Pakistan

Financial services copes with Fahie fallout

admin — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 17:30:01 +0000

Financial services copes with Fahie fallout admin Mon, 06/20/2022 - 17:30

Friday, May 6, 2022

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Financial services copes with Fahie fallout

The Virgin Islands financial services industry rushed to distance itself from the Miami arrests last Thursday of Premier Andrew Fahie and BVI Ports Authority Managing Director Oleanvine Maynard — as well as the allegations of likely government corruption contained in the Commission of Inquiry report released the next day.

In a Friday statement, BVI Finance said the arrests “should [not] be conflated with the BVI financial services sector, which is operationally independent.”

Governor John Rankin spoke similarly when announcing details of the COI report last week, stating that the inquiry was “not an investigation into the BVI’s financial services sector” and offering his “continued support for the work of the BVI’s Commercial Court, the Financial Services Commission and other regulatory bodies that continue to operate as normal acting in accordance with international regulatory standards and a robust English common law framework.”

The governor also noted the territory’s “continued good cooperation with law enforcement agencies in the financial [services] field and the steps being taken with regard to the introduction of publicly accessible beneficial ownership registers.”

‘World-class’ centre

BVI Finance welcomed the governor’s remarks, stating that the jurisdiction “will continue to offer its products and services as a respected world-class international financial centre.”

On Monday, the BVI Financial Services Commission also weighed in, issuing a statement reminding the public that the COI described the FSC as “an example of a statutory board which has policies in place to promote good governance” and consequently the COI did not see the “need to call for oral evidence on” its activities.

“The [FSC] will continue to robustly implement and enforce all the financial services laws of the territory,” the agency wrote. “Accordingly, the commission implores persons within the financial services sphere to adhere to all the commission’s financial services laws and regulatory standards.”

However, a portion of the criminal complaint against Mr. Fahie and Ms. Maynard, who allegedly offered to use “shell companies” to launder drug proceeds, does appear to call into question the role of the financial services industry in the case.

Likewise, some international media reports have linked the financial services sector, which has come under fire on multiple fronts in recent years, to the arrests and the findings of the COI report.

The Financial Times called the arrests “the latest blow” to the VI’s image, noting the territory’s “outsize influence on the controversial world of offshore finance.” The newspaper added that the industry was already coping with fallout from last year’s Pandora Papers leak, which revealed thousands of companies registered in the VI were linked to rich and famous figures, some of whom have been linked to corruption and wrongdoing in other countries.

The arrests also occurred shortly after the territory was grey-listed as a tax jurisdiction by the European Union. Additionally, the VI soon faces the prospect of giving up its clients’ privacy because of a United Kingdom requirement to establish a public register of company ownership next year.

Mixed reactions

Around the world, reactions to the Miami arrests were mixed.

On Twitter, Syed Shabbar Zaidi, former chairman of Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue, called Mr. Fahie’s arrest “an eye opener” and suggested that it meant that assets are not safe in offshore centres.

“Keep assets in Pakistan,” he advised his fellow citizens.

However, Luc Cohen, a reporter for Reuters, noted in a Tweet that information in the criminal complaint in fact reflected poorly on US financial services. He pointed out that Ms. Maynard allegedly “suggested receiving drug money in a bank account belonging to a Florida real estate company owned by her son.”

“Remind me who the ‘offshore’ ‘secrecy jurisdiction’ is?” he wrote.

The post Financial services copes with Fahie fallout first appeared on The BVI Beacon.

The post Financial services copes with Fahie fallout appeared first on The BVI Beacon.

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Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for data flows to be exempt from cross-border tariffs

admin — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 19:00:01 +0000

Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for data flows to be exempt from cross-border tariffs

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admin Sun, 06/19/2022 - 19:00

Friday, June 17, 2022

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Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for dat…

The global technology industry is pressing the World Trade Organization to exempt data flows from cross-border tariffs, saying a failure to do so would undermine a global recovery already threatened by spiralling prices.

The WTO’s 164 members presented their views on the topic on Wednesday, [June 15] the final scheduled day of a four-day ministerial conference.

Keisal Peters, [minister of state in the Ministry of Foreign Trade] of St Vincent and the Grenadines, who is leading discussions, said at the conference that divergences remained. As time ran out, WTO members should consider meeting halfway, she added.

The WTO agreed in 1998 to a moratorium on e-commerce tariffs and repeatedly extended it at ministerial conferences, which the Geneva-based trade body normally holds every two years.

