A world of hidden wealth: why we are shining a light offshore

They are known as the CDOTs – the UK’s crown dependencies and overseas territories – island states such as the Caymans and the British Virgin Islands.

On maps they appear no bigger than a full stop, but each year billions of dollars in capital sail into the global banking system along the warm currents of the Caribbean.

Economists are charting an unrelenting, escalating transfer of wealth, enabled by the offshore system, often from the very poorest to the very richest nations.

The money is sometimes spent in obvious ways – funding super-yachts, private jets, fine art auctions and, of course, property. But there is the unseen damage. It harms the ecology of vibrant cities by making them unaffordable to ordinary people.

The cash is also a shot in the arm to the financial system. Lawfully injected into London hedge funds and Wall Street trading rooms, it funds high-stakes investments and, in the good years, big bonus pools.

The movement of this offshore money is an industry made possible in part by the secrecy on sale in tax havens, led by the UK’s substantial network of offshore enclaves. The Panama Papers lift the veil on how this world works – and the people who use it.

While much of the leaked material will remain private, there are compelling reasons for publishing some of the data. The documents reveal a huge breadth of unseen activity.

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 Vladimir Putin. Photograph: Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP/Getty Images

At one end of this spectrum, the papers simply reveal the vast number of people who use offshore to protect their wealth. There is nothing unlawful about doing this. It is not illegal to be a director, shareholder or beneficial owner – the real owner, even though their name may not appear on the shareholder register – of an offshore company. But the financial advantages these structures provide are not generally available to the ordinary taxpayer.

Since the 2008 crash, there has been a clamour for everyone to pay a fair share of the tax burden.

Unsurprisingly, the public is questioning – perhaps more than ever – whether a system that provides advantages only to the wealthy is immoral. And the political climate that once tolerated this inequality has changed decisively.

At the other end of this spectrum there is, frankly, what could be described as offshore pandemonium.

In the files we have found evidence of Russian banks providing slush funds for President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle; assets belonging to 12 country leaders, including the leaders of Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine; companies connected to more than 140 senior politicians, their friends and relatives, and to some 22 people subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe; the proceeds of crimes, including Britain’s infamous Brink’s-Mat gold robbery; and enough art hidden in private collections to fill a public gallery.

Women Who Draw website reveals world's 'hidden' female illustrators

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Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

Image captionApplicants for the Women Who Draw website were asked to submit an illustrated portrait of a woman

A website designed to showcase the work of female illustrators and promote diversity has got off to a flying start, after receiving submissions from around the world.

The Women Who Draw website, which had its "soft launch" in December, crashed under the weight of more than six million page views in its first three days, according to its US founders, Wendy MacNaughton and Julia Rothman.

"We had to close submissions because we were overwhelmed. We received 1,200 submissions in 24 hours," said Ms Rothman, citing contributions from Iran, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa, among others.

The site's mission statement is to "increase the visibility of female illustrators, female illustrators of colour, LBTQ+, and other minority groups".

On Monday, it is relaunching, backed by a new server and showcasing 700 new members, whose work organisers have collated within three weeks.

They also have more than 300 artists on the waiting list.

Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

Ms MacNaughton and Ms Rothman, who are both successful illustrators, said they were motivated to create the project after noticing certain publications were dominated by male artists.

"We counted a certain magazine that often has illustrated covers, and noticed that in the past 55 covers, only four were by women," said Ms Rothman.

Something seemed to be amiss, considering that the arts field within education is often dominated by women.

In the UK, data from higher-education admissions service Ucas shows that in 2016 the number of women enrolled in design studies courses (including illustration) was more than double the number of men.

So, do the women behind Women Who Draw think sexism in the industry is an enduring problem?

"When I see who wins the awards, who are on the juries and who speaks at conferences, it is clear that there is a bias. Although no-one has specifically said to me that you are a woman so I am not going to hire you," said Ms Rothman.

Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

Sabrina Scott, an artist, illustration lecturer, and PhD student at Toronto's York University, has conducted a study of seven years of images within the American Illustration (AI) annual, a collection of award-winning images, chosen by a jury.

She looked at how people - male and female - were represented in nearly 3,000 images.

Ms Scott said: "Over seven years from 2008 to 2015, white men appear in 55% of AI award-winning illustrations, on average. The representation of white women has remained fairly steady at an average of 32%, as has the representation of men and women of colour, whose seven-year averages are 8% and 4%, respectively."

She also found that while men were drawn as nude or nearly nude 3% of the time, that figure rose to 30% for female figures.

"The only dead bodies depicted during the timeframe of my analysis are those that belong to men of colour," she added.

Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

The site allows artists to highlight different aspects of their identity. Artists can be tagged according to their sexuality, religion, and location.

Trans women are also encouraged to join, and are not differentiated from other women.

Artist Kaylani Juanita lists herself on the site under the categories African American/black, LBTQ+, west coast (US), multiracial, and native Hawaiian/Pacific islander.

Did she worry that she might get pigeonholed? "I'm far more worried about invisibility or erasure of identity rather than being pigeonholed for making my identity visible," she said.

"I joined because it's an inclusive list that's well needed within publishing and illustration," she added.

"For women artists, it provides solidarity, visibility, and community. I would have loved a list like this when I was in college and high school."

Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

Bryan Gee, an art director at Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail, says he has already commissioned three artists he found on the site. One was themed on female sexuality.

He also finds the categorisation of artists based on location useful, as part of his job involves showcasing Canadian talent.

"The biggest challenge to Women Who Draw as they to continue to add to their roster will be how to balance inclusivity with the quality of the work that I currently find there," he said.

However, some of the features he is less convinced about. "It seems a bit odd, for example, to see 'atheist' pop up so frequently as a primary defining quality of some of the illustrators."

Image copyrightWOMEN WHO DRAW

"I don't think it is about tokenism," adds Lizzy Stewart, an artist from London, who has joined the site. "I think work will still be commissioned based on talent, after all no-one wants to pay for bad work. It'd just be great if that work could come from a wider range of sources."

Women Who Draw has decided not to include tags to denote writers who are white or straight. "That was a big decision that we debated a lot," said Ms MacNaughton. "We decided we didn't want to support art directors in search of more white women."

But Ms MacNaughton adds that it is an evolving project and they are open to feedback.

"Ultimately it is the work that matters," she said. "The site creates a signpost. It is up to the art director to choose the work and the people."

Meet the Real (Not Russian) IT Staff That Spied On and Hacked The U.S. Congress

Three Brothers; Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan who managed office IT for 
members of the House Committee on Intelligence, Department Homeland Security, 
and other lawmakers were sacked after it was made known that they accessed 
executive Congressional networks without permission. They were found stealing 
data and equipment from Congress, and were storing this data on a off site server!

And why is it this is not being reported widely on in the "Official" news media? 
In fact, this investigation goes back months before the election, at this point 
this is a deliberate cover up?! 

Bill Clinton with Imran Awan 

The DNC hacks that included DNC Hacks emails, and DWS, and Podesta brought about top DNC officials resignations, 
these men are linked to all of these same staff!? 

These three brothers were each paid a salary that is many times beyond 
normal, aside from their shady dealings. 

It sure appears so, and that media is covering it up because it 
would blow open the entire false news, and fake cycle we have been hearing for years! 

I put this in the mud pit because there is no way to put the rest of the information 
that surrounds these guys out with offending someone people which is not my 
intent but this needs to be exposed! 

