An independent senator, he told his fellow lawmakers that Barbados might need to consider doing business differently. He thinks the government must take the lead to pave the way for businesses to combat corruption. He thinks lawmakers need to start at the governmental level to make the anti-corruption legislation work.
The Senate continued to have a debate on the prevention of the Corruption Act. The final passage of it is one of the last laws that will get enacted before the Commonwealth realm becomes a republic in the upcoming month. Independent Senator Julian Hunte has further called for a more pragmatic approach to combat corruption.
He said, “We must practically implement this bill; that is, we have to measure the scale of corrupt practices, assess our systems and their susceptibility to it, and work towards improving them. When people are in positions of leadership and get into corrupt practices, if they go through the requisite processes and someone is convicted, any sanction given by the courts must be enforced. For us to have the best chance of ensuring a corruption-free Barbados, we must change the way we do business and practice governance.
“For example, every year, employees at financial institutions go through training on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation. Government should look at which ministries are most susceptible to corruption, and from there, train their staff on what to look out for and how to avoid it.”
The law first took place on June 4, 1929, when Barbados used to be a British Colony under the power of King George. Since then, it remained the law of the land that governs the conduct of public officials. However, the amendment of the bill passed in 2010 under the Freundel Stuart administration. No Governor-general has signed this bill into law. On the other hand, an amended bill failed to come out of the Senate.
Both Senator Dr. Christopher Maynard and Senator Hunte have agreed that the provisions must be taken to protect whistleblowers.
There are already provisions for the state to offer protection to witnesses. This should further extend to relatives and to close friends of the witness. Once corrupt people come to exposure; some theft can switch to their extreme nature.
Senator Reverend Dr. John Rogers said that the determination to end corruption must start with a promise from the leadership. He said the Convention states for honesty, integrity, and responsibility to get promoted among the leaders of the country. It is everyone’s duty to stick to the rules of Conventions as the actions will pave the path for future generations.The US treasury has recently imposed sanctions on two of its Lebanese contractors for corruption. A lawmaker who is close to the Hezbollah movement is facing allegations over the charge of large-scale corruption, which is undermining the rule of law in Lebanon.
Businessmen Dany Khoury and Jihad-al-Arab are close to the former PM of Lebanon, Saad al-Hariri and Gebran Bassil. They Are facing sanctions on Thursday for the state contracts related to corruption.
The lawmaker Jamil Sayyed got the sanction for seeking to skirt domestic regulations and banking policy. There are allegations that he has transferred $120 million abroad to enrich himself and his associates.
The allegations are now coming amid an economic crisis in Lebanon. The nation is already facing blames for its year-long bad policy and the corruption of the ruling elite. The UN says that the situation in Lebanon has left three-quarters of its population in poverty.
Sayyed has made no direct denial to the allegation that he had skirted the banking regulation with about $20 of transfer during the crisis. Sayyed, who is an outspoken MP, is close enough to Hezbollah. He has headed the top intelligence agency of the country.
The treasure has alleged the Arab and Khoury both have received state contracts worth millions of dollars. It also includes disposal work and garbage collection purposes.
Khoury did not make any immediate response to the request for comment. Basil had denied all the allegations on him. He said Khoury is not his partner in politics or business. Khoury has won a contract of $42 million to work in a coastal landfill and is facing accusations for dumping toxic waste.
Al Arab, on the other hand, “served as an intermediary as of 2014 to broker a meeting between top Lebanese officials in advance of the Lebanese presidential election, in exchange for two government contracts valued at approximately $200 million.”
The sanctions marked the first time the US had imposed a sanction on Hariri.
“The Americans are sending a message to the entire political class, not just those backed by Iran, and also to the Lebanese people that they haven’t walked away,” Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told.
Thursday’s Sections include concrete allegations on the money transferring of Sayyed after the revolution. In a tweet, US Secretary of State Anatomy Blinken has characterized this sanction as a very important step in the promotion of accountability in Lebanon.For two of the anti-corruption reforms at the Cincinnati City Council, there was a formal approval Wednesday. Both are coming in for a response to the federal indictment. The indiscriminate actions have stained the clean government image of the city.
While coming out of the corruption of the CityHall’s crisis, the reform has been quite a popular topic among us 35 of candidates. The candidate wants to be among the nine of the Council of the new city.
One voter said that this is a kind opportunity to right the ship. Righting the ship has been a work-in-progress for the entire year. Everybody is saying almost the same thing. , according to the political analyst of Xavier University, Sean Comer.
He has touched on the curious dynamic for the reform of elections.
“The people who were indicted are no longer on the council,” Comer said. “It’s not like you’re running against a corrupt set of people. So, I think what you see is everybody’s running on anti-corruption.”
With 8-0votes, the lame-duck council has also formally approved some of the reform measures on the afternoon of Wednesday. One of the reforms would prohibit the contributions of the campaign from the developers with a financial stake in the business of the city.
The other anti-corruption reform, on the other hand, is establishing a position for an ethics czar who would be free of the Council and will have the power to perform an investigation on the ethical lapses. Conner said that while the reform measures are well-intentioned, they probably would not bring all the corruption to an end.
“People are fallible. We elect people. And that’s the system we have, and I’m not sure I want a different system where we don’t choose who gets to be in charge. And so, we have to have good people in the office. We have to have people who are going to make good decisions, trustworthy people. People who aren’t going to flirt with the rules flirt with the edge,” he said.
Voters have nothing to say about who would be the ethics czar. The city solicitor will now select someone in concert along with the city manager. It is still unclear how soon that can take place.
There are also discussions about the enhancing of the campaign contribution prohibition beyond what developers are looking for. The property owners are looking for zone changes.
Either Mann or Aftab Pureval will be the new mayor-elect of the city in just under a week. Two of the Democrats are now riding the issue for the trust in the first race of the city since the federal indictment at City Hall.The Senate Democrats have worked on unveiling a tax for corporate giants and the billionaires’ wealth. It is part of an elaborate menu for the tax increase to finance. It is significantly scaling back a bill that would strengthen the social safety net and will address the climate change beret.
Democrats have set a plan to pay $1.5 trillion in climate spending and social policy. These are some of the most innovative components of the domestic legislation of the party. It has become a top priority that is getting sent as a transformative initiative to vault a stagnant working class into the form of prosperity.
President
Biden and his allies have cut down this plan to make sure it can pass through Congress. They are now toiling to agree on these new tax policies, which could have some far-reaching consequences.
The Senate has presented a measure on Tuesday. The measure will impose a 15% minimum tax rate on the corporations based on profit.
The tax for billionaires and the corporate minimum tax is facing skepticism among the House Democrats. They have questioned their feasibility, and both are more likely to encounter legal and constitutional challenges.
For the very first time, billionaires will face a tax on their unrealized gains in the value of their stocks, cash, and bonds. It can grow for years, and the capital stores can be borrowed off to live tax-free virtually.
The courts will need to determine whether the gains in wealth can be called income or not. Even if they pass the legal musk, the individuals can spawn fresh efforts for tax avoidance.
The leaders of Democrats hoped to unveil a final bill on Wednesday which could pass through the House and Senate. Senator Joe Manchin II seems to have come up with a plan that would require the banks to offer I.R.S to help in catching tax cheats.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was further trying to line up the support. Senator Raphael Warnock threatened to withdraw his support. Senator Bernie Sanders was quite furious over the refusal of some Democrats to offer broad medicare powers to further make negotiations.
Democrats were trying to cobble together on the fly of the tax increases, the far-reaching aspect of the plan. The refusal of Ms Sinema to accept the tax rate increase is playing into the hand of senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. The corporate minimum tax is playing off Ms. Warren’s efforts to force tech companies to pay taxes for the profits. The minimum tax that was unveiled on Tuesday was more like a substitute for the initial efforts.
Companies and corporate giants with $1billion of profits and about 200 publicly traded corporations will not be able to escape the income taxation.A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now seeking the removal of the state auditor. They are now pursuing Gov. John Carney. A special legislative session in November has been set for the approval of the new maps for election districts.
However, some of the group of lawmakers want to add it to the agenda. The State reps. Madinah Wilson-Anton and Mike Smith have operated for a voting persuasion on the resolution. They are calling for the governor of the state to work on the removal of State Auditor Kathy McGuinness from the office.
The House of Representatives holds power to impeach the auditor. The auditor was facing multiple charges for crimes related to witness intimidation, theft, and misconduct.