Now India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa were threatening to block an extension, trade sources close to talks at the WTO said. This raises the prospect that tariffs could be imposed on such data flows as music streaming and financial transactions.

That possibility has prompted 108 tech company associations, including groups from India and Indonesia, to write to the WTO urging members to renew the moratorium, saying failure to do so would be a historic setback for the WTO and would undermine the global recovery.

Small developing countries, they say, would lose the chance to increase their digital competitiveness without a moratorium.

John Neuffer, chief executive of the U.S.-based Semiconductor Industry Association, said tariff-free data flows were essential for countries wishing to attract foreign [trade]. They also offered clear benefits to consumers and small businesses, he said.

“We heard alarm bells that things were in trouble, with much more risk of the moratorium not being extended.”

Studies demonstrated that tariff revenue benefits would be outweighed by economic losses, he said.

An EU official said countries favouring a moratorium extension were still hoping for a multilateral deal. They were not yet at the point of seeking a plan B – forming a smaller alliance in which they would not impose tariffs on data flows between them (Reuters).

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Dominica to host West Indies vs Bangladesh T20 I Cricket on July 2nd and 3rd

admin — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 03:10:01 +0000

Dominica to host West Indies vs Bangladesh T20 I Cricket on July 2nd and 3rd

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admin Sun, 06/19/2022 - 03:10

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

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Local – Dominica Vibes News

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Dominica to host West Indies vs Bangladesh T20 I Cricket on July 2nd and 3rd

Windsor Park Sports Stadium

Dominica is set to host the West Indies vs Bangladesh T20 I Cricket on July 2nd and 3rd at the Windsor Park Sports Stadium, where the International Cricket will make a return for the first time since May 2017. The full schedule for both games is now confirmed with both matches featuring Bangladesh vs West Indies. Dominica has hosted four international cricket matches at the WPSS, the first ODI West Indies vs Bangladesh in July 2009, followed by a second ODI, West Indies vs South Africa in May 2010, the first T20 I West Indies vs New Zealand in July 2014 and the last being a Test Match, West Indies vs Pakistan from May 10-14, 2017.

Director of Tourism, Colin Piper stated that, “The Discover Dominica Authority would like to express its gratitude to Cricket West Indies and the Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica for their efforts and assistance in bringing international cricket back to Dominica after a five-year absence. We are convinced that the two T20I matches in Dominica on July 2nd and 3rd will be fantastic, and we expect a strong turnout of local, regional, and international cricket fans to enjoy the fixtures.”

Cricket West Indies, Events Management Executive, Ms. Joneé Charles said “The return of T20I games to Dominica is fantastic. We are delighted that Dominica has been chosen to host these two matches, and we hope to host more in the future. After a challenging two years owing to the pandemic, we must express our gratitude to the local organizing committee and Cricket West Indies for staging these T20I matches.”

In the following days, a full announcement on entry protocols and ticketing information for the Windsor Park Sports Stadium experience will be made. In the interim, cricket fans and patrons can expect a “Carnival-like” atmosphere with various local Dominican cultural presentations and an “after party” experience.

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Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for data flows to be exempt from cross-border tariffs

admin — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 14:20:01 +0000

Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for data flows to be exempt from cross-border tariffs

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admin Sat, 06/18/2022 - 14:20

Friday, June 17, 2022

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Original Article

Minister Peters leads discussions at WTO as global tech industry pushes for dat…

The WTO’s 164 members presented their views on the topic on Wednesday, [June 15] the final scheduled day of a four-day ministerial conference.

The WTO agreed in 1998 to a moratorium on e-commerce tariffs and repeatedly extended it at ministerial conferences, which the Geneva-based trade body normally holds every two years.

Small developing countries, they say, would lose the chance to increase their digital competitiveness without a moratorium.

“We heard alarm bells that things were in trouble, with much more risk of the moratorium not being extended.”

Studies demonstrated that tariff revenue benefits would be outweighed by economic losses, he said.

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US$17-trillion loss!

admin — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 12:30:01 +0000

US$17-trillion loss!

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admin Thu, 12/09/2021 - 12:30

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

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Jamaica Observer

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US$17-trillion loss!

Up to US$17 trillion in lifetime earnings could be lost by the current generation of students because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report published by the World Bank, UNICEF and UNESCO yesterday.

The figure, which is equivalent to about 14 per cent of today's global gross domestic product (GDP), relates to the learning losses from the pandemic-related school closures and far exceeds the US$10 billion estimate made last year.