The Things of God

“Secret things belong unto the Lord our God.”* A secret is something known only to one or to very few. Many things are known to God which are kept secret from man, but all man’s secrets are known to God. It pleases God, however, to reveal some of His sweet secrets to man. Those who love God and serve Him faithfully have the blessed privilege of knowing many things of God and heaven that others do not know. God “revealeth his secrets to his servants.”* Jesus said that He would make Himself known to us as He would not unto the world. Oh, how blessed to come near to Christ and have Him tell us some of the precious secrets contained in those mysteries hidden for ages! The angels knew that the mystery of salvation contained many precious things, for they desired to look into it. The revelations of Jesus are heaven to the soul. How the heart that has heard the voice of the Lord longs to know more of the secret things hidden in Him! Such a heart will seek after Him; it will cleave to Him; it will rest only when in His presence and learning more of Him, seeing more of His love, and tasting more of the sweetness of His life.

God usually speaks in a “still small voice,”* and hence to hear Him one must necessarily come very near to Him. God has a secret place in which He tells His secrets. It is only those that “[dwell] in the secret place of the most high”* that can know the secrets of the Lord. If you would know much of the secret things of God, you must live near Him. The Lord has a secret tabernacle, and it is down in that secret place with all the world shut out that He tells His secrets. It is a narrow passage that leads to this secret pavilion. Houses and lands must be left behind. Those hearts to whom houses and lands can talk cannot hear the still, sweet voice of Jesus. The voice of the Lord might be saying, “Come to me in a quiet hour of prayer”; but houses and lands would be saying, “You will not have time; we must have your service.” If you would hear God speak, you must leave this world so far behind that you cannot hear it when it speaks.

The way into the Lord’s secret pavilion is so narrow that father and mother, brothers and sisters and friends, must be left behind. Jesus may speak; but if you are not deaf to the voice of father or mother, you may not hear Him. Children also must be left behind. God may be calling you to a secret place where He can tell you secret things. It may be far from home; it may be over the stormy seas; but father, mother, brother, sister, or children may talk so loudly to your heart that you cannot hear God’s voice. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.”* To fear God is to keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 5:29).

To enter into the secret chamber of God, your own life must be left behind. Self must be crucified. Oh, how many dear children of God have failed to hear the secrets of the Lord because of the clamorous voice of self! Jesus is talking to your heart, saying, “Here is one of My poor, needy ones to whom you can now give aid, and I will bless you and make you happy”; but that monster self sets up such a din and confusion that you cannot hear the voice of Jesus. So self must be crucified.

There are secret things of God to be learned all along the Christian way. We are to grow not only in the grace but also in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. It is not in the greatest affairs and concerns of life only that we need to know more of God; but many, I am persuaded, also need to know Him better in the little happenings and circumstances of everyday life. Early in my Christian experience I was taught a precious lesson from the Lord. I had two beautiful young cherry trees growing in my garden. One springtime my little boy climbed into one and to all appearance ruined it; but a voice seemed to say to my soul, “All things are of God; look unto Him and know that all things are for good, and you will see some of His secret things.” I cut off the broken branches and committed the tree into the hands of the Lord. I knew that if He was able to curse a fig tree and cause it to die, he was able to bless a cherry tree and cause it to grow. That tree grew as I never saw a tree grow. In a short time it was more beautiful than the other tree.

When Peter called the Master’s attention to the withered fig tree, he answered, “Have faith in God,”* and then farther said, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”* God will bless the affairs of your everyday life. Do not think anything too hard nor too small for God to do. If you want a mountain removed, ask Him and doubt not, and you shall have what you asked; or if it is only a grain of sand you want removed, ask the Lord and doubt not, and He will remove it. It is more difficult for some to have faith for the small things than for the great things. If you have but two pieces of meat, do not hesitate to give one piece to the needy. God can, and will if you ask, make the remaining piece go farther than the two would have gone without His blessing. This is a secret not known by everyone.

A poor Christian brother awoke early one morning and, calling to his wife, said, “If we should dust the flour barrel well, do you not think we could get enough flour to make bread for breakfast?”

“No,” the wife replied, “I scraped it out clean last evening and barely had enough to make bread for supper.”