Further Wilson- Anton says that he would only draw out the situation,
“Like we see on the national stage, impeachment processes can be incredibly long processes — they can be dramatic, they can be messy,” Wilson-Anton says. “And I just see that as a waste of taxpayer time and resources, and Rep. Smith, I think, agrees with me on that and a lot of other folks I’ve talked to.”
Wilson-Anton further said that she had approached Gov. Carney this past weekend at the homecoming game of UD. he said that he hadn’t seen any kind of letter that she sent on Friday. She had urged him to have a look at it.
The office of the governor has declined to comment on any kind of resolution. House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf has said that this redistricting will come with another item on November’s agenda.
House and Senate leadership has called for McGuinness to take up a voluntary leave of absence from her post. She has said that she has not received any support from the other lawmakers for her and the resolution of Smith.
In a statement released on Facebook Friday, State Sen. Laura Sturgeon says, “Auditor McGuinness deserves her day in court, but she should have her day in court as a private citizen and not as a public office holder. The charges brought against her, the indictments, and the fact that they stem from her role as an officeholder, require that she resign or be removed by an act of the legislature.”
Wilson- Anton says that it is the trust of the public in the state government that is getting hurt the most. It is because the role of this auditor will be the watchdog to cover a variety of funds that she has misused. She adds to rebuild the trust in the state government. She suggests that the state change the way of filling the Staten Auditor’s office. 24 states can elect their auditor directly. Other states have to appoint the auditor through the governor or legislature.Lev Parnas, the business associate of Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, is facing charges for corruption and illegal contributions. He has arranged over $350000 for an illegal campaign donation to one Republican and two pro-Trump super PACs.
Parnas is a national from Ukraine who resided in the core of the Ukraine story that gave rise to the first impeachment of Trump. He has worked as the liaison of Giuliani to a lot of officials in Ukraine.
Giuliani has acted as the personal lawyer Trump. With a prediction of Biden’s winning in 2020, Giuliani persuaded the Ukrainian officials in 2019 to open a criminal investigation on
Biden. Biden’s son was also his target. The events have culminated in the infamous July 2019 “quid pro quo” of Trump, a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump has pressurized Ukraine to announce a criminal investigation against Bi. But it led to the first impeachment on the grounds of abusing power charges.
Trump seems much emboldened to secure his power. He is now dangling the possibility of another presidential run. Parnas is facing prison time.
Federal law bans any kind of foreign donations for campaigns. It requires public reporting for the contributions and connections with the federal elections. The Department of Justice has Parnas, Igor Fruman, Andrey Kukushkin, and David Correia for making false statements. The straw company with Global Energy Producers, a purported natural gas import-export which Parnas joined with Fruman. They did it during the time of their illegal; contribution to campaigns on behalf of a Russian financier.
Correia pleaded guilty in October 2020. Fruman pleaded guilty to soliciting donations from international sources. Parnas and Kukushkin have been convicted for a trial.
Last year Parnas said that Trump was aware of all the happenings. In July, new audio leaked for the phone calls that took place in 2019 between Giuliani, Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak.
The phone call captures Guliani saying, “All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I’m gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists, and is there any other evidence about the involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out.”
However, the case of Parnas is sleazy corruption and the influence of foreign in US politics. It is a reminder of what the administration of Trump was. However, it also warns about what the second Trump term can be.The administration of
Biden has made the strategies to fight corruption the key components to run Central America. The Biden administration’s strategies are fighting global money laundering and corruption, which is bringing about a threat to investment, health, and education in many countries.
President Joe Biden had committed to pursuing foreign corruption with the enforcement of FC. It had signaled that the administration intended to build out the new Federal Beneficial Ownership registry for the Treasury Department. It will be another significant method to fight corruption and crimes that affect the US.
With this strategy implementation, the US Department of Justice has announced the creation of a bilingual tip line to combat corruption in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. There is a line made available for anyone who wishes to report information related to corruption in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. It is also involving the violation of US laws or the movement of proceeding with corrupt activities through the US or the banking networks.
The tip line is about to assist the multidisciplinary Northern Triangle Anticorruption Task Force. It was born from the overall efforts of the federal government; which Kamala Harris is leading.
The task force announced that it would opt to address corruption in the region which the department has recognized as the root of the migrant influx. The task force has representatives from the three of the DOJ’s criminal divisions. The task force is getting support from special agents of the International Corruption Unit of the FBI. Also, the Dangerous Drug Section, The Department of Homeland Security, and the Drug Enforcement Administration is offering support. The Task Force Members will evaluate all the information sent to the tip line for any of the US jurisdictional links to investigating, prosecuting, etc.
The Company which is conducting business in the northern triangle should be on notice. Companies with the business in such areas must review their compliance program to add the required enhancements. They need to pay attention to the internal reports which are arising out of the three Latin American countries for the remediation and investigation appropriate. In case of corruption-related matters, the steps might go further to mitigating or eliminating the enforcement action.A Palm Beach Gardens debt-collection magnate is facing accusation for a federal corruption case. It had attempted to bribe three Florida clerks in the courts and a fourth in Chicago. It has finally pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
This deal is bringing in close to the federal corruption case. It has conducted an audit of the dealings of the company. It has further prompted various Florida clerks’ offices to stop employing the company Penn Credit.
Donald Donagher, the founder of Penn Credit, agreed to a plea deal. In it, he attempted an improper donation of $1800 to an awards program.
The federal prosecutors have agreed to drop charges of bribery against him. It involves the Cook County clerk and the clerks of the court in Orange County, Brevard, and St.Jons. A sentencing hearing will take place in January.
As a part of this deal, Penn Credit has agreed to pay a $225000 fine related to a conspiracy charge. Donagher’s attorney said that this delay was a vindication of the founder of the company.
In 2019 the federal prosecutors said that he had tried to bribe the clerks. He had donated to their re-election campaigns and made contributions to their favorite charity.
Prosecutors further said that the payments were made to persuade the clerks to collect the unpaid court fees for their office. But the authorities have agreed to dismiss all the most serious charges. The judge ruled that they could not pursue the charges of bribery related to the campaign of Donagher.
“Mr. Donagher looks forward to finally putting this matter behind him,” said his attorney, Theodore Poulos, “I must emphasize that Mr. Donagher did not plead guilty to bribery. Rather he pleaded guilty to providing an illegal gratuity to the former Cook County Clerk of Court.”
He had close connections with former Palm Beach County Clerk Courts Sharon Bock. The FBI again investigated Bock and her office. They further explore the dealings of Donagjher with the clerks. In 217, bock gave Penn Credit a contract of no-bid to carry on debt-collection work. She used her standing among the clerks of the state to help Penn credit win new contracts.
The CEO of Penn Credit, Tom Foley, said that the company had taken actions since the indictment to change the lobbying practices. It will prevent such kinds of conduct in the future.
“We are pleased to be able to move forward and are thankful that the charges against Penn Credit in Chicago will eventually be dismissed,” he said.A federal grand jury has charged US Representative Jeff Fortenberry with illegal campaign conduct, who represents the 1st Congressional District of Nebraska. He is facing charges for making false statements and concealing information to the federal authorities who were making investigations. The investigation was going on about the legal contributions that the foreign nationals made during the 2016 re-election campaign.
Fortenberry, 60 of Lincoln, has a connection with an indictment that has charged him with one count of scheming falsely. He has further concealed the facts and two counts of making up false statements to the federal investigators. He had served in Congress since 2005.
This indictment alleges that he has lied repeatedly and misled the authority with an investigation about the investments that a foreign billionaire made. Gilbert Chagoury has arranged about $30000 of his money to contribute to the campaign during a fundraiser.
It is illegal for any foreign nationals to make any contribution to a federal campaign. It is also illegal to get disguised through funneling for a campaign. Chagoury has entered into a prosecution agreement with the US Attorney’s Office in 2019. He has admitted the providing of $ 180000 that he has used for the illegal campaign.
As part of this scheme, Fortenberry has made misleading and false statements during an interview in 2019. The indictment further alleges that he falsely told that he is now familiar with Baaklini’s involvement in the illegal campaign.
At his second interview with federal investigators and prosecutors, he made some additional false statements. He has denied being familiar with the illicit donations that took place in a fundraiser. Also, he stated that he ended the call in June 2018 with Individual H after that person made a concerning comment. But in reality, he had asked him to host another fundraiser for his campaign.