It was contained in the study, entitled The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery. The report shows that in low- and middle-income countries, the share of children living in Learning Poverty - already 53 per cent before the pandemic - could potentially reach 70 per cent given the long school closures and the ineffectiveness of remote learning to ensure full learning continuity during school closures.

Commenting on the report, Jaime Saavedra, World Bank Global Director for Education, was forthright: "The COVID-19 crisis brought education systems across the world to a halt. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for millions of children, and others may never return to school. The loss of learning that many children are experiencing is morally unacceptable. And the potential increase of learning poverty might have a devastating impact on future productivity, earnings, and well-being for this generation of children and youth, their families, and the world's economies."

Evidence from Brazil, Pakistan, rural India, South Africa, and Mexico, among others, show substantial losses in math and reading. Analysis shows that in some countries, on average, learning losses are roughly proportional to the length of the closures. The estimated learning losses were greater in math than reading, and affected younger learners, students from low-income backgrounds, as well as girls, disproportionately.

Barring a few exceptions, the report shows the general trends from emerging evidence around the world align with the findings from Mexico, suggesting that the crisis has exacerbated inequities in education:

- Children from low-income households, children with disabilities, and girls were less likely to access remote learning than their peers. This was often due to lack of accessible technologies and the availability of electricity, connectivity, and devices, as well as discrimination and gender norms.

- Younger students had less access to remote learning and were more affected by learning loss than older students, especially among pre-school age children in pivotal learning and development stages.

- The detrimental impact on learning has disproportionately affected the most marginalised or vulnerable. Learning losses were greater for students of lower socioeconomic status in countries like Ghana, Mexico, and Pakistan.

- Initial evidence points to larger losses among girls, as they are quickly losing the protection that schools and learning offers to their well-being and life chances.

The report highlights that, to date, less than 3 per cent of governments' stimulus packages have been allocated to education, and called for more funding to aid immediate learning recovery. The report also notes that while nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives differed - in most cases, they offered, at best, a rather partial substitute for in-person instruction. More than 200 million learners live in low- and lower middle-income countries that are unprepared to deploy remote learning during emergency school closures.

It also called on governments to make reopening schools a top and urgent priority and pressed for learning recovery programmes to be put in place with the objective of ensuring that students of this generation attain at least the same competencies of the previous generation.

"We are committed to supporting governments more generally with their COVID response through the mission recovery plan launched earlier this year," emphasised Stefania Giannini, UNESCO assistant director-general for education. "With government leadership and support from the international community, there is a great deal that can be done to make systems more equitable, efficient, and resilient, capitalising on lessons learned throughout the pandemic and on increasing investments. But to do that, we must make children and youth a real priority amidst all the other demands of the pandemic response. Their future - and our collective future - depends on it."

To build more resilient education systems for the long-term, countries should consider:

- Investing in the enabling environment to unlock the potential of digital learning opportunities for all students.

- Reinforcing the role of parents, families, and communities in children's learning.

- Ensuring teachers have support and access to high-quality professional development opportunities.

- Increasing the share of education in the national budget allocation of stimulus packages.

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This' why Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp shut down

admin — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 08:40:01 +0000

This' why Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp shut down

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admin Fri, 10/08/2021 - 08:40

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

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The Citizen

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This' why Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp shut down

Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world's reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant.

But what actually caused the outage?

In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janardhan, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, said that "configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centres caused issues that interrupted this communication".

Facebook explained Tuesday the outage was "caused not by malicious activity, but an error of our own making."

Can you explain that in plain English?

Cyber experts think the problem boils down to something called BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol -- the system the internet uses to pick the quickest route to move packets of information around.

Sami Slim of data centre company Telehouse compared BGP to "the internet equivalent of air traffic control".

In the same way that air traffic controllers sometimes make changes to flight schedules, "Facebook did an update of these routes," Slim said.

But this update contained a crucial error.

It's not yet clear how or why, but Facebook's routers essentially sent a message to the internet announcing that the company's servers no longer existed.

Why did it take so long to fix the problem?

Experts say Facebook's technical infrastructure is unusually reliant on its own systems -- and that proved disastrous on Monday.

After Facebook sent the fateful routing update, its engineers got locked out of the system that would allow them to communicate that the update had, in fact, been an error. So they couldn't fix the problem.

"Normally it's good not to put all your eggs in one basket," said Pierre Bonis of AFNIC, the association that manages domain names in France.

