The investigation has uncovered a sophisticated scheme involving the creation of an international web of subsidiaries, reports the New York Times. The US Senate in a report blamed Ireland of being a tax haven for the computer maker. In particular the US government condemned Apple’s Irish tax arrangements, which in its view allow the company to lawfully avoid billions in US taxes.Irish Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said the issue with the two Irish subsidiaries allegedly helping Apple to avoid US taxes arose from other jurisdictions and not the Irish tax system, adding the Irish tax system is “very transparent”.The reports claim the computer maker has shielded around $74 billion in profits over the past four years from the US tax authorities through subsidiaries including two in Ireland. According to the Senate, Apple instead of taking a traditional path of opening accounts in offshore zones, created a chain of subsidiaries, which had no signs of physical presence. These companies officially registered in offshore zones like Ireland had no staff apart from top executives. Each of these companies being an offshore entity was free from taxes as well as the obligation to file tax returns.”Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven. Apple successfully sought the holy grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere,” said Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations which is holding Apple’s hearing.Apple has so far denied claims of tax evasion in its testimony saying that the current legislation “has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy.” The tech giant argues that as 61 percent of the company’s revenue last year came from international sales, foreign funds are needed for expansion, promotion and competition. The iPad and iPhone maker claims that the US system claims too much from the business – 35 percent of the income, hence the company has to keep much of its funds abroad. In 2012 Apple contributed nearly $6 billion in taxes to the US economy. Apple has become the latest target of the Senate committee led by Democrat Carl Levin and Republican John McCain on investigating tax avoidance by US multinational companies. Other global companies are also in tax avoidance disputes. Google, Starbucks and Amazon are among them, and they have also fallen under suspicion of the UK parliament, which is currently checking their tax integrity. … Read More
Shias, mass media, and Hezbollah: What lies behind the battle for Qusair
There are far more elements surrounding the situation in Qusair than first meet the eye, RT’s Nadezhda Kevorkova reveals.The army’s advance to Qusair is a key strategic operation. Qusair is near Homs, which is located on the road connecting Damascus with the Mediterranean seaport. And Qusair itself is the closest town to the Lebanese border. So taking control of it allows the forces to control the Lebanese border with the Shias living on both sides. There is an important high point between Qusair and the Lebanese village Al-Qasr. The Syrian army was forced to leave this area in the fall of 2012, so locals lost their protection. Opposition fighters took over the region and tried to chase out the Shias and take control of the high point – there were severe battles here in April 2013. (I was in Lebanon’s Al-Qasr at the time – the village came under heavy fire). But the rebels lost to the fighters from the Syrian People’s Committees. They were able to hold the high point.Had the opposition forces won over this rather small and seemingly insignificant area, there would’ve been major consequences. The war would’ve spread to Lebanon, and Hezbollah would’ve been obligated to get involved. Jihadists would’ve been able to get into Syria from Lebanon and attack Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the Beqaa Valley.But fighters from the Syrian People’s Committees didn’t let them do it and held the high point. Thanks to their effort, the government forces were able to deploy troops here and start the Qusair counter-offensive on May 19. Thirty-thousand Syrian Shias live on the Syrian side of the border (not the Alawites – the Shias). As we know, the border between Syria and Lebanon is relative – the Shias have lived here for ages. When colonial powers drew border lines between countries, they didn’t take the traditional settlement patterns of ethnic groups and communities into account. Many of the local residents have Lebanese passports.In the fall of 2012, rebels and foreign mercenaries began to sweep Shia villages with fire. They also intimidated people and conducted ethnic cleansing operations. In mixed communities they would go into Shias’ houses telling people to get out, drew “outlaw” signs on the buildings, snipers shot at those who tried to exit these houses. If a family left a home, it was burned down. Rebels planned to drive all Shias out of the area near the border. Opposition propaganda resources in major mass media and social networks have deployed a campaign in the Islamic world aimed at bolstering the idea that all the Shias are apostates – they are not Muslims, not native to these regions and are simply a tool that is used for proliferating Iranian policy across the Middle East. That is why jihad regards killing a Shia as noble. A number of propaganda resources that different sheikhs were using to broadcast anti-Shia sermons, were involved with the campaign. Moreover, the mass media are thus instilling the minds of Muslims with the idea that all the Shias, including ordinary peasants, are Hezbollah militants, and Hezbollah, in its turn, is a supplement to the ‘dreadful thugs’ of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Such an approach, which is used by the opposition and backed by the