Oxfam calculated that the use of tax havens is costing government over £99 billion or $150 bn per year. The cost of providing everyone on the planet with a minimum income of $1.25, thereby ending extreme poverty, has been estimated to be $66 billion.

What is even more astounding is that these figures related purely to tax avoidance by private individuals – they do not even begin to touch on the even larger sums of money squirrelled away by major international corporations such as Apple or Google to avoid paying the proper amount of taxes

Tax avoidance has been a big news story recently. People around the world are suffering under austerity and struggling economies as governments try to pay down their massive debts. Under these circumstances many are wondering why these giant corporations are allowed to avoid paying the tax which could pay down these debts, whilst private individuals are forced to pay for problems created by the same financial sector which shields the corporations from paying their fair share. Corporations such as Apple and Google have come under pressure recently from both politicians and public for their refusal to pay tax in the countries where they earn their profits.

Related Video: Tax Avoidance Tops EU Summit

Tackling corporate tax avoidance set to top Brussels… by Euronews

Recommended Articles from Around the Web

• UK’s top companies condemned for prolific use of tax havens (guardian.co.uk)
• David Cameron writes to Britain’s tax havens, calling for transparency (guardian.co.uk)
• Cameron to warn EU summit over tax (bbc.co.uk)
• Charity attacks EU “hypocrisy” on tax evasion (euobserver.com)

The Xbox One is being touted as more of a single household entertainment centre than purely a games console. Its ability to switch between games, television, movies and internet is at the heart of Microsoft’s promotional material.

The Xbox One is expected to go on sale later in 2013.

Xbox One to Become More Powerful Over Time by IGN

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New attacks in three Iraqi cities have killed at least eight people and wounded dozens more, a day after more than 70 died in assaults on Shi’ite Muslims, stoking fears of a sectarian war with minority Sunnis.

Officials say a suicide bombing followed by clashes between militants and Iraqi troops left three soldiers dead Tuesday in Tarmiyah, north of the capital, Baghdad.

Farther north, two car bombs exploded in Tuz Khormato, killing three and wounding 38, while car bombs in Kirkuk killed at least two people.  Both cities are in an area that Iraq’s Kurds want to incorporate into their autonomous region, a move the central government opposes.

Iraq is experiencing its worst sectarian violence since U.S. troops withdrew from the country in December 2011.

Monday’s wave of car bombings and suicide attacks against Shi’ite Muslims killed at least 76 people.

The attacks increased the number of Iraqis killed in apparent sectarian violence over the past week to more than 200, including 70 who died Friday in a series of bombings targeting Sunnis.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned all the attacks in Iraq over the past several days, saying U.S. officials have been in contact with “a wide range of Iraqi leaders … to help resolve ongoing political and sectarian tensions.”

The unrest has raised fears of a return to the level of sectarian fighting that left tens of thousands dead in 2006 and 2007.

Violence has fallen from that peak, but the United Nations said 712 people were killed in April, making it the deadliest month in Iraq since June 2008.

Video Report: Iraq Bleeding from North to South

Iraq ‘bleeding from north to south’ by Euronews

Related Articles from Around the Web

• Deadly Attacks Claim More Iraqi Lives (rferl.org)
• New attacks in Iraq kill at least 7, day after wave of bloodshed claims 100 lives (ctvnews.ca)

Map of Syria with Homs highlighted (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fighters from the Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah joined the Syrian army on Sunday to storm the key rebel stronghold of Qusair, a town in Homs province linking the capital Damascus to the coast.

The joint offensive is the most significant military engagement by Hezbollah so far in the Syrian civil war. The Iranian-backed militia force from neighbouring Lebanon has played a fringe role since early on in the conflict, but has up until now limited its operations to small skirmishes, focused primarily on towns and villages along the border between Syria and Lebanon.

The offensive to re-capture Qusair began with a heavy bombardment by Syrian warplanes and artillery from both the Syrian army and Hezbollah, who had surrounded the town. This was swiftly followed by a troop advance, which has captures large parts of the town.

The Syrian army is now thought to have taken control of the south and much of the central district of Quasir. One military source told the ACFCP news agency that the Syrian flag is now flying over the municipality building in the centre of the town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that ”23 members of Hezbollah’s elite forces were killed and more than 70 others wounded in clashes in the town of Qusayr yesterday.”