The three felony charges in the indictment carry a statutory maximum penalty of 5 years in prison. He had agreed to appear for an arraignment on Wednesday in United States District Court in LA. The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation are working on this matter.There are continuing group protests for the Delaware State representative, Gerald Brady, to resign. The Democrat had used anti- Asian slur in an email that he had sent from his official address.
Brady is facing accusations for using racism in terms of sexism to discuss human trafficking. The group of Delaware Asian American Voice put up a billboard on Lancaster Pike in Wilmington. This group protest is calling for a resignation.
They have protested in front of the billboard on Sunday to raise further awareness. Organizers have said that lawmakers need to do more to hold the representative accountable.
Brady has further apologized for the comments he made. He has gone through sensitivity training. He vowed in a statement last week not to seek any kind of reelection after the term expires.
Brady made the racist comments in a June 27 email that he has sent to an advocate to decriminalize prostitution. The thought was that he was forwarding an email from an advocate to a person whom he was seeking for input. However, he has mistakenly hit reply and sent these comments to the advocate.
The Democrat House leaders have directed him to complete his training for sensitivity and reach out to the members of Asian- American community. But they have indicated their statement Monday. However, they are not having an interest in initiating the disciplinary proceeding, which can lead to the suspension or expulsion of Brady.
“We want to be clear about something we have heard from residents this past week: As a duly elected official, only Rep. Brady can decide his political future. House leadership cannot unilaterally take action,” House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst, and Majority Whip Larry Mitchell said in a joint statement.
Schwarzkopf, Mitchell, and Longhurst are members of the House Ethics Committee. House rules authorize the committee to investigate complaints that the lawmaker has violated.
Ethics Committee rules have stated that any of the House members of the committee can file a complaint. In case a majority of the committee decides that the companies have proved, then they can recommend it to the House with the vote.
Despite the description of the remarks as racist, sexist, and indefensible, the leaders have indicated that they would make the training available for all members.The 10% wealthiest of Americans now own 89% of the US stocks. It is a record high that highlights the role of the stock market, which is increasing with its wealth inequality.
The top 1% has gained more than $6.5 trillion in corporate equities and mutual fund wealth during the pandemic. On the other hand, 90% of the bottom has added $1.2 trillion as per the latest data from the Federal Reserve.
The US stocks share of the corporate equities and the mutual fund that the top10% owns has reached a record high in the second quarter. The bottom of 90% of the Americans is holding about 11% of the individually held stocks. It is down from 12% for the pandemic.
The stock market has doubled since it dropped in March 2020. It has been up nearly 40% since January 2020. It was the main source of wealth creation in America during the time of the pandemic. Also, it is the main driver of inequality. The total wealth of the top 1% has now topped 32%. 70% of their wealth gains over the past year and a half is the fastest wealth boom in recent history.
The surging concentration of wealth is coming despite millions of new investors coming into the stock market for the first time. It is leading to the democratization of the stocks. As per Robinhood, more than 10 million accounts from the past two years now have over 2 million. Many of them are younger or first-time investors.
However, the gain and the wealth that the market is creating is not having a wide distribution. Many young investors have bought in at higher price ranges compared to the bigger investors. Many of the new ones have a trading mentality.
The top 10% have seen the value of their stock gain 43% between the January 2020 and June Of 2021. The bottom 90% have seen stock wealth rise at a lower rate of 33%. They might now account for a larger share or a trading activity. However, it is different from ownership and wealth.A key partner from the corruption-lade urban development project scandal has been detained. It involves a former aide to the presidential nominee of the ruling Democratic Party. He was detained upon his arrival from the USA on Monday for questioning over the bribery and various other allegations.
Nam Wook has allegedly held the key to resolve the suspicion on how asset management for Hwacheon Daeyu and its 7 affiliates has reaped profit from 2015. The project was about to develop the Daejang-dong district in Seongnam, the south of Seoul, into an apartment complex.
This scandal project includes Nam, who owns one of the seven affiliates of Hwacheon Daeyu. He is having accusations for colluding with Yoo Dong-Gyu, the acting president of Seongnam Development Corp. It would make the asset firm take part in a much lucrative project.
Upon his arrival at Incheon International Airport from Los Angeles, investigators detained him and took him to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office for questioning. They will focus on the bribery allegations.
Nam has joined the city-run project as a private partner. He has made about 100.7 billion won through his company. There is an involvement of 87.21 million in the form of paid-in capital. He had been in the US since the middle of September before the beginning of the investigation.
Nam has denied any kind of wrongdoing. He has claimed that he had been sidelined from the project at a very early stage. He has shifted the blame to other key figures, Yoo and Kim Man-bae.
Investigators have arrested Yoo on charges of bribery and breaching of trust. They had also sent an arrest warrant to Kim last week. Nam claimed to hear his partners raising 35 billion won to pay seven people.
The scandal is the hottest issue in the country. Prosecutors are planning to seek an arrest warrant for Nam. On Friday, they seized documents and other material from the city project team of the municipality. Investigators are planning to seize the materials and to question the city hall employees who had involvement in the project.Global Financial integrity has presented a comprehensive survey of 250 financial crime experts in Latin America and the Caribbean. The survey shows that the countries in this region need to address significant weaknesses to combat money laundering to curtail corruption.
These findings are contained in a new report from the Global Financial Integrity with the title, Financial Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean: Understanding Country Challenges and Designing Effective Technical Responses. It assesses the vulnerability and brings forth recommendations to strengthen the regional response to financial crime in Western Hemisphere.
The same threats are making this region a much more violent one in the world. It also generated a large number of illicit proceeds. It is causing these countries to face much complex financial crime landscapes. The report finds out that despite the important progress on the regulations and laws, the implementation of AML/CFT remains a challenge for many countries.
“This survey demonstrates that while some governments in the region are on the right track, many more need to step up their efforts to address corruption and money laundering,” according to Tom Cardamone, President & CEO of GFI. “The scores given to each government are from experts within that country. This internal assessment, in many instances, is a stinging rebuke to claims that corruption is under control.”
To fully capture the scope of financial crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, GFI has conducted interviews with experts from government, international and private organizations, and civil society.
The 300-page report offers a country-by-country overview of the scopes of financial crimes and main threats. It also includes regional analysis of illegal activities that generate illicit proceeds, drug trafficking, corruption, mineral trafficking, and smuggling. Also, it assesses the current financial crime threats from money laundering, terrorism financing, and corruption.
It has been found; corruption is the most prevalent financial crime that is affecting the region. It is the largest source of illicit proceeds in this region. Many countries have made improvements to their AML/CFT laws. However, the implementation varies.
However, the key recommendations are to implement a strong and updated transparent beneficial ownership registry to combat financial crimes to address money laundering. Authorities must take steps to strengthen the mutual legal assistance treaty process. To address TBML, countries must strengthen awareness and knowledge of TBML.
To address terrorism financing, it is important to update the information on threads. To address corruption, countries must improve transparency surrounding the hiring of public officials and push for meritocratic selection.Anti-corruption lawyer Juan Francisco Sandoval, whose tackling from the Guatemalan Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) in July incited global outrage, said: Operating against impunity in Guatemala is an absolute battle. Individuals are working against crime. He fears for the protection of his companions who stay in Guatemala.
For her role, former lawyer general Thelma Aldana, whose 2019 presidential nominee was prohibited in connection to her anti-corruption job, added. The Guatemalan organizations of crime are waging a march of criminalization and disinformation against anyone who doubts them, appropriating the constitution to be apt to work with impunity. It is more important for those of us outside Guatemala to recite.
The team of activists, who also involve old Constitutional Court Judge Gloria Porras and Public Prosecutor Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, are visiting Europe to follow the instance of the
Biden Administration and impose authorizations on Guatemalan people associated with serious corruption and crime, support judicial systems, anti-corruption efforts, and give safety for making threats against justice activists.
The conferences are aided in Costa Rica by the Dutch Embassy and regulated by human rights institutions Impunity Watch.
Impunity Watch founder Marlies Stappers stated that new developments in Central America, mainly in Guatemala, are deeply problematic. The disassembly of the regulation of the constitution, the criminalization of the increased violence, and the legal system associated with organized crime are compelling to undo everything we attained with global assistance to consolidate the justice system. After progressing towards the self-governing rule of law, nations like Guatemala are becoming rogue provinces, where the offense is the norm.
