I am reminded of Lenin’s definition of a revolutionary situation, whose language is reflected in this comment of mine:

 

* * * *

Two minutes of embryonic fascism from yesterday (Jan. 8, video link below)
It may seem everything is going according to plan for the U.S. fascists and their financial-monopoly money bags.
But I am very glad that AFL-CIO president Trumka representing 15 million workers has spoken against the push to divide workers along religious lines.
People are being pulled into two diverging and combative political movements in the U.S., pulled by the millions into action.
They each cannot continue to live in the same way.
The fascists plan is to:
1. Suck workers into fighting each other on sectarian lines.
2. Have them fight for solutions that leave the real problem untouched in a reckless effort to prolong the rotting profit system
This is a situation where even capitalists have lost faith in their own system and are starting to decide they can rule in the same way no longer.
The sulfurous smell of war and the open terrorist dictatorship of the financial-monopoly capitalist class is in the air.
But the labour movement is rising against it, millions of people behind Bernie Sanders’ socialist nomination bid are staunchly opposed to fascism, and the U.S. election will be a supreme test for democracy versus incipient fascism.
Note also that two people wore a label “Muslim” as demanded by Trump, but only the woman was targeted for eviction.

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/donald-trump-muslim-woman-protesting-ejected/index.html?sr=fbCNN010916donald-trump-muslim-woman-protesting-ejected0229PMVODtopLink&linkId=20232169

OR

https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10154366085446509/?pnref=story

 

– Darrell Rankin, a Canadian comrade.

http://www.c-span.org/video/?160702-1/gus-hall-memorial-service

AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 10, 2015 (151210)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

As the climate talks in Paris draw to a close this week, the
countries present are still far from full agreement. Among the
latest surprises was the announcement by the Marshall Islands and
St. Lucia of a “Coalition of High Ambition Countries,” spearheaded
by small island states which are the most at risk of being submerged
due to climate change. The coalition  includes over 100 countries,
including the European Union countries and the United States, but
notable exceptions are the largest developing countries, such as
China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim152.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
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Details of the latest negotiations are complex, the outcome still
highly uncertain, and positions within each of the many negotiation
alliances are themselves subject to change. The remaining stumbling
blocks as of today are summarized in this article in The Guardian,
which has been covering the talks extensively as part of its “Keep
it in the ground” campaign.

“The six key road blocks at the UN climate talks in Paris” The
Guardian, December 10, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/p2nakd8

What is agreed among virtually all observers and participants is
that the results of the conference will fall far short of that
needed to curb climate change short of even more catastrophic
results in the coming decades, added to the documented increase in
“extreme weather events” already making themselves felt.

The outcome will depend in part on the agreed words on paper in the
next few days, but even more on the practical effect of multiple
technical and political trends around the world, both positive and
negative.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains substantial excerpts from
articles on two particularly important issues beyond those in the
Paris text, namely the future of coal, and the threat to climate
action by governments coming from parallel and little noticed
negotiations in Geneva on the “Trade in Services Agreement” (TiSA).

There are also brief snippets from other relevant articles, on
agriculture, on critiques of the new OECD report estimating rich
country contributions to climate finance to date, and on rapid
advances predicted in renewable energy for both Africa and the
United States.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate and the environment,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Year-end Break for AfricaFocus; Asking for your Support

With this issue AfricaFocus Bulletin begins a year-end break in
publication. Publication will resume in early to mid-January. As
usual, the AfricaFocus website and social media pages will continue
to be available.

This is also time for a reminder that while AfricaFocus is and will
remain free to you and other readers, it continues to depend on
support from those readers who decide to make a voluntary payment to
help support this work. If you are able to do so, and continue to
find this publication useful, please go to
http://www.africafocus.org/support.php to make a secure contribution
on-line or to download a form to mail in with your check or money
order. Although this contribution is not tax-deductible, it may be
deductible as a business expense.

Best wishes to all for the holiday season and for the coming year.

William Minter, Editor, AfricaFocus Bulletin

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“Thousands of Planned Coal Plants, if Built, Could Doom Efforts to
Contain Global Warming”

by Maureen Nandini Mitra, managing editor, Earth Island Journal

Alternet, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/q8gmjzo

I landed in Calcutta (Kolkata, if you are a stickler for official
names) on November 30, the day the world leaders, policy makers, and
environmental activists gathered in Paris to figure out how to curb
climate change. Officially, it’s wintertime in this city of my
birth, but the air on Monday night was anything but chilly. Instead,
it was uncomfortably muggy. The only sign of winter was the hazy air
— a regular year-end feature in this overcrowded, traffic-choked
metropolis in eastern India.

The unusually warm weather might be an anomaly, at least that’s what
the local weathermen say, but in my experience, winters here have
certainly become milder in recent years. (While winter is receding
here, the waters are rising. Calcutta is among coastal cities across
the world most vulnerable to increased flooding due to climate
change.)

Meanwhile farther south by the tip of the Indian peninsula, another
coastal city, Chennai, has been flooded for two months due to
torrential rains that have submerged homes and disrupted normal
life. The Indian Army has been deployed there to rescue people
stranded in their homes. The rains have broken a 100-year-old record
with one day’s rainfall covering an entire month’s average in a city
that’s more used to blazing heat than damp days.

When I spoke with a journalist friend living there last morning
(it’s past 3 a.m. Thursday morning here as I write this), she was
stuck in her second floor apartment with her invalid mother and
little girl with no power. Her cellphone, the only way she can
connect with the outside world, had barely any charge left. The
first floor of her building was completely inundated and she feared
the waters would soon rise further. “Even if the rescue boats come,
I can’t leave because they most likely won’t be able to evacuate my
mother,” she told me, before I hung up, not wanting to waste her
cellphone charge needlessly. I haven’t heard from her since.

This is it: the real, harsh, personal face of climate change. Given
such stark news, it was doubly depressing to read a new report  by
Climate Action Tracker that shows that thousands of new coal plants
being planned in countries across the world, including India, could
doom efforts to contain global warming.

If all the 2,440 coal plants in the pipeline were to be built, by
2030, emissions from coal power would be 400 percent higher than
what is consistent with a 2degC pathway, says the “Coal Gap” report,
which was released in Paris on Tuesday. Using data from Earth Island
Institute’s CoalSwarm project’s updated Global Coal Plant Tracker,
the researchers calculated the effect of coal-fired power on global
emissions and concluded that even with no new construction, in 2030,
emissions from coal-fired power generation would still be more than
150 percent higher than what is consistent with holding warming
below 2degC.

The researchers based their assessment on planned new coal plants
both globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build
more than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia,
Japan, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey — plus
the EU28. In emerging economies, like India, the plants are being
planned in hopes of meeting rapidly increasing electricity demand,
while in the EU28, new coal plants will mainly replace existing
capacity.

Of course, the biggest offender here is China, which has 722 planned
plants that would emit 2.2 gigatons of carbon emissions a year. But
India isn’t lagging too far behind. The report notes that the large
amounts of new coal capacity planned in India and Turkey “could have
a relatively significant impact.”

“In India, stopping new coal fired power plants to be built could
mitigate 0.7 GtCO [gigatons of carbon emissions], provided low
carbon technologies are implemented,” it adds.