"For security reasons, Facebook has had to very strongly concentrate its infrastructure," he said.

"That streamlines things on a daily basis -- but because everything is in the same place, when that place has a problem, nothing works."

The knock-on effects of the shutdown included some Facebook employees being unable to even enter their buildings because their security badges no longer worked, further slowing the response.

Is this unprecedented?

Social media outages are not uncommon: Instagram alone has experienced more than 80 in the past year in the United States, according to website builder ToolTester.

This week's Facebook outage was rare in its length and scale, however.

There is also a precedent for BGP meddling being at the root of a social media shutdown.

In 2008, when a Pakistani internet service provider was attempting to block YouTube for domestic users, it inadvertently shut down the global website for several hours.

And the outage's impact?

Between Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, "billions of users have been impacted by the services being entirely offline", the Downdetector tracking service said.

Facebook, whose shares fell nearly five percent over the outage, has stressed there is "no evidence that user data was compromised as a result of this downtime".

But even though it lasted just a few hours, the impact of the shutdown ran deep.

Facebook's services are crucial for many businesses around the world, and users complained of being cut off from their livelihoods.

Facebook accounts are also commonly used to log in to other websites, which faced additional problems due to the company's technical meltdown.

Rival instant messaging services, meanwhile, reported that they had benefited from the fact that WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger were down.

Telegram went from the 56th-most downloaded free app in the United States to the fifth, according to monitoring firm SensorTower, while Signal tweeted that "millions" of new users had joined.

And among the more curious side-effects, several domain name registration companies listed Facebook.com as available for purchase.

"There was never any reason to believe Facebook.com would actually be sold as a result, but it's fun to consider how many billions of dollars it could fetch on the open market," said cyber security expert Brian Krebs.

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These countries do not qualify for United States Diversity Visa program

admin — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 20:20:01 +0000

These countries do not qualify for United States Diversity Visa program admin Mon, 10/04/2021 - 20:20

Friday, October 1, 2021

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Local – Dominican Today

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These countries do not qualify for United States Diversity Visa program

Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela, and Colombia are some of the nations that do not meet the requirements of the contest to obtain permanent residence

Santo Domingo, DR.

The United States Department of State that administers the Diversity Visa Program, better known as the “green card lottery,” issued a statement listing the countries that do not qualify to receive permanent residency through the program by 2023.

Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland), and Vietnam are the countries listed as “ineligible” to apply for the program.

According to the regulations, the native people of these countries cannot apply because more than 50,000 individuals had already emigrated to the United States in the last five years.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1990, which originated the program, establishes that the so-called “diversity immigrants,” people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, are those who can apply to the “lottery.”

How are they chosen?

The entity chooses those selected through a random computer algorithm. By 2023, up to 55,000 visas will be available for this concept.

The State Department distributes diversity visas among six regions worldwide, and no country can receive more than 7% of the visas available for each year.

Registration in the program is entirely free.

Apply? These are the requirements.

The first requirement is to be a native of a country with a historically low migration rate. In case you are not a native of a country that possesses this characteristic, then you could consider qualifying through the following route:

–If your spouse is a native of a country that does meet the program’s migration rate. In that case, you can claim the country of birth of your husband or wife as long as they are both listed on the selected entry and enter the United States simultaneously.

You must also complete at least a secondary education or its equivalent, qualified as “successful completion,” or two years of work experience in the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to carry out.

Registration of requests

Applicants must submit program tickets electronically via dvprogram.state.gov between 12:00 noon on Wednesday, October 6, and 12:00 noon on Tuesday, November 9, 2021.

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Pandora Papers: Global investigation exposes secrets of some of Nigeria’s rich and powerful

admin — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 16:20:02 +0000

Pandora Papers: Global investigation exposes secrets of some of Nigeria’s rich and powerful

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admin Mon, 10/04/2021 - 16:20

Sunday, October 3, 2021

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READ ALSO: OPL245 Scandal: Nigeria’s case against JP Morgan to go to trial

“In popular imagination, the offshore system is often seen as a far-flung scattering of palm-shaded islands. The Pandora Papers show that the offshore money machine operates in every corner of the world, including financial capitals of the richest and most powerful economies,” the ICIJ added.

Globally, the Pandora Papers investigation will reveal the secret owners of offshore companies, anonymous bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, and artworks by Picasso, Banksy, and other masters.

“It provides more information than what’s usually available to law enforcement agencies and cash-strapped governments,” the ICIJ said.