Having aided the Guatemalan justice operation for years, European administrators should now implement a serious collective strategy to prevent Guatemala and the province from becoming a hotbed of multinational drug trafficking and organized offense. Without this backing, global drug alliances will have even more independence to work with impunity. A just and democratic Central America is not just important for peace in the nation, but for the globe and Europe.Several top members from Biden’s administration participated in a meeting at Mexico City on Friday. The meeting took place with Mexican officials regarding the security along the US-Mexico border. However, Vice President Kamala Harris was not there.
Biden has appointed her to manage the US’s response to the migrant crisis along the border. However, she wants to attend New Jersey instead. While attending the high-level talks in Mexico’s capital, faces are seen of Antony Blinken, Alejandro Mayorkas, Merrick garland.
Ken Salazar, a former US senator of Colorado, serving as the US ambassador to Mexico, has also attended the meeting.
Harris traveled to Garden State to visit a daycare center at Montclair State University in Little Falls. She also attended a vaccination site at Essex County Community College in Newark to promote the agenda of Biden.
The Vice president last visited the border in June. She has spent several hours in El Paso. It is the only time when she has visited the border since taking office. She then traveled to LA again to spend the holiday at her home.
She has faced much criticism from Republicans due to her avoidance of the border regions. She has deprived herself of valuable first-hand knowledge of the broader issues.
“Vice President Harris is ignoring the real problem areas along our southern border that are not protected by the border wall and are being overrun by the federal government’s ill-thought-out, open border policies,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement ahead of her late June trip.
Harris and her spokespeople have countered it. She had focused on the behind-the-scene discussion with Latin American leaders for the root of the cause of the migration issue. She has also raised eyebrows for filtering questions that reporters asked here about the border. She said she hadn’t been to Europe. Hence she has ignored the point that they were making by laughing it off.
“Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras,” the White House said in a statement during the summer promoting its Root Causes Strategy plan. ” She has worked with bilateral, multilateral, and private sector partners, as well as civil society leaders, to help people from the region find hope at home.”Municipal elections are about to take place in Paraguay on Sunday, 10 of October. With these elections, citizens can renew the 261 governments of the country.
According to data from Tribunal Superior de Justicia Electoral, at least 4644563 people will vote. Among them, 1450000 are young people, aging between 18-29l. Young people make up a large part of the population of the country.
The politics have disenchanted them the most. Thus the Paraguayan Bishops’ Conference has mentioned them in a particular way.
It has asked God to “touch the hearts of young people so that they responsibly take this historic moment seriously and opt for the best”. Already in the 2015 message, the Bishops had stressed: “Organized citizenship, with generous and altruistic attitudes like that of young people, can promote the transformation of our political, social and economic institutions in order to achieve the common good of society, especially favoring the most vulnerable.”
Given the election of October 10, the note from the Bishops’ Conference has been sent to Fides. It is coming up with the great opportunity to democratically express their vote in a free and responsible way.
It urges the citizens to go to the polls to exercise their civic law to select the most suitable, transparent, and honest people. Such people can guide the municipalities and councils for the next five years.
Through tracing those candidates’ profiles, the note further urges people to delegate the administration of their territory to people who come with conduct and are coherent.
These candidates must not deceive with any advantages or demagogue. As voters, people have the great responsibility to elect people who will occupy political positions. At the same time, they have some moral obligations to reject those who have involvement in corruption, crime, or narcopolitics.
Unfortunately, this socio-political scenario in which the municipal elections are happening has the denotation with a high level of violence. There are plenty of acts of corruption that drug trafficking and crimes have fueled. The Bishop states that not only the electors but these social a, in general, must stay at their place. It is saddening to see the political leaders and candidates involved in the life attacks. He further said that life is the gift of God that everyone must respect. The note concludes with the invocation of the blessings of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary.The United States is now looking for competition with China. The White House says that the country now wants competition in a responsible manner. This news is coming after a day when two countries have agreed to have a virtual leadership summit before the end of the year.
The Deputy Press Secretary of the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre said that they are not looking for a conflict with China. Rather the country wants a much more responsible approach for it. Karien told this to the media on Thursday aboard Air force one traveling to US president Joe
Biden to Chicago.
After a day, White House officials said that US national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan during a meet up with Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and Director of the Office of The Foreign Affairs Commission Yang Jiechi in Zurich. They have agreed in principle to attend a virtual summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden.
The administration of Biden believed that leader-to-leader engagement is very important. It is much of an important part of the country’s effort to manage its competition.
Jean Pierre said as for the meeting that Jake Sullivan joined with his counterpart in Zurich, it was candid. They were quite direct and wide-ranging. Biden talked to the Chinese President over a long call on September 9.
“The September 9th POTUS-Xi call was about ensuring we have open lines of communications, as I was just mentioning. The two leaders discussed the importance of having a more substantive conversation than we had been to date, including the need to do so in private,” she said.
“But we stand at a time; we are interested in seeing where it could go. That’s what this meeting was about: continuing the conversation with leaders. National Security Advisor Sullivan raised areas where the United States and PRC have an interest in working together to address vital transactional challenges and ways to manage risk in our relationship,” Jean-Pierre saidThere, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has joined business and civil society discussions for infrastructure corruption. The discussion took place on Blue Dot Network – a State Department’s joint initiative of the governments of the US, Japan, and Australia. It promotes transparent and countable standards in global infrastructure investment. The Blue doty has extended its partnership with OECD.
Mattias Corman and the panelists Yves Perrier, Brendan Bechtel, and Sharan Burrow emphasizes the importance of quality infrastructure investment. It respects all human rights and good labor practices. At the same time, it protects the environment and aligns the investment along with the climate goal. Moreover, it further embeds openness and transparency to counter corruption. Further, it encourages the level of commercial playing fields.
The US State Department regards this issue as a critical one to address many of the core problems that global economies face from the pandemic.
“Infrastructure is a major focus of governments, private sectors, civil societies all around the world and for very good reason—it’s critical for economic growth,” Blinken said.
The global infrastructure Hub estimates the size of the global infrastructure financing gap at the mark of $15 trillion. On the other hand, these projects are beset with issues of shoddy governance and accountability.
The Report of OECD Foreign Bribery has found that 60% of foreign bribery cases take place in infrastructure sectors. Early evidence indicates that the risk might be increased due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
The Blue Dot Network has a design as a mechanism to certify quality projects. It meets or exceeds international grade standards. Blue Dot Network certification will serve as a global symbol for transparent, inclusive, and sustainable infrastructure projects.
The Administration of
Biden believes i8n the notion that the major democracies in the world have the opportunity to show real leadership on this issue.
According to the State Department, The Blue Dot Network could also serve as a platform for common standards in its new Build Back Better World partnership of G7. At the G7 summit, Biden announced that the B3W initiative is a transparent infrastructure partnership. It aims to address the massive demand for infrastructure. At the same time, it will help to battle off infrastructure corruption.Praying for Republicans to fold was a quite riskier play for Democrats that has given the stakes. In case, for the first time, the US government fails to meet its obligations, its role in the world’s economy would be called into question. Interest rates would most likely surge quite sharply.
The global financial instructions would start to search for new vehicles to store money. There it would not be subject to the whims of partisan politics. Hence the US Senate is staving off its debt crisis up to December.
“We’re not asking them to blink; we’re asking them to be the slightest bit reasonable,” Senator Angus King, a centrist independent from Maine, said of Republican leaders. “The political gain of this strikes me as low. The loss to the country strikes me as extraordinarily high.”
The debt ceiling, or the debt limit, is a cap for the total amount of money that the federal government has authorized to borrow with US treasury Bills and savings bonds. It would help them to fulfill their financial obligations. The US runs budget deficits. It must borrow a huge sum of money to pay its bills.
The US hit its debt ceiling at the end of July. Treasury Secretary Jennet Yellen has been using her measures since then to delay a default. She has warned of catastrophic consequences if the debt limit has not been raised for a default.
Ms. Yellen said that inaction could lead to self-inflicted economic recession and debt crisis. She further said that failing to raise the debt ceiling can’t affect programs that help Americans. Also, it will delay Social Security payments.
According to the Constitution, Congress must authorize its borrowing. The country instituted the debt limit in the 20th century, so the Treasury did not need to ask for permission to issue bonds.
