The Panama Papers thread

NarrowBandFtw said:
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.
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Assume you're standing in a lighted room with another person who you don't trust. Both of you have loaded guns which are pointed at the others' head. The light in the room is removed so that it is absolutely impossible to see anything.

The other person claims "I have turned around and put down my gun" and suggests that you should do the same. Given that you cannot verify that claim, are you going to follow their suggestion? Or are you going to keep your gun raised and pointed at their head? Which one has a better chance of guaranteeing your survival?

Given that scenario, I'm sure you can see it's naive and ludicrous to suggest that nuclear readiness has decreased since the end of the Cold War. What's changed is that Russia has (maybe) fewer operational nukes, and China has more, and the USA and Russia have some of theirs pointed at China now, and China has its pointed at them. But all of them are ready to shoot at a moment's notice, because if they aren't and their opponents are, they lose.

From the day the first nuclear ICBM became operational, MAD became an integral part of our civilisation.
 
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NarrowBandFtw said:
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 :)
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Funny how RT (and others) responded exactly as one expects, isn't it?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Funny how RT (and others) responded exactly as one expects, isn't it?
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I think it goes without saying that RT is interested in defending Russia's national interests.

I would expect the same of the M&G or the NYT or whoever else you care to mention.

I mean, it's rather hard to deny that it looks like The Guardian has an axe to grind in this case, not so?
 
Several prominent figures from at least 17 African countries appear in Panama Papers

Cape Town – At least 17 African countries have prominent figures who have offshore accounts with a company which is fingered for fronting for "questionable" businesses, a report revealed on Monday.

According to the Panama Papers, the countries include Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Zambia.

The Panama Papers are a tranche of millions of leaked financial documents detailing a trove of billions sheltered in tax havens, and pocketed by political power players around the world.

The documents were leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

They are an unprecedented investigation that reveals the offshore links of some of the world's most prominent figures.

Joseph Kabila's sister

An earlier report by*News 24*indicated that lawmaker, Jaynet Desiree Kabila Kyungu, from the oil rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appeared on the list after she reportedly opened an offshore account soon after her twin brother Joseph Kabila assumed presidency in 2001.

Jaynet appeared as co-director, along with Congolese businessman Kalume Nyembwe Feruzi.

Meanwhile, South African President Jacob Zuma's nephew Khulubuse Zuma was also thrust into the spotlight after it emerged that his company Caprikat Limited held offshore accounts.

The company, established in the British Virgin Islands, scored a R100bn oil deal in the DRC.

An investigation by City Press in 2010 showed that Zuma played a crucial role in the decision by*President Kabila to allocate two oilfields in the northeast of the country to his nephew.

Mubarak's son

Furthermore, amongst the many names, was John Addo Kufuor, the eldest son of Ghana's former president John Agyekum Kufuor, who led the country from 2001 to 2009.

The younger Kufuor, according to the documents, controlled a $75 000 bank account in Panama for his father and his mother that he ran through an offshore company.

Meanwhile, Congolese President Denis Sassoon Nguesso's*son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, was said to have approached Mossack Fonseca about setting up a company based in the British Virgin Islands, called Phoenix Best Finance in the 1990s.

Denis Christel, however, has since denied the report.

The report also revealed that Alaa Mubarak, the son of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak owned a British Virgin Islands firm, Pan World Investments Incorporation, which was managed by Credit Suisse.

In 2011, the year in which his father was overthrown and consequently arrested along with him (Alaa) and his brother Gamal, the authorities told Mossack Fonseca to freeze Pan World's assets, an order prompted by a European Union law.

The investigators spent at least a year sifting through 11.5 million leaked files to expose the offshore holdings of world political leaders, links to global scandals, and details of the hidden financial dealings of fraudsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.

News24
Link: http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/s...an-countries-appear-in-panama-papers-20160405
 
Xarog said:
I think it goes without saying that RT is interested in defending Russia's national interests.

I would expect the same of the M&G or the NYT or whoever else you care to mention.

I mean, it's rather hard to deny that it looks like The Guardian has an axe to grind in this case, not so?
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RT defends Putin's interests not Russia's.
 
Xarog said:
I think it goes without saying that RT is interested in defending Russia's national interests.

I would expect the same of the M&G or the NYT or whoever else you care to mention.

I mean, it's rather hard to deny that it looks like The Guardian has an axe to grind in this case, not so?
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Russian national interests != protecting Putin.

And please show me the M&G or NYT going full on protecting the President like RT protects Putin.

No, it doesn't look like The Guardian has an axe to grind. It looks like a columnist correctly identified and commented about the entirely predictable behaviour from the propaganda mill in Russia.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Funny how RT (and others) responded exactly as one expects, isn't it?
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others in this case meaning BBC, The Guardian etc?

yeah everyone is behaving as expected, what really grinds me is when they start to insult the readers' intelligence e.g. stating obvious BS like tensions now are worse than the cold war. RT just comes across, to me at least, as better written and more thought provoking compared to such drivel. The whole approach of recruiting very skilled and sometimes very prominent "western" journalists is a good one.