The researchers say, ideally, plans for these plants should be
canceled, but I sincerely doubt that will happen. At least not here
in India, where coal companies have deep ties with the political
class, and where the environment minister (who’s currently in Paris)
gives that same old line about the floods in Chennai being a
“natural calamity” that “can’t be directly linked to climate
change.”

*******************************************************************

The Coal Gap: planned coal-fired power plants inconsistent with
2degC and threaten achievement of INDCs

Climate Action Tracker, Dec. 1, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp

Summary

* Holding temperature increase below 2degC, or below 1.5degC by
2100, requires a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector.
IPCC AR5 scenarios indicate that this sector needs to reach zero
carbon emissions globally around 2050, 35 years hence. This means
phasing out emissions from coal-fired power by 2050.

* Even with no new construction, emissions from coal-fired power
generation in 2030 would still be 150% higher than what is
consistent with scenarios limiting warming to below 2degC above pre-
industrial levels (middle of the range). If the planned new coal
capacity – estimated by the Global Coal Plant Tracker – were to be
built, it would exceed the required levels by 400%.

* The planned new coal plants alone (globally, 2440 plants,
totalling 1428 GW) could emit approximately 6.5 GtCO2 , 16 – 18% of
the total allowed emissions in 2030 (under a 2degC-compatible
scenario). Including existing capacity with a technical lifetime
beyond 2030, total annual emissions from coal-fired power generation
could reach 12 GtCO2 in 2030.

* The CAT has assessed the impact of planned new coal plants both
globally, and in the eight countries that each plan to build more
than 5GW of coal power capacity: China, India, Indonesia, Japan,
South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – plus the EU28.
[The USA only plans to expand coal capacity by 3.5 GW.]

* Of these nine countries (incl. EU28) all have a CAT-rated INDC of
“inadequate” or “medium” (i.e. not sufficient to keep warming below
2degC), and have “current policy pathways” that are even less
ambitious. Their combined planned new coal capacity (2011 new coal
plants, totalling 1210 GW) could put them in an even worse
situation, adding emissions of around 1.5 GtCO2 to the CAT’s
projected currently policy levels.

* In seven of the nine studied countries – China, EU28, India,
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Turkey – planned coal plants
threatens the achievement of the already only medium or inadequate
INDCs.

* The estimated emissions impact of planned plants that have been
announced and pre- permitted – i.e. not under construction or
permitted – would be 3.5GtCO2. Cancelling these plants could lead to
emissions reductions of 2GtCO 2 below current policy levels,
bringing countries closer to their proposed INDC levels.

[more at http://tinyurl.com/h7b7jfp]

*****************************************

Climate Deception: Non-binding “Targets” for Climate, but Binding
Rules on Trade in Services by Deborah James

Huffington Post, December 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2

[Also note that the global Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS)
network works with PSI against the proposed TiSA. For more
information, visit http://ourworldisnotforsale.org/en/themes/3085]

The whole world is watching as world leaders from nearly every
country across the globe meet in Paris this week to set carbon
emission reductions targets to address global climate change.

Unfortunately representatives of 50 of the same governments are also
meeting this week in Geneva to negotiate binding rules that will
seriously constrain countries’ ability to meet those targets.

The 15th round of talks to create a “Trade in Services Agreement,”
or TiSA, are occurring once again in Geneva. Members of the TiSA
currently include Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Mexico,
New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, the U.S., and the 28 member states of
the European Union. How come everyone knows about the Paris talks,
but not those in Geneva? Because the Geneva talks are convened in
secret – precisely because the negotiators don’t want the public to
know what they’re up to.

The TiSA is modeled on the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS) of the WTO, which Naomi Klein has documented in her book,
This Changes Everything, has been used extensively against
environmental policies. Yet the point of the TiSA is to go further
than the GATS because corporations see the existing rules as not
“ambitious enough.” The financial services, logistics and
technological corporations, largely in the United States and also
the EU, are attempting to expand the WTO’s GATS to develop a set of
deregulation and privatization rules that constrain public oversight
of how services operate domestically and globally, setting aside
environmental, labor, and development issues in favor of
transnational corporate rights to operate and profit.

Fortunately, Wikileaks has come again to the rescue. Today they are
publishing analysis and secret, leaked proposals that would create
far-reaching rules that give corporations rights to access markets
and limit public oversight of environmental and energy services and
road transportation in TiSA member countries.

The analysis of a proposal for an “Energy Related Services (ERS)”
annex of the TiSA would give “rights” to foreign energy corporations
in domestic markets. Far from mandating reductions in carbon
emissions or promoting access for poor countries to clean
technologies, the proposed TiSA annex would actually limit the
ability of governments (on national, regional, or local levels) to
set policies that differentiate between polluting and carbon-based
energy sources, such as oil and coal, from clean and renewable
energy sources such as wind and solar. This is according to the
“principle of technological neutrality,” revealed in the analysis of
the proposed chapter by Victor Menotti published by the Public
Services International (PSI) global union federation today.

Since reducing the dependence on fossil fuels is the basis of much
of today’s climate policy, it is hard to imagine how governments
could achieve the reductions in fossil fuel usage required by the
targets if they are not able to differentiate among energy sources.

Developing countries have demanded that principles of common but
differentiated responsibility become enshrined in any new climate
deal; the TiSA would instead sidesteps developing country concerns
raised at the WTO, and fails to include the (weak) flexibilities for
developing countries included in the WTO’s GATS.

In fact, a main point of the TiSA seems to be to “shift political
power over energy and climate policies from people using their
governments for shaping fair and sustainable economies to global
corporations using TiSA for restricting governments from regulating
energy markets, companies, and industry infrastructure,” according
to Menotti. This includes ensuring domestic economic benefits from
natural resource extraction, a key strategy for poverty reduction in
many developing countries.

…

Both the TPP and the proposed TiSA would restrict governments’
ability to use public procurement to promote “green purchasing,”
through the chapter disciplining government procurement, which in
the TiSA is cross-referenced to environmental and energy services
chapters. According to the analysis by the Third World Network,
government purchasing “provides a major source of demand for
domestic service suppliers and reserving that for domestic companies
(or otherwise preferring them) can facilitate social and economic
development, provide employment and business opportunities for
marginalized or disadvantaged individuals and communities and act as
a ‘wealth redistribution’ tool.” The leaked chapter on government
procurement in the TiSA would open up government purchases that are
subject to public tender, by all government agencies, in any amount.

Thus like the TPP, the TiSA constrains the ability of governments to
set policies that favor environmental job creation policies
advocated for by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy and the call for
a Just Transition developed by the International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC) and endorsed by We Mean Business, The B Team
and seven major civil society networks including CIDSE (the
international alliance of Catholic development agencies), Friends of
the Earth International, ActionAid International, Greenpeace
International, Christian Aid, WWF and Oxfam International.

[For more, read full article at more at http://tinyurl.com/h6femp2]

*****************************************************

Other relevant recent articles

(snippets only; for full articles see links)

“US Solar Market Prepares for Biggest Quarter in History” Greentech
Media, Dec. 9, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zj7aho6

GTM Research expects the fourth quarter of this year to be the
largest quarter for solar installations in U.S. history. Led by the
utility-scale segment, the United States will install more than 3
gigawatts. Looking further out, cumulative PV installations will
nearly double between now and the end of 2016, bringing the
nationwide total to 41 gigawatts.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Africa plans renewable energy drive that could make continent
world’s cleanest,” The Guardian, Dec. 7, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/zubqq8e

The African Renewable Energy Initiative (Arei) plans to develop at
least 10 GW of new renewable energy generation capacity by 2020, and
at least 300 GW by 2030, potentially making the continent the
cleanest in the world.

