The Panama Papers thread

All mention of Panama Papers banned from Chinese websites

Internet watchdog forbids editors from covering the scandal as names of high-profile Chinese emerge.

Chinese news groups have been ordered to purge all mention of the Panama Papers from their websites and warned of harsh punishment if they are found to have published material “attacking China”.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the leaked trove of 11.5m files show that relatives of at least eight current or former members of China’s top ruling body, the politburo standing committee, possess offshore companies arranged though the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Those reportedly named in the leaked database from the firm include Deng Jiagui, the brother-in-law of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Li Xiaolin, the daughter of former premier Li Peng, a Communist party hardliner who became known as the “Butcher of Beijing” for his role in ordering the 1989 military crackdown on Tiananmen protesters.

But a leaked censorship directive from one provincial internet watchdog informed Chinese editors they were forbidden from covering the Panama Papers leak.
 
Kill it, spin it – Putin will do anything to stifle the Panama Papers story

The Panama Papers are a wake-up call for anyone who may have doubted how deeply cronyism and corruption are rooted into Russia’s leadership. But for those who have followed the inner workings of Putin’s presidency for the past 16 years or so, they are as much confirmation as revelation.

What will be truly fascinating is watching how this new mass of information is dealt with by the Putin regime over time, and how this might affect an already tense relationship between the Kremlin and the west.

The first time a large amount of information was leaked about Russia’s power system was in 2010, when a trove of US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks described a “virtual mafia state” and a system in which the Russian president allegedly used proxies to hide “illicit wealth”. These documents were damaging enough, detailing a kleptocratic authoritarian system where Russian officials, oligarchs and organised crime came together to amass large fortunes. At the time, the Kremlin dismissed this as “nothing interesting or worthy of comment”.
 
Kill it, spin it – Putin will do anything to stifle the Panama Papers story

The Guardian putting out another piece while offering absolutely nothing new? There's some real gems in this one though:

One key difference today is that the Panama Papers have emerged at a time when relations between Russia and the west are at an all-time low

Yip, all time low, you know, lower than the cold war when they had active nukes on fueled and ready ICBMS aimed at each other that would kill millions of people at the press of a button. Yeah this is totally worse than that ... :D

Because of this context, it’s likely the Panama Papers will be used by Moscow’s propaganda machine as another illustration of western attempts to discredit and damage Russian power.

Do they not even read what the press they are accusing is already saying?!? The guardian pretending to have deep insight and be prescient while publishing this statement many hours after RT, for example, has already responded.

Pity they don't seem to have a comment section, it would have been lively, luckily there is twitter :)
 
Yip, all time low, you know, lower than the cold war when they had active nukes on fueled and ready ICBMS aimed at each other that would kill millions of people at the press of a button. Yeah this is totally worse than that ...

You realise that most of those active cold war nukes are still fueled,ready and pointed at each other?
 
You realise that most of those active cold war nukes are still fueled,ready and pointed at each other?

I fully expect most of the nukes, on both sides, are still operational. But I'd be surprised if there are any in a "just waiting for the button press" state.

It costs money to keep them fueled and ready to rock, there's also those insane launch protocols and permissions to be granted etc before you can vaporize millions. During the cold war those permissions were granted and people were essentially a hair trigger away from nuclear war. At least on the Russian side I know that nuclear station commanders had the authority to launch should they determine through available radar, visuals etc that the enemy has launched or has decided to launch.

You had teams on 24/7 shifts manning satellite monitoring systems, that of course costs money too, I'd be very, VERY surprised if either USA or Russia currently can launch a nuke at another country within mere seconds of making the decision. That was the case in the cold war. Comparing current tensions with that level is just BS.
 
Argentina's Macri denies wrongdoing at 'Panama Papers' offshore firm

President Mauricio Macri, who won last year's election in Argentina partly on promises to fight corruption, on Monday denied any wrongdoing in his connection with an offshore company in the Bahamas which emerged in a leak of documents.

Macri was among the tens of thousands of rich and powerful people named in the leak of four decades worth of documents from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in the tax haven of Panama which specializes in setting up offshore companies.

The "Panama Papers" showed that he moonlit as director of Fleg Trading Ltd, which was founded in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009. Opposition lawmakers demanded on Monday that he explain his role at the offshore company.

In a short television interview with La Voz, Macri said that his tycoon father Franco Macri, one of the richest men in Argentina, had founded the company through a "legal operation".

"It was an offshore company to invest in Brazil, an investment that ultimately wasn't completed, and where I was director," he said. "There is nothing strange about this."

More at:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-argentina-idUSKCN0X1202
 
Panama Papers: Ukraine President Poroshenko denies tax claims

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he did nothing wrong, after leaked documents suggested he had set up an offshore company as a tax haven using Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca.

Ukraine prosecution officials said there was no evidence of a crime but one politician called for the president to face impeachment proceedings.

More at:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35958762
 
Lionel Messi denies tax evasion in Panama Papers scandal

TBA

The family of Lionel Messi denied on Tuesday that he was involved in tax evasion after the Barcelona star emerged as one of many personalities accused of shady offshore dealings in the Panama Papers scandal.

"The Messi family wants to make clear that Lionel Messi has not carried out any of the acts attributed to him, and accusations he created a...tax evasion plot, including a network of money-laundering, are false and insulting," it said in a statement.

The scandal erupted on Monday when media groups made public a year-long worldwide investigation into a trove of 11.5 million documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm that exposed a tangle of offshore financial dealings by the elite.



Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/...-in-panama-papers-scandal#qDpItTHIdWiXOrbI.99
 
Iceland’s prime minister is under fierce pressure to step down after leaked documents showed his wife owned a secretive offshore company with a potentially multimillion-pound claim on the country’s collapsed banks – representing what opponents said was a major conflict of interest.

As opposition parties called a vote of no confidence in Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson for later this week, as many as 10,000 protesters – in a country of 330,000 – gathered outside parliament in central Reykjavik for an evening protest, chanting, banging drums and barricades, and blowing whistles. Some waved bananas, symbolising the belief of many that they were living in a banana republic.
“He’s just lost all credibility,” said Arntho Haldersson, a financial services consultant. “Our prime minister, hiding assets in offshore accounts … After all this country has been through, how can he possibly pretend to lead Iceland’s resurrection from the financial crisis? He should go.”

“He lied,” said Anna Mjöll Guðmundsdóttir, a tourism researcher. “These people, they say they’ve learned the lessons from what happened to us in 2008, but they’re still just hiding our money.” Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir, a university professor, agreed: “He’s not been forthright. If people had been informed of this they might have voted differently. The size of this demonstration shows how disappointed people are.”

Whites do that here and there will be a **** storm of epic proportions.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X