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» Fiddler On The Roof - Ivan Rebroff (If I Were A Rich Man & To Life) - YouTube
04/04/16 13:16 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Mike Nova's YouTube Videos. Uploaded on Oct 12, 2010 Ivan Rebroff -- Live in Concert : Sydney-Australia (1982) Ivan Rebroff, born as Hans-Rolf Rippert, (31 July 1931 - 27 February 2008), was a German s...

» Panama Papers: biggest leak in history published by German newspaper - YouTube
04/04/16 13:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Mike Nova's YouTube Videos. Published on Apr 3, 2016 Details are emerging from a giant leak of confidential documents: the so-called Panama Papers. Eleven million records expose the offshore holdings o...

» Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens - BBC News - YouTube
04/04/16 13:02 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinks
mikenova shared this story from Mike Nova's YouTube Videos. Published on Apr 3, 2016 Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens. A leak of eleven million confidential documents from a Panamanian law firm has revea...

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How the Wealthy Hide their Money by BBC World Service
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:42 PM

International Edition - Voice Of America

Law firm helped some clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax; the pressure on President Jacob Zuma of South Africa looks set to continue this coming week; Marcel Khalifa plays in London and speaks to Newshour. (Photo: Panama Papers Credit: BBC)

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International Edition 1805 EDT - April 03, 2016 by VOA
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:42 PM

The #PanamaPapers expose billions of dollars of secretive transactions involving 140 politicians - we speak with a senior editor of the report. Donald Trump in a political battle this week. Eric Church gives away his new album.

Download audio: http://av.voanews.com/clips/VEN/2016/04/03/20160403-220500-VEN060-program.mp3

AM: Huge document leak reveals elite's tax havensby BBC World Service
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:42 PM

Global News Podcast

Azeris 'call truce' in Caucasus clash, Hong Kong political movie wins 'Best Film' award, West Indies beat England to win the cricket WorldTwenty20

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International Edition 2330 EDT - April 03, 2016 by VOA
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:41 PM

International Edition - Voice Of America

Panama Papers leak. Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions. Progress against Islamic State. Congress back from recess.

Download audio: http://av.voanews.com/clips/VEN/2016/04/04/20160404-033000-VEN060-program.mp3

BBC World Service - Newshour, Panama Papers
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:36 PM

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Panama Papers

Tax haven papers leaked; Greece starts deporting migrants to Turkey; Kim Philby tape found.

Photograph shows the Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. An investigation by more than 100

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The Panama Papers · ICIJ
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:34 PM

The Panama Papers

Offshore Network Tied to Putin

Secret files reveal complex multimillion dollar offshore financial deals that channel wealth and power towards a network of people and companies closely allied to the Russian President.

All Putin’s Men: Secret Records Reveal Money Network Tied to Russian Leader · ICIJ
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:34 PM

The Panama Papers

By Jake Bernstein, Petra Blum, Oliver Zihlmann, David Thompson, Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer

Reading time: 17 minutes

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In this story

According to analysis, as much as $2 billion has been secretly shuffled through banks and shadow companies linked to Putin’s associates
Bank Rossiya, identified by the U.S. as Putin’s personal cashbox, has been instrumental in building a network of offshore companies
Dozens of loans, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars, sold between offshore companies for as little as $1 or less

Vladimir Putin and Sergey Roldugin forged a bond as young men. Fast friends, almost like brothers, they cruised the streets of Leningrad, singing and, in Putin’s case, occasionally getting into fistfights.

As Putin rose to power as Russia’s supreme leader and Roldugin made a name for himself as a classical cellist and conductor, the two remained close. Roldugin has performed for Putin and high-profile guests at the president’s official residence and has given media interviews that softened Putin’s fearsome image.

Now a leak of secret documents reveals another, hidden side of their friendship.

The records show Roldugin is a behind-the-scenes player in a clandestine network operated by Putin associates that has shuffled at least $2 billion through banks and offshore companies, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners has found.

In the documents, Roldugin is listed as the owner of offshore companies that have obtained payments from other companies worth tens of millions of dollars. A company linked to the cellist also grabbed secret influence over Russia’s largest truck maker, another snagged a big slice of Russia’s TV advertising industry.

