of US-based think tank Tax Foundation, on how the Pandora Papers differ from previous leaks

population

Britain and other Western nations should welcome declining populations and ageing demographics as it will help them meet climate change goals, the former chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has argued.

In a report from Population Matters entitled Smaller Families and Ageing Populations, Lord Adair Turner, the chairman of the UK Energy Transitions Commission and former head of the FSA, argued that declining native populations will enhance prosperity.

museum

George Osborne’s work for an investment bank that counts BP among its major clients presents a “glaring conflict of interest” with his new role as chair of the British Museum, campaigners have said.

The former UK chancellor is currently employed as a full-time partner at “boutique” investment bank Robey Warshaw, which has worked with the oil giant in recent years, including on its £7.7 billion purchase of US shale assets from BHP Group in 2018.

CIA

CIA announces new mission focusing solely on China

Intelligence agency head says group will focus on ‘adversarial’ Chinese gov’t, calling it ‘most important threat’ to US.

 

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has announced a new group that will focus solely on China and the strategic challenges posed by Beijing.

In a statement on Thursday, the CIA said the China Mission Center was formed “to address the global challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China that cuts across all of the agency’s mission areas”.

 

barnaby

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says the time has come to regulate social media giants, after watching an ex-Facebook employee highlight the dangers of the platform before the US Senate.

Key points:

• Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says the government is prepared to regulate social media

• He says his desire to regulate the sector is linked to his experience as a parent

• The comments come after the Prime Minister labelled social media a "coward's palace"

perrottet

Fresh from witnessing the demise of National Party leader John Barilaro and Liberal leader Gladys Berejiklian, New South Wales is asking, who’s the new guy?

Dominic Perrottet, now premier, is everything you know and hate about the Liberal Party. He’s sort of like what you’d get if you crossed the elite conservative Catholic cult Opus Dei with the World Bank and a commerce-law degree. Actually, he’s not sort of like that—he’s exactly like that. Perrottet’s father works for the World Bank in Washington. Dominic attended the Opus Dei-affiliated Redfield College in Dural and studied commerce and law at Sydney University.

 

tunnel

Gladys Berejiklian’s shock exit likely makes his path even narrower and rockier, because in this election the Prime Minister won’t just be campaigning against Anthony Albanese.

He’ll be campaigning against popular and punchy Labor premiers – and potentially dodging their travel restrictions – who are set to play a more important role than ever on the federal electoral stage.

 

With an election able to be called any time between now and May, Mr Morrison is already setting up his campaign as a referendum on his “safe reopening plan”.

worried

The climate crisis is taking a growing toll on the mental health of children and young people, experts have warned.

Increasing levels of “eco-anxiety” – the chronic fear of environmental doom – were likely to be underestimated and damaging to many in the long term, public health experts said.

 

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Mala Rao and Richard Powell, of Imperial College London’s Department of Primary Care and Public Health, said eco-anxiety “risks exacerbating health and social inequalities between those more or less vulnerable to these psychological impacts”.

question

I will begin my remarks with a caveat: Whenever the common good, in the sense of the ‘noble goals of humanity,’ is invoked in the pursuit of realpolitik – the so often invoked raison d’état – , caution is always called for. History has taught us this since the time of Alexander the Great.

 

Thoughts on peace in the global age

by Professor Dr Dr h. c. mult. Hans Köchler*

 

Covering up power politics under the guise of the “common good”

 

fauci

National Geographic’s ‘Fauci’ documentary is self-serving agitprop made to feed the Fauci fetish of establishment liberals...

The film is an unabashed ode to the blessed Anthony Fauci, patron saint of ‘The Science’, and narcissist-in-chief at the National Institute of Health.

 

‘Fauci’, the creatively titled new National Geographic documentary airing on Disney+, sets out under a decidedly deceptive guise of impartiality to tell the truth about America’s favorite foremost scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

 

BY Michael McCaffrey

 

nikki

WASHINGTON – Nikki Haley told fellow Republicans Tuesday that they have an urgent mission to renew their conservative convictions, the latest in a series of high-profile speeches by potential GOP presidential candidates maneuvering in the shadow of former President Donald Trump.

"A large portion of our people are plagued by self-doubt or even by hatred of America. It’s a pandemic much more damaging than any virus," Haley said in a heavily promoted speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, Calif.

monumentIn the last months, a new ‘historikerstreit’ – a debate between historians – has exploded in Europe over the relative horrors of the Holocaust and colonialism. In my opinion, it is an argument where there can be no winner. 

On one side, Achille Mbembe, Dirk Moses, and some others argue that distinguishing the Holocaust from other violent crimes in human history is Eurocentric, and neglects the horror of colonialist crimes. On the other side, Saul Friedlander, Juergen Habermas, and others insist on the unique character of the Holocaust. I think that both sides are, in some sense, right and wrong.

 tony

While travelling as a "private citizen", Mr Abbott met Taiwan's President Tsai ing-wen in a formal meeting along with Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.

He'll also deliver a keynote address to an international forum in Taipei on Friday.

Although his visit is not considered official, the former prime minister has been accompanied to formal engagements by Australia's top representative to Taiwan, DFAT official Jenny Bloomfield.

transhuman

The world is changing very fast. During the Covid epidemic, money has been concentrated in a few hands. The new oligarchs are transhumanists. Without realising it, we have already accepted their ideology and are beginning to put it into practice. Western doctors have given up trying to cure this disease and it seems obvious to us to bet everything on messenger RNA. It does not matter that this strategy is fatal. Henceforth, this is how we think.

 

Without admitting it, we are already converted to transhumanism