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	Secret Companies allow corrupt cash to flood key Real Estate Markets by Inter Press Service, agencies   The governments of Australia, Canada, the UK and the US need to close glaring legal loopholes to prevent the corrupt elite from laundering the proceeds of grand corruption in their local real estate markets, a major anti-corruption watchdog urges.   The Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), a global anti-corruption movement working in over 100 countries, has issued a new report, Doors Wide Open: Corruption and Real Estate in Key Markets, in which it identifies the 10 main problems related to real estate and money laundering in those four countries and makes recommendations on how to address them.   The report focuses on four countries that are known hot-spots for the corrupt to invest and launder money.   “Governments must close the loopholes that allow corrupt politicians, civil servants and business executives to be able to hide stolen wealth through the purchase of expensive houses in London, New York, Sydney and Vancouver,” said José Ugaz, Chair of Transparency International.   “The failure to deliver on their anti-corruption commitments feeds poverty and inequality while the corrupt enjoy lives of luxury,” Ugaz added.   Real estate has long provided a way for individuals to secretly launder or invest stolen money and other illicitly gained funds, TI informs, adding that according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), real estate accounted for up to 30 per cent of criminal assets confiscated worldwide between 2011 and 2013.   “Not only do expensive apartments in New York, London or Sydney raise the social status of their owners and allow them to live in luxury, they are also an easy and convenient place to hide hundreds of millions of dollars from criminal investigators, tax authorities or others tracking criminal behaviour and the proceeds of crime.”   The international anti-corruption group found that despite anti-corruption promises by government in the countries covered in the report, current rules and practices have failed to detect and prevent money laundering in the real estate sector.   “Strikingly, Australia, Canada and the US rely almost exclusively on banks to stop money laundering, even though a slew of middlemen including real estate agents, accountants, tax planners, lawyers and others participate in deal-making.“   This makes all cash deals, which do not require the involvement of a bank and which represent a significant proportion of high-end sales made to overseas investors, especially difficult to track, says TI.   Only the UK requires that checks are made on people selling real estate in order to identify suspicious activity and identify the real owners of the property.   However, TI emphasises that the same checks by real estate agents are not required on the buyers – where the highest risk of money laundering exists – leaving a gaping hole in the sector’s defences against corrupt money.   The report also finds that offshore companies pose a serious risk in all four countries because they are able to purchase property without needing to disclose any information relating to who ultimately owns and controls them to any government authority. The UK has committed to establish a registry to collect and publish this information.   None of the countries analysed have tests in place for professionals working in the real estate sector in order to assess whether they are aware of their anti-money laundering obligations, TI informs and adds that very little information is published regarding any sanctions applied to real estate agents, lawyers, accountants and notaries for facilitating money laundering into the real estate sector.   Transparency International makes the following recommendations:   • Governments should require all middlemen to identify and keep records of the real, beneficial owners of legal entities, trusts and other legal arrangements in real estate sales.   • Governments should require that both domestic and foreign politically-exposed-persons, their family members and close associates purchasing property be automatically identified as high-risk clients. Additional preventive measures such as enhanced due diligence should be implemented.   • Governments should require foreign companies that wish to purchase property to provide beneficial ownership information. This information should be kept in a central beneficial ownership registry and made available to competent authorities and the public in open data format.   • Governments should require real estate agents to register with a designated public authority for anti-money laundering supervision in order to operate in the real estate sector, and be tested to show they know the rules. Anti-money laundering training should be made compulsory upon registration.   • Governments and professional associations should introduce rules requiring lawyers, accountants and other professionals who are not registered with the relevant anti-money laundering supervisor to be prohibited from engaging in real estate deals. Visit the related web page