Republicans have said that Democrats must supply all the votes to raise its debt ceiling. But they have flustered their attempts to do it. Senate Democrats have increasingly seen the G.O.P blockade as a clear justification for the changing of the filibuster rule.
Top Democrats have dropped their insistence that republicans must join them in bipartisan support to raise the statutory cap on the obligation. They want Mr. McConnell to honor his demand to let the Democrats lift the ceiling alone.
“We’ve already presented Republicans numerous opportunities to do what they say they want, including by offering a simple majority vote so Democrats can suspend the debt ceiling on our own as Republicans have asked,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said on Wednesday. “But each time, Republicans have chosen obstruction.”
Top Republicans said that most of their members would privately support the Democrats to move forward on their own. However, they are unwilling to vote publicly, and any single senator can force a vote.The White House is now adding $1bn to purchase millions of test kits for rapid at-home tests for Covid. The White House COVID-19 responses coordinator Jefferey Zients said that on Wednesday,
The money is following a $2 billion investment in September to apply the raid test to community healthcare, schools, food banks.
They will come in the form of over-the-counter swab tests. People can purchase these at the pharmacy and take them home. They test for antigens or proteins available on the surface of the virus. It can offer a very reliable result in 15 minutes, especially for symptomatic people.
There are reports of a shortage of these test kits around the country. Zient from the White House said that the action is now putting the country in a position to quadruple the number of rapid tests. They will have the available supply of 200 test kits per month from December.
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration’s authorized Flowflex test kit. It significantly increases the availability of such at-home testing. It is the eighth test of this kind that will become available in the US. It will be much more affordable. It will take $10 for each test.
The government is anticipating the large purchase of the tests. The instances of the product will drive down the price of testing.
In a briefing on Wednesday, Zients has emphasized that there are many free testing options throughout the community health centers and in other testing sites. The insurance also covers these testing options. The administration had arranged 20000 more pharmacies to offer tests for Covid. There are existing 10000 free test sites across the nation.
At-home rapid testing is making things easier for people to spot-check themselves for corona infections. But it is harder for the authorities to keep track of the viral spread. Mina says there should be a clear strategy to monitor all these results.
FDA has announced that Ellume has recalled 200000 at-home test kits as they had a higher-than-expected rate for false-positive tests.The US Department of Justice will now weigh in on the prosecuting of FBI agents in the Nassar case. The Justice Department is now reviewing its decision not to prosecute FBI agents who failed to pursue sexual abuse changes in 2015. Decisions will be taken on the case giant the former United States Gymnastics physician Lawrence G. who was convicted on federal child pornography and exploitation.
This unfamiliar review comes months after the release of a scathing report from the Justice Department. It has criticized how FBI agents have handled the case. It first came to attention when USA Gymnastics approached the Indianapolis Field of the Bureau in July 2015. It has reported allegationsTikTok of sexual abuse to the office.
Michael E. Horowitz, the inspector general, found out that senior FBI officials have failed to inform the state or local officials to take steps against the threat. The report of Mr. Horowitz has found that the special agent of the field office W.J.Abbott has lied to the investigator of the Inspector General to hide his struggles in the case.
But the Justice Department decided not to prosecute Mr. Abbott, who retired in January 2018. Michael Langman, another agent who was also handling the case, has been fired.
Victims and their families and the members of Congress have criticized the Justice Department’s decision to stop the investigation. Deputy Attorney General Lisa O’ Monaco told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kenneth Polite is currently reviewing this case.
However, such a review doesn’t mean that the FBI agents will face charges. Even the new information is still unclear.
With the failure to act on information, the FBI allowed Nassar to attack more girls before getting arrested. He is having accusations of sexual abuse of more than 300 girls and women. He is serving a life sentence in prison. Ms. Monaco has apologized to the victims.
Her words echo the words of FBI Director Christopher A. Ray. He said, “I am especially sorry that there were people in the FBI who had their chance to stop this monster in 2015 and failed, and that is unforgivable,” Mr. Ray said at the hearing. “We are doing everything in our power to make sure this never happens again.”US President Joe
Biden is facing an array of domestic and foreign policy challenges. The pledge of bringing the country back together that he took during the elections is far from a dream. The president’s agenda includes exposing and fighting corruption with punishment both at home and abroad. Such a campaign appeals to disparate domestic groups. Also, it is bound up with many objectives that he had staked out for the US in the world. The release of Pandora Papers has once again exposed how easily powerful people can hide money.
Some of the money comes from bribes that businesses or politicians pay around the world.
There are simply more than just words that the White House has published. It had published a National Security Study Memorandum this year. It promises to create a unified policy around this issuer. Biden has more specific commitments to focus on corruption among the first orders of business. It includes organizing the democracy summits that will take place in December. It will focus on achieving results on three fronts. The three fronts include combating corruption, promoting human rights, and guarding against authoritarianism.
As economies and the finance system have opened up and deregulated in the past few decades, proponents of globalization are hoping for markets to prove to be a weapon for authoritarians. But in practice, they have weaponized corruption. They have exploited the free market to enrich themselves and to threaten democracy.
Biden said in 2018 that corrupt money is a tool of authoritarian regimes. They seek to undercut democratic governance across the board. He also considers corruption as a hindrance to global development. Anti-corruption is a plank of what Biden called a foreign policy for the middle class. It is an effort to demonstrate that the globalized world belongs to the broader public.
But in many ways, corruption is getting easier. As per the report of the World Bank, the digitalization of the global financial system has lowered costs. It has increased the scale of the multinational schemes, which underpins the illicit financial flow.
The US took a big step in 2020 with its Corporate Transparency Act. The law represents a powerful victory against criminals of all stripes.The U.S Justice Department is having an investigation for the suspected manipulation of the energy pricing benchmarks that S&P Global Platts has published. It has expanded the crackdown of the agency on the misconduct in the market of global commodities.
London- based Platts is a data and news provider. It focuses on energy, metal, and agricultural commodities. The company is collecting data for traders on their deal prices to determine a market price for physical commodities.
The prosecutors of the US are probing the suspect and manipulative behavior of the individual traders. At the same time, it is submitting those deal prices to the price assessment for oil and other energy benchmarks of Platts. The four people have said it without specifying which one. The people have declined to come to the forefront as the probes are not public.
With the pushing of those benchmark prices up and down, traders can boost up their profits.
Over the last years, US authorities have brought two of the cases regarding alleged manipulation for the Platts’ oil benchmarks of the traders at two different companies.
However, the prosecutors are now probing similar kinds of behavior across the market. The industry-wide probes have opened up for a new front in the crackdown of the Justice Department for bribery, fraud, and the manipulation of the market commodity. It is raising the stakes for traders and the companies on a global scale, which daily use the benchmark of Platts.
The sources have said that prosecutors are focusing on the behavior of the traders. They have not yet given any indication of the wrongdoings of Platts.
The Justice Department alleged that from September of 2012 to August of 2016, Emilio Jose Heredia Collado had directed colleagues to place buy or selling orders during the trading settlement of Platts.
“In both these cases, the regulators did not accuse Platts of wrongdoing or provide any evidence that attempts to manipulate our assessments were successful or that our assessments did not reflect market value,” Platts said in a statement.
Heredia had successfully swayed benchmark prices to benefit himself and his employees. He is cooperating with an investigation. His attorney has not yet responded. Other Commodities traders are now under scrutiny.Federal agents are now investigating another new international bribery scandal. This US navy corruption case echoes the tone of the Fat Leonard scandal. A defense contractor is facing charges for delivering cash bribes and bilking the Navy out of $50million to service its ships in the foreign ports.
The Justice Department is now trying to extradite the contractor Frank Rafaraci, the chief executive of MPS from malta. There he got arrested in the place after an international manhunt.
Rafaraci is a dual US- Italian citizen who has split his time between the UAE and Sicily. Since 2010 the Navy and federal agencies have awarded MLS with $1.3 billion in contrast to resupply and refuel the US warships in the Middle East, Asia, and in other regions.
According to an arrest warrant, Rafaraci and MLS have defrauded the Navy with $50 million with the inflating of invoices for post-service between 2011 and 2018.
Federal authorities are now looking for the extradition of Rafaraci on suspicion of bribery and money laundering. The arrest warrant alleges that he met with an unnamed US Navy official in Manama at the Diplomat Hotel in 2015. He handed over an envelope of $20000 cash.