It’s possible Roldugin, who has publicly claimed not to be a businessman, is not the true beneficiary of these riches. Instead, the evidence in the files suggests Roldugin is acting as a front man for a network of Putin loyalists – and perhaps for Putin himself.

Roldugin did not respond to detailed questions. Reporters from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, an ICIJ partner, met briefly with the musician after a concert in Moscow last week. Roldugin told them he needed more time to review the questions and determine what he could say.

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Fiddler On The Roof - Ivan Rebroff (If I Were A Rich Man & To Life) - YouTube
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:16 PM

Uploaded on Oct 12, 2010

Ivan Rebroff -- Live in Concert : Sydney-Australia (1982)

Ivan Rebroff, born as Hans-Rolf Rippert, (31 July 1931 - 27 February 2008), was a German singer, allegedly of Russian ancestry, with an extraordinary vocal range of four and a half octaves, ranging from the soprano to impressive bass registers.

Serge de Camps - guitar, bass balalaika
Franz Friedl - piano, organ
Waldemar Haibel - prima balalaika
Alexander Kanewski - accordion
Josef Szalai - violin

Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Milkman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem.

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Panama Papers: biggest leak in history published by German newspaper - YouTube
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:15 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

Details are emerging from a giant leak of confidential documents: the so-called Panama Papers.

Eleven million records expose the offshore holdings of some 140 politicians from more than fifty countries.

The information in the leak covers associates of the Russian president, current and former leaders including prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia.

Professional athletes, FIFA officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers have all had their…
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2016/04/03/pa...

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Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens - BBC News - YouTube
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:02 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens. A leak of eleven million confidential documents from a Panamanian law firm has revealed the extent to which the world's rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth. The documents, to which the BBC has had access, show how a law firm helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions, and evade tax. Among the papers are suspicious deals involving a close friend of Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The firm, called Mossack Fonseca, says it has operated beyond reproach for 40 years and have never been accused or charged with criminal wrong-doing. Richard Bilton reports.

Explained: What Do The Panama Papers Reveal - YouTube
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 1:01 PM

Print Article Comments Book mark article Read later list

Published on Apr 4, 2016

Individuals who have set up offshore entities through the Panama law firm. Some of the Indians floated offshore entities at a time when laws did not allow them to do so; some have taken a technically convenient view that companies acquired is not the same as companies incorporated; some have bunched their annual quota of remittances to subscribe to shares in an offshore entity acquired at an earlier date. Still, some others have received income earned abroad and deposited it in the entity to avoid tax. Some have opened a bank account to keep payoffs in government contracts, or held “proceeds of crime” or property bought with money made illegally in Trusts/ Foundations. - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/indi...

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The Panama Papers are super awkward for Beijing - The Washington Post
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 12:49 PM

The Panama Papers are super awkward for Beijing

Resize Text

By Emily Rauhala April 4 at 6:32 AM

The Panama Papers, a massive report that claims to document shady business dealings by a who’s who of the global elite, landed in China on a national holiday, presenting the authorities with an interesting, probably vexing, question: How to scrub the web of the juicy-but-as-yet-unconfirmed disclosures about politically connected Chinese?

The findings -- the result of a year-long collaboration between a German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 media outlets -- sets out to expose “a cast of characters who use offshore companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion and drug trafficking."

That includes, by ICIJ’s count, dirt on 140 political figures, including 12 current or former heads of state. It also names the family members of eight current or former members of China’s politburo, according to the Guardian’s tally.

One of the people mentioned in the report is Deng Jiagui, the brother-in-law of China’s current president, Xi Jinping. Another is Li Xiaolin, the tycoon daughter of China’s former premier, Li Peng. It lists Hong Kong as a source of key “active intermediaries” in the secretive work.

[China’s Xi tells grumbling party cadres: ‘Don’t talk back’]

Reporting on the 11.5 million tax documents -- some of them leaked -- is being published in batches. And a full account may be days or weeks away. The Washington Post has not seen all of the source material and cannot independently verify what the documents are said to reveal.