The poor preacher lay there for awhile thinking how to get bread for his children. It came into his mind again that if they would dust the flour barrel they could get flour enough for breakfast. He arose and made a fire and then went—no doubt with deep feeling in his heart—to dust the flour barrel. After some dusting and scraping and shaking, he succeeded, to his wife’s astonishment, in getting enough flour to make bread for breakfast. She went to preparing the breakfast, and he sat down to meditate upon the things of God.

Just as she was ready to call her husband and the children to breakfast, she heard a rap on the door. She went to the door, and there stood a poorly-dressed man, who said, “Madam, can you give me something to eat?”

She went and informed her husband of a man’s being at their door begging for food. He said to his wife, “divide out my portion of the bread and give it to the man.”

“No,” she said, “I cannot do that. If you do not eat, I cannot.”

“Do, wife,” the poor preacher said, “as I have told you; give him my portion of the bread, and you and the children eat your breakfast.”

She did as requested. She and the children ate heartily. When they had finished their breakfast, she called to her husband, “Come, eat your breakfast; there is some bread left.”

He went to the table, gave thanks to God, and ate all he desired; and yet there was bread left. Such gracious doings of our blessed Lord are some of His secrets.

The Lord Jesus told a secret thing to Peter one day. He would not have told it to everyone, for some would have scoffed at Him. He told Peter to go to the sea and cast in a hook and to take the first fish that should rise. This fish, the Savior said, would have a coin in its mouth. “Take that,” He continued, “and [pay the tribute] unto them for me and thee.”* Peter had sufficient faith to do as he commanded. What his feelings were as he went on his way to the brook, I will leave you to imagine. No doubt his heart was all expectation and wonder as he waited for a bite at his hook. But it was even as the Lord had told him. I do not know how came the coin in the mouth of the fish, but such doings are among the secrets of the Lord.

I will relate what to me was a most remarkable instance of God’s answering prayer and manifesting Himself to His own as He does not to the world. In the autumn of 1906 the Gospel Trumpet Company, publishers, purchased a large printing press. The cost of this press was something more than fourteen thousand dollars. I spoke of the matter to our home congregation and asked if they did not wish to do what they could in helping to pay for the machine. A poor sister, who is rich in grace, desired to have a part in the matter. She began to ask the Lord to give to her that she might be able to give something to his good work. It was one dollar she was praying for. The Lord gave her in a marvelous way little by little until she had ninety-five cents. She then earnestly sought the Lord for the remaining five cents. After prayer she sent her two little boys away to their work, which was splitting wood. One boy struck his axe into a block, cracking it partly open. In that crack he saw a shiny object. He called to his aid a larger boy, and they succeeded in getting the block of wood open; whereupon they found a silver dime. This had no doubt been placed in the tree many years before; for it had all grown over, leaving no scar. The Lord prepared this coin to answer this woman’s prayer, as He did the coin in the mouth of the fish that Peter caught.

God does not manifest Himself thus to the world, and I sometimes fear that many of His own dear children are not learning as many secrets as they might. How many glorious secret things lie deeper in God than I have gone, I do not know; only, I know there are many. My heart is reaching for them with avidity. Down, down into God; down into His secret pavilion; down where I can see more of His love to me; down where I can feel more of His Spirit’s power; down where His breathing are felt more sensibly upon the soul; down where that still, small voice rhythms more sweetly and can be more distinctly heard—this is the pleading of my soul.

God’s child has nothing to fear. The love of a gracious heavenly parent is over it. Have faith in God, and He will reveal Himself in many wondrous secret ways. Christ fed the multitude from a few loaves. He is the same today, and He will do the same for you literally. Draw near to Him, and He will teach you secret things.

The secret of the universe.