The International Energy Agency, which has said that Africa is at
the “epicentre of the global challenge to overcome energy poverty”,
estimates that annual electricity consumption per capita in Africa
for 2012 was around 600 kWh, compared with the world average of
3,064 kWh.

The plan to accelerate solar, hydro, wind and geothermal energy
could see Africa leapfrogging other continents by developing
thousands of small-scale “virtual power stations” that distribute
electricity via mini-grids and would not require transmission lines,
which involve a loss of up to a quarter of power during the process.

+++++++++++++++++

“More countries reject OECD study of climate aid” The Guardian, Dec.
8, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jt2zl48

China, Brazil and South Africa have joined India in rejecting a key
OECD study stating that rich countries have already mobilised nearly
two-thirds of the $100bn (£67bn) pledged to secure a new climate
deal.

The refusal by the world’s four most powerful developing countries
to accept the methodology used by western economists, to calculate
the money raised for poor countries to adapt to climate change,
suggests that finance will be the major hurdle at the end of the
talks on Friday.

The OECD study claimed that rich countries had already mobilised
$57bn of climate aid in 2013-14, as pledged in 2009. But Indian
government economists have claimed that the OECD study counted loans
made to developing countries and double-counted aid money, putting
the real figure closer to $2bn.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“A secret weapon to fight climate change: dirt” The Washington Post,
Dec. 4, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/z2hf4wd

We think of climate change as a consequence of burning fossil fuels.
But a third of the carbon in the atmosphere today used to be in the
soil, and modern farming is largely to blame. Practices such as the
overuse of chemicals, excessive tilling and the use of heavy
machinery disturb the soil’s organic matter, exposing carbon
molecules to the air, where they combine with oxygen to create
carbon dioxide. Put another way: Human activity has turned the
living and fertile carbon system in our dirt into a toxic
atmospheric gas.

It’s possible to halt and even reverse this process through better
agricultural policies and practices. Unfortunately, the world
leaders who gathered in Paris this past week have paid little
attention to the critical links between climate change and
agriculture. That’s a huge mistake and a missed opportunity. Our
unsustainable farming methods are a central contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change, quite simply, cannot be
halted without fixing agriculture.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 1, 2015 (151201)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“I’ve thought a lot about the outrage over unequal media coverage
when it comes to attacks in the Western world vs death in ‘other’
black and brown countries. I cringed when Barack Obama called the
Paris attacks an attack on ‘all humanity’–as if brutal attacks in
Pakistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia and Mexico are not
quite up to that benchmark. I agree that we in the media need to do
a better job … [but] I can’t help but think that the ‘Why didn’t
the media care about _____’ stories will come, generate outrage
clicks and shares, and pass, without people really taking the time
to examine their own media consumption habits. … the stories were
written, you just didn’t click.” – Karen Attiah, Nov. 17, 2015

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clik1512.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clik152.php

As Washington Post digital editor Karen Attiah notes, there are
solid grounds for outrage at unequal media coverage of deaths in
different parts of the world. But the outrage often comes without a
differentiated analysis of “the media,” and failure to recognize
that each of us can have some effects on changing that coverage.
Granted that those who can make the most difference are the media
gatekeepers and editors who decide priorities for coverage on a
daily basis. But “the media” most of us have access to today include
not only the so-called “mainstream media,” but also many other forms
of media less restricted by gatekeepers, such as blogs, Facebook,
Youtube, and many more.

Readers and viewers can affect the reach of both mainstream and
other media by clicking, sharing, and other forms of multiplier
actions. In this digital age, mainstream editors must also pay
attention to click counts, and you can have influence by “boosting”
good articles by good journalists, not just complaining about the
bad ones.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from an outstanding set
of articles on the attack in Bamako, Mali, from one prominent
mainstream media outlet, The Washington Post, in the weeks following
Karen Attiah’s Facebook post cited above. So if you care about
Bamako as well as Paris, read these excerpts and also click to read
the full articles on The Washington Post website.

For previous articles by Karen Attiah in the Washington Post, visit
http://tinyurl.com/gqqy8ox

See in particular for related comment on the media:

“How Western media would cover Baltimore if it happened elsewhere,”
by Karen Attiah, April 30, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/zpm7vge

“Stop being angry at Western media for ‘ignoring’ Boko Haram,”
by Karen Attiah, Jan. 16, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/hq8fzc5

Another related article on Mali appeared in the Washington Post on
Nov. 30. “After this month’s attack in Bamako, what do we know about
fundamentalist Islam in Mali?,” by Sebastian Elischer
http://tinyurl.com/gry4399

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on peace and conflict issues,
visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-peace.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Facebook post by Karen Attiah, Nov. 17, 2015

http://www.facebook.com/KarenAttiah

I’ve thought a lot about the outrage over unequal media coverage
when it comes to attacks in the Western world vs death in “other”
black and brown countries. I cringed when Barack Obama called the
Paris attacks an attack on “all humanity”–as if brutal attacks in
Pakistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia and Mexico are not
quite up to that benchmark. I agree that we in the media need to do
a better job capturing that humanity in our stories on a regular
basis, not just when an act of mass violence rips lives apart. We
need to care about LIFE in countries and cultures other than our
own.

I can’t help but think that the “Why didn’t the media care about
_____” stories will come, generate outrage clicks and shares, and
pass, without people really taking the time to examine their own
media consumption habits. We didn’t Ignore Garissa. We didn’t ignore
Nigeria. Let me echo my colleagues and say, that the stories were
written, you just didn’t click.

I suggest that for all who are upset at what is perceived as a lack
of coverage of places like Kenya, Nigeria, and Lebanon, now would be
a good time to find, follow, subscribe to, click on, share the
stories of the many journalists who are reporting and writing these
stories in the places you are concerned about and who sometimes risk
life and limb to do so.
The clicks, the shares, the likes, on stories from Africa, from
Latin America, the Middle East–it makes a difference. It tells us
in the media that YOU care about these stories.

**************************************************************

“Extremists stormed the Radisson hotel in Mali’s capital, and at
least 20 people are dead. These resources can help you learn more.”
by Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne

Monkey Cage, Washington Post, Nov. 21

http://tinyurl.com/hb7nqqn

[article includes introduction and an extensive list of resources,
with links]

**************************************************************

“Mali’s president declares state of emergency after deadly hotel
attack, National mourning in Mali after gunmen storm luxury hotel,”
by Pamela Constable

Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/oz4622y

[Kevin Sieff in Nairobi contributed to this report.]

Bamako, Mali — On most weekends, every table at the Canoe Club, a
stylish riverside bistro and bar, is reserved long in advance.
Western diplomats and United Nations staffers rub elbows with Malian
officials and business travelers late into the evening, noshing on
paella or pizza and enjoying French wine and champagne.

On Saturday, a day after terrorists invaded the luxury Radisson Blu
hotel in this poor West African capital, taking 130 people hostage
and leaving 21 dead, the Canoe Club was deserted. Idle waiters
repolished glasses or refolded linen napkins. Patrick Aleine, the
chef and co-owner, sat at the empty bar in a despondent funk.