	White House bars New York Times and other Major News Outlets from Briefing by NYT, CNN, The Hill, agencies USA   24 Feb. 2017   White House bars New York Times and other Major News Outlets from Briefing. (New York Times, agencies)   Journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.   Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing.   Aides to Mr. Spicer only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.   Those organizations included the far right Breitbart News, the One America News Network, Fox News and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, Bloomberg, News Corporation owned The Wall Street Journal also attended.   Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions.   “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement.   “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”   The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the press corps, quickly rebuked the White House’s actions.   “The W.H.C.A. board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House,” the association president, Jeff Mason, said in a statement. “We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”   The White House move came hours after Mr. Trump delivered another slashing attack on the news media in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The president denounced news organizations as “dishonest” purveyors of “fake news” and mocked journalists for claiming free speech rights.   Mr. Spicer’s small-group Friday session, known as a gaggle, was scheduled as a no-camera event, less formal than his usual briefings that are carried live on cable news. But past administrations have not hand-selected outlets that can attend such sessions.   “It was clear that they let in a lot of news outlets with less reach who are Trump-friendly,” said Noah Bierman, a White House reporter for The Los Angeles Times, who was barred. “They let in almost every network but CNN. That’s concerning, the handpicking aspect of it.”   Two of the barred outlets, CNN and The Times, have been a particular focus of Mr. Trump’s ire. And during the presidential campaign, some journalists from BuzzFeed News and Politico were prohibited from attending Trump rallies.   Representatives of the barred news organizations made clear that they believed the White House’s actions on Friday were punitive.   “Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don’t like. We’ll keep reporting regardless.” CNN said in a statement.   Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, called it “the White House’s apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like.”   CNN''s Jake Tapper took aim at the White House as he kicked off "The Lead with Jake Tapper" hours after the gaggle.   "A White House that has had some difficulty telling the truth and that has seemed to have trouble getting up to speed on the basic competent functioning of Government, and a President who seems particularly averse to any criticism and has called the press the enemies of the American people — they''re taking the next step in attempting to avoid checks and balances and accountability," Tapper said.   Davan Maharaj, editor in chief and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, called the newspaper''s exclusion "unfortunate".   "The public has a right to know, and that means being informed by a variety of news sources, not just those filtered by the White House press office in hopes of getting friendly coverage," the LA Times editor said.   http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/opinion/trump-is-damaging-press-freedom-in-the-us-and-abroad.html   Feb. 2017   White House hand-picks select media outlets for briefing. (The Hill, agencies)   The White House blocked a number of news outlets from covering spokesman Sean Spicer’s question-and-answer session on Friday afternoon.   Spicer decided to hold an off-camera “gaggle” with reporters inside his West Wing office instead of the traditional on-camera briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.   Among the outlets not permitted to cover the gaggle were news organizations President Trump has singled out for criticism, including CNN.   The New York Times, The Hill, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, the BBC, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and the New York Daily News were among the other news organizations not permitted to attend.   Journalists from several right-leaning outlets were allowed into Spicer’s office, including Breitbart, the Washington Times, Fox News and One America News Network.   Reporters from The Associated Press and Time magazine were allowed into the gaggle but refused to attend.   “AP believes the public should have as much access to the president as possible,” the organization''s communications arm tweeted.   The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) sharply criticized the decision.   “The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today''s gaggle is being handled by the White House,” Jeff Mason, the association’s president, said in a statement.   “We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not,” he added. “The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”   It’s highly unusual for White House staff to hand-pick outlets to attend daily, on-the-record briefings with spokespeople, which are typically open for all reporters to attend.   The political manoeuvre threatens to cut off some of the nation''s most prominent and esteemed news organisations from a daily event that has for years been seen as ingrained in the White House press beat. Such actions are the practice of authoritian states.   Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized what he calls the “dishonest media” who seek to factually report the news and hold his administration accountable for its actions. Earlier on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr.Trump in true Orwellian style said he respects the First Amendment.   “I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody,” he said. “But as you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn''t tell the truth”.. “We''re going to do something about it.”   During the transition, Spicer himself also pledged to shake up the White House press corps once Trump took office.   