 A few years ago, in Berne, I visited the apartment where Einstein wrote his theory of special relativity, which changed our understanding of the world forever. It’s a small apartment, plain and nondescript. The best thing about it is the view. From the window you can see Berne’s huge medieval clock, the Zytglogge. It was this clock which inspired Einstein’s great breakthrough. At the end of every humdrum day, in his dead- end job at Berne’s patent office, he took the tram home, past the Zytglogge, back to this apartment. As he gazed at that clock through the tram window, he wondered: what if his tram could travel at the speed of light? Logically, the light from the Zytglogge should never overtake him. Relatively speaking, it should remain static, just as two trams travelling side by side at the same speed in the same direction remain static in relation to each other. But that wouldn’t work, because the speed of light never alters. Therefore time would have to change.

Carlo Rovelli doesn’t tell this story in Reality is Not What it Seems, but he tells lots of stories like it, and the result is a book that brings physics alive. If you’ve read his previous book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, you’ll know what to expect. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. Rovelli is the director of the quantum gravity research group at the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseilles (no, I’d never heard of it either, but I imagine you must have to be pretty brainy to get a job there). Consequently, you might expect this book to be completely impenetrable. You couldn’t be more wrong. Complexity is the hallmark of second-rate minds. Like all great thinkers, Rovelli has a talent for simplicity. His prose is lucid and poetic. I scoured this book for quotable phrases, and ended up copying out entire paragraphs. It’s not a scientific treatise. It’s a paean to the wonder of the natural world.

Reality is Not What it Seems is a sort of prequel to Seven Brief Lessons in Physics. Rovelli wrote this book first, and then wrote seven shorter articles based upon it. Those articles were published as Seven Brief Lessons, and the huge success of that slim tome (translated into 31 languages) prompted this new translation of his first book. Being unable to read it in the original Italian, I can’t assess the merits of Simon Carnell and Erica Segre’s translation, save to say that their joint effort reads far better than most books by native English speakers.

So what’s this book about? Well, in the course of just 255 pages, Rovelli charts our understanding of the universe, from the astronomers of the ancient world to today’s boffins — and all the key points in between. He explains how Newton built on Galileo, how Faraday and Maxwell built on Newton, and how Einstein transformed their theorems, by uniting space and time. I scraped a C in my Physics O-level and haven’t been near a physics textbook since. If I can understand— and even enjoy — Rovelli’s book, then anyone can. What thrilled me most of all was his revelation that physics and
philosophy are actually twin disciplines — two sides of the same equation, if you like. Mind you, the ancients knew that too. Had you realised that it was Aristotle who coined the term Physics, in his book of the same name? I hadn’t until I read Rovelli. Reality is Not What it Seems is full of fascinating nuggets like these.

Rovelli concludes with some mind-boggling stuff about quantum physics. This was the only part where I got brain ache, but it seems I’m in good company. Apparently, even Einstein couldn’t quite get his head around it. Indeed, the best thing about this beautiful, compact book is its celebration of uncertainty. As Rovelli demonstrates, confusion is the creative impetus that drives us on to fresh discoveries. Certainty is the enemy of science.

He begins with a tale from Plato’s Republic, which would work just as well as an epilogue. It’s about some men imprisoned in a dark cave, whose only source of light is a hidden fire which casts strange shadows on the wall. One of the prisoners escapes, and ventures outside. For the first time he sees the sun, and all the splendours that surround us. He returns to the cave and tries, and fails, to describe the amazing things he’s seen. Like Plato’s prisoner, Rovelli has seen the splendours beyond the dark cave of our imaginations. Unlike Plato’s prisoner, he can tell us what he’s seen.

The real unsolved mystery of Nan Madol

Nan Madol remains as one of the world’s truly unexplained mysteries. The abandoned city sits partly submerged adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei.
Nan Madol is the only known ancient city that was built on top of a coral reef. Construction of this mysterious city is thought to have started 1,500 years ago.
For those that are unaware – Pohnpei a small island that forms part of the Senyavin Islands, which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. The islands belong to Pohnpei State, one of the four states in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)

FSM sits just above New Guinea in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean.