“This is a disaster,” he said, speaking in French. “We have always
tried to make foreigners feel at ease and secure here, and we are
always full. Today, there is not a single customer. Tomorrow, there
is not a single table reserved. I am staying open for now, but if
the foreigners don’t start coming back, the Malians won’t come
either. Then we will be finished.”

On the surface, the crowded, hardscrabble city of nearly 2 million
people appeared to return to normal with astonishing speed so soon
after a horrific terrorist attack.

Motorbike traffic clogged the narrow streets and red-dirt alleys.
Fishermen poled canoes on the Niger River, which divides the
capital. Women with babies on their backs hung laundry outside tin
shanties, sold baskets of fruit or ladled out rice and stew at lunch
stands. Every few hours, the Muslim call to prayer echoed from
mosques scattered across the city.

In the morning, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced a 10-day
state of emergency, giving security officials extra powers to enter
homes without a warrant and to ban public rallies or marches. He
also declared three days of national mourning, acting to tamp down
public reaction to the violence. Police and army troops were
stationed on many corners, and armored pickup trucks full of combat
troops circled the Radisson Blu and other sensitive areas of the
city.

Later, the president visited some victims of the hotel attack in a
local hospital and toured the hotel, accompanied by Prime Minister
Modibo Keita and surrounded by bodyguards. Camera crews, blocked
from following them inside, peered at glass and debris strewn across
the lobby floor. Amid the scrum, a group of grim-faced Western
guests emerged with loads of baggage and were hustled into waiting
SUVs by armed escorts, headed out of the country.

From behind a police barricade, a crowd of young men watched the
scene. Most said they were Muslim, as are 95 percent of Malians.
They expressed anger and consternation at the attack, saying it was
the act of terrorists who did not represent their religion. One
violent regional jihadist group, the Mourabitounes, has claimed
responsibility, and witnesses said that the attackers freed hostages
who could recite the Koran.

“This is not good for us or for our country,” said Mainanto Mamdu,
21, a mechanic. “There is no meaning to what these terrorists are
doing, but it seems they can do whatever they want.”

Nafila Dao, 23, who sells cellphones, said the threat of Islamist
extremism is “everywhere now, and we cannot stop it. We were taught
that Islam is tolerant of all religions and people. These people are
just murderers.”

There was a jittery tone to every conversation and encounter, an
uneasy chill beneath the routine commotion. Many people walked away
nervously when asked about the hotel attack. Despite the new
security measures, many people seemed to feel that their government
was helpless to stop terrorism. Some worried that the close
relationship Mali has long enjoyed with its European allies,
especially France and Belgium, was at stake.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/oz4622y]

A senior police official, whose squad was among the first to reach
the besieged hotel Friday, said Mali and its international allies
must work together to fight extremists. “We are facing a menace to
all countries and all colors,” he said. “I have brave men and they
stopped the guests from panicking, but we cannot defeat these groups
with force. We have to go deeply into their mentality and their
psyche.”

**************************************************************

“Five things you should know about Friday’s terrorist attack in
Mali,” by Susanna D. Wing

Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/nqsnro2

[Susanna D. Wing is associate professor and chair of political
science at Haverford College. She is also the author of the award-
winning book, “Constructing Democracy in Africa: Mali in
Transition.”]

The Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, hosted a gathering of first
ladies of West Africa when I was staying there in October 2011. The
regal, powerful women and their attendants dominated the upscale
lobby. The hotel was known for being safe and secure — a
requirement for its diplomatic and business clientele.

In the early morning of Nov. 20, the hotel was the target of a
brazen attack in which gunmen breached the security perimeter of the
hotel, shot a security guard and then took more than 100 people
hostage. Thankfully, most of those hostages escaped. Sadly, many did
not. What are the five things you should know about the Mali and the
attack on the Radisson Blu?

1. The Bamako and Paris attacks are connected, but analysis should
focus less on global terror trends and more on the complicated
history of Mali politics. In the wake of the tragic Paris attacks,
it is tempting to frame the most recent Bamako attack as connected.
While the terrible events in Paris and Bamako are linked because
terrorists in both instances crave the attention that such high-
profile attacks bring to their project, the Malian attack is part of
a more complicated history of insecurity linked to local politics.

Certainly, the Radisson Blu hotel was targeted precisely because it
is a favorite among expatriates. Moreover, a video released this
past October by Iyad Ag Ghali, leader of Mali-based jihadist
organization Ansar Dine, explicitly connects dissatisfaction with
Mali’s political settlement to attacking Mali’s former colonial
master, France. In the video, Ag Ghali claimed those who signed the
Algiers peace accord — a recently brokered peace agreement that
offered partial autonomy to northern Mali — had sold out. Ag Ghali
also praised the January attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and called
for continued attacks on France.

In recent months, Amadou Koufa, an ally of Ag Ghali, created the
Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and has led attacks against the United
Nations Mission in Mali. In conjunction with Al Mouraboutin, an al-
Qaeda affiliate led by Moktar Belmoktar, it claimed responsibility
for the attack on the Hotel Byblos in Sevaré in central Mali
occupied primarily by peacekeepers. The week prior to the attack at
the Radisson, embassies called for increased vigilance in Bamako and
the capital was placed on a heightened terror alert. Al-Mouraboutin
has claimed responsibility for the attack.

2. The French intervention in January 2013 was only effective in the
short term. Following the 2012 coup d’état in Mali, the French were
able to rapidly retake Northern territory occupied by extremist
groups such as Ansar Dine, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in
West Africa (MUJAO), and al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). Many
Malians applauded the French intervention, and a former French
diplomat claimed that it was a courageous act on the part of
President Francois Hollande. The same diplomat also pointed out that
the intervention ignored the root causes of terrorism and “denied
the troubling reality of Malian politics.” The military response
only temporarily dispersed adherents to the rebel groups who then
splintered and formed new alliances.

The French Operation Serval and subsequent Operation Barkhane did
not include a long-term mandate for achieving stability in Mali. The
French left those tricky issues to be sorted out and moved on to
focus on regional counter-terrorism. However, the political crisis
in Mali is intimately linked to the rise in terrorist activities in
the country.

3. Counter-terrorism campaigns in the Sahel prioritize security and
not politics. The U.S. State Department, in partnership with USAID
and the Department of Defense, has led the Trans-Sahara Counter
Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP). The program has suffered from poor
management, a lack of coordination and slow disbursement of funds.
Some argue that the U.S. program has been a complete failure and,
sadly, the French counterterrorism program in the Sahel is modeled
on the U.S. war on terror.

Mali President Amadou Toumani Touré promoted the flagship Special
Program for Peace, Security and Development in Northern Mali
(PSPSDN) to address insecurity in the North. The program focused
primarily on bolstering security forces at a time when local
populations in the North complained about discrimination by security
personnel and a lack of development funding reaching the region. The
program was rife with corruption and only served to stir up
animosity across the region.

4. The 2015 Algiers Peace Accord was fragile from the start. In June
2015 rebel factions in Mali signed The Algiers Accord with pro-
government groups. Few people had much faith that the accords would
actually bring peace and be fully implemented. Mali has a long
history of peace accords with the Tuareg that have not been fully
implemented. These suspicions were proven warranted when a ceasefire
was broken nearly immediately. Since the accords were signed,
violence has spread southward.