He has adopted a number of changes to the daily briefing format, such as the use of "Skype seats" that allow reporters from outside Washington to ask questions. He also ended the practice of allowing The Associated Press to ask the first question, giving the privilege to a rotation of right wing conservative "news" outlets.   The American Civil Liberties Union called the exclusion "yet another disturbing example of the Trump administration''s contempt for the vital role a free press plays in our democracy."   The Committee to Protect Journalists also condemned the move by the White House.   "We are concerned by the decision to bar reporters from a press secretary briefing," CPJ executive director Joel Simon said in a statement. "The US should be promoting press freedom and access to information."   Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters without Borders: "And now the White House discriminates journalists! That''s purely undemocratic and unacceptable".   U.S. Representative for California, Barbara Lee commented, "Let me reiterate: The White House is blacklisting outlets for printing the truth. This is chilling. Our bill of rights isn’t up for debate".   * The Universal Rights Network commends The Associated Press and Time magazine for refusing to attend, and shares the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) alarm and concern at these developments. For more on the latest misleading stories from Fox News see: http://bit.ly/2lYET49   Jan 2017   White House official tells the media to ''keep its mouth shut''. That''s a threat, writes Francine Prose, former president of the PEN American Center and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.   Anyone who cares about language has been repeatedly appalled by the crudeness of Donald Trump’s rhetoric and by the thuggishness of the directives issued by Trump and his cohorts. They have instructed the American people on what to believe, whom to hate and how badly they can behave. And yet we continue to be surprised by each bullying pronouncement, most recently by chief White House strategist and far right Breitbart News founder Stephen Bannon’s suggestion that the “humiliated” media might do well to “keep its mouth shut”.   Now that our mainstream newspapers have given up on finding a fair and balanced way to report the president’s lies, now that the country has watched NBC’s Chuck Todd barely conceal his astonishment at Kellyanne Conway’s reference to “alternative facts”, it’s no wonder that the administration’s antipathy toward the press should have become more openly vehement and reckless.   Trump has referred to reporters as being “among the most dishonest people on earth”, and his press secretary insisted that journalists should be “held accountable” for reporting the truth.   But what’s newly disturbing is the phrasing and tone of Bannon’s statement. Telling an institution to “keep its mouth shut” is, quite simply, a threat – entirely different from expressing the hope that the media might want to temper its criticism and scrupulously check its facts.   By ordering the media to shut its mouth, Bannon is implying that what he would really like to do is discredit, censor and silence the press: to shut our mouths for us.   “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” Bannon said, in an interview. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”   In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, RonNell Andersen Jones and and Sonja R West, both professors of law, considered the limited power of the first amendment to safeguard the press.   The public’s respect for the media has been severely eroded; no longer profitable, many newspapers have closed; the courts and the government have grown increasingly reluctant to protect reporters and facilitate their work.   What’s ironic, and disturbing, is that all this is occurring at a time when we need a free and unbiased press more than ever before: to inform us of what our leaders are doing, of what they may be trying to keep secret, and to hold the government accountable for furthering the interests of the rich while endangering the health and welfare of the people.   History has shown us why totalitarian governments are such implacable enemies of the press, and why, on coming to power, their leaders have been so quick to impose strict censorship and criminalize dissent.   It’s easier to dominate and oppress a terrified population forbidden to read (or write or speak) the truth, people who have resigned themselves to being lied to, and who are further isolated by a lack of information.   Already, we depend on the press to report on the widespread opposition to the Trump administration’s insidious plans for our future; without the media, each of us might conclude that we, our friends and a few relatives and co-workers are the only ones in the nation with profound reservations about the direction in which our country is heading.   What remains to be seen is how staunchly the press withstands the attempts of Bannon and Trump and others to discredit, marginalize, censor and suppress it. One positive outcome may be that our journalists’ commitment to reporting the truth will no longer be mediated by the desire to remain in the good graces of powerful politicians.   Some years ago, I watched a documentary in which a series of reporters told Bill Moyers that they’d hesitated to question the assertion that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction because they were afraid of “losing access”, worried lest they be denied their places at White House press conferences and on Air Force One.   If that access no longer exists – as Trump and Bannon repeatedly threaten – reporters may lose their reluctance to ask the hard and difficult questions, and may have no choice but to seek out the answers for themselves.   