welcome back on board the Sputnik with
me half Sakura Mustafa standing in again
for George Galloway and me Gayatri the
leak of over 11 million files from a
panama-based law firm mossack fonseca
continues to send shockwaves around the
world the documents passed on by
anonymous sources to Germany's daily
zeitung with them sent to the
washington-based international
consortium of investigative journalists
which then shared them with various
international media including business
garden and the BBC the papers revealed a
network of secret offshore deals and
loans involving political officials
royalty as well as celebrities from
across the globe but what do these
investments mean and who do they impact
and what will these revelations lead to
hoping to unravel some of the mysteries
around the opaque and murky world of
international finance is journalist and
activist Steve topple Steve welcome to
the show thank you family Steve before
we sort of go into the consequences of
this massive effect and it just took
through a bit about what it at what the
Panama leaks actually mean and pretty
much wild the timing I think the timing
to start with is extremely interesting
there's been an undercurrent of
discontent and over the past few years
with the situation with offshore tax
havens has a lot been bubbling under
public sentiment is quite angry at the
moment I'm and broader than that public
sentiment with the financial system that
we live under generally people really
aren't happy and I i think this brings a
lot of things to a head if you like
surrounding just how corporations and
wealthy individuals do go about their
business the one-percent be the one
percent exactly that they're sort of
table done yeah fabled notion that we
will talk about the one percent versus a
99 and so I think it's come to a head
now I think the timing of the leak is
very interesting because it's quite well
known they've been preparing this
information and had it ready over a year
ago and
they had access to possibly up to seven
years and so why they've done it now
various reasons it there's a lot of
debate surrounding that I think it's
important for a number of reasons
because it shines a really bright light
on the machinery if you like of the
offshore tax system it gives the public
hopefully unprecedented access to how
these things actually work and operate
and it also cast quite a dark shadow
over the global financial industry
generally and I don't think they come
off well but we don't but the public
doesn't really have access to all of
them because obviously it's been very
selective and the choice has been made
by the consortium this is the problem
yes and the director of the icij has
come out and out rightly says that
they're not going to release all the
information on this now we're talking 11
and a half million files over two
terabytes of data and so far we've had
149 files so if they're not going to
release it all then how is the public
going to get a full picture they've
called it responsible journalism and by
not releasing all the information I I
beg to differ on that responsible i say
it's fairly irresponsible because
ultimately it's such an issue which is
in the public interest surely it should
be up to us to decide what what is
responsible what is worthy of screening
and what isn't the the affair has
actually claimed its first scalp which
is the prime minister of Iceland
obviously he turned out that he had an
offshore firm in the name of his wife no
it wasn't exactly illegal but the fact
that he didn't reveal it when he became
prime minister obviously indicated
something on towards do you reckon that
other heads are going to roll and if so
which ones I think the thing with in
Iceland is interesting um purely because
they were seen as a slightly
revolutionary band country could like
after the two thousand they crashed i ja
the later bankers and then gave him the
good bash as it were and for him to then
be seen to be operating within that
system which she was obviously fervently
against and i think that's where the
public anger in iceland has come from
will we see more heads roll i I
David Cameron I think he's I think he's
probably fairly safe the time of this is
wonderful Parliament's on recess aren't
they so he can get a battering in p.m.
keys yesterday from Corbin and I think
given the timing and the fact that
Parliament will be back next week I
think could probably get away with it as
these conservative MPs generally do one
of the biggest names in his revelation
is President Putin but he's actually not
actually the documents the media I just
mentioning him that hope how fun is that
no it's like it's like you've got
Putin's brothers dogs nieces cousin was
using an offshore tax haven or something
yeah its name wasn't it Tim yes yeah
yeah so it's on Putin bad and no his
name wasn't even in there I think the
whole thing with this narrative I mean
if we'd have known that this leak was
going to come out on sunday you could
have written script for it saturday
night because we've gone from bosch
putin bash china bash these regimes as
they call them then we've moved on to
having a cheeky dig at david cameron
yesterday all the celebrities came out
and then today when interest is dying
down the news turns to what is actually
important in this which is the city of
london and the corporations that are
operating within this but it's now day
four of the leak public interest is
probably waned on it so they made sure
they got the stories they wanted us to
talk about I as you say Putin yeah and
his rather lane connection to it
although make sure they got that out
there straight away so it means annonce
but you say you mentioned 10 as well
they were mentioned actually there were
members of the Chinese regime mention so
Howard ever see there I i'm not sure i
think that china's interesting at the
moment they're a country which is trying
to UM swerve away from if you like the
pseudo communist regime they had and
they're trying to move into more Western
model where everything's service
industry based like they're laying off
about five million workers over the next