5. Mali’s fragile democracy remains rife with tensions. The conflict
in Mali today is part of ongoing tensions that go back decades
despite the country’s democratic reputation. Mali was considered a
model democracy prior to the March 2012 coup d’état. Since
independence, various Tuareg groups pushed for autonomy and the
creation of an independent state of Azawad. The Tuareg are not the
only ethnic group living in northern Mali, in fact, they are a
minority, which complicates the creation of Azawad.

Even before the crisis in 2012, tensions in the capital had been
increasing between those promoting a secular state and those
challenging those ideals. The High Islamic Council of Mali gained
political legitimacy as President Amadou Toumani Touré became
increasingly unpopular. The calls for an Islamic State of Mali, led
by Ansar Dine and others, were an extreme version of this
complicated tension. In response to the attack on the Radisson Blu,
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared three days of national
mourning and a 10-day state of emergency. Commenting on the
terrorist attack, a cellphone merchant in Bamako, Nafila Dao,
proclaimed “We were taught that Islam is tolerant of all religions
and people. These people are just murderers.”

**************************************************************

“Malians defy the threat of terror,” by Pamela Constable

Washington Post, Nov. 22, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jdpvd6e

[Pamela Constable covers immigration issues and immigrant
communities. A former foreign correspondent for the Post based in
Kabul and New Delhi, she also reports periodically from Afghanistan
and other trouble spots overseas.]

Bamako, Mali — Church bells pealed and wedding music blared across
this West African capital Sunday, as Malians dressed in their vivid
holiday best defied the threat of terror and skirted a state of
emergency to celebrate the rituals of life.

After visiting the luxury hotel where two gunmen shot and killed 19
people after taking about 130 hostage Friday, Senegal’s president
Macky Sall said at a news conference Sunday that a meeting of a West
African regional organization would be held soon to discuss regional
security concerns.

A coalition of separatist groups in northern Mali claimed that the
attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel had been aimed at sabotaging peace
talks they are holding with the Malian government of President
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. A critical peace meeting was scheduled to be
held at the hotel soon. The group’s leader said jihadist groups are
trying to destroy the country.

The attack has been claimed by al-Mourabitoun, a violent jihadist
group affiliated with al-Qaeda that seeks to drive Western influence
from Mali and has been responsible for a number of other deadly
assaults in the past several years. But experts said the gunmen, who
also died, could be linked to other extremist Islamist groups in the
region, a confusing array of shifting leaders and allegiances.

The social and religious outings held across the capital Sunday were
congenial but not fully carefree, and the hotel siege was still on
everyone’s mind. Some foreign church-goers were accompanied by
bodyguards, and male wedding guests sat and watched with extra
attentiveness as their wives and daughters danced in outdoor tents.

But despite the jolting reminder Friday that Mali and its capital
remain vulnerable to a variety of violent groups — and the
announcements Saturday of a 10-day reduction of civil liberties and
three days of national mourning — thousands of people decided not
to let grief or anxiety ruin their plans.

From mid-morning on, people streamed into churches to sing and pray,
then mingled in the shade afterward to chat. Many women were clad in
brilliant patterned gowns and turbans; some men sported loose tunics
called fokia, printed with colorful drawings of Jesus and Mary or
with phrases from the Bible.

In interviews, some worshipers confined themselves to cautious
platitudes about the future being in God’s hands. But others offered
concerned comments about Islamist violence, which has spread from
the country’s arid north, threatening the social peace that both
minority Christians and majority Muslims have long known in the more
developed south.

“It’s true that we Christians are especially exposed, but so are
moderate Muslims,” said Edmund, 60, a retired airline worker wearing
a tunic with “Glory, hallelujah” written across it. He asked that
his last name not be used. “These terrorists do not speak for God.
It is easy for them to indoctrinate young people in our precarious
societies, with so much poverty and lack of work, but it is a
perversion to promise them a better world through force.”

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/jdpvd6e]

Some of the [wedding] celebrations went on for hours, with women in
elaborate party costumes singing and dancing traditional welcomes to
the groom while the bride was hidden nearby, being attended by
friends. At one wedding, an uncle of the bride, dressed in a
ceremonial white cap and robe, watched the festivities with a
satisfied smile and a close eye on the street.

“We are all troubled by this attack, and we know people are dead,
but we must still celebrate the living,” said the uncle, a 56-year-
old office administrator named Sidib Boubacar. “We are a little
limited by the current circumstances,” he added, referring to the
new security restrictions, “but if we stop what we are doing, it
will show we are afraid.”

**************************************************************

France’s war in Mali has not been able to end extremist violence

By Pamela Constable

The Washington Post, Nov. 25, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/obfexxp

Bamako, Mali — Two years after French troops drove jihadist forces
from northern Mali, a deadly attack on a luxury hotel has raised
concerns that Islamist extremists are gaining ground again in this
volatile country, despite a new peace accord among domestic rebel
groups.

While Malian and U.N. officials point to the peace agreement as a
potential milestone in pacifying the lawless, Arab-dominated north,
they also worry that violence could surge again. The weak central
government is struggling with a host of challenges: entrenched
poverty, drug smuggling, and a mix of growing competition and
collaboration among Islamist factions in the West African region.

“Mali today is as fragile as it was before the coup in 2012,” said
Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in
Washington, referring to the military power grab that occurred as a
rebellion in the north gained strength. France intervened the
following year, after Islamist fighters seized control of a large
chunk of territory.

“The French may have prevented an Islamist takeover, but you can’t
rebuild a hollowed-out state in two years,” Pham said. “The borders
are fictional, and there is a fluid and permeable dynamic among
jihadist, rebel and criminal groups in the region. We are still
playing Whac-A-Mole.”

Few people predict that this nation of 17 million people will become
an Islamist beachhead again. But both Malian and foreign observers
worry that extremist groups based in surrounding countries could
still create turmoil, by capitalizing on domestic discontent here
and on the momentum from recent terrorist attacks in Paris and
elsewhere.

Two jihadist groups have asserted responsibility for last week’s
attack on the Radisson Blu Hotel, which left at least 20 people dead
in the bustling capital, hundreds of miles from the vast desert
region where Islamist militias normally operate. Experts differ on
the possible motive, with U.N. officials insisting the attack was an
effort to derail the peace talks and others suggesting it was part
of a new muscle-flexing rivalry between pro-al-Qaeda and pro-
Islamic-State groups in the region.

There also are conflicting opinions about the best way to contain
the possible comeback of Islamist extremism after two years of rule
by the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, which is
widely described as democratic but sluggish and corrupt.

Some look to the 8,000-member Malian army to enforce security,
although it is thinly spread and in dire need of reform and training
as well as equipment and funding, analysts say. Others say the key
lies in quickly bringing development, services and jobs to the long-
abandoned north, calling this the only way to prevent large numbers
of unemployed young Muslim men — as well as older ex-rebels from
various tribal separatist groups — from being recruited by well-
financed jihadist groups.

“It is a great achievement that the combatant groups have been
brought together and speak with one voice, but we need to bring
peace dividends — water, electricity, roads, schools — so the
population sees peace making a difference in their lives,” Mongi
Hamdi, the U.N. special representative for Mali, said in an
interview. “That is the glue that will keep people attached to
peace.”