The initial reporting hints that a number of Chinese nationals with high-level government ties have dealt with Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the center of the leak. Mossack Fonesca has denied all accusations of illegal activity. The Post has not seen evidence of illegal activity by the Chinese nationals named.

[Is China heading in the wrong direction? For once, the West calls Beijing out.]

Although there are legal uses for shell companies, the charges are sure to rile Beijing.

China’s ruling Communist Party does not like to discuss the wealth of its leaders, or their families, especially as it wages an aggressive, if selective, anti-corruption campaign.

In 2012, investigations by the New York Times and Bloomberg News revealed the wealth and business dealings of family members of both Xi and former Premier Wen Jiabao. The reports were blocked in China and resulted in both companies being denied some journalist visas for several years.

In 2014, a report jointly published by the ICIJ and the Center for Public Integrity found 22,000 alleged tax haven clients from Hong Kong and China. That investigation found offshore accounts linked to more than a dozen of China’s richest people, including members of the National People’s Congress and executives from state-owned firms caught up in corruption probes.

[How China’s premier survived a two-hour news conference without answering a single hard question]

The 2014 report made specific mention of relatives of Wen and Xi. Two red letter names mentioned in the Panama Papers — Xi’s brother-in-law Deng, and former Premier Li Peng’s daughter, Li Xiaolin — were named in their findings as well.

Asked about the story at a Foreign Ministry press conference that year, a Chinese government spokesperson called the investigation “hardly convincing." The report was subsequently blocked. The Chinese press did not play up the story.

With most of China enjoying a long weekend, the latest report did not immediately make waves online.

On FreeWeibo, a website that tracks search terms and posts that are blocked or deleted, most of the material scrubbed on Monday morning was about a dystopian Hong Kong film, Ten Years, not the Panama Papers.

What China’s Xi Jinping thinks about freedom

Chinese website publishes, then pulls, explosive letter calling for President Xi’s resignation

Pursuing critics, China reaches across borders. And nobody is stopping it.

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The Panama Papers by mikenova
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 12:42 PM

The World Web News – Headlines Review By Mike Nova

The Panama Papers

The Panama Papers · ICIJ

All Putin’s Men: Secret Records Reveal Money Network Tied to Russian Leader · ICIJ
Panama Papers – Google Search
News – Panama Papers – Google Search
Panama Papers Putin – Google Search
News – Panama Papers Putin – Google Search
Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin | News | The Guardian
How to hide a billion dollars | The Panama Papers – YouTube
Panama Law Firm’s Leaked Files Detail Offshore Accounts Tied to World Leaders – The New York Times
Panama Leaked Files Spark Angry Reaction in Moscow – WSJ
The Panama Papers are super awkward for Beijing – The Washington Post
Встреча с руководителем Федерального архивного агентства Андреем Артизовым • Президент России

Panama Papers by BBC World Service

Monday April 4th, 2016 at 12:00 PM

Tax haven papers leaked; Greece starts deporting migrants to Turkey; Kim Philby tape found. Photograph shows the Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. An investigation by more than 100 media groups revealed the hidden offshore assets of around 140 political figures, among them Gunnlaugsson. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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Panama Papers by BBC World Service
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 12:00 PM

The New York Web Times – Press This!

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Panama Law Firm’s Leaked Files Detail Offshore Accounts Tied to World Leaders - The New York Times
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 11:26 AM

WASHINGTON — A group of news media outlets published articles on Sunday based on what they said were 11.5 million leaked documents from a Panama law firm that helped some of the world’s wealthiest people — including politicians, athletes and business moguls — establish offshore bankaccounts.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said its reporters had obtained the documents from a confidential source. The newspaper then shared the files with other media organizations, like The Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

In an article, the investigative journalism organization said the documents revealed the offshore accounts of 140 politicians and public officials, including a dozen current and former world leaders and several individuals with close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The organization said reporters at 100 news media outlets working in 25 languages had used the documents to investigate the law firm, Mossack Fonseca, and its clients, including political figures in countries like Iceland, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

It is not illegal in many cases to have offshore bank accounts. But they are used in some instances by wealthy individuals and criminals to hide money and business transactions, and to avoid paying taxes.