five years aren't they and in the public
sector and so how that news will be
receiving China I'm not sure they're
still quite authoritarian aren't they
and
the state does control the public's
perception of their government I think
that yeah that's going to be interesting
how that pans out what the public and
China do you think of it back in the UK
do you think that at the very least just
to sort of give something to public
opinion which is very angry considering
all the financial scandals over the past
five seven years and is there going to
be some change to banking regulations
something that says that you know no
more of this impunity for so many
high-ranking officials I think the
government will have to be seen to be
doing something now yes because of
Cameron and his colleagues have been
going on and on and on for years since
the last crash in 2008 they when they
were an opposition that was saying about
the new title regulations however
they've sat on the hands and done
nothing and so I think now it will be
imperative for them to do something the
problem being is this going to make any
difference this whole system of offshore
tax havens the money that goes into it
and comes out is so entrenched and
systemic within the world we live in
that the proposals their table in which
is country-by-country reporting of
companies that use and blacklisting of
tax havens and base erosion profit
shifting countermeasures which is where
companies moving up money offshore to
make sure that the country they've
registered in they pay very little tax
is this going to make any difference
it's like this system is I Hydra if you
like a mythological Hydra you chop off
one head and another one's going to
appear somewhere else and I just think
that it's too deep and too rotten for it
them to ever be changed and if I'm just
giving one brief example just to show
how deep this goes Oxfam charity
campaigning against poverty and they
released report at the start this year
saying 62 people in as much wealth as
fifty percent of the world they accept
donations from the Schulich charitable
foundation as in jewett packard
hewlett-packard operates in tax haven
Bermuda and so oxfam's money that
they're being given is coming directly
from a tax haven this is how deep it
goes in charities are receiving money
from the offshore business
if you like it's it's somewhat
mind-blowing how big it is and i just
think any regulation is it's going to be
pretty inconsequential humans in bermuda
and i've heard of many caribbean islands
as tax havens but not panama obviously
just come from imean law firm well right
there what is it upon allah is there one
more secrets did it hold this is the
thing and this is quite an interesting
point actually why Panama um and it
might eventually shed some light on
exactly where this lake has come from
because palomar signed a free trade
agreement with the u.s. in 2012 which at
the time there's a lot of people have
been armed saying this will encourage
tax avoidance system encourage the rich
to get richer panama and itself isn't
one of the main protagonists of offshore
tax evasion if you like um I think this
firm is obviously a big middleman but
they're not one the line culprits it's a
british virgin islands bermuda the
cayman islands so the fact it's come
from panama I think that's one to watch
I think if and when we find out who
actually because of it they hacked in
someone apparently was what of law firm
said it was an outside nak nothing
internal so someone's got in there and
it will be interesting to watch where
this leak might have actually come from
and who ultimately is going to benefit
from it what I'm interested in now is
that obviously you say it goes in very
very deep and it involves incredibly
powerful people but I mean what do we
expect does this is something it's done
something going to give something good
to happen or within a week we're just
gonna go back and have a nice cup of tea
forget all about it there's the thing as
I roll oh my goodness people of dodging
tax and like it's some shock a lot of us
know it isn't it's been well reported
like back in twenty twelve there was big
revelations about um I think was 13
trillion was avoided via offshore tax
havens we all kind of went alone and
then all right eastenders is on and and
it is anything in the change I don't I
don't know I mean another challenges of
course we have the media's spinning it's
like hell as we touched on earlier with
Putin and China they're up to their
necks and as well the Guardians garden
media group chief executive for example
Neil Beckett's he also is an executive
director of sage the accountancy IT
company they operate 44 offshore tax
havens themselves really so and it is
within the media BBC rowing the fair
head to trusts chairman she's a direct
and pepsico who operate out of Bermuda
it so again it's just so deep and as you
say are we in the weeks time just going
to be now on something else I think it's
it's up to people like us media aren't
constrained by corporate interests and
the activists who are very present on
social media and people like People's
Assembly you have a demo next Saturday
it's up to people like us and them to
keep pushing this to make sure that make
the link it does yes city it's exactly
it is yeah this is the hope there's a
solution to the current austerity
protesters what it boast answer it this
is just another cog in the wheel of
global inequality it's not just in the
West either I mean like there's a
company like Chevron it's the 16th bit
of the biggest corporation in the world
massive oil company offer I at 180
countries they have 264 subsidiaries in
Bermuda alone 264 individual companies
old sucking money out of places like
several central african republic the
congo all these third world countries
are being deprived of money they should
be having Steve Stoffel I think we talk
about this firm another good hour but
I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there
thank you very much now in the next part
of the show we're going to be talking
about something almost as mysterious as