Mali is heavily dependent on the international community for
security and economic survival. A U.N. peacekeeping force with more
than 10,000 troops is stationed here, and a smaller French
counterterrorism force has been based here since 2013. Large amounts
of development aid have come from the United States, France and
other countries. Some critics say the funding has been partly wasted
through corruption, but Hamdi and others argue that even more is
needed to reinforce the writ of the state in conflict areas.

Until now, Mali has been viewed largely as suffering from the
predations of extremist groups spawned in neighboring countries.
Libyan militants thronged into northern Mali after dictator Moammar
Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, and a notorious Algerian jihadist
leader named Mokhtar Belmokhtar formed the group al-Mourabitoun that
most experts believe planned the Nov. 20 hotel attack.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/obfexxp]

“There is still a positive peace dynamic, but the state is weak and
corrupt, and we have only had a democratic government for two
years,” said Mahamadou Camara, a magazine editor and former press
official in the Keïta administration. “The greatest risk we face
today is that the positive momentum will reverse into a new spiral
of violence.”

**************************************************************

“This is what citizens say is needed to end Mali’s insecurity,” by
Jaimie Bleck, Abdoulaye Dembele and Guindo Sidiki

Monkey Cage, The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/qx9pcq3

Jaimie Bleck is an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Notre Dame. She is also an American Council of Learned
Societies fellow currently conducting research in Mali. Her book
“Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali” was published earlier
this year.

Abdoulaye Dembele is the national coordinator for the Farafina
Institute in Mali.

Sidiki Guindo is the director of the GISSE Institute for Public
Opinion Polling in Mali and a professor at ENSAE (l’Ecole Nationale
de la Statistique et l’Analyse Economique) in Dakar, Senegal.

On Nov. 20, the world’s eyes turned to Mali once again as 21 people
were killed during an attack at the Radisson hotel in Bamako, the
country’s capital. Many more were trapped in the building until
Malian Special Forces led a joint raid and killed two assailants.
Two different groups have claimed credit for the attack and two
arrests were made Thursday, but at the time of writing there is
still speculation as to which actors were responsible and an
unspecified number of accomplices are still at large.

The siege of the Radisson was only the most recent attack against
civilians in a wave of instability that has struck the country since
an insurgency began in northern Mali in early 2012. Mali continues
to face widespread insecurity despite a French intervention (in
2013), the restoration of presidential and legislative elections
(also 2013), the ongoing presence of more than 12,000 international
troops, and the recent signing of peace accords in June 2015. An
increase in attacks in Mali against U.N. forces over the last two
years has earned the peacekeeping mission there the dubious
distinction of being the “world’s most dangerous.”

In trying to understand the crisis, we return to the summer of 2013
— before the elections that ushered Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK) in
as president — and ended more than a year of junta rule. At that
time, more than 500,000 citizens had fled Northern Mali. We surveyed
nearly 900 internally displaced persons who fled to Bamako as well
as Sévaré and Mopti, twin cities that acted as an unofficial
dividing line between the government-controlled south and the north
at the height of its rebel occupation. We note that our study
population is not representative of all who fled; for instance, they
are typically more pro-government than those who fled to camps in
Mauritania.

When asked to name solutions to the crisis in Mali, the largest
percentage of displaced people — over 40 percent — referenced the
importance of improving governance and reducing corruption. In other
words, the most popular idea to resolve the crisis pointed not to a
security response but to government reform.

… [article continues at http://tinyurl.com/qx9pcq3]

As the Malian government and international donors seek to understand
what led to the attack and how to prevent other similar tragedies in
the future, the testimony of ordinary citizens suggests the need for
a broader reflection on the strength and evolution of state
institutions. While even the strongest states are vulnerable to
these acts of terror, forgetting the importance of a capable and
well-governed state risks trapping Mali in a cycle of crisis.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
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mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

AfricaFocus Bulletin
November 11, 2015 (151111)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“New research from the Tax Justice Network shows that the gap
between where companies pay tax and where they really do their
business is huge … even developed countries with state-of-the-art
tax legislation and well-equipped tax authorities cannot stop
multinationals dodging their tax without a thorough reform of the
global tax system. … [these practices have] a relatively greater
impact on developing countries, whose public revenues are more
dependent on the taxation of large businesses.”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/iff1511.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/iff1511.php

Two new reports, briefly excerpted in this AfricaFocus Bulletin,
shed light on the complex global systems of tax evasion and tax
avoidance which are draining resources from public needs in both
rich and poor countries. While giant companies and the super-rich
move their money around the world in secrecy, the system is obscured
both by secrecy and by deceptive language.

Thus, according to the highly regarded and well-publicized
Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International,
Switzerland, Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore, Luxembourg,
Germany, and the United Kingdom are all among the 20 “least corrupt
countries” in the world. Yet the less-well-known Financial Secrecy
Index, from Tax Justice Network, also places them among the top 15
“secrecy jurisdictions” (also known as “tax havens”) which serve as
the essential “enablers” of corruption and of illicit financial
flows by multinational corporations.

Similarly, there is no doubt that Africa and other developing
regions are hardest hit by this global tax abuse, while they have
the most urgent needs for investment in public goods. But a new
report by the Global Tax Justice Network and other civil society
groups shows that rich countries themselves are also major losers,
as corporations shift profits from one rich country to another (as
well as to smaller smaller jurisdictions fitting the stereotype of
“tax havens”). In 2012 U.S. multinationals alone shifted between
$500-$700 billion dollars out of the country, or roughly 25 percent
of their annual profits.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on tax justice and related
issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Financial Secrecy Index 2015 reveals improving global financial
transparency, but USA threatens progress

Tax Justice Network

Press Release

http://www.taxjustice.net/

Nov 2, 2015

European Union moves furthest with reforms; USA causes great
concern; and developing countries are (as usual) reaping few
benefits.

Today the Tax Justice Network launches the 2015 Financial Secrecy
Index, the biggest ever survey of global financial secrecy. This
unique index combines a secrecy score with a weighting to create a
ranking of the secrecy jurisdictions and countries that most
actively promote secrecy in global finance.

Most countries’ secrecy scores have improved. Real action is being
taken to curb financial secrecy, as the OECD rolls out a system of
automatic information exchange (AIE) where countries share relevant
information to tackle tax evasion. The EU is starting to crack open
shell companies by creating central registers of beneficial owners
and making that information available to anyone with a legitimate
interest. The EU is also requiring multinationals to provide
country-by-country financial data.

But these global and regional initiatives are flawed and face
sabotage by lobbies that have already weakened them. Secrecy-related
financial activity risks being shifted to other areas such as the
all-important trusts sector, where no serious action is being taken
despite promises made by the G8 in 2013, and shell companies, where
many secrecy jurisdictions such as Dubai, the British Virgin Islands
or Nevada in the U.S. are refusing to open up.

The FSI Top 10

1. Switzerland
2. Hong Kong
3. USA
4. Singapore
5. Cayman
6. Luxembourg
7. Lebanon
8. Germany
9. Bahrain
10. Dubai / UAE

[Note from AfricaFocus Editor: African countries on the list rank as
follows: Mauritius 23; Liberia 33; Ghana 48; South Africa 61;
Botswana 62; Seychelles 72]

Crucially, even in those areas where there has been progress,
developing countries are largely being sidelined: OECD countries are
the main beneficiaries.