That's just an opinion, but if I'm forced to eat BS, I prefer to have it served by a skilled chef rather than some hack who works the McDonald's grill.
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
others in this case meaning BBC, The Guardian etc?

yeah everyone is behaving as expected, what really grinds me is when they start to insult the readers' intelligence e.g. stating obvious BS like tensions now are worse than the cold war. RT just comes across, to me at least, as better written and more thought provoking compared to such drivel. The whole approach of recruiting very skilled and sometimes very prominent "western" journalists is a good one.

That's just an opinion, but if I'm forced to eat BS, I prefer to have it served by a skilled chef rather than some hack who works the McDonald's grill.
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Don't forget the guide words on BBC to make sure their readers can keep track.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
a columnist correctly identified and commented about the entirely predictable behaviour from the propaganda mill in Russia.
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Said columnist kind of passed it off as a prediction however, seems his journalism school didn't teach him predictions are supposed to come before the event ...
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Russian national interests != protecting Putin.
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And why would RT be able to make that distinction if they genuinely believed that they were protecting the office of the leader/president/whatever from being undermined by, say, foreign spy agencies?

And please show me the M&G or NYT going full on protecting the President like RT protects Putin.
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I think you're making a false equivalence.

No, it doesn't look like The Guardian has an axe to grind. It looks like a columnist correctly identified and commented about the entirely predictable behaviour from the propaganda mill in Russia.
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But I'm not talking about this column. By all appearances it was published after RT's reaction so it really can't be a reasonable piece of evidence in considering RT's reaction, now can it?

The Guardian's grinding axe in this case would be the long list of anti-Russian pieces and then leading with a story that has many angles in the most anti-Russian manner possible.
 
Putin bashing but nothing on the US. How convenient. Media bias at it's best.
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
others in this case meaning BBC, The Guardian etc?

yeah everyone is behaving as expected, what really grinds me is when they start to insult the readers' intelligence e.g. stating obvious BS like tensions now are worse than the cold war. RT just comes across, to me at least, as better written and more thought provoking compared to such drivel. The whole approach of recruiting very skilled and sometimes very prominent "western" journalists is a good one.

That's just an opinion, but if I'm forced to eat BS, I prefer to have it served by a skilled chef rather than some hack who works the McDonald's grill.
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Well, the Guardian had this as their headline article the whole of yesterday and it's still there. Here's one by the BBC, and another one. Here's a Sky article, featuring criticism of Cameron.

Let's see what RT offers. Oh, that's unexpected. An op-ed criticising western journalism. And some more whining about Putinphobia. Let's see what Sputnik offers us... Oh, how surprising, an article about social media users being upset by the focus on Putin.
 
The_Assimilator said:
Assume you're standing in a lighted room with another person who you don't trust. Both of you have loaded guns which are pointed at the others' head. The light in the room is removed so that it is absolutely impossible to see anything.

The other person claims "I have turned around and put down my gun" and suggests that you should do the same. Given that you cannot verify that claim, are you going to follow their suggestion? Or are you going to keep your gun raised and pointed at their head? Which one has a better chance of guaranteeing your survival?
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In that scenario your arm is bound to get tired and if you have any interest in not being the first to fire by accident you'll at the very least take your finger off the trigger, if not engage the safety.

The_Assimilator said:
Given that scenario, I'm sure you can see it's naive and ludicrous to suggest that nuclear readiness has decreased since the end of the Cold War. What's changed is that Russia has (maybe) fewer operational nukes, and China has more, and the USA and Russia have some of theirs pointed at China now, and China has its pointed at them. But all of them are ready to shoot at a moment's notice, because if they aren't and their opponents are, they lose.
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I wouldn't suggest their readiness has dropped much, but their alert status surely has. It is considerably cheaper to maintain an alert status that lets you return fire within 5 minutes for example than 5 seconds. Given that none of your enemies have missiles fast enough to disable your launch capability from outside your borders within 5 minutes, that still means you can destroy them, it'll just take 4 minutes 55 seconds longer.

It is that absolute hair trigger state that existed in the cold war that I cannot fathom existing today without an imminent threat, and there's isn't any truly imminent threats around to any of the superpowers.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Well, the Guardian had this as their headline article the whole of yesterday and it's still there. Here's one by the BBC, and another one. Here's a Sky article, featuring criticism of Cameron.

Let's see what RT offers. Oh, that's unexpected. An op-ed criticising western journalism. And some more whining about Putinphobia. Let's see what Sputnik offers us... Oh, how surprising, an article about social media users being upset by the focus on Putin.
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Feel free to show where either the UK or the US has publications in Russian discussing the foibles of the leaders of the US/UK respectively please.
 
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