Three years later, he passed another envelope to the same US official in Miami that contained $13500.
That unnamed US Navy official has served for several years as a liaison officer in Bahrain. The Court papers show that the official pleaded guilty in June with a bribery charge in US District Court in Washington. He has agreed to become a witness for the government.
Navy officials have pledged to clean up their contracting process in response to the Fat Leonard scandal. But this new case suggests that corruption persists.
In an affidavit that has been filed in support of the arrest warrant, Delapena has accused Rafaraci of using a network of a shell company for money laundering. He uses the code name “keep going”. He used to transfer funds from the corporate accounts in Malta and Britain to a shell company in the UAE.
The affidavit has also accused him of conspiring with the chairman of MLS to commit bribery. Hence the case on international bribery scandal will go on to expose the culprits.The Supreme Court, after a transformation, is returning to the bench on Monday. It will now start a momentous term where it will eliminate the constitutional right to abortion. It will also work on the vastly expanding gun rights and will further chip away at the wall that is separating the state and church.
The case of abortion is a challenge to the Mississippi law. It bars most abortions after 15 weeks. It has attracted most of the attention. The court is now getting dominant with six Republican appointees. It will be used to undermine and overturn Roe v. Wade. The 1973 decision has established a constitutional right to abortion. It has barred the states from banning the procedure before fetal viability.
This highly charged docket will test the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts. He has lost his position at the ideological center of the court with the arrival of the last fall of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Five justices are now outflanking him. It is further limiting his ability to guide the court toward the incrementalism and consensus that he prefers.
The chief justice sees himself as the custodian of the institutional authority of the court. He is now leading a court with an association of partisanship. The recent polls show that it is suffering a drop in public support. At a time, the justice has become uncharacteristically defensive in public about the record of the court.
It has been decades since the court has faced a similar kind of dip in the confidence of the public. The recent poll is following a spate of an unusual late-night summer ruling in politically charged cases. The conservative majority of the court has rejected the Administration policies of
Biden on asylum and evictions. It has allowed a texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. In the Texas decision, Roberts joined the three Democratic appointees in dissent.
In a variety of public appearances, many justices have insisted on their ruling without politics. Barrett said in Kentucky; his goal is to convince people that the court is not getting the compromise with a bunch of partisan hacks.A Facebook Inc whistleblower has accused this social media platform of offering more priority to profit over safety. She said that the platform looks upon profit more than clamping down on misinformation or hate speed. Hence her lawyers have filed at least 8 complaints with the SEC.
Frances Haugen has worked as a product manager on the team of misinformation on Facebook; she appeared on a CBS television program, “60 Minutes”. She revealed her identity as a whistleblower. She provides documents that underpin add an investigation from Wall Street Journal. Also, it targets a Senate hearing on Instagram’s harm to teenage girls.
Facebook is under fire after the publication of a Journal which has published a series of stories. The story highlights Facebook’s internal presentation and emails, which shows that the company contributes to increased online polarization. It had done it with its change to the content algorithm. It had further failed to take steps to reduce vaccine hesitancy. Also, it was aware that Instagram had harmed the mental health of teenage girls
Haugen will now testify before a Senate subcommittee about the research of the company into the effect of Instagram on young users.
Haugen previously worked at Google and Pinterest. She said that Facebook has lied to the public about its progress in clamping down hate speech and misinformation.
She further added that Facebook helped to organize the Capitol riot on January 6 as the company turned off the safety system following the election. She said that the company had misaligned its incentives.
Facebook has published a statement disputing these points that Haugen has made.
“We continue to make significant improvements to tackle the spread of misinformation and harmful content,” said Facebook spokesperson Lena Pietsch. “To suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.”
Haugen has also spoken with Europe’s lawmakers and will appear in the British parliament. She is hoping to spur regulatory actions. Her attorney John Tye and Huaghen are willing to speak with lawmakers from countries in Asia. Whistleblower aid which has represented Haugen pro-bono has launched a GoFundMe to collect $50000 for her legal costs.In the times before and after his resignation as New York’s governor, Andrew M. Cuomo defended his behavior on harassment claims. He has also deflected the blame and tried to discredit Letitia James, who concluded that he had sexually harassed multiple women.
Ms. James put it this week that Mr. Cuomo had never taken responsibility for his own conduct. He had never held himself accountable for the behaviors he made. It has further affected the state government. Ms. James, a fellow Democrat, said it during a breakfast with powerful business and civic leaders in Manhattan. She further added that no one is above the law.
The findings of Ms. James will serve as the blueprint for a far-ranging investigation of the State Assembly which is in its final stages. A report will become public in October, according to a person who is familiar with the inquiry.
Some lawmakers have also briefed on this inquiry. They have said, a portion of the Assembly’s investigation would largely mirror these findings of the 163-page report of the attorney general. It further concluded that Mr. Cuomo had fostered a much toxic environment. He has sexually harassed 11 women, including both current and former female staffers.
State lawmakers started the investigations six months ago to impeach Mr. Cuomo. But they pledged to finish this inquiry even after he left the office. The final report could reduce all the calls among the lawmakers to impeach Mr. Cuomo to prevent him from running once again. Carl E Heastie, the speaker of Assembly, has argued that it would be an unconstitutional move to impeach a governor out of office. Many democrats are looking at impeachment as an unnecessary distraction.
The culmination of the investigation will allow the Democratic lawmakers to close a chapter of scandals related to Cuomo. It has overshadowed the work of Legislations and tormented the party.
For Mr. Cuomo, the outcome of this inquiry could cement the stain of harassment claims on his legacy and lead to a fallout. This investigation is also scrutinizing whether he had deliberately obscured the number of nursing home deaths during the pandemic or he has used state resources unlawfully.A federal judge heard some arguments on Friday from the federal government and the State of Texas over abortion law. This law bans all the abortions in the state that must be suspended while the courts decide if it is legal or not.
A restrictive abortion law Texas enacted in September. It uses a unique legal approach for deputizing the private citizens to enforce it instead of the state. This law is also popular as the Texas Heartbeat Act and Senate Bill 8. It had a chilling effect with all the two dozen aborting clinics in the state. These clinics are no longer offering abortion services in cases where there is a cardiac activity that usually begins at the six-week of pregnancy.
The Justice Department sued Texas last month over this abortion law. Attorney general Merrick B. Garland has called this enforcement mechanism an unprecedented effort to prevent women from their constitutionally protected rights.
He further said that no matter their stand in abortion, the people of America must fear that this Texa law can become a model to restrict other constitutionally protected rights.
At its hearing on Friday, before Judge Robert L. Pitman, a Federal District Court Judge in Austin, a lawyer William T Thompson said that the federal government had no grounds. They cannot argue this case as the law did no harm to it.
“If the Texas Heartbeat Act actually, you know, created a liability for the federal government, there would be at least a potential injury there that would be worth litigating,” Mr. Thompson said. “But the Heartbeat Act doesn’t do that.”
In The Texas Legislature, he passed Senate Bill 8. A republican Gov, Greg Abbott, has passed this into law. It will be enforced by those private citizens who are filing civil lawsuits. Those private parties are getting entitled to $10000, and their legal fees have been recovered in case they successfully sue those who aid in an abortion.
It makes the law in Texas unique from one restricted in access to abortion that has been passed in other states. All of these have been suspended while they also work their way through the system of the court. Last month the Supreme Court rejected a request of an abortion clinic to suspended the Texas law. But it had further made it clear that the law can still get challenged on constitutional grounds.
Brain Netter, a lawyer from the Justice Department, has argued that Senate Bill 8 directly harms the federal government as it has violated the constitutional principle.During the summer of 2020, Brad Bessey was winding down for a longer career in television. One of those includes two daytime Emmy Awards. he further stints as an executive producer at ” The Talk ” and “Entertainment Tonight.”
He was also eager to make some contribution in the summer of George Floyd and Covid. So when his agent finally approached him about working for a talk show on important social issues, he jumped at it. However, a false claim regarding a TV show has followed it.
In June 2020, Mr. Bessey started to work as the executive producer at “The Carlos Watson Show,” which is a daily half-hour interview program. Ozy Media produced it, and the chief executive Mr. Watson hosted it. Mr. Watson and the chief operating officer of Ozy, Samir Rao, said that the show would appear on Primetime on A&E, the cable channel. It was scheduled for an August debut. Mr. Bessey also showed an email that Mr. Rao sent him the day before his work started on the show.