Our analysis also reveals that the United States is the jurisdiction
of greatest concern, having made few concessions and posing serious
threats to emerging transparency initiatives. Rising from sixth to
third place in our index, the US is one of the few whose secrecy
score worsened after 2013. Switzerland stays at the top of the index
and for good reason: despite what you may have heard, Swiss banking
secrecy is far from dead, though it has curbed its secrecy somewhat.
The United Kingdom also remains a huge concern. While its own
secrecy is moderate, its global network of secrecy jurisdictions –
the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories – still operate in
deep secrecy and have, for instance, not co-operated in creating
public registers of beneficial ownership. The UK has failed to
address this effectively, though it has the power to do so.

The progress: a scorecard

Since the global financial crisis emerged in 2008, governments have
sought to curb budget deficits by cracking down on offshore
corporate and individual tax cheating and financial crimes by the
world’s wealthiest citizens. Campaigners have shown them the way and
the sea change in the political climate has been remarkable.
Progress has come in three main areas.

* Twelve years ago the tax justice movement created country-by-
country reporting (CbCR), a measure that can shine a light  country
where they operate, including tax havens. They told us CbCR would
never happen: it is now endorsed at G20 level and the first schemes
to implement it are in place. However, we are concerned that CbCR
cannot work unless the information is made publicly available.

* Just four years ago they laughed at us for pushing the concept of
automatic information exchange (AIE), where countries routinely
share information about each others’ taxpayers so they can be taxed
appropriately. AIE is now being rolled out worldwide.

* They said we at TJN were crazy to contemplate public registries of
beneficial ownership (BO), to crack open shell companies and ensure
that businesses, governments and the public know who they are
dealing with, and to provide the basis for effective AIE. Beneficial
ownership registries are now endorsed at G20 level: we now need a
big political push to make them a reality and bring this information
into the public domain.

Of these areas most progress has been made on AIE, with several
schemes emerging. Though the G20 had mandated the OECD to create a
country-by-country reporting standard, what it came up with has
fallen well short, victim of heavy lobbying behind the scenes by
U.S. multinationals in particular. Finally, the UK has passed
legislation to create a public register of company beneficial
ownership information, and the EU has required all member states to
make beneficial ownership information available to anyone with a
legitimate interest. However, little progress has been made towards
creating an effective form of public registry for offshore trusts.

These broad changes are welcome, and we are pleased to see the EU
leading the way: even some of Europe’s historically worst secrecy
jurisdictions, such as Luxembourg and Austria, are engaging.

The EU’s leadership role, however, is called into question by recent
resistance, spearheaded by Germany, to block public access to CbCR
data and prevent expansion of CbC reporting beyond the banking and
extractives sectors. (Read more about the current EU-level
negotiations here.)

Almost all of the progress to date has arisen from public pressure.
To counter the lobbies that constantly seek to undermine progress,
sustained political grass roots pressure is indispensable.

The backsliding

Yet huge problems remain.

None of these initiatives take the interests of developing countries
sufficiently into account. They haven’t been centrally involved in
setting the rules, and most will see little if any benefit. (Note,
too, that secrecy is just part of a wider charge sheet against tax
havens, as the box above explains.)

Meanwhile, even progress to date is under threat:

* Private sector ‘enablers’ and recalcitrant jurisdictions like
Dubai and the Bahamas are beavering away finding exclusions and
loopholes, being picky about which countries they’ll exchange
information with, and simply disregarding the rules.

* The United States’ hypocritical stance of seeking to protect
itself against foreign tax havens while preserving itself as a tax
haven for residents of other countries needs to be countered. The
European Union must take the lead here by imposing a 35 percent
withholding tax on EU-sourced payments to U.S. and other non-
compliant financial institutions, in the same way as the U.S. FATCA
scheme does; and this should become global standard practice.

* The UK has been playing a powerful blocking role to protect its
huge, slippery and dangerous trusts sector, probably the biggest
hole in the entire global transparency agenda. See below for more
details.

The next section gives a brief description of the biggest players in
the secrecy world today.

FSI 2015: the big players

[See full press release for more details on each country

* Switzerland (first place)

* United States (3rd place)

* United Kingdom [not in top ten, but “supports a network of secrecy
jurisdictions around the world.” If counted together, would be first
place]

* Hong Kong [2nd place]

* Singapore [4th place]

* Cayman Islands [5th place]

* Luxembourg [6th place]

* Lebanon [7th place]

* Germany [8th place]

* Bahrain [9th place]

* Dubai [10th place]

******************************************************

About the Financial Secrecy Index

http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to their
secrecy and the scale of their offshore financial activities. A
politically neutral ranking, it is a tool for understanding global
financial secrecy, tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit
financial flows or capital flight. The index was launched on
November 2, 2015.

Shining light into dark places

An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is
located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around
the world. Secrecy jurisdictions – a term we often use as an
alternative to the more widely used term tax havens – use secrecy to
attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows.

Illicit cross-border financial flows have been estimated at $1-1.6
trillion per year: dwarfing the US$135 billion or so in global
foreign aid. Since the 1970s African countries alone have lost over
$1 trillion in capital flight, while combined external debts are
less than $200 billion. So Africa is a major net creditor to the
world Рbut its assets are in the hands of a wealthy ̩lites,
protected by offshore secrecy; while the debts are shouldered by
broad African populations.

Yet all rich countries suffer too. For example, European countries
like Greece, Italy and Portugal have been brought to their partly
knees by decades of tax evasion and state looting via offshore
secrecy.

A global industry has developed involving the world’s biggest banks,
law practices, accounting firms and specialist providers who design
and market secretive offshore structures for their tax- and law-
dodging clients. ‘Competition’ between jurisdictions to provide
secrecy facilities has, particularly since the era of financial
globalisation really took off in the 1980s, become a central feature
of global financial markets.

The problems go far beyond tax. In providing secrecy, the offshore
world corrupts and distorts markets and investments, shaping them in
ways that have nothing to do with efficiency. The secrecy world
creates a criminogenic hothouse for multiple evils including fraud,
tax cheating, escape from financial regulations, embezzlement,
insider dealing, bribery, money laundering, and plenty more. It
provides multiple ways for insiders to extract wealth at the expense
of societies, creating political impunity and undermining the
healthy ‘no taxation without representation’ bargain that has
underpinned the growth of accountable modern nation states. Many
poorer countries, deprived of tax and haemorrhaging capital into
secrecy jurisdictions, rely on foreign aid handouts.

This hurts citizens of rich and poor countries alike.

What is the significance of this index?

In identifying the most important providers of international
financial secrecy, the Financial Secrecy Index reveals that
traditional stereotypes of tax havens are misconceived. The world’s
most important providers of financial secrecy harbouring looted
assets are mostly not small, palm-fringed islands as many suppose,
but some of the world’s biggest and wealthiest countries Rich OECD
member countries and their satellites are the main recipients of or
conduits for these illicit flows.

The implications for global power politics are clearly enormous, and
help explain why for so many years international efforts to crack
down on tax havens and financial secrecy were so ineffective, it is
the recipients of these gigantic inflows that set the rules of the
game.