They added that “If the army manages to take control of Qusayr, the whole province of Homs will fall.” Homs province has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the civil war so far.

Opposition leaders from the SNC called on the Arab League to initiate an emergency meeting to “stop the massacre in Qusair.”

Related Video: Fierce Battle for Qusair

Syria: fierce battle for strategic town of Qusair by Euronews

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• Thirty Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria’s Qusair: activists (dailystar.com.lb)
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• Fears grow of clash between Israel and Syria (worldbulletin.net)
• Hezbollah field commander slain in Syria fighting (timesofisrael.com)

Key to encircling and containing China, US sets proxies in motion for colour revolution in Malaysian streets. 

US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim leads a Bersih rally in Malaysia. While Bersih has attempted to claim it is “independent” and simply pursusing “fair and clean elections,” it is clearly a vehicle for returning Anwar Ibrahim back into power. Additionally, Bersih shares the same ties to the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as its crypto-leader Anwar Ibrahim – representing a dangerous and seditious conflict of interest.

US-funded opposition fronts have vowed to overthrow the Malaysian government via disruptive and potentially violent street protests in the wake of general elections that saw their leader Anwar Ibrahim soundly defeated despite massive support from Western media, NGOs, and direct government intervention. Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported in their article, “‘BN will be toppled this year’,” that:

Pro-Pakatan Rakyat groups have vowed to overthrow the Barisan Nasional government this year through a massive street rally.
Speakers at a forum held yesterday unanimously agreed that waiting for five years until the next general election was too long, and vowed to overthrow BN this year through “force”.

FMT also added that:

Electoral watchdog group Bersih 2.0 steering committee member  Hishamuddin Rais pointed out that it was useless to take their unhappiness to the courts as he claimed the justice system was being controlled by the government.
“That is why we must take to the streets. We have to come out. What Najib likes is wrong, and what he doesn’t like is what we have to do,” he said.
“We will mobilise a big group and rally on the streets. This is not a threat, this is a promise,” he stressed.

Bersih, of course, is a US State Department-funded opposition front aimed to bolster US-proxy candidate Anwar Ibrahim, formerly of the IMF and World Bank, and a frequent visitor to the insidious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington D.C. It is in fact, NED that funds Bersih through its subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan:

“…admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march.”

A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization – before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI’s rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play.

In addition to Bersih, other faux-electoral monitors are also directly funded by the US government. While the Western media attempts to portray such organizations as “independent,” the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, for example, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED.

Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the
School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy’s “Democracy Award” and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony – the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called “independent” election monitor Merdeka – paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London.

Without a doubt, this premeditated sedition aimed at Malaysia’s ruling  government has been designed, funded, and directed from Washington on behalf of Wall Street and London, not by the Malaysian people on behalf of Malaysia’s best interests.

The street protests conducted by Bersih have all the hallmarks of US-backed “color revolutions,” and this recent attempt to overturn election
results that do not favor an overt US-proxy, foreshadows the same destructive, divisive, violent, and regressive unrest that has plagued Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria after US-engineered uprisings have left each in turn destabilized, failed states overrun by extremists, dictators, and traitors many times worse than the governments activists sought to overthrow.

And with Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria in hindsight, will Malaysians fall into this same familiar trap? Whatever discontent Malaysians may have with the current government, it is all but assured Bersih and US-proxy candidate Anwar Ibrahim will compound perceived injustices while compromising Malaysia’s political, social, and economic stability, and begin channeling Malaysia’s resources and energy toward foreign interests and designs, particularly those involving the encirclement and containment of China.

An Alternative to the Tired Ploy of “Street Protests”

For the average Malaysian seeking progress, a better bet than joining US-funded sedition would be to turn their attention toward organizing locally and focusing on pragmatic, rather than political, goals. Education, local economic development, health, and local infrastructure are all areas Malaysians, regardless of political affiliations, can work together on and improve regardless of who holds public office.

And while special interests, both foreign and domestic, can indeed hinder such progress, they do not make such progress impossible. What is
certain, is that corruption amongst Malaysia’s ruling party pales in comparison to that of Wall Street and London – and Malaysians will place themselves in the path of guaranteed destruction by inviting in the very people who dominated them before achieving a hard-won independence.