There were early red flags. In an interview, Mr. Bessey said that he had no contact with A&E executives during the making of this show. When he asked Mr. Watson and Mr. Rao about it, they said that the executives wanted to speak to them. When Mr. Bessey said that he knows some A&E executives, they told him not to. Another warning sign was one of the producers that pointed out that A&E has scheduled the Hoarders for the time slot for The Carlos Watson Show.
Besides Mr. Bessey, Heidi Clements, a veteran TV writer who was among the producers, said that she was told that the program would appear on A&E.
Ms. Clements says that she got inspired by Mr. Watson’s pitch for the show during 45 minutes of call before she became part of the staff. She added that she was part of a “great white awakening” during the summer of civil rights protests.
A&E Networks had a previous relationship with Ozy. Mr. Bessey said that he resigned when he knew that the show would not appear on the channel. He said that he told the staff that he was leaving during a Zoom call on Aug 3. Mr. Watson was also present in the call. The producer also said that it would not be shown on A&E.
At the start of 2001, Mr. Watson was in deep talks with Goldman Sachs about the ability of the $40 million investment in Ozy. A Goldman executive sent an email to Mr. Watson and Mr. Rao to speak on YouTube.
The response came from Mr. Rao while connecting the investors to a Gmail address of Alex Piper. That email address turned out to be fake. On Feb 2, the Goldman Sachs team was on a conference call where they made a false claim that Ozy’s videos were a great success.The Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear a lawsuit. Sen. Ted Cruz has brought this suit challenging campaign of the federal financing rules. This rule restricts the ability of a campaign to raise money after an election to repay the personal loan of a candidate.
Cruz, a Texas Republican, won the lawsuit in a lower court over this summer. It had found that the limits were violating his First Amendment rights. The Federal Election Commission has further appealed the ruling of the lower court to the Supreme court in July.
Cruz’s suit challenging campaign was one of the five cases that the Supreme Court announced to hear on Thursday. The justice will return to the courtroom on Monday to begin with, a new term.
On the day before the election of 2018, Cruz has lent his campaign $260000. It is $10000 more than the maximum level of what federal law allows to be repaid along with post-election fundraising.
Groups that are favoring tougher finance limits say that allowing campaigns to raise money to repay their candidate loans is more like putting more into a candidate’s hand.
“The use of post-election contributions to repay personal loans creates a heightened risk of actual and apparent quid pro quo corruption,” the FEC told the Supreme Court in explaining the limits. “Money that repays a personal loan after an election effectively goes into the candidate’s pocket.”
But Cruz further countered that the restriction enhances the risk of any candidate loan that will never get paid fully. It forces a candidate to think twice before making such loans in the first place. It is an outcome that he argued, saying that this amounts to a restriction to freedom of speech.
A spokesperson for Cruz has decided on the court as a great news n. He asserted that the existing rule of FEC will benefit incumbent politicians while making it harder for the challengers to run for office.
The high court agreed to hear the lawsuits that are challenging the decision of the City of Boston to deny the ability of a Christian group to raise a flag at City Hall. Camp Constitution frames its mission as teaching about the Judeo-Christian heritage of the country. It has assisted the denial and violated its First Amendment rights.Democrats have prepared legislation on Wednesday. It is planning to avert a government shutdown this week. However, they are trying to salvage the domestic agenda of
Biden as the conservative-leaning holdouts dug in against the $3.5 trillion safety net.
Congressional leaders have moved to further address the most immediate threat. They are working on completing a bill to prevent the funding lapse of the government. Yet after days of negotiations to bridge such bitter differences in their party over Biden’s legislative priorities, the top Democrats appear far from an agreement. The White House is calling it the Build Back Better Plan.
In turn, it was imperiling a$1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. It got scheduled for a House vote on Thursday. The fate of these two measures could define the uses of the president of Biden. These intense tensions surrounded them with a test of his skills as a deal maker. He has highlighted it as a calling card during his campaign in the White House. After days of a personal meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office and phone calls, Biden is far short of a deal.
While dramatizing this challenge, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia issued a lengthy statement. He has reiterated this opposition’s proposal saying that it is amounting to fiscal insanity.
“While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that would result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot — and will not — support trillions in spending or an all-or-nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces,” Mr. Manchin wrote, denouncing an approach that he said would “vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending.”
This statement was opposite to Mr. Biden and top democrats. On the other hand, he hoped to extract from Mr. Manchin. They are looking for a firm public commitment to eventually vote the social policy measures to placate liberals who want an enactment.
“I assume he’s saying that the president is insane because this is the president’s agenda,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said of Mr. Manchin. “Look, this is why we’re not voting for that bipartisan bill until we get agreement on the reconciliation bill. It’s clear we’ve got a way to go.”In a public sale of Tegna, the TV-station empire has been put into doubt. The company has asked whether or not a potential sale to a number one bidder would deal with antitrust concerns from US regulators. The Post has been discovered.
The broadcasting company spun off from Gannett in 2015 as a separate and publicly traded company. It now operates 64 TV stations and two radio stations throughout 54 US markets. It has acquired buyout proposals. Now it is deliberate in reviewing them.
Tegan has not begun any negotiations with a key bidding bloc that comes with hedge fund Standard General and buyout agency Apollo Global Management and two sources near the start of functions. It is regardless of the Standard General and Apollo that is expressing a willingness to extend their $22 share. It is presently valuing the company at upwards of$4.8 billion.
Tegan is asking Standard General and Apollo questions about whether their bid can stand up to antitrust concerns from the Federal Communication Commission. There is a 50-70% chance for a delay to happen.
This possible stumbling block came out amidst the rocky hospital, past between Tegan and Standard General. Earlier this year, Standard General had launched an unsuccessful proxy contest to oust its Chief Executive David Lougee.
Kim, who has pointed out the allegations of discrimination and racial bias, has no intention to maintain with Lougee if he buys the company. Standard General could be controlling the proprietor for the brand new Tegna.
Tegan has also invited Standard General and Apollo in addition to Byron Allen. Ares Management will review its confidential monetary info. Tegna has received Standard General to signal a settlement. It could not have any interaction in one other proxy contest for more than a year.
As for the antitrust concerns, the FCC’s nationwide media possession rule prevents any kind of entity from owning business TV stations that attain more than 39 p.c of US tv.
The proposed buy court would exceed the quantity. The suitors have declared that they are not planning to roll most of their present stations into the post-Tegna company. Shares of Tegna had closed at $21.01 on Wednesday, which is up from $17.52 from earlier this month’s sale report.Virtual cards have been in use in US businesses for more than a decade now. But a piece from The Fintech Times is still touting the expanding of virtual card usage into the space of small businesses.
Companies utilized Virtual Cards in the past with larger companies in the accounts of payable processes; thus, the creation of a tokenized card for the small US Businesses would be an expansion of the use cases for virtual cards. However, to our knowledge, it has not yet been used widely.
This development is about to take place due to a collaboration between American Express and Extend. Extend is a New York City startup that offers a digital card platform compatible with commercial cards that can modernize payment methods.
U.S. companies with an eligible American Express Business Card will be able to enroll and create virtual cards, known as tokens, through Extend’s app or desktop login using their existing American Express Card account….”We have seen more and more businesses ramp up their use of virtual cards since the start of the pandemic as they looked to digitize their payments processes and increase their use of touchless payments,” says Dean Henry, Executive Vice President, Global Commercial Services, American Express.
Virtual Cards can help to solve the timely needs of many businesses. It can help to find a reliable and enhanced way for controlling expenses to the payment process automation or the capturing of enriched data.
Extend CEO Andrew Jamison further said that this market is rapidly growing as businesses realize how versatile and effective virtual Cards can be. It can help in managing subscription payments and in equipping employees with security company cards. They can also help with the development of custom payment solutions with their APIs.
The release is going to point out the many benefits of virtual cards. It includes speed and security of payment. Again the pandemic has also increased the interest in this form of payment.
Dr. Sarah Roberts, the owner of Crabapple Dental, full-service dental practice in Georgia, is already seeing the benefits of virtual cards. “Working with American Express and Extend has helped us manage vendor payments using virtual cards. By setting our spending limit and expiration date on a virtual card, we have more control. We also create specific cards for different expenses, which makes it easier to track spending.”
