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.

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.”

Rape victim’s 100 lashes sentence

A rape victim’s 100 lashes sentence in Maldives has caused international outcry, after the teen subject to the repeated rapes was accused of having consensual sex with another man aside from the rape.

The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2012 goes to Iranians Nasrin Sotoudeh, an imprisoned human rights defender and lawyer, and Jafar Panahi, a film director who with his work called attention to the hardships suffered by Iran's poor.

 (Spain) Central government's move to stop schools using Catalan is insulting.
...
There has even been wild talk about mobilising the army.

(The Times, 22.12.2012)

'Republicans and Gun Lobby Complicit' in Newtown

Another Gunman and the Gun Owners of America

The Pussy and Mafia-Putin

Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more convincing, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the helm. It was here that the need arose to make use of the aesthetics of the Orthodox religion, historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.

The state’s leaders stand with saintly expressions in church, but their sins are far greater than ours. We’ve put on our political punk concerts because the Russian state system is dominated by rigidity, closedness and caste. Аnd the policies pursued serve only narrow corporate interests to the extent that even the air of Russia makes us ill.

Our protest has raised the issue of the fusion of the Russian Orthodox Church and the security services

Yet so far no senior French politician convicted of corruption has been jailed *

* the same as Portugal & Greece


poundzonliberalmarket (at least, in this case, they get a fine...)

Release Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo and Wife Liu Xi

A Two-Year Travelogue from Hell

before the senior Assad came into power in the wake of a military coup, the Alawites, about 10 percent of the population, were the poorest people in the country, only coming to Damascus as servants. But then Hafez Assad, after rising through the ranks of the military, finally came to power in another coup, in 1970. His son is now determined to hold on to that power at all costs -- or else, as his soldiers' slogan goes, "we will burn the country down!"

Assad's Elaborate Disinformation Campaign

Yemen constitutes another of the Saudi-Iranian battlegrounds in the region

  The real enemies of the Arab world

The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people. 

"Something has gone wrong inside the Muslim world," Rushdie continued. Just a few decades ago, he said, major cities in the Arab and Muslim world were outward-looking. But "in the last half century, these cultures seem to have slid backwards into medievalism and represssion. ... It is one of the great self-inflicted wounds."

Southern Arabia's holy warrior, Abraha, had taken control of large areas before long. He even attempted to free bishops being held prisoner by the Persian enemy in Nisibis (in modern-day Turkey), some 2,500 kilometers away.

Saudi celebrity preacher who 'raped and tortured' his five-year-old daughter to death is released after paying 'blood money'

The money is considered compensation under Islamic law

Information is power -  Aaron Swartz 

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.

Money, avarice and greed

"I used to think that the world was shaped by love. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. It's shaped by money. Money, avarice and greed -- these are the three main constants."

"There was a promise of better international regulation. But this promise hasn't been kept, at least not until now. I certainly find fault with that."

"And, above all, this regulation must also apply to an area that has been completely unregulated until now: hedge funds."

"We didn't want to touch certain deals, because they were too precarious, in terms of structure and image, even if we stood to make a lot of money with them." (Hilmar Kopper)

Kopper: The United States isn't my role model. If that was ever the case, it was after World War II, when we were slowly emerging from the Stone Age we had fought ourselves into. But I would neither want to live in America nor be a banker there.

SPIEGEL: Fifteen-trillion dollars in debts, a crumbling infrastructure, high unemployment, food stamps for one in five children ...

Kopper: ... and the Americans still want to spend even more money. I'm horrified when I look at the politics there, with all the backstabbing and squabbling in Washington.

SPIEGEL: Europe isn't any better off.

Kopper: I see a dollar crisis, but not a euro crisis. Europe has a debt problem, whereas the United States also has a problem with its balance of payments.

SPIEGEL: Can the euro still be saved?

Kopper: Of course. spiegel


Compare with the pensions of the portuguese bankers *

"I still receive a very small pension from the British government. I was a member of various boards of directors there, which meant I was automatically included in the social security system. It comes to about seven pounds a week." (Hilmar Kopper)

* politicians, public administrators, former members of the BdP (Bank of Portugal) and so on...


