Pollution in space
The Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. The past few years have witnessed huge growth in the number of satellites. Unfortunately, wherever civilisation ventures it leaves a trail of rubbish. Of the 18,000 tracked objects travelling around the Earth that are larger than 10cm (4 inches), only about 900 are active satellites. The rest is debris—everything from fragments of paint to entire dead satellites and bits of old rockets. Smashed bits of space equipment orbit along with items dropped by astronauts, including tools and the odd glove.
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New point of contact: Naveen Madishetty
Naveen Madishetty was born in India where he earned his first degree. He continued his education at the University
of Stuttgart. It was there that he got to know the Global Marshall Plan and its goals.
Living in both countries, India and Germany, Naveen saw a good opportunity to spread the idea of a new, worldwide Marshall Plan in his home country. Due to his specialization in renewable energies he already has relevant contacts to like minded people.
Naveen Madishettys is based on Hyderabad. You can contact him by email to discuss possible collaboration in India.
Kontaktieren Sie Herrn Madishetty per E-Mail.
Tax haven opens up
(Source: Charleston Gazette, The) trackingBy Jay Weaver
MIAMI - The largest bank in Switzerland admitted to defrauding the IRS and agreed to pay the U.S. government $780 million it made by setting up offshore income tax havens for thousands of wealthy Americans - a substantial number in South Florida.
In an unprecedented move, UBS agreed to turn over the names of customers who retained the Swiss bank to assist them in hiding their assets from U.S. tax authorities, according to documents filed in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. It's a highly sensitive issue because of Swiss bank secrecy laws.
In the "deferred prosecution agreement," UBS admitted it broke U.S. tax laws, but it won't have a criminal conviction if the bank meets various conditions of the deal. If it doesn't satisfy those terms, prosecutors will seek to convict the bank.
The agreement signed by UBS breaks down two ways: It requires the bank to pay $380 million of its profits to the government, including $200 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, for the period 2001-2008.
And it requires the bank to pay the government an additional $400 million in taxes, including interest and penalties, that it had failed to withhold on its clients' offshore investments.
The agreement - which reflects an extraordinary battle between two powerful institutions, the Justice Department and the Swiss banking icon - could lead to criminal prosecutions of hundreds of major UBS clients who did not pay their fair share of income taxes in the United States, federal authorities said.
UBS bankers cultivated these customers at venues known for rich and famous patrons, such as Art Basel Miami Beach and the Sony Ericsson tennis tournament in Key Biscayne.
The agreement filed Wednesday, however, does not include a top UBS executive, Raoul Weil, who was indicted separately in November for allegedly conspiring to help wealthy U.S. clients dodge federal income taxes by hiding assets in bogus offshore shell companies and other secret entities. He is a fugitive, believed to be living in Switzerland.
His New York attorney expressed disappointment that Weil's indictment was not dismissed as part of the bank's agreement with the U.S. government.
"Mr. Weil is an innocent victim of a political dispute between the United States and Switzerland over Swiss bank secrecy," attorney Aaron R. Marcu said in a statement. "Mr. Weil is a highly respected banking executive in Switzerland who engaged in no misconduct."
Earlier, UBS had said it would cease so-called "cross border" business. Executives described the bank's cross-border activity as "toxic waste" because "they knew that it was not being conducted in a manner that complied with United States law," according to a criminal charging document.
Much of the sordid tale has been unfolding before a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, where one former UBS banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, has already pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.
Weil - who was chairman and chief executive of UBS global wealth management and business banking and a member of the company's group executive board - faces a charge of conspiring to help about 17,000 U.S. clients potentially evade taxes by hiding $20 billion in secret offshore accounts.
According to the charging document, UBS executives sent 32 bankers to the United States in 2004 to meet about 3,800 times with U.S. customers to 'provide unlicensed and unregistered banking services and investment advice relating to clients' UBS account."
In a prepared statement, Justice Department and South Florida prosecutors condemned the bank's cross-border services.
"UBS executives knew that UBS' cross-border business violated the law," said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta in Miami.
"They refused to stop this activity, however, and in fact instructed their bankers to grow the business," he said. "The reason was money - the business was too profitable to give up. This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect of the law."
Prosecutors allege that UBS bankers aided U.S. clients in hiding assets through sham entities, such as charitable trusts and shell corporations, set up around the globe - in such places as Switzerland, Panama, Hong Kong and Lichtenstein.
The bankers allegedly advised customers with secret offshore accounts to misrepresent bank withdrawals as "loans" and to use foreign-issued credit cards to avoid detection.
Between 2002 and 2007, the "cross-border" business blossomed into about $200 million a year in revenue for UBS, prosecutors say.
Last June, prosecutors issued summonses for UBS customers' accounts in Switzerland, authorized by a Fort Lauderdale federal judge.
They ordered UBS to hand over information on about 19,000 U.S. clients who have offshore accounts that were not disclosed. Estimates in various court papers differ on the number of U.S. clients with offshore accounts.
The summonses put the bank in a crossfire between U.S. law and that of Switzerland, which treats disclosure of customer information as a crime.
The Swiss have long guarded bank customer confidentiality, adding criminal sanctions in 1934.
The showdown comes as the United States and European countries such as Germany and France crack down on tax evasion.
In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill to curb tax- haven abuses. He has cited UBS as among the foreign banks helping "tax cheats."
Originally published by and Martha Brannigan; McClatchy Newspapers.
(c) 2009 Charleston Gazette, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved. A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
A new article by Zeki Ergas on the need for a fairer economic system
The world is suffering from a disease that is far worse than a very bad financial crisis, or even a very serious economic recession comparable to the Great Depression that started in 1929 and truly ended after the second world war, in 1945. That disease has been identified as a global systemic crisis that affects all the major aspects, or dimensions, of human life and civilization on our planet: the ecological, the economic, the social, the political, the cultural, the ethical, and so on.
For the full article by Zeki Ergas, use this link.
Documentary on solar energy
How legislation can foster and promote renewable energies.
Video by Rob van Hattum for VPRO Backlight.
Watch the video at Youtube
05/31/2009 - 06/04/2009
Chicago
Conference Themes
The Conference will focus primarily on a critique of the role of the United States in the current dynamic of world affairs. We will examine the positive and negative dimensions of America’s global stance. Finally, we will explore some of the very real challenges that America must meet if globalization is to be guided toward the common good, both within the US and in the larger world.
Other thematic areas will also be addressed. They include (but are not limited to) the following:
* Globalization, Civilizational Dialogue, and the Role of the Global Interfaith Movement
* The Global Environment: Climate, Habitat, Water, Energy, and All Life
* The Struggle for Social and Economic Justice and Universal Human Rights
More information can be found here
08/28/2009 - 08/31/2009
Montreal
Conference for Citizen Participation
For more information please consult Civicus' website http://civicus.org