world’s major mass media, has a precise analogy.The scorched-earth policy was first used in the region by the Irgun Jewish settlers in April 1948, when several Palestinian villages were wiped off the map (Deir Yassin is the most well-known). The goal was simple: the news about the massacre of 254 Palestinians – kids, women and old people would terrify all the rest so much, that they would run away voluntarily. The news about such unprecedented atrocities as, for instance, disembowelling pregnant women did strike terror into people: unarmed and unskilled in terms of war 740 thousand Palestinians fled from their home villages becoming refugees. Zionist ideologists still claim that the Palestinians are not native to Palestine and they were invited there as migrant workers, so they are either Bedouins, or nomads, or Gypsies from the Middle East who didn’t have any skills in agriculture and didn’t know how to farm. This is also the reason that has been driving the mass-media campaign to discredit Hezbollah that has been accused of allegedly fighting against the Syrian people. Video footage and photographs of fallen Hezbollah fighters dating back to the 2006 Lebanon War have been circulated as “proof” that Hezbollah is involved in Syria and suffering losses. Back in 2006, 800 Hezbollah fighters put up resistance to the ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel, and these numbers were officially announced by the party leader Hasan Nasrallah.I met with families that were forced to flee Syrian villages by the border. These were mostly large families who feared that their women, wives and daughters, would be raped by the opposition fighters and criminals that accompany them. Many also said that it was their strategy to intimidate the local population on purpose to have the houses vacated. Nonetheless many stayed and organized community defense volunteer squads to protect themselves from the rebel forces and mercenaries with arms in their hands.The battle of Qusair has been of strategic importance, but not only that – Qusair is the only town, however small (with 50,000 people of population ) that had been given up by the government forces in the past – while the rest of the towns in Syria are under the government’s control. Mass-media that are telling their audience that the purpose of the battle of Qusair was “to regain control over the Mediterranean coast” and “re-deploy the government forces to Aleppo” are lying. The army is already in full control of the coast. Last Sunday, the army launched a massive offensive on all transit routes for weapons and supplies coming into the country.As of today, Qusair is surrounded by the Syrian army, which is also in control of the downtown area. An escape corridor is being kept open for the fleeing population. The militants who fail to use it are contained in town’s quarters.As for the losses, all the numbers cited are pure speculation and part of the propaganda attack on Syria. For example, the opposition initially reported online that they had killed “90 Hezbollah militants,” yet after a while changed the number to 30, and that’s in addition to the Syrian army’s losses of 20 soldiers reported by the army itself.Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT … Read More
Austerity on the side: EU hits restaurateurs with olive oil law
Yes, at a time when harsh austerity measures, delayed retirements and high unemployment levels are pushing Europeans to vent their outrage on the cobblestone streets, Brussels decided this was the perfect time to impose strict new rules on how restaurants serve olive oil to their customers.Starting January 1, 2014, eateries will be prohibited from serving olive oil to diners in the traditional glass jugs that have been adorning European tables since at least the Middle Ages. Instead, cafes, bistros and brasseries will be forced to provide their patrons with pre-sealed, non-refillable containers that cannot be easily recycled when empty.Once upon a time, Europe set the standards on environmental issues; now, it is behaving no matter than Little Jack Horner, sticking its dirty fingers where they don’t belong. Yet it is trying to convince the world that it really, honestly, truthfully just wants to protect the health of the average EU diner, the same group of people that was physically and morally assaulted by raw austerity.Remember a few months ago when the European Commission was busy disassembling the EU’s world-class welfare system in order to pay back the interest on central bank loans needed to rescue the bankers – the same scoundrels who triggered the global financial crisis in the first place? At that time, Brussels didn’t so much as bat an eyelid about the health and well being of their fellow Europeans.Suddenly, however, EU ministers have decided to wage a war on bad hygiene and sound traditions when many Europeans can’t afford a bar of decent soap. They also say the move will help reassure what’s left of their consumer base that the olive oil found in EU restaurants has not been diluted with an inferior (Read: Less expensive) product.No wonder that critics say the rules, aside from boosting profits of the biggest olive oil producing companies (small, private proprietors need not apply), will increase the frustration felt by many towards a Brussels bureaucracy machine that is already seen to be out of touch with the issues affecting ordinary Europeans.”If the European Union was logical and properly run, people wouldn’t be so anti-Europe,” said Marina Yannakoudakis, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament, as quoted by Reuters. “But when it comes up with crazy things like this, it quite rightly calls into question their legitimacy and judgment.”Yannakoudakis said the new measures highlighted