The leak followed a series of high-profile breaches in recent years in which individuals working for governments or companies have amassed internal files and then given them to media organizations. In 2014, Edward J. Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency, gave reporters what intelligence officials have estimated was at least 1.5 million documents from the agency. Hundreds of articles have been published based on those documents.

The media organizations looking into Mossack Fonseca are expected to publish many more articles based on the new documents in the coming days.

The firm, which has dozens of offices around the world, has been investigated by law enforcement authorities in several countries over accusations of connections to money laundering.

In a lengthy statement provided to The Guardian, the firm said it could not respond to specific questions, but insisted that many of the individuals and companies named in the documents were never clients of Mossack Fonseca. The firm added that in many cases it was “legal and common for companies to establish commercial entities in different jurisdictions for a variety of legitimate reasons.”

“Our services are regulated on multiple levels, often by overlapping agencies, and we have a strong compliance record,” the firm said.

“In addition, we have always complied with international protocols” to assure “that the companies we incorporate are not being used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist finance or other illicit purposes,” it added.

According to the news reports, the documents related to Russia identified several officials with close ties to Mr. Putin, including two of his oldest friends, Sergei Roldugin, a cellist, and Yuri V. Kovalchuk, the principal shareholder of Bank Rossiya, a financial institution that has come under sanctions by the United States as the “cashier” of officials in the Kremlin.

The reports said Mr. Putin’s friends and associates had channeled $2 billion through a complex, deliberately convoluted network of offshore companies. Mr. Putin’s name appears on none of the records for the companies or the transactions, but Bank Rossiya and Mr. Roldugin do.

Mr. Roldugin acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that he owned a share of Bank Rossiya, which he acquired in the 1990s, but offered few details about an investment that made him, on paper at least, a very rich man.

“I’ve got an apartment, a car and a dacha,” he said. “I don’t have millions.”

According to the disclosures, Mr. Roldugin holds similar shares of other companies, including an advertising firm founded by another close associate of Mr. Putin’s, Mikhail Y. Lesin, who was found dead in a hotel in Washington last fall.

Last week, the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, preemptively denounced the articles published on Sunday. He warned that the consortium had prepared an “information attack” against Mr. Putin and his associates, and described the articles as “an undisguised paid-for hack job.”

The revelations also touched Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, who was elected in the aftermath of the political upheaval in the country in 2014 that led to the annexation of Crimea and open conflict with Russia in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Poroshenko, a tycoon with assets in television and a chocolatier before his entrance into politics, pledged to divest himself of his holdings but instead moved the assets into an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands, according to the consortium’s reporting. It said that Mr. Poroshenko, who has received political support from the United States, had not disclosed the arrangement.

The documents also contained information about how some foreign leaders used foundations and companies in Panama to anonymously own mining companies and real estate, according to the consortium.

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Panama Papers Putin - Google Search
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 11:24 AM

Story image for Panama Papers Putin from NBCNews.com

What Do the 'Panama Papers' Mean for Vladimir Putin?

<a href="http://NBCNews.com" rel="nofollow">NBCNews.com</a>-1 hour ago

A team of journalists from around the world published what they called the "Panama papers" on Sunday —more than 11.5 million encrypted ...

Russia says Putin is main target of Panama Papers
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Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin
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Panama Leaked Files Spark Angry Reaction in Moscow - WSJ
Monday April 4th, 2016 at 10:57 AM

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The Wall Street Journal

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MOSCOW—News reports based on leaked documents that detailed alleged offshore accounts belonging to dozens of prominent people, including a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, sparked outrage from the Kremlin on Monday.

The reports, published late Sunday, are based on millions of documents that news outlets said were leaked from a Panama law firm that set up offshore bank accounts for dozens of global leaders, businessmen and celebrities.