Democracy, in reality, is supposed to be a bottom-up exercise drawn from the grassroots. Bersih is clearly a vehicle for Anwar Ibrahim and his political machine – one whose message is funded, crafted, and declared from Anwar’s political advisers and foreign backers, and disseminated across the movement – however cleverly “democratized” Bersih may attempt to appear.

Malaysians do not need a political party to improve education, to grow their own food, to develop business locally by leveraging technology, or to improve local infrastructure and strengthen local communities. The time being wasted to assist Anwar Ibrahim’s worming back into political power at the cost of peace, stability, and prosperity could be better spent developing truly grassroots pragmatic power.

Real revolutions do not happen out on the streets – they are manifested in our schools, across industry, and within our communities. They are marked by pragmatism and true, enduring technological and socioeconomic progress – none of which are even promised by Bersih and Anwar Ibrahim’s “People’s Alliance.”  If the people of Malaysia truly want “change,” they are going to have to do it themselves by building local institutions that technologically and pragmatically solve real problems rather than simply craft slogans and campaign promises that merely pander to the concerns of the people. Following the flags of Bersih into the streets will  undoubtedly begin instability and division across Malaysian society that will jeopardize, not spur, real and very necessary pragmatic progress.

Recommended Articles from Around the Web

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The Cold War may have ended over twenty years ago, but it’s an open secret that the US and Russia continue to spy on each other. The uncovering of a Russian spy-ring three years ago in America demonstrated that for the SVR (Russia’s CIA equivalent), old habits die hard. This week showed that the same holds true for the CIA, when on Tuesday 14 May 2013, the FSB (Russia’s internal security service) announced they had arrested Ryan Christopher Fogle, third secretary at the US embassy in Moscow for attempting to recruit Russian citizens as spies. Fogle had allegedly written letters and placed telephone calls to potential agents offering them up to one million dollars for their services. The US State Department declined to publicly comment on which government agency Fogle works for or on the allegations of spying.

Fogle’s arrest was filmed by the FSB and shown on Russian television. In the video [ru], Fogle is seen in an unconvincing blond wig and baseball cap, which are then removed by an FSB agent before Fogle is frogmarched into a waiting car. Fogle’s “spy-kit” (which included two wigs, sunglasses, a compass, a cheap Nokia phone, an Atlas of Moscow, a Swiss army knife and several envelopes of 500-euro notes) is then displayed for the cameras. Later in the video, Fogle and what appear to be three of his colleagues from the Embassy are given a dressing-down by a pixilated FSB agent. In a manner strangely reminiscent of a school headmaster scolding wayward students, the agent expresses his shock and disappointment at Fogle’s attempts to recruit Russian citizens, in light of the recent close cooperation of Russia with American intelligence agencies in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

The story catapulted the murky world of counterintelligence into the spotlight of the Russian blogosphere, where the details of the case were dissected with glee. From the start many were somewhat perplexed at Fogle’s spy-kit, which seemed to come straight from an early James Bond novel.

User Best_JS [ru] quipped

Парики,черные очки и особенно–компас в Москве.Не хватает только секстанта и астролябии.ЦРУ оснащает своих агентов в магазине 99 центов?

Wigs, sunglasses and especially — a compass in Moscow. He’s only missing a sextant and astrolabe. Is the CIA equipping their agents at the 99 cent store?

Tweeter user Timque [ru] also took a dim view of Fogle’s spycraft.

Если наша контрразведка способна ловить только шпионов с чуть ли не надписью «ШПИОН» на лбу. То из меня бы вышел отличный агент ЦРУ!

If our counterintelligence is only capable of catching spies with the word “SPY” practically written on their forheads, then I could make an excellent CIA agent!

Fogle’s alleged spy-kit generated interest for it’s “low-tech” nature. YouTube Screenshot. May 17, 2013.

Somewhat surprisingly, a much more charitable appraisal [ru] of Fogle’s equipment came from popular Russian tech blogger Eldar Murtazin [ru], who pointed out the pitfalls of using advanced gadgets in the world of espionage.