It’s reported that American Express and Extend plan to offer additional features and functionality over time, including the ability to add American Express virtual Cards to mobile wallets to make in-store purchases.Seychelles has requested the US Embassy for technical assistance to facilitate corruption investigations and revenue collection. This news is surfacing upon the announcement from the Ministry of Finance.
Naadir Hassan, The Minister of Finance, Economic Planning, and Trade, have made this appeal to the Charge d’Affaires at US Embassy in Mauritius, Judes DeBaere, during his courtesy visit.
Hassan said, “One of my priorities as Minister of Finance is to ensure taxpayers’ money is spent where it is necessary, and eliminating corruption in the public service is a necessity. But we lack the specific skill set to investigate, build a solid case and get a successful prosecution.”
The minister said that they need more specialized technical assistance in this field. People need to know that the government will not tolerate this corruption. Hence they will work on the corruption investigations.
In the Corruption Perception Index survey that came to the surface in January, Seychelles got its highest score in sub-Saharan Africa with 66 points.
The island nation has an Anti-Corruption Commission set up under the Anti-Corruption Act. It gives the authority to investigate, detect and further prevent corrupt practices.
Hassan has also appealed for technical support to the US government for the customs Division and Seychelles Revenue Commission.
On her side, DeBaere said that the US had experts who could assist Seychelles in its fight against corruption to improve its revenue collection.
Hassan said that one of the priorities of the government is to add modernization to the Seychelles Revenue Commission.
“In 2022, my ministry wants to focus on plugging revenue leakages at both entities and to achieve this priority target. We will need to build the capacity of the staff, so once again, we would appreciate it if the U.S. government could assist in this field also,” he said.
The current change if the financial sector got discussed. Hassan spoke in detail about the ongoing efforts of the government to stick to international standards.
This year they have amended a lot of laws to ensure its compliance. It shows that the commitment is there, and they need support to achieve this objective and to remain compliant.The US solar industry growth gets fuel from cheap imports. Now the surging trade and transport issues are exposing that the dependence on a vulnerability is slowing shipments. It is further putting the big projects at risk.
Tighter availability of the forge panels could affect the blooming industry and can set back the efforts of Joe
Biden to decarbonize. The de-carbonation of the power sector is the centerpiece of his plan to work against climate change. The US solar industry sees 90% of panels made overseas.
Among the issues which are clouding the outlook of the collar is an attempt from US authorities to block the shipments of panels. These panels are continuing the components that derived from the forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.
Biden has imposed an import ban which is targeting the Hoshine Silicon Industry Co of China in June. Further, hundreds of megawatts of panels got detained at the border.
US Customs and Border Protection would not disclose the number of solar products that it has detailed. China also denied the aspect of forced labor for solar component production.
At the same time, a tiny domestic solar manufacturing industry has submitted an anonymous petition. He called upon the US Commerce Department to impose new tariffs on the solemnity of the imported panels over the accusation of dumping products at low prices.
The Commerce Department will decide whether to consider the request that can affect the imports from Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. If it gets imposed, those tariffs can jeopardize18 gigawatts of solar projects.
The small group of domestic solar manufacturers says that they remain anonymous due to the disclosure of their names.
US solar developers said that suppliers in Southeast Asia have already cut sales in the United States over the fears that the panels can get hit with retroactive levies.
In the United States, the maritime shipments of solar modules were already down by 11% in 2020.
“We are getting hit pretty hard right now,” Markus Wilhelm, chief executive of solar project developer Strata Solar, said. “We are completely dependent on a global supply chain, so we are a little bit more vulnerable.”
“We can’t get module manufacturers today to sign purchase orders that we need to deliver projects in the near term,” George Hershman, president of the solar contractor Swinerton Renewable Energy, said on the call.
One of the latest solar panel makers, JinkoSolar has been caught in the crosshairs for both border seizures and new Tarif potentials. The company said that US customs stopped some of its solar panels at the border. The company is also among the Chinese companies that domestic petitioners have targeted.Former 30- year federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner came up with a proposal to prevent future corruption. He came up with this proposal for all elected leaders across the USA.
Americans have learned this week that former president Donald Trump wants his officials to lie about the facts regarding Russia. He further made them speak lies on the Mexico border and US and White Supremacy.
Kirschner suggested that it is the right time to add the word of the oath to office: “… and that I will faithfully report corruption, crime, and abuse in the government of which I become aware…”
The former principal deputy undersecretary in the Department of Homeland Security, Brain Murphy, reveals that Americans were facing threats from Russians. It also includes the threats from white supremacists.
This is not the first instance of corruption in the Trump administration. Several Cabinet-level secretaries faced the force to resign after the revelation that they used the office for personal and financial gain. Citizens for responsibility and Ethics in Washington also reported ahead on the final days of Trump.
These efforts may be a way to stem the future of Republican corruption. Many political analysts say Trump’s administration ignored the oath of office. The oath states that all elected officials should “solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Jennifer Rubin wrote at that time that it was clear in the first impeachment how many had the will to breach the oath. After Jan 6, more started asking the same question regarding if any Republicans would be held accountable for stopping the constitutional process.
Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman said that they also swore on a Bible to uphold the Constitution; this was exactly where they stepped outside and being in the dereliction of Duty.The government body SEC has charged WPP as it has failed to control corruption and to ensure that its subsidiaries are meeting accounting standards. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has fined WPP more than $19m over the charges of multiple allegations of bribery. It has been further saying that WPP has failed to meet anti-corruption and accounting standards at some of the acquired subsidiaries of holding groups.
According to the SEC, this holding company had “implemented an aggressive business growth strategy that included acquiring majority interests in many localized advertising agencies in high-risk markets. The order finds that WPP failed to ensure that these subsidiaries implemented WPP’s internal accounting controls and compliance policies, instead of allowing the founders and CEOs of the acquired entities to exercise wide autonomy and outsized influence.”
It further continues that the order also finds out that due to the structural deficiencies, WPP has failed promptly to respond even after repeated warning signs for corruption or control failures at certain subsidiaries. According to the order, a subsidiary in India can continue to bribe the Indian government officials in return for advertising contracts even though WPP has received 7 anonymous complaints.
The order also documents various other schemes and the internal accounting control deficiencies. These deficiencies have connections to the subsidiaries of WPP from Brazil, Peru, and China-related to bribery.
Charles Cain, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit Chief at SEC, said that a company could not focus on the profitability or market share to come at the cost of appropriate control. Further, companies need to determine the root cause for the problems when there is an emergence of red flags. It is important to prevent the pattern for corrupt behavior from taking hold.
WPP further did not admit or deny the finding of SEC. It said that the holding group has further agreed to cease committing violations of books, records, and anti-bribery. Also, it will cease the internal accounting controls provisions for FCPA. It needs to pay a further $10.1 million in disgorgement, $1.1 million for prejudgment interest, and $8 million as a penalty.For 2 decades now, lawmakers in Washington have been waging an escalating display of brinkmanship over the ability of the federal government to borrow money. They have forced the administrations of both parties to take action. It is pushing the nation close to economic calamity with a political game. But they have never stopped the US from default.
The dance is keeping up with the repetition of this fall. But this time, the dynamics are quite different, and the threat is even greater than before.
Republicans in Congress have refused to help the debt limit of the nation. Republicans agree that the US must pay its bills. But on Monday, they are expecting to block a measure in the Senate Which would enable the government to do so. Democrats are insistent that republicans help to pay for the past decisions that can boost spending and cut taxes. But they have refused to use any special process to raise the limit on their own.
Observers are worried about the recovery of the economic nascent during the pandemic downturn. If the limit has not been raised or suspended, officials at the Treasury Department warned that the government would exhaust its ability to borrow the money. It is further forcing the officials to choose between the missing payments on the military salaries,
Republicans have further threatened to filibuster any of the Senate Democrats’ attempts to pass a simple bill to increase its browsing. Other party leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky want to force Democrats to raise their limit with a fast-track congressional process.
The pandemic is continuing to ravage the US frequently, which is disrupting the economic activity and the taxes that the government collects. It is further complicating the ability of the Treasury to gauge its cash flow. Amidst the uncertainty, congressional leaders and
Biden are not attempting to negotiate any resolution. It is further making the political game more intense. They are sparring over who should be saddled with a vote that can be used further to raise odds that can be partial stubbornness.