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Friday, July 14, 2017

The Airport of Bloggers on The Net: River Bank of Pommie Spruikers Bell Pottinger

"The Supreme Court Is the Last Leakproof Institution: The last day of the term was full of news, as always, but none of it slipped out ahead of time." Law professor Stephen L. Carter recently had this essay online at Bloomberg View



  • bry_sch@machiagoge The idea that one could "spin a globe" and come up with the same (or even remotely similar) circumstances is not only disingenuous & naive, it's factually inaccurate. Russia is an adversarial nuclear state, not an ally. Russia is a sworn enemy of NATO, not a member. Hell, they are the sole reason NATO exists. Russia is the enemy of our democratic process & state. Not to mention all the sanctions. Not to mention the direct interference in our elections. Not to mention what's happened to dozens of Putin's detractors.. So sorry, but no... you can't "spin a globe" and find anything even remotely similar. Like I said before, these "clerical errors" and "alternate facts" and "undocumented meetings" didn't happen in a vacuum, and they didn't happen with an ally and they weren't singular.
Spinning the World



Border Bigwig Peter Docwra gives up his job

Tim Meehan: Daniel Morcombe's killer's lawyer committed fraud out of 'pure greed', court told



For Whitehall, NAO is using strong language. Serious alarm bells. Even for those not already alarmed by the words "large Govt IT project". https://t.co/73NPtydL59
The UK’s spending watchdog has warned the Government’s post-Brexit IT system for customs is heading for a “horror show” that could risk £34bn of public income [ National Audit Office Warns of Brexit Customs IT Train Wreck….Nine Months After Naked Capitalism]


Post-Panama Papers sunlight on New Zealand Trusts

If you ever wondered what kind of response to a financial transparency law might indicate a corrupted financial secrecy industry, look no further. We reported recently on what’s been happening to trusts in New Zealand in our Offshore Wrapper (our weekly take on tax justice news – for which you can sign up here, don’t miss out). First, here’s what our very own George Turner reported on about a month ago, followed by interesting updates:
Recent figures released by the New Zealand government show users and abusers of trusts abandoning the country after it implemented transparency laws to regulate the trust industry.
New Zealand trusts have built up a particularly good reputation amongst offshore service providers for their ability to hide assets. They’ve been called the “Fort Knox of asset protection”.

Anonymous Companies

yOxfam has just published this briefing paper on the tax avoidance practices of multinational consumer goods giant RB. As they rightly point out, the paper demonstrates the deep flaws in the global system of rules on taxing MNCs

The Continuum: Corruption Did Not Start With The Guptas And Zuma



British PR firm Bell Pottinger apologizes for South Africa campaign


Mobile hacking



Synthetic identities: more real than you think



The Internet of Things to Come in Cybersecurity



Sydney man charged over alleged $1.8 million fraud


Beware! You're being spied on. By your phone


Google is funding a new software project that will automate writing local news Recode. That really is evil.





Will Bitcoin Tear Itself Apart? Bloomberg

Celeste Headlee 10 ways to have a better conversation




Why did Chris Uhlmann's report on Donald Trump go viral?







As a crowdsourced information platform, Wikipedia has had to "work to earn the trust of the public every day," says Wikimedia Foundation leader Katherine Maher. Sound familiar? Maher, who spoke at Global Fact 4 today in Madrid, has some advice for fact-checkers on creating a transparent, useful and   sustainable process. Read the story on Poynter.


This free tool will tell you what the internet thinks of your work


What can fact-checkers learn from Wikipedia? We asked the boss of its nonprofit owner



You think Chris Christie’s beach photos were great? Just wait until drone journalism really takes off




President Trump peddled ‘fake news’ at Warsaw press conference, says CNN’s Jim Acosta


This century-old law could let President Trump go after reporters





Welsh government asks public for tax ideas CCH, 4/7/17.  The Welsh government is canvassing the public’s opinions for ideas for potential new Welsh taxes, and says it will publish a list of possible options which have been put forward in the autumn.







The next NSW Treasury secretary is... Mike Pratt. The coveted role with the nation's most envied surplus will go to the state's Customer Service Commissioner, and continues the emerging trend that top-level private sector experience is a must-have for key public sector jobs



Exceptionally rare ‘pale tiger’ photographed in the wild Guardian. Very handsome


Tampa Bay Times’ CEO on refinancing debt and accepting money from anonymous lenders

Now CBD would not want anyone to think that our attendance record at university was spotless. This is no doubt ... pretty obvious to our regular readers. However as an arts student the whole wide world is one's classroom, including the pub. We did think though that the kids heading single file in matching jumpers to the business school were much better at the nuts and bolts elements of university like turning up to class Empty lecture classes