from Breakingviews:
Vatican bank struggles to be cleansed of past sins
By Pierre Briançon
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The failure of the Vatican bank to comply with the basic rule of the Sacrament of Penance is odd. The Holy See’s financial arm has been seeking absolution for past sins for two years, but remains reluctant to confess to what it did wrong. Of all institutions, it should understand that one cannot go without the other.
According to Italian newspapers, JPMorgan Chase is closing the account of the bank formerly known as Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) because of concerns about a lack of transparency. The move comes a few weeks after the U.S. State Department added the Vatican to the list of countries it considers vulnerable to money laundering.
JPMorgan’s move is no administrative tidying-up: some 1.5 billion euros is reported to have passed through the account in the past 18 months. Yet considering the reputational beating that investment banks have taken in recent years, it’s refreshing that one of them is concerned about being tainted by its association with the Vatican.
The latest stigma may look unfair on the Vatican bank’s new management team, installed two years ago with the explicit task of breaking with its shady past. After all, the lender has wrestled for thirty years with its involvement in the fraudulent collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank, in which it held a small stake.
The Vatican wants to be added to the so-called “white list” of states that comply with international agreements designed to combat tax fraud and money laundering. This might be easier if the Holy See’s higher authorities decided to come clean about the bank’s past shenanigans. But recently leaked documents appear to show that Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone didn’t approve of the new management’s hard line on transparency and accountability.
from Reuters Investigates:
Let’s be ethical, economists say
Last month's special report “For some professors, disclosure is academic” has been making waves in the academic world, as this story shows:
Economists urge AEA to adopt ethics code: letter
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Almost three hundred economists have signed a letter to the American Economic Association "strongly" urging it to adopt a code of ethics requiring disclosure of potential conflicts of interests.
The 135-year-old American Economic Association, or AEA, does not have a code of conduct for its approximately 18,000 members. Over half of its members are academics, according to its website.
"We strongly urge that the AEA create and then promote adherence to a professional code of ethics that at a minimum requires transparency with respect to potential conflicts of interest," Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth of the University of Massachussetts, Amherst wrote in a letter sent Monday to the AEA.
"We believe this would be an important and necessary step toward enhancing the credibility and integrity of the profession," they wrote.
Please, no more drunks, tax evaders and womanizers in leadership-she can’t take anymore! Let em move to sin city where they’ll fit right in! Also, free internet porn for kids at a push of a button should produce big/expesnive sociall ills in no time!
Top Islamic finance scholars oppose bid to improve corporate governance
Two of the Gulf’s top Islamic finance scholars spoke out against efforts to reduce the number of boards they and their peers are allowed to sit on, challenging industry attempts to improve corporate governance. Bankers in the emerging $1 trillion Islamic finance industry say the concentration of hundreds of board positions in the hands of a few sharia scholars leads to conflicts of interest and hampers appropriate supervision.
Bahrain-based industry body AAOIFI is drafting rules to regulate scholars’ shareholdings and the number of sharia supervisory boards a single scholar can sit on. “There is no need to limit the number of boards,” Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, one of the most revered Islamic finance scholars in the Gulf Arab region, told a conference in Manama. He sits on several dozen sharia supervisory boards.
He said there was no similar criticism of other groups such as lawyers or accounting firms working for several banks: “Why should (sharia scholars) not be treated like other professionals in the field?”
Bankers say reforms launched by AAOIFI will likely fall short of expectations as scholars governing themselves are unlikely to cut into their own source of income, unless central banks force them to do so.
Mideast banks, funds seek to tap Muslim women’s wealth
Emirati housewife Sarah Alzarouni brushed past a group of women clad in floor-length black robes, some with only their eyes showing, to enter through the frosted doors of one of Dubai Islamic Bank’s women-only branches. Clutching a Louis Vuitton bag to match her designer head scarf, Alzarouni greeted the female tellers and bank manager with three kisses on the cheek and sat down to do business.
“I am much more comfortable working with ladies than in a mixed environment,” Alzarouni, 27, said. “When I come here, I feel like one of them. They understand my needs and I can move freely, not having to always think where I am and whether my (scarf) has moved. As a Muslim, it is really important for me to deal with an Islamic bank. “
Many affluent Muslim women share Alzarouni’s sentiments and they are increasingly turning to Islamic banks to manage their money. These women are looking beyond basic banking services to sophisticated products to grow their wealth while complying with Islamic principals that include a ban on interest.