how out of touch Brussels’ priorities are.Ironically, the Eurozone countries worst affected by the euro crisis – Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal – where unemployment levels are sky-high, are also the continent’s largest olive oil producers. It remains to be seen how the new legislation will affect the small olive oil producers in those already pressed economies.German newspaper Sueddetsche Zeitung called the plan as “the weirdest decision since the legendary curvy cucumber regulation”, referring to former EU rules governing the shape of fruit and vegetables found in supermarkets.Enzo Sica, owner of Italian restaurant Creche des Artistes close to the EU quarter of Brussels, said the rules would prevent him from buying his extra virgin olive oil direct from a traditional supplier in Italy.”They say they’re thinking about consumers, but this will increase costs for us and our customers as well,” he told Reuters.“In this time of crisis, surely they should be worrying about other things rather than stupid stuff like this.”Although Brussels’ olive oil ruling isn’t quite as inflammatory as was Marie Antoinette’s unfortunate quip, “Let them eat cake,” it does adequately show that EU ministers are dangerously out of touch with the real issues now affecting millions of people across the Eurozone.Robert Bridge, RTRobert Bridge is the author of the book, Midnight in the American Empire, which discusses the dangers of extreme corporate power in the United States. … Read More
Assange warns US communications dominance threatens Latin America’s sovereignty
Speaking via videoconference to an audience at Uruguay’s University of the Republic, Assange pointed to Latin America’s dependency on hardware and traffic handling by the United States as a source of vulnerability to monitoring by overzealous intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA and FBI. The world-famous whistleblower has been living in Ecuador’s London embassy for the past year under the auspices of political asylum.“The penetration of the internet in all facets of society, substituting traditional mail and telephone and even physical interaction between individuals has placed in the hands of the US information provided by telecoms for the majority of humanity,” said the author of“Criptopunks,”his latest book to be published.Assange pointed to the growing prevalence of social networking and products offered by companies such as Google as another potential concern for Latin Americans.“The countries of Latin America are uploading profiles of their citizens, unknowingly, in computer systems within huge servers in California, controlled by Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others. These are directly or indirectly controlled by mechanisms, both legal or otherwise, via intelligence services of the United States and peripheral organizations,” he said.The remarks made by Assange to his audience in Montevideo, were published widely by many Spanish-language newspapers in the region, and included what seemed to be a veiled jab at recent revelations that the US Department of Justice had conducted widespread phone surveillance on the Associated Press.The government of the US “has not demonstrated scruples in following its own laws in intercepting these [phone] lines to spy even on its own citizens,” remarked Assange.He added that in the US there “did not exist” laws that impeded the US from “spying on citizens of foreign countries.”The US National Security Agency “receives and processes” millions of communications, according to Assange, and the agency boasts a budget “greater than the FBI and the CIA combined.”Assange warned the audience in Montevideo that, with the use of Google, Facebook and other new trends, there’s a massive privacy threat, to an extent that would have only been the stuff of science fiction not long ago. … Read More
YouTube claims victory in the battle with television
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt recently proclaimed YouTube victorious in the battle against traditional television – if such a battle ever even existed. During a recent presentation to advertisers, the chairman said Internet video has already displaced television watching and the future for YouTube is now. … Read More
Syrian officials deny use of chemical weapons
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Two Syrian officials denied Friday that government forces had used chemical weapons against rebels, the first response from President Bashar Assad’s regime to U.S. assertions that it had deployed such weapons during the 2-year-old civil war.On Thursday, the White House and other top Obama administration officials said that U.S. intelligence had concluded with “varying degrees of confidence” that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its battle against rebels trying to oust Assad.In the Syrian capital of Damascus, a government official said Assad’s military “did not and will not use chemical weapons even if it had them.” Instead, he accused opposition forces of using them in a March attack on the village of Khan al-Assal outside of the northern city of Aleppo, the largest in Syria. The official said the Syrian army had no need to use chemical weapons because it can reach any area in Syria it wants without them.He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements.His comments were echoed by Sharif Shehadeh, a Syrian lawmaker, who said the Syrian army “can win the war with traditional weapons” and has no need for chemical weapons.Continue Reading… … Read More
Smartphones Finally Surpass the Feature Phone
The smartphone has finally surpassed the traditional feature phone, also known as the dumb phone, in sales worldwide. Samsung Electronics is leading the pack. … Read More