“Large numbers of public officials and mega-wealthy individuals — who in some cases are one and the same — use the offshore system to manage, move and, often, hide their wealth. They play by different rules from the rest of humanity, in a game of intrigue and privilege that fuels crime and corruption and entrenches the power of the world’s economic and political elites.

“The Pandora Papers investigation is larger and more global than even ICIJ’s landmark Panama Papers investigation, which rocked the world in 2016, spawning police raids and new laws in dozens of countries and the fall of prime ministers in Iceland and Pakistan.

“The Panama Papers came from the files of a single offshore services provider: the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The Pandora Papers shine a light on a far wider cross-section of the lawyers, middlemen and fixers who are at the heart of the offshore industry.

“The Pandora Papers lay bare the finances of many more country leaders and public officials than did the Panama Papers and provide more than twice as much information about the ownership of offshore companies. In all, the new leaks uncover the real owners of more than 29,000 offshore companies the owners come from more than 200 countries, with the largest contingents from Russia, the U.K., Argentina, China and Brazil.”

The Pandora Papers Vs Panama Papers

The Pandora Papers series is launching more than five years after the Panama Papers revelations, which were published in 2016. That investigation exposed offshore companies linked to more than 140 politicians in more than 50 countries – including 14 world leaders.

It also uncovered offshore hideaways tied to mega-banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins, Syria’s air war on its own citizens and a network of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin who shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.

In the course of that investigation in Nigeria, PREMIUM TIMES published more than 30 stories, with damning details revealing the secret offshore asset of many prominent Nigerians.

It is not illegal for Nigerians who are not public officers to own offshore accounts, and many prominent businesses do have them. However, some public officials found to have accounts did not disclose them as expected by law.

This newspaper’s investigations revealed the secret offshore assets of Senate President Bukola Saraki and his wife Toyin; as well as those of Mr Saraki’s predecessor, David Mark.

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Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak

admin — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 16:00:01 +0000

Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak

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admin Mon, 10/04/2021 - 16:00

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Original Publisher

Every corner of the world

The Pandora Papers investigation unmasks the covert owners of offshore companies, incognito bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, even artworks by Picasso, Banksy and other masters – providing more information than what’s usually available to law enforcement agencies and cash-strapped governments.

People linked by the secret documents to offshore assets include India’s cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar, pop music diva Shakira, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and an Italian mobster known as “Lell the Fat One.”

The mobster, Raffaele Amato, has been tied to at least a dozen killings. The documents provide details about a shell company, registered in the United Kingdom, that Amato used to buy land in Spain, shortly before fleeing there from Italy to set up his own crime gang. Amato, whose history helped inspire the highly praised movie “Gomorrah,” is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Amato’s attorney did not respond to ICIJ’s request for comment.

Tendulkar’s attorney said the cricket player’s investment is legitimate and has been declared to tax authorities. Shakira’s attorney said the singer declared her companies, which the attorney said do not provide tax advantages. Schiffer’s representatives said the supermodel correctly pays her taxes in the U.K., where she lives.

In most countries, it’s not illegal to have assets offshore or to use shell companies to do business across national borders. Businesspeople who operate internationally say they need offshore companies to conduct their financial affairs.

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Super Tucano aircraft alone can’t fight insecurity – Air Chief

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 17:40:02 +0000

Super Tucano aircraft alone can’t fight insecurity – Air Chief

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admin Fri, 10/01/2021 - 17:40

Thursday, September 30, 2021

Original Publisher

Super Tucano alone not sufficient

Explaining the efficiency of the aircraft, Mr Amao, an air marshal, stated that the Super Tucano aircraft alone cannot do the fight without the ground troops.

He said the armed forces are already in collaboration to put an end to the lingering insecurity bedeviling the country.

“Yes the Super Tucanos have brought in a lot of bites to the fight and I can tell you for a fact that as we speak now, the airplanes are operating in the North-east.

“Just yesterday, I had a meeting with the commander out there and the vendors who supplied us the air planes to review the operations of the aircraft and I can tell you for a fact that there is a very positive response as to the effectiveness of the operations of those airplanes in the theatre of operations.

“I also want to clarify something here that air power alone cannot win this war, it will take a collective efforts like the Chief of Defence Staff has said, the military, civil society organisations, and all other stakeholders.

“So while the Super Tucano is going to play a very prominent role, let’s not sit back and think that the Super Tucano also is going to end this war. It is not going to happen, it is going to be a collective effort,” the Air Force Chief said.

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