Yet our analysis also reveals that recently things have genuinely
started to improve. The global financial crisis and ensuing economic
crisis, combined with recent activism and exposure of these problems
by civil society actors and the media, and rising concerns about
inequality in many countries, have created a set of political
conditions unparalleled in history. The world’s politicians have
been forced to take notice of tax havens. For the first time since
we first created our index in 2009, we can say that something of a
sea change is underway.

World leaders are now routinely talking about the scourges of
financial secrecy and tax havens, and putting into place new
mechanisms to tackle the problem. For the first time the G20
countries have mandated the OECD to put together a new global system
of automatic information exchange to help countries find out about
the cross-border holdings of their taxpayers and criminals. This
scheme is now being rolled out, with first information due to be
exchanged in 2017.

Yet of course these schemes are full of loopholes and shortcomings:
many countries are planning to pay only lip service to them, if that
— and many are actively seeking ways to undermine progress, with
the help of a professional infrastructure of secrecy enablers. The
edifice of global financial secrecy has been weakened – but it
remains fully alive and hugely destructive. Despite what you may
have read in the media, Swiss banking secrecy is far from dead.
Without sustained political pressure from millions of people, the
momentum could be lost.

The only realistic way to address these problems comprehensively is
to tackle them at root: by directly confronting offshore secrecy and
the global infrastructure that creates it. A first step towards this
goal is to identify as accurately as possible the jurisdictions that
make it their business to provide offshore secrecy.

This is what the FSI does. It is the product of years of detailed
research by a dedicated team, and there is nothing else like it out
there. We also have a set of unique reports outlining detailed
offshore histories of the biggest players in the game.

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Global Alliance for Tax Justice

G20 among biggest losers in large-scale tax abuse – but poor
countries relatively hardest hit

Press Release

[Excerpt. Full press release & related reports available at
http://www.globaltaxjustice.org | direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/pcbgoyw]

November 10, 2015

G20 countries are among the biggest losers when US multinationals
avoid paying taxes where they do business. This is the main finding
of ‘Still Broken’ a new report on the global tax system released by
the Tax Justice Network, Oxfam, Global Alliance for Tax Justice and
Public Services International in advance of the G20 leaders’ meeting
in Turkey.

Overall it is estimated that, in order to reduce their tax bills, US
multinationals shifted between $500 and 700 billion—a quarter of
their annual profits—out of the United States, Germany, the United
Kingdom and elsewhere to a handful of countries including the
Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland and Bermuda in 2012.
In the same year, US multinational companies reported US$ 80 billion
of profits in Bermuda – more than their profits reported in Japan,
China, Germany and France combined.

Claire Godfrey, head of policy for Oxfam’s Even it Up Campaign said:
“Rich and poor countries alike are haemorrhaging money because
multinational companies are not required to pay their fair share of
taxes where they make their money. Ultimately the cost is being
borne by ordinary people – particularly the poorest who rely on
public services and who are suffering because of budget cuts.”

Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary of Public Services International
said: “Public anger will grow if the G20 leaders allow the world’s
largest corporations to continue dodging billions in tax while
inequality rises, austerity bites and public services are cut.”

The G20 Heads of State are expected to consider a package of
measures they claim will address corporate tax avoidance at their
annual meeting in Turkey on 15 and 16 November.

Alex Cobham, director of research at Tax Justice Network, said: “The
corporate tax measures being adopted by the G20 this week are not
enough. They will not stop the race to the bottom in corporate
taxation, and they will not provide the transparency that’s needed
to hold companies and tax authorities accountable. It’s in the G20’s
own interest to support deeper reforms to the global tax system.”

Twelve countries – the United States, Germany, Canada, China,
Brazil, France, Mexico, India, UK, Italy, Spain and Australia –
account for roughly 90 percent of all missing profits from US
multinationals. For example, US multinationals make 65 percent of
their sales, employ 66 percent of their staff and hold 71 percent of
their assets in America but declare only 50 percent of their profits
in the country.

While G20 countries lose the largest amount of money, low income
developing countries such as Honduras, the Philippines and Ecuador
are hardest hit because corporate tax revenues comprise a higher
proportion of their national income. It is estimated, for example,
that Honduras could increase healthcare or education spending by
10-15 percent if the practice of profit shifting by US
multinationals was stopped.

Dereje Alemayehu, chair of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice said:
“If big G20 economies with well-developed tax legislation and well-
supported tax authorities cannot put a stop to corporate tax abuse,
what hope have poor countries with less well-resourced tax
administrations? Poor countries need a seat at the table in
negotiations on future tax reforms to ensure that they can claim tax
revenues which are desperately needed to tackle poverty and
inequality.”

The Tax Justice Network, Oxfam, Global Alliance for Tax Justice and
Public Services International are calling on the G20 to support
further reforms to the global tax system that involve all countries
on an equal footing. These reforms should effectively tackle harmful
tax practices such as profit shifting and the use of corporate tax
havens and should halt the race to the bottom in general corporate
tax rates.

Summary of report

In 2013 the OECD, supported by the G20, promised to bring an end to
international corporate tax avoidance which costs countries around
the world billions in tax revenues each year. However, with the
recently announced actions against corporate tax dodging, G20 and
OECD countries have failed to live up to their promise. Despite some
meaningful actions, they have left the fundamentals of a broken tax
system intact and failed to curb tax competition and harmful tax
practices.

It is often assumed that the richest and largest economies, home to
most of the world’s multinationals, defend the current system
because it is in their interests.

However, new research from the Tax Justice Network1 shows that the
gap between where companies pay tax and where they really do their
business is huge and that among the biggest losers are G20 countries
themselves, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan, France, Mexico,
India, and Spain. This shows that even developed countries with
state-of-the-art tax legislation and well-equipped tax authorities
cannot stop multinationals dodging their tax without a thorough
reform of the global tax system.

Profit shifting to reduce taxes is happening on a massive scale. In
2012, US multinationals alone shifted $500–700bn, or roughly 25
percent of their annual profits, mostly to countries where these
profits are not taxed, or taxed at very low rates. In other words,
$1 out of every $4 of profits generated by these multinationals is
not aligned with real economic activity.

Large corporations and wealthy elites exploit the rigged
international tax system to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
This practice has a relatively greater impact on developing
countries, whose public revenues are more dependent on the taxation
of large businesses. Recent IMF research indicates that revenue loss
to developing countries is 30 percent higher than for OECD countries
as a result of the base erosion and profit shifting activities of
multinational companies.

Tax avoidance is a key factor in the rapid rise in extreme
inequality seen in recent years. As governments are losing tax
revenues, ordinary people end up paying the price: schools and
hospitals lose funding and vital public services are cut. Fair
taxation of profitable businesses and rich people is central to
addressing poverty and inequality through the redistribution of
income. Instead, the current global system of tax avoidance
redistributes wealth upwards to the richest in society.

That is why civil society organizations, united in the C20 group,
together with trade unions, are calling for the actions announced by
the OECD to be regarded only as the beginning of a longer and more
inclusive process to re-write global tax rules and to ensure that
multinationals pay their fair share, in the interest of developed
and developing countries around the world.

Considering the enormous losses that countries around the world
incur, it is alarming that the G20 seems fairly satisfied with the
current agenda. Governments and citizens of G20 countries should
wake up, face the facts and take additional action immediately.

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