Meanwhile, all of us must do what we can to support our free press: subscribe to newspapers and magazines, donate to the radio and TV stations we trust.   We cannot allow impartial and honest journalism to be something we take for granted – until it disappears. And the more stridently that men like Stephen K Bannon tell us to keep our mouths shut, the more essential it is for us to keep talking, to insist on our constitutional right to speak freely, to write and read the truth.   Jan. 2017   Reframing the Narrative: Conservative Media play prominent role at White House Press Briefings, by Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash.   There''s a new media sheriff in Washington, D.C. and his name is Sean Spicer. "The mainstream media isn''t the only game in town anymore," Spicer, a former communications director and strategist for the Republican National Committee and now White House press secretary, told Fox News in a recent interview. At what was called his first briefing – which was really his second, having read an incendiary and factually inaccurate message about crowd size at the inaugural and then storming off – Spicer made it clear that the mainstream media will not be treated the same as it has by previous administrations.   Which, when translated, means that such purveyors of misinformation and what Kelly Anne Conway has called "alternative facts," such as the New York Post, Fox News, Newsmax and other right wing conservative media will not only get called on for questions, but will receive priority treatment. At a subsequent news briefing, Spicer called on LifeZette, Breitbart News, and The Heritage Foundation. Spicer has pledged to find more space for right wing talk-radio hosts and conservative bloggers."   "The order in which Spicer called on people suggests it is a new day when it comes to who this White House considers being priorities in terms of being called on," CNN''s Jake Tapper pointed out.   It is not only a question of which media the administration feels it is important to recognize, but it is also about which media will serve the administration best, by shaping the narrative and pushing the stories Team Trump wants to promulgate.   As The Heritage Foundation''s Katrina Trinko, managing editor of the foundation''s The Daily Signal, pointed out, "Spicer is shocking the D.C. media establishment by making it clear that the Trump White House is going to be cater to the conservative media."   Trinko''s recent column, came on the heels of Conservative Republican Newt Gingrich''s speech at The Heritage Foundation, during which he lambasted the mainstream media for it''s supposed ''liberal bias''.   On January 23, Spicer gave the first question to Daniel Halpern of The New York Post, who asked "When will you guys commence the building of the border wall?"   Jennifer Wishon of the Christian Broadcasting Network was called upon second and she asked about what message President Trump''s was sending by his reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, which bans using Government funding from organizations internationally that provide abortions? "Does he see the elimination or reduction of abortions as an American value? And also, here at home, can pro-life Americans expect him to put his signature on legislation that will defund Planned Parenthood?"   Later on, John Roberts of Fox News asked whether the president was going "to take action to green light the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines?"   http://rsf.org/en/news/us-trumps-attacks-media-send-dangerous-message-worlds-press-freedom-predators http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/opinion/trump-is-damaging-press-freedom-in-the-us-and-abroad.html http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/27/steve-bannon-white-house-official-media-keep-mouth-shut-threat http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html http://news.wgbh.org/2017/02/08/news/steve-bannon-aligns-vatican-hard-liners-who-oppose-pope-francis http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/business/media/rupert-murdoch-donald-trump-news-corporation.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/18/thats-how-dictators-get-started-mccain-criticizes-trump-for-calling-media-the-enemy/ http://rsf.org/en/news/trump-media-public-enemy-number-one http://bit.ly/2kDfR6g http://bit.ly/2jQjTuV http://dartcenter.org/resources/trump-trauma-and-news-lessons-campaign-trail http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/02/how-to-cover-pols-who-lie-and-why-facts-dont-always-change-minds-updates-from-the-fake-news-world/   http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/ http://www.warren.senate.gov/ http://www.sanders.senate.gov/ http://billmoyers.com/story/welcome-to-the-vortex/ http://robertreich.org/ http://business-humanrights.org/en/companies-denounce-rightwing-us-website-breitbart-after-criticism http://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/01/13204/marc-short-koch-dark-money-operative-trump-legislative-director http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/the-heritage-foundation-a-heritage-of-propaganda-as-news http://theintercept.com/2017/01/24/get-ready-for-the-first-shocks-of-trumps-disaster-capitalism/ http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/01/24/trump-issues-media-blackout-multiple-federal-agencies http://www.thenation.com/article/the-real-enemy-of-the-people-is-a-president-who-opposes-the-free-press/ http://www.thestar.com/news/world/uselection/2016/11/04/donald-trump-the-unauthorized-database-of-false-things.html http://billmoyers.com/story/new-low-nra/
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