Начнем с самого противоречивого предмета в глазах обывателей — обычного атласа Москвы и дорог с указанием каждого дома. В век высоких технологий, когда у каждого в телефоне есть навигация и хорошие карты, это выглядит анахронизмом. А теперь давайте представим специфику работы агента, когда он не должен оставлять следов, в том числе и цифровых. Я плохо представляю себе агента, который прокладывает путь к тайнику или месту встречу в Google Maps и затем сохраняет маршрут. Этот агент должен быть конченным идиотом. Равно, как мне сложно представить как сообщить о месте встречи в электронном виде, это дополнительный риск [...] Поэтому можно долго ворчать, что разведчикам чужды новые технологии, но это не так. Эффективный способ не оставлять следов, не использовать программы навигации.

Let’s start with the most controversial item in the eyes of the average person: the common Moscow road atlas with the adresses of all the buildings in it. In the high-tech era, when everyone has a phone with GPS and good maps, it seems like an anachronism. But now consider the specifics of an agent’s work, when he can leave no traces, including digital ones. I can’t picture the agent who looks up the way to a secret location or a meeting place on Google Maps and then saves the route. That agent would have to be a complete idiot. Similarly, it’s hard for me to imagine sending information about meeting place in electronic form, this is an additional risk [...] So you can whinge all you like about intelligence agents shunning new technologies, but it isn’t the case. An effective means of leaving no traces is not to use GPS.

Blogger and social media guru, Anton Nossik [ru], on the other hand, laid the blame at Americans’ inability to work with agents in human intelligence. Referencing an interview [ru] with famous Soviet defector Viktor Suvorov, Nossik claimed:

По мнению Суворова, у ЦРУ просто очень хреново поставлена агентурная работа. Потому что, с одной стороны, львиная доля разведданных собирается с помощью техсредств (спутниковая съёмка, перехват коммуникаций), а не от живых людей. С другой стороны, самые эффективные агенты на службе Америки — иностранцы, шпионящие в своих собственных странах. Которых не нужно учить маскироваться, гримироваться, носить парики, потому что их главная маскировка — реальная биография и занимаемая должность.

According to Suvorov, the CIA is simply bloody awful at working with agents. This is because, on the one hand, the lion’s share of intelligence info is gathered by technical means (satelite photos, intercepted communications) and not from living people. And, on the other hand, the most effective agents in the service of America are foreigners working in their own countries, who don’t need to learn to disguise themselves, apply make-up, wear wigs, because their main disguise is their real biography and the work they do.

Nossik went on to claim Fogle’s alleged letter [ru] (written in awkward if grammatically correct Russian) looked like “Nigerian spam run through Google translate”.

Of course, as usual, some RuNet users saw the invisible hand of the Kremlin at work in the entire episode. As one commentator [ru] sarcastically put it

Ну, да — накладные усы, парики, шифры и прочая хуета. Почти как в кино. Не верю я в это лицедейство! Компас меня убил окончательно. Надо было еще словарь англо-русский добавить. И детскую порнографию.

Oh yeah, fake moustaches, wigs, codebooks and similar bullsh*t. Almost like in the films. I don’t believe this charade. The compass was the last straw. They should have added a Russian-English dictionary. And some child porn.

Interestingly, while Fogle’s competence (or lack there of) as a spy has been a hot topic of conversation, almost no attention has been paid to the potential fallout from the expulsion of a US diplomat for spying. Similarly few have bothered to speculate on why the Kremlin chose to expel Fogle now, when the Kremlin and the US are in high-level talks about Syria and intelligence-sharing. It is telling that what should normally be a major diplomatic incident now barely registers as more than an amusing anecdote for Russian netizens.

Recommended Articles from Around the Web

• US spy-row diplomat ‘leaves Russia’ (bbc.co.uk)
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The first bomb exploded after the worshippers left a mosque in Baquba, just north of Baghdad. A second bomb went off as people gathered to help the wounded, killing at least 40 and injuring dozens more.

Friday’s attacks followed a wave of bombings in Iraq this week.

Video Report: Bomb Attacks Across Iraq

Bomb attacks kill dozens across Iraq by reuters

On Thursday, 25 people were killed in separate car bombings in Shi’ite neighborhoods of Baghdad and Kirkuk. And at least 33 were killed on Wednesday in bombings in the capital and other cities.

Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki is blaming the deaths on rising sectarian violence that has plagued the country since security forces raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk last month.

Authorities say that raid ratcheted sectarian tensions to their highest point since the pullout of U.S. troops in late 2011.

The United Nations is calling the last month the deadliest in Iraq since June 2008, when more than 700 people were killed.

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