Portugal - the case study

How a small country whom got billions of the EU would fall on the bankruptcy? Surelly not because the pensions of the portuguese "oligarchy"... Of course they would be unbearable on the long run, but Portugal went to the bankruptcy right now. We should analyse the portuguese public investments since the 90's (§) and must realise that the official pedagogy is completely unfased with the real needs of the country. The Eurozone should look very carefully to Portugal before give the billions to the countries like Romenia ¤, Bulgary, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Czek Republic, Slovakia and Poland. (and look at Greece before to accept new members in the Eurozone)

(§) Firstly we going to realise that governments' members went to the board of private companies that got "very nice deals" wich ruined the financial wealth and the economy of the country. Secondly we going to see the same people first at "local power" or at bord of the public companies then as members of the governments and later as CEO's in the big private companies. This people are profissional politiciens whom got pensions called "gold pensions" (as former politiciens, as local governors, as public companies administrators or as public universities top teachers) and then they'd get huge salaries, bonuses and other little known rewards, at private firms. Also one of the main cancers of the portuguese economy are the big lawyers companies that intermediate all big public busineses. Those lawers big firms have always former, present or futur employees as elected members of the parliament (ironically called "the house of the democracy"...) where they elaborate the laws accordingly to the interests of their clients.

Thirdly: the profissional portuguese politicians transformed simple departments and sections of the ministeries and universities in Public Instituts. The Public Institut has a president, a board of directors, lots of secretaries and "specialists", and they are "independents" from the State! (as the Fondations and some private companies - whom get millions of the public money through special contracts and "concessions"). It was the way to get thousands of "nice jobs" for the "boys" and "girls" of the main portuguese political parties.

Also the portuguese universities professors' system is an aberration: the top professor teach six (sometimes less, sometimes nothing) hours weekly for more than 5000 euros/month salary (very "low" if you compare with the salary of a public portuguese administrator, but the university' teacher has loots of time and can also get a job as an administrator... if start to gets in the politics... or write very well payed "cientific" statements - this later depending on wich area him play). No one control them, there's no evaluation at all, and if there is any, its just a farse. No one ask them how many books wrote and how many articles did publish every year in specialized and recognised editions. It's like the farwest... They own an absolute power because they are considered the top of the knowledge. They may give for their "protegès" jobs like assistant teacher without any public announcement to envite others potential candidats to apply for the position. In Portugal are the tutors of the PhD's candidates whom do invite all the panel of PhD's jurors... And when they did (public announcement to envite others potential candidats - sometimes holding well reconised PhD's and post-PhD's - to apply), they composed the requirements to size the academic and profissional profile of their "boy" or "girl". It happned in almost all public portuguese instituitions. Some of the superior courses in Portugal do exist no because the needs of the country but because they are the safe net of some politicians whom are on/off in the universities and off/on in the political jobs. It's knowed that some important (in Portugal) faculties are dominated by secret societies, like the "franc-maçons" and the "Opus Dei" (right now the "portuguisches" war is between two different branches of the "maçons" each branch in each of the two main political parties...), because jobs in the public universities are in Portugal an excellent position and they want to keep it for their "brothers" and "sisters". The "Opus Dei" prefered to create their own private universities and banks (so, the BCP - the former "Opus Dei"s bank - has had to be bailled by the public money but the fomer two CEOs did get 30 and 10 million euros, respectively, more few hundred thousand euros a year, all their lives long...). Also the justice system is dominated by those "secret societies", so don't be surprised if almost all cases with top politiciens and bankers ended up in nothing  (BPP - Portuguese Private Bank - the president of this bank was so weel protected by the "socialist party" that it never went to the court; Cova da Beira; Freeport; Submarins - with the present minister of the foreign affairs, Paulo Portas, embroiled; Portucale - where a former minister of Paulo Portas' party was embroiled - namely - and w'll see whats happend with "Face Oculta", where former prime-minister, José Sócrates, is embroiled, as he's in "Cova da Beira" and "Freeport" cases as well;  BPN's case - a bank created by a member of the 90's government of today's Republic President, then prime-minister: the total "deal" w'd be about 9 thousand million euros - nine thousand million euros - of the public money "discharged into the air" to save the "rotten thing" -  it's hard to understand why Mr. José Sócrates decided to save it when everybody knowed that BPN is a case for the Police not to the government, as the BPP's - at least... So, another bank, wich CEO is also a former minister of the 90's from the present government's party got the BPN - just to shutdown the brand and to get all the facilities - per 40 million euros, a bit more if it generate a pre-determined amount of profits during the next 5 years...  To understanding the aberration of the "portuguese something system" you must to compare for exemple the average of  the price for housing in Portugal with the so-called "minimum wage" - 480 euros/month - and you'll realise that Portugal is neither an European nor an "eurozone" country - despite it is! -  but a country where the "boys & girls" of the "system" managing the place and the public money as if it was their farm and their own money.  Now, with the "crisis", it's getting worst, I mind -> as usual in Portugal it still going very nice for the "boys and girls" of the "system" but a bloody hell for the "normal" people and regular tax payers.

