EU, US launch initiative against ransomware

Cybercriminals shut down the largest gasoline pipeline system in the U.S, run by a company called Colonial, and the U.S. operations of meat processing company JBS in May. In Ireland, a ransomware attack crippled the country's health care system the same month. Security experts have pointed to cybercriminal groups based in Russia for the attacks.

Don’t burn wood, don’t burn food. Stop fake renewables!

When you think 'renewables' you probably think of solar panels and wind turbines. The truth is that in Europe almost 60% of what we call 'renewables' is actually wood and crops. Yes! European dirty coal power plants now burn trees and crops on a mass scale. The EU calls it green energy and subsidises it. We can change this. EU leaders are rethinking the law that allows this to happen.

Where are going our "advanced" societies?

"When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth."

"situations of male prisoners selfidentifying as females then raping staff in prison".

“Never have I seen women denigrated and dehumanised to the extent they are now. From the leader of the free world’s long history of sexual assault accusations and his proud boast of ‘grabbing them by the pussy’, to the incel (‘involuntarily celibate’) movement that rages against women who won’t give them sex, to the trans activists who declare that TERFs need punching and re-educating"

The mafia loves a crisis

effective responses may be limited by a lack of specific anti-mafia legislation in individual states and tax havens. In Germany, for example, there is no cash payment limit. Lack of awareness in countries such as the Netherlands has allowed some sectors, including horticulture, to be infiltrated by the ’Ndrangheta, which exploits it for money laundering and concealing shipments of drugs. Although Dutch authorities have since increased judicial cooperation with other countries, strong anti-mafia legislation is still missing.

The Great Biomass Boondoggle

Much of the EU’s forest industry operates under strictures, with the result that, as demand for “energy wood” increased, so has harvesting in less regulated forests, especially in the southern US and Canada. There, the wood-pellet industry has grown exponentially, but it has also expanded in the less scrutinized corners of Europe, such as the boreal bog forests of Estonia and the ancient forests of the Carpathian Mountains in Slovakia, Ukraine, and Romania, home to the lynx, bears, and wolves of old European folktales. 

Luxembourg Falls Further Behind EU AML Rules As Companies Fail To Disclose Ownership

“We have stringent anti-money laundering rules at EU level, but we need all Member States to implement these rules on the ground. We don’t want any weak point in the EU that criminals could exploit.”

Ursula von der Leyen set for EU's top job

She studied economics at the universities of Göttingen and Münster before attending the London School of Economics where she used the pseudonym Rose Ladson because she was seen as a potential target for West German leftwing extremists.

Von der Leyen then read for a medical degree, becoming a gynaecologist, and only entered politics at 42. A mother of seven, she has held government positions as labour and family affairs minister, driving forward key policies on gender quotas for company boards and improved maternity and paternity pay and rights.

Europe Needs a Global Strategy

Europe’s leaders must recognize that China is rapidly building an alternative political system in which a single party digitally controls the masses. 

Seven EU Countries Labeled ‘Tax Havens’ in Parliament Report

The MEPs found that seven of the EU’s 28 member states — Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and The Netherlands — “display traits of a tax haven and facilitate aggressive tax planning.”

Following increased pressure by the Finnish Government for Portugal to ratify the revised treaty between the two countries, on April 30, 2018 the Finnish Parliament voted in favor of denouncing the Portugal-Finland tax treaty signed on April 27, 1970 (the Old Treaty). As a result the Old Treaty will be terminated effective as of January 1, 2019, in accordance with article 30.º of that treaty. If Portugal does not ratify the revised treaty by December 1, 2018, Finnish domestic legislation will apply, and private sector pensions sourced in Finland and paid to Portuguese residents will be subject to tax in Finland from January 1, 2019.

In an Effort to Fight Money Laundering, the EU Parliament Wants to Scrap the Freeport System Beloved by Billionaire Art Collectors

The revelations laid bare more than 300 secret tax deals that Luxembourg had struck with global businesses, including Disney, Skype, GlaxoSmithKline, Koch Industries and Black & Decker. In several cases, the deals — known as “tax rulings” — allowed firms to pay less than 1 percent tax in Luxembourg

The European Commission has opened an investigation into one of the 546 secret Luxembourg tax deals exposed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Lux Leaks project almost five years ago.