international finance stay tuned t
tipped next
welcome back to split Nick the
transatlantic trade and investment
partnership or TTIP is a series of trade
negotiations being carried out between
the EU and the US as a bilateral trade
agreement t tip is about reducing the
regulatory barriers to trade for big
business issues such as food safety law
environmental legislation and banking
regulations are all affected by the new
trade deal yet despite its importance
and the impact these deals are likely to
have on Britain and the European Union
as a whole they are conducted in secret
with very little transpiring in the
media described as an assault on
European and US societies by
transnational corporations by Warren
wants executive director John Hillary t
tip has the potential to affect every
single one of us to explain in detail
why is member of stop T tip expert group
dr. Lucy Reynolds Lucy um we know that
every something is being conducted in
secret and we know that there is concern
amongst the general public but before we
go into that can you just tell us a bit
about what t tip is and what it
represents certainly it's known as a
trade deal but it's one in a series of
trade deals around the world and
generally in the past trade deals have
been aimed at reducing barriers to trade
so that sort of customs tariffs that
kind of thing this one isn't because
those tariffs are already very low
between the parties to this which is the
European Union and the USA and we have
parallel agreement about to be signed
actually even earlier september-october
maybe with the forthcoming day of action
against it in May which is the Canadian
equivalent which is called cita but the
TTIP deal would tie the US and the
European Union into a single market and
the changes in it well as you say it's
very hard to find out what's in it
actually they've required people who go
and look at it only members of the
European Parliament and MPs they're
allowed to go in but they're not allowed
to take any notes that they can take out
or any photographs or anything like that
they're not allowed to take the text out
so we don't really know exactly what's
in it but
we have had some information about it
mainly from the way they're kind of
advertise it which is not all that
convincing so we see that there's going
to be a unification of standards which
will generally be down to the u.s. level
because that's the form for trade
agreements around the world and so we're
going to lose a lot of protections that
we have in the European Union and in
Britain because if they are inconvenient
to the profit stream of foreign
corporations American corporations are
allowed to do things a different way at
home they can very likely be able to
claim that they can reduce the standards
so that they will be able to trade on
equal terms so that's likely and also a
very major target of it is in fact the
privatization of public services in
Europe there's a lot of floating free
capital that's looking for investment
opportunities and honestly tapping out
sourcing money from public services and
privatization streams generally is
easier than earning a nice living in in
fierce competition against each other so
that is a big part of TTIP and that in
fact is the thing that brought it to our
notice the threat to the NHS that it
represents because in 2012 and
instruction was given in internal EU
circles in Brussels to start the
harmonization or complete if that had
already been started of national
legislation on public services to us
standards in preparation of TTIP and
delegates to that meeting we're told
that the priority sector was the
healthcare sector so obviously since the
and the NHS is in an english-speaking
country and the u.s. is an
english-speaking country the NHS is the
big target we know that the NHS is
obviously in the line of fire as it were
and that's been sort of mentioned quite
a few times but what are the areas that
the public really should be concerned
about other than the NHS well we've got
form from the the trade treaty mob on
food quality standards so there's been
fights in the past over hormone treated
beef coming into the u.s. they're coming
into the EU we've been able to block
that because we have higher standards
but we won't be able to enforce those
any longer so we're going to lose those
sorts of
shins and unfortunately trade law is
it's not really a set of laws it's a
kind of regime written by the
corporation's for the corporation's
enforceable against the people by their
governments who have to be induced to go
along with this somehow and under those
arrangements everything is very much
swung towards the big corporate interest
so where there are points at issue they
are decided through secret trade
tribunals staffed by their people they
don't publish any information about the
decisions and they don't have to follow
precedent so basically they're kind of
making it up as they go along for them
in their cronies and therefore what
looks on paper like something reasonable
for example the exemption exemption for
public health services actually is very
tight indeed so as well as standards
right the way through the economy but a
particularly around health and safety
standards we're basically looking that
as a situation where the NHS is going to
be forced into a situation of full
privatization to look very much like us
health care unless we're able to rhina
tional eyes it pretty much immediately
bring your political will to do that as
obviously hard to come by at the moment
because our politicians are generally
trying to encourage the TTIP a deal and
are trying to kind of market it to us
although those that find out about
what's actually in it tend to be rather
more critical and Peter Lilley MP has
come out this last week against TTIP I
think he's probably been reading our
literature actually he's really quite
well informed and he quite correctly
points out that the thing is a heist and
we should have nothing to do with it so
we won't even people like that are
coming out you know there's a sign of
nevermind facility MPE don't Trump has