According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, women in the Middle East controlled 22 percent, or $500 billion, of the region’s total assets under management in 2009. Financial institutions in the conservative Gulf Arab region, where many women are reluctant to mix with men outside their families, are tapping into the niche, with women-only bank branches and investment funds mushrooming.
Read the full story by Shaheen Pasha and Martina Fuchs here.
from Global News Journal:
Modern form of bank robbery?
Germany has signalled it is ready to pay a thief who stole secret bank data in Switzerland in order to collect a small fortune in taxes and fines for tax evasion. According to media reports, the data may relate to money held by 1,500 Germans dodging taxes by hiding their money in Swiss bank accounts. But is it right for a state based on the rule of law to pay for stolen data? Is it a question of the ends justifying the means (exitus acta probat)? Or is it simply a modern form of bank robbery, like a Swiss lawmaker called it so colorfully on Tuesday?
It's a question that has caused a stir on both sides of the German-Swiss border. Do two wrongs make a right? Can stolen data be used as evidence in court? Or is acceptable for a state to reward a thief in the pursuit of the greater good of fighting tax evasion -- seen as a more serious crime?
Germans understandably have a deep suspicion about invasion of privacy after their ominous past experience with the Nazi's Gestapo and the East German Stasi security police. And Switzerland has historical hang ups about about Germany. There have been spirited debates on the moral pros and cons of the latest immoral offer for days.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble have said they're in principle willing to pay an informant a reported 2.5 million euros for the bank data from Switzerland that could lead to more than 100 million euros for state coffers. The issue has has dominated newspaper headlines and TV bulletins in both countries for days.
That's all good news for Germany's fiscal health as it has prompted a wave of Germans with money stashed in Switzerland to come clean, as the Berlin newspaper TAZ noted today: "The mere talk about the Swiss tax data will be lucrative for the state. Those who are nervous and turn themselves in can still avoid criminal punishment but will nevertheless have to pay the taxes they've been evading."
Reuters correspondent Albert Schmieder in Zurich talked to a banker today who told him: "The phones are ringing off the hook. A lot of Germans are quaking in their boots." An opinion poll published in Germany on Tuesday found 57 percent of the public in favour of paying the thief to go after the tax dodgers. Spiegel online noted that newspaper editorials in Germany are saying "the days of the numbered Swiss account are, well, numbered."
But the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper warned that the government's readiness to deal with a criminal for stolen bank data in this case as well as a similar case involving Liechtenstein two years years ago had created a new market for "Steuerdatenhandel" -- trading tax data. The Boersen-Zeitung business daily called it a seedy business and compared it to the narcotics trade. "Der Staat als Dealer" (The state as a dealer) it wrote. "The end does not justify the means in a state based upon the rule of law," Boersen-Zeitung wrote.
Just print that info & let the perspective localities handle it.
The person with the info that tries to blackmail someone is liable for extorsion.
This is the same as taking personal stats off of your PC & selling it to the highest bidder.
Kind of like Spam.
Dash
Swiss vote to ban new minarets too close for comfort
A threatening image dominates Switzerland’s streets in the form of a dark woman dressed in a Muslim niqab veil, looming over a Swiss flag covered with missile-like minarets with a call to vote “yes” in a referendum on Sunday to ban minarets on mosques here. The posters clearly seek to tap into the concerns of the country’s traditionally Christian majority about increased immigration from Muslim countries.
“I find the nature of these posters very provocative against the Islamic world. The presentation and the way the minarets are presented like rockets is unbelievable. Also the colours — with all the black — look very threatening,” says 34-year-old air traffic controller Judith Baumer. “I assume that it’s supposed to trigger strong emotions or fear in the population.”
The poster, described by the Swiss race commission as demonising Muslims and provoking religious tensions, has been banned in some cities but seems omnipresent in others.
Polls suggest the referendum could be close-run. With only a slim majority of Swiss questioned expressing opposition or a tendency to oppose a ban, turnout and currently undecided voters could yet sway the vote towards behind the “‘yes” campaign.
“It’s fine to build minarets in a Muslim country, not in Switzerland. I’m strictly against that,” says unemployed electrical fitter Rolf Waechtler. “People from abroad are ok with me, but I’m in favour of them putting minarets directly there: abroad.”
The anti-minarets initiative was organised mainly by members the right-wing Federal Democratic Union (EDU) and Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which won the largest share of the vote at the last election on rising anti-foreigner sentiment in Switzerland spurred by increased immigration.
if the answer was to go with mosque project and was approved by the current regim or official in the white house then those people hiding behind the walls in the white house should resign, of shame of their wrong doing to this country.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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