In March, Juncker dismissed the claims about Le Freeport, saying there was “no evidence showing that free zones in the EU are systematically used to commit fraud.” The final report from TAX3 notes that the committee “deeply regrets” the lack of progress on major initiatives that have not been finalized due to “the lack of genuine political will.”

How the Mafias Came to Slovakia

The slain Slovak journalist was investigating the Calabrian and his connections to then-Prime Minister Fico when he was killed.

Kuciak found that a young female assistant of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico had once co-owned a business with Vadalà — and that the Italian had allegedly scammed the European Union out of 120,000 euros in agricultural subsidies.


Fico has ties to organized criminal groups Kuciak was investigating; Krajmer was inexplicably present at the murder scene shortly after the bodies were found; Fico, Krajmer and Kočner were connected to one another in various ways

Lithuania Detains 26, Including Top Judges, for Corruption

Lithuanian authorities detained on Wednesday 26 people, including judges and lawyers, in a large-scale anti-corruption probe of the judiciary. The suspects are accused of large-scale bribery, trading in influence and abuse of powers.

Europe Should Protect Independent Media in Copyright Reform

Search engines provide a crucial tool for journalists, who rely on disparate sources of information to do their job. If search engines are required to pay licensing fees for every bit of text, some results will inevitably be removed when a certain publisher proves untraceable, links or outlets are not considered viable enough to contend with, or a publisher refuses to license their content for any reason. Less popular content – often the underlying details essential to proving a story – will be disproportionately affected.

How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55 billion

The vast so-called cum ex tax scandal which has rocked Germany in the past decade has already cost the country an estimated €30 billion. It was assumed that a change in the law in 2016 definitively outlawed such trades. But as a cross-border and undercover investigation now reveals, the trade is still flourishing and has targeted far more countries and has cost far more than was previously thought, affecting nearly all of the biggest economies in Europe.

EU: lack of freedom of speech

In the US, freedom of speech doesn't require it to be factual. That is the major difference between freedom of speech in the US and in several countries in Europe: if you say something that is offensive, it does not necessarily have to be true.

[Pick any conspiracy theory under the sun, and threads often lead back to Soros.]

European politicians call for clampdown on tax trade trick

European politicians have called for action to tackle dividend stripping after Reuters and other media revealed how large banks were involved in trading schemes that cost taxpayers billions of euros.

Golden visa abuse warning

The report, titled European Getaway – Inside the Murky World of Golden Visas, says while huge volumes of money are involved, checks for money laundering and corrupt and illegal origins of the investment are not especially rigorous.

Portugal is specifically identified as an area that poses “high risks”. 

{figures also show that getting on for half of all people in employment in Portugal, at 43.3 percent, did not attend school after ninth grade (the EU average is 16.7 percent). Poland is at the opposite end, with only 1 percent of employees having failed to graduate from secondary education, and Lithuania with 3.5 percent.}

'Golden passports' threaten European security

The investigation is being published under the banner of The Daphne Project, a collaboration of 18 news organisations from 15 countries, formed to continue investigations begun by Caruana Galizia.

The journalist had raised concerns in her reporting, among other matters, about Henley and its relationship with the government led by Malta’s Labour prime minister, Joseph Muscat.

In the Caribbean, they call Kalin, 46, the passport king – he has transformed a small firm of wealth advisers into the leading player in a US$3 bn global industry. His company, Henley & Partners, tells small countries how to transform passports into cash – a legitimate and legal business.

Majority of people living in democracies don’t believe governments work in their interests

Four of the five nations in which the largest majority of respondents said their governments were not acting in the interest of the public feature free societies (Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark), while just one is labelled “partly free” (Kenya). 

Why is glyphosate all over our food?

Because according to current EU rules, Monsanto & Co. can keep their industry studies secret – studies which independent experts could potentially use to show the substance is carcinogenic, if they had access to them. If there is proof a substance could cause cancer, the EU wouldn't allow it on the European market. Now the Commission wants to increase transparency in our food system. It’s proposing new rules which could force industry to disclose its secret studies. But industry is pushing back hard, and as a result, the new rules could be rendered meaningless, or worse: they could leave us with even less information than we have access to now.