Basically we can tell that Portugal has an "something system", but we cannot tell that Portugal has a democratic system. And now - thanks to all that people in the portuguese "top jobs" - the "something portuguese system" (or The Paradise of the Corrupts) went bankrupt (but the "boys and girls" of the "system" still getting the public money as usual they do).

¤ my question on Romenia is: why it should remain in EU as we know very well the level of the endemic corruption and violence on women? (Balkan countries are "a problem" and Greece is just one of them)

Of course if we look at violence on the women, in Portugal (Spain is that better? Perhaps... In Catalunia... In the Basque Country...), we are going to realise that the portuguese are the taliban of the Eurozone. So, the portuguese needs a foreign military occupation -- of course not from Spain -- to stops those portuguese murders and torturers, because the portuguese "justice system" and policial action - shortened by the portuguese criminal laws and its portuguese magistrates' interpretation - simply does not work.

Of course this matter is not that simple... What's' happend with the portuguese? Why they do prefer kill their women instead of their corrupt politicians, magistrates and all the others whom ruined the country? There's some very intrincated staff to be analysed by lacanian thinkers and I wouldn't do it. Anyway, what's happend in Portugal - not only at this level - is something terrible and  unacceptable, and definitely does not going to be fixed from inside. It should be fixed by the EU, the Eurozone, or both, or the Eurozone in tandem with the OCDE or other "neutral" international organization.

Here we can see that Chile, for example, is substantially less corrupt than Portugal. The consistently responsibles of the absolutely rotten portuguese situation are the portuguese magistrates, who cleaned up in the court - or before the court - lots of corrupt big businesses, many of them in a "normal" country would configure huge crimes against the State and the "people". (Bulgaria is corrupt as Panama's, Romenia as China's, Greece as Colombia's, Serbia as Jamaica's...)

Here, no suprise, we can realise that portuguese are the unhappiest in the world after the chinese and the hungarian. Casa Pia' scandal was probably the tip of the iceberg of the portuguese regular aberrations.

In this "developed" and "warm" country people dead by cold! You just need to compare the minumum wage (485 euros/month) with the price of the electricity (and everything) in Portugal to realise for this country the important are politicians, "great" lawers and "great" administrators' salaries. "Normal" people can just get cold. Portugal is a Mafia State where the killings are made in a subtle way...

Since EU gave billions to Portugal during more than 30 years without any effective control, the EU (and the germans)  are co-responsible for the portuguese present situation. We tend to forget that Portugal is a territory of the European Union.*  Payed by the Eurozone to transform itself in a "civilized" place to be... Eurozone should care the portuguese (the spanish and the italians - I don't talk on Greece because Greece is the "edge case") as their magistrates (italian magistrates excluded, I should point out), their "great" administrators" and their "great" lawyers are just corrupt & craps.

* if we like to talk about "something" we should talk on Eurozone, not on the EU with some hypocrites whom just want to destroy the Euro.