They placed Mr. Putin’s childhood friend Sergei Roldugin and a high-profile Russian bank at the center of a web of complex transactions amounting to at least $2 billion that involved other close associates of Mr. Putin and Russian businessmen.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the reports didn't implicate the Russian president himself, and dismissed the allegations as “the usual conjecture, insinuation, speculation, which do not demand a reaction.”

“It is clear that the degree of ’Putinophobia’ has reached such a level that it is impossible a priori to speak well of Russia,” Mr. Peskov said in comments carried by state news agencies.

Mr. Peskov had said last week that Western news outlets were planning an “information attack” on Mr. Putin aimed at destabilizing Russia.

Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung said it had received the documents relating to the law firm Mossack Fonseca from an unnamed source and shared them with more than 100 other news organizations,including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

The ICIJ said the files contain information on offshore accounts holdings of 140 politicians and public officials from around the world, including in Iceland and Ukraine.

In a statement published on the website of the Guardian, one of the papers that ran reports, Mossack Fonseca denied any wrongdoing, saying it “has operated beyond reproach in our home country and in other jurisdictions where we have operations.”

Articles based on the documents shone a spotlight on several people close to Mr. Putin, indicating they took part in transactions involving offshore companies, including loans and share deals, over several years.

The reports said that the leaked documents placed Mr. Roldugin, a cellist and godfather of one of Mr. Putin’s children, and Bank Rossiya at the heart of the deals. Bank Rossiya is controlled by another friend of Mr. Putin, billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk. The U.S. placed sanctions on the bank in 2014 over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, calling it “the personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation.”

Approached last week by reporters from the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which also reported on the documents, Mr. Rodulgin said that he couldn't comment on the specifics but said he was connected to some of the businesses “long ago.” Mr. Kovalchuk didn’t respond to requests for comment from the media outlets covering the leaks.

Russian media, which is predominantly state-controlled, remained silent on the leak or focused on the non-Russians who had been swept up in the scandal.

While public opinion polls show that Russians remain highly critical of corruption, accusations of corruption have yet to tarnish Mr. Putin himself. According to the independent polling group Levada Center, Putin’s approval rating was 82% in March, only slightly down from its peak of 89% in June 2015.

The media outlets said that the leak also implicated Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who became one of Ukraine’s richest men through Roshen, the country’s largest candy business. Mr. Poroshenko, who has pledged to overhaul the corruption-riddled government after a 2014 revolution in Kiev, reportedly opened an offshore holding company in the British Virgin Islands that year.

Some lawmakers on Monday called for a parliamentary investigation. A spokesman for Mr. Poroshenko said he had no immediate comment.

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How to hide a billion dollars | The Panama Papers – YouTubeby mikenova
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 6:05 PM

6:00 PM 4/3/2016 - Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin | News | The Guardianby Mike Nova (noreply@blogger.com)
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 6:05 PM

What influence does Russia have in the Nagorno-Karabakh clashes? - YouTube
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 5:35 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

What influence does Russia have in the Nagorno-Karabakh clashes?

Al Jazeera's Mohammed Jamjoom explains.

How to hide a billion dollars | The Panama Papers - YouTubeby Mike Nova (noreply@blogger.com)
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 5:16 PM

Iraqi forces free 1,500 prisoners from underground ISIS jail - YouTube
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 4:45 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

At least 1,500 prisoners have been liberated by Iraqi forces from an underground Islamic State prison, Iraqi officials said. The jail was found during an operation to retake the town of Heet from the extremists in Anbar province.

How to hide a billion dollars | The Panama Papers - YouTube
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 4:39 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

A major leak of the secret offshore arrangements of some of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends reveals how hundreds of millions of dollars are hidden around the globe in complex financial structures.

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Page 5

Two dead in Amtrak train derailment - YouTube
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 4:36 PM

Published on Apr 3, 2016

Two people are dead and dozens more are injured after an Amtrak train became derailed outside of Philadelphia. CNN's Sara Ganim has the latest.

2:36 PM 4/3/2016 - Headlines: Azerbaijan declares cease-fire, but fighting continues in breakaway enclave - The Washington Post by Mike Nova (noreply@blogger.com)
Sunday April 3rd, 2016 at 2:39 PM