even know race concerned over this TTIP
deal and he is obviously the big
successful businessmen so if even he is
raising question marks then who is
behind this TTIP deal well I mean I
think it's a conglomerate of corporate
interests john perkins in confessions of
an economic hitman about his time at the
forefront of the privatization wave
explained that after
the oil shocks in the 1970s when the
oil-producing countries which weren't
the general centers of power got
together as a block and exerted some of
that power back in the opposite
direction at that point that they're
developed a very tight cartel of power
between the different interests so
industrial interests extractive
interests banking interests and the
general kind of hierarchy locked in much
much tighter and the trade lobby is a
representation of that I mean it's been
going in its present form since the
second world war with the launch of the
Bretton Woods organizations the World
Trade Organization did you see I am
adding me and the World Bank yes
absolutely I mean it's got it's a
hydra-headed thing and in all all of the
marketing that puts it works out is just
lovely but actually when you look at the
nitty-gritty that's where the problem
comes and it's very important to note in
this connection we can't see the text of
the TTIP agreement or the SITA agreement
or really any of it openly my Master's
dissertation back in the 1990s involved
analyzing the actual legal text of what
was supposed to be a poverty initiative
oh boy what was in that it was
disgusting basically it was like well
we'll give you some money because you're
starving we have to turn over all your
public services on the worst terms so
really you know TTIP and the like is is
just one in a line of a series of
corporate takeovers and unless we resist
if really quite forcefully it will go
through however resistance to it is not
impossible because the whole reason that
they're at the moment trying to patch
together the regional trade treaties
around the world into a single net is
because they lost at the last round in
2001 in the doha meeting of the World
Trade Organization there was a push to
get through the general agreement and
trade in services which would have
basically kind of forced open all public
services globally of the same sort of
terms and the activists won the battle
which is why we know they're basically
stalemated it more than anything so this
is why we're now facing this so public
awareness is growing actually how close
are we to this ticket deal being signed
well you know
in some ways it looks like the
inevitable march really because our
politicians are going along with it so
we really need an exceptional pushback I
think to educate them more than anything
because anybody that does actually look
at it sees that it's completely
outrageous so what are the groups
actually getting involved in in
challenging this TTIP because I mean
obviously again the secrecy means that
people simply not alarmed enough to
attempt to challenge it are there other
groups such as yours that are involved
in in sort of trying to get answers from
the government and actually pushing for
a reversal of these agreements um well
yes actually that that mobilization has
gone pretty well it's been fairly
spontaneous but headed by a very
effective activist called Linda culture
who was in that meeting in Brussels in
2012 when she heard that our public
services were about to go down and so
it's gone from one person back then to a
national network there's an expert group
which which works on the inside and then
a dissemination group called no TTIP
we've got a newspaper here so various
sir initiatives to spread the word
around the country I've done a fair
amount of speaking on this despite the
fact that it's it's you know in many
ways not my primary area of interest I'm
very worried about the NHS privatization
in particular we have a little bit of
kind of feedback on this if you like a
little bit of market research from the
fact that the many MPs reported that
they were going around canvassing for
the election and will being treated to
education on TTIP on their the front
doorsteps of their constituents by their
constituents which is actually pretty
impressive from one person only a few
years ago but you know the content of
this is really very frightening very
very briefly is it still reversible well
yes it is you know if from what was
really a fairly kind of ad hoc bunch of
third-world activists and a few people
in the First World War technicals who
came to assist them if that can still
make the thing it's possible to do that
but we need to make people aware so
thank you very much for giving the issue
the exposure in particular this is a
very big threat to the NHS unless we can
realize the NHS immediately this is
really the end of it dr. Reynolds I have
to stop you there
you very much have been a great guest
you've heard the experts so now it's
time to hear what you have to say gay
actually what's been going on in the
social media well you think that tea
tape is still a big mystery but from the
social media response it doesn't seem
that way we've had less response on the
Panama a matter when we asked to people
where the cameras should resign based on
the revelation about his mother and
trust funds to which Ricardo Picasso
says he has been caught red-handed with
nowhere to hide Parliament should be
recalled for an immediate debate about
our democracy unfortunately that didn't
happen aunty tip loads and loads of
response Louise mcdade says assisted by
the Tories it puts our public services
out to privatisation I would fold leave
the EU and Roger the Dodger says after
45 a few states ruled the world after
tea tip a few corporations will rule
simples pretty scary stuff when you look
at it is not very much and those are all
the tweets for this week which brings us
to the end of the show with me half
Saqqara Mustafa are standing in for
George Galloway and me gayathri but you
can stay in touch with us on twitter RT
underscores Sputnik or on Facebook
Sputnik on Russia today until next week
it's been marvelous