Strange mysterious construction

The mystery of Nan Madol starts with the fact that nothing about its construction can be explained! Scientists and archaeologists have not verified anything about the megalithic construction. They collectively state that the cities construction “is an unexplainable mystery”

The total weight of the black rocks that make up the city’s construction is estimated at 750,000 metric tons, an average of 1,850 tons a year over four centuries. The basalt ‘logs’ that make up the high walls can weight as much as 50 tons each. What’s even more mysterious is the Saudeleurs who built it didn’t have pulleys, levers or metal to aid in the process. This means to build the city, they would have had to move almost 2,000 tons of stone a year, each year, for 400 years.

What is known, is the fact the Nan Madol was an elite centre – a special place of residence for the nobility used for mortuary activities presided over by priests. Its population almost certainly did not exceed 1,000, although it has recently been claimed that the population never exceeded 500.

Supposedly there was an escape tunnel beginning at the center of Nan Madol which was created by boring down through the reef to exit into the ocean. Scuba divers continue to look for this “secret” route, but so far a complete tunnel has not been discovered. Although a number of incomplete tunnels have been found. A number of divers vanished in 2012 exploring the largest of these.

Today Nan Madol forms an archaeological district which covers more than 18 km² and includes the stone architecture built up on a coral reef flat along the shore of Temwen Island, several other artificial islets, and the adjacent Pohnpei main island coastline.

Tamam Shud: the strange case of the Somerton man

A body of an unknown man aged 40-45 was found on the Somerton beach near Glenelg, South Australia, on the morning of December 1st, 1948. The man was lying on his back as if he was asleep. When the body was transported to the coroner’s office, it was discovered that all labels had been removed from his clothing, and there were no documents or clues that would reveal the man’s identity. Several witnesses told the police that they saw the man wandering around the beach the evening before he was found, and other witnesses confirmed that they saw him lie down, presumably to take a nap. However, the man’s shoes were perfectly clean, as if he never walked on the sandy beach surface and was somehow transported directly to the spot where he was found.

                            Location on Somerton beach where the corpse was found, marked by an ‘X’.
While performing the autopsy on the physically fit body of the Somerton man, the coroner found newly developed ulcers and traces of extensive internal bleeding, which led him to believe that the man was poisoned or that he committed suicide by ingesting some kind of poison. The toxicology report showed no trace of any toxic substances; the coroner concluded that the cause of death was a massively toxic substance that was undetectable at the time, but the official cause of death of the Somerton man remains unknown.

 A small piece of paper containing the phrase “Tamam Shud”, meaning “finished” in Persian, was found in a hidden pocket of the man’s trousers. Investigators discovered that the phrase comes from the last page of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of Persian poems from the 12th century. The police were helped by the press to conduct an extensive investigation to locate the book from which the phrase was cut out.

At first, they had no luck, but then a man (whose identity remains secret) discovered the book on the backseat of an abandoned car. Microscopic tests were performed on the book to confirm that it was indeed the same book from which the piece of paper was cut out, but no clues to the man’s identity were discovered. Still, the back of the book contained an Australian telephone number, another unknown number, and five lines of seemingly random text that appeared to be a coded message. Many believe that the book is the key to the decryption of the message, but no one has been able to decode it to this day.

A few days after the Somerton man was found, investigators discovered his suitcase in a public cloakroom at the Adelaide railway station. The suitcase contained shaving equipment, clothing items that matched those of the deceased, sharpened scissors, and a table knife that was modified into a short sharp instrument. Labels were removed from all clothes in the suitcase, so the investigation was at a dead end.

The handwriting found in the back of a book of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The text is presumed to be some sort of code.

The only possible clue in the investigation of the man’s mysterious death was the Australian phone number found in the book. The number was registered to a nurse named Jessica Thomson.She denied ever meeting the man, but she remembered that a neighbor noticed a strange man wandering around her house when she was at work a few days before the body was found on the beach. Some believe that Jessica, in fact, knew the dead man but decided to deny knowing him because he was her former lover.