Tag: corruption

The great Amazon land grab: how Brazil’s government is turning public land private

Imagine that several state legislators decide that Yellowstone National Park is too big. Also imagine that, working with federal politicians, they change the law to downsize the park by a million acres, which they sell in a private auction. Outrageous? Yes. Unheard of? No. It happens routinely and with increasing frequency in the Brazilian Amazon. The most… Read More The great Amazon land grab: how Brazil’s government is turning public land private

Dilip

Cory Doctorow: The Mafia hires good accountants

The Mafia hires good accountants (permalink)    High-profile leaks like the Pandora Papers and financial collapses like Carillion have shone a spotlight on the role that “the professions” play in enabling international finance crimes, which include both money-laundering and the underlying (ghastly, violent) crimes that produce the money to be laundered. For example, the Sackler… Read More Cory Doctorow: The Mafia hires good accountants

Dilip

Owen Jones: Johnson’s hypocrisy and lies are emblematic of the British establishment

Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless. When Johnson solemnly lectured the nation to abide by the rules while presiding over… Read More Owen Jones: Johnson’s hypocrisy and lies are emblematic of the British establishment

Dilip

Jonathan Freedland: This scandal reveals a Conservative party corrupted by Boris Johnson – and by Brexit / Rory Stewart: Britain needs a new era of serious leaders

The origin of all this – a Conservative party happily trampling on the union, the monarchy and the cultural organisation that binds these islands together like no other – is not hard to fathom, though it has become impolite to mention it. It’s Brexit that transformed the Conservative party. Where once Tories revered tradition, Brexit filled them… Read More Jonathan Freedland: This scandal reveals a Conservative party corrupted by Boris Johnson – and by Brexit / Rory Stewart: Britain needs a new era of serious leaders

Dilip

Ralph Nader: Critical Exposés Everywhere as the Corporate State Worsens

Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1938 message to Congress warned that when private power becomes stronger than the democratic state itself, we have Fascism. There are many ways to witness the intensifying domination toward a corporate state. One way is to compare exposé books in the 1960s and the present. Within a span of five years, there were three… Read More Ralph Nader: Critical Exposés Everywhere as the Corporate State Worsens

Dilip

P. Sainath: Farmers win on many fronts, media fails on all / रवि आजाद BKU HARYANA | Kisan Ekta Morcha

The edits invariably ended on the appeal: but do not withdraw these laws, they’re really good. Did any of these publications once tell their readers – on the standoff between farmers and corporates – that Mukesh Ambani’s personal wealth of 84.5 billion dollars was closing in fast on the GSDP of the state of Punjab… Read More P. Sainath: Farmers win on many fronts, media fails on all / रवि आजाद BKU HARYANA | Kisan Ekta Morcha

Dilip

'Rafale Papers': the 'bogus invoices' used to help French firm clinch sale of jets to India / BJP accuses Opposition of benefiting from kickbacks

Mediapart is today publishing the alleged false invoices that enabled French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation to pay at least 7.5 million euros in secret commissions to a middleman to help secure the sale of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft to India. Yet despite the existence of these documents, the Indian federal police has decided not to pursue the… Read More 'Rafale Papers': the 'bogus invoices' used to help French firm clinch sale of jets to India / BJP accuses Opposition of benefiting from kickbacks

Dilip

Facebook Papers paint damning picture of company's role in insurrection

The documents, including an internal post-mortem and one document showing in real time countermeasures Facebook employees were belatedly implementing, paint a picture of a company that was in fact fundamentally unprepared for how the Stop the Steal movement used its platform to organize, and that only truly swung into action after the movement had turned… Read More Facebook Papers paint damning picture of company's role in insurrection

Dilip

Siva Vaidhyanathan: Facebook has just suffered its most devastating PR catastrophe yet / Jonathan Freedland: Is Facebook the tobacco industry of the 21st century?

In recent days, Frances Haugen, a former member of Facebook’s “civic integrity team”, has launched a deft and professional public assault on the company. Unlike previous Facebook whistle-blowers, like former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, Haugen managed to capture the interest and attention of policy leaders and journalists around the world. We have to ask why Haugen… Read More Siva Vaidhyanathan: Facebook has just suffered its most devastating PR catastrophe yet / Jonathan Freedland: Is Facebook the tobacco industry of the 21st century?

Dilip

George Monbiot: Trashing the planet and hiding the money isn’t a perversion of capitalism. It is capitalism

Whenever there’s a leak of documents from the remote islands and obscure jurisdictions where rich people hide their money, such as this week’s release of the Pandora papers, we ask ourselves how such things could happen. How did we end up with a global system that enables great wealth to be transferred offshore, untaxed and hidden… Read More George Monbiot: Trashing the planet and hiding the money isn’t a perversion of capitalism. It is capitalism

Dilip