Mafia money pollutes the EU economy - by E. Bianchini, M. Castigliani, G.Pipitone, M.Portanova

Major profits from large-scale illegal activities have to be laundered to enter the so-called clean economy.

The money laundering itself is increasingly done by external specialised groups, which take a 5-8 percent cut for the service, Europol, the EU's police agency, says.

When only considering the Italian mafias, a 2016 report by the EU's judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, notes their infiltration into the legitimate economy in "Spain (particularly favoured by the Italian Camorra), the Netherlands, Romania, France, Germany, and the UK."

They are doing this primarily through "real estate investments and participation in public or private contracts, particularly in the field of construction, public utilities and waste disposal," the report says.

The Transcrime Organized Crime Portfolio (OCP), edited by Paolo Savona and Michele Riccardi, also notes "cases of organised crime investments were found in almost all EU member states (24 out of 28)", predominantly in Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Romania.

Dirty money, the OCP study says, is mostly "in areas with a historically strong presence of organized crime groups (e.g. southern Italy), in border regions, or in areas which may play a crucial role in illicit trafficking (e.g. Andalusia, or Rotterdam and Marseille with their harbours), large urban areas (e.g. London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin) and tourist or coastal areas (e.g. Côte d’Azur, Murcia, Malaga or European capitals).

Southern Spain, for example, attracts dirty money from Italian mafias, Russian criminals and northern European biker gangs.

In recent years, criminal investments focused on "renewable energy, waste collection and management, money transfers, casinos, VLT, slot machines, games and betting".

The cornerstone of the fight against organised crime is undoubtedly an EU directive from 3 April 2014 on the freezing and confiscation of the proceeds of crime in the EU.

On 7 October 2016, the EU parliament approved the report on the fight against corruption, prepared by an Italian MEP, Laura Ferrara, which partially adopts the work of Alfano's special committee.

The report's 35 pages echoes the same wish-list to the EU commission, that the offence of "criminal association regardless of consummation of criminal ends" should be punishable.
And yet, there has still been very little progress. It's like a broken record.

Read more: Mafia money pollutes the EU economy

PHARMAGEDDON: And few Americans even know that it’s happening

Big Pharma is America’s new mafia whose chemical warfare on humanity dwarfs the number of victims killed by all the world wars and acts of terrorism combined. While drug companies profit billions, people are dying by the millions. It makes you wonder if Pharmageddon is upon us with the next set of mandatory vaccinations planned by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for the profit of drug companies.

Over 70% of Americans are on some form of pharmaceutical drug that often brings negative side-effects, including death. Iatrogenic death, or “death by doctor”, is considered the third leading cause of death in America, conservatively speaking. Some experts interpret the data to read iatrogenic death as the number one cause of death, and they have a great deal of evidence to back up the claim. These statistics suggest that we should change the name “health industry” to “illness industry.”

Conservative estimates suggest that America spends about 20% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health costs, about $3.35 trillion this year, which works out to $10,345 for every man, woman and child. Hospitals account for about 32%, doctors for 20%, and prescription drugs 10%.  Spending on prescription drugs in the U.S. rose to a record $425 billion in 2016.

The vaccine business alone is currently a $30 billion per year industry and the World Health Organization has urged increased vaccines, projecting that it will become a $100 billion per year industry by 2025. (See Global Vaccine Markets Features and Trends in stunning report.)

There are 57 granted U.S. patents with the CDC listed as an assignee. Some of the vaccine patents include: Flu, Rotavirus, Hepatitis A, HIV, Anthrax, Rabies, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, Group A Strep, Pneumococcal disease, Meningococcal disease, RSV, Gastroenteritis, Japanese encephalitis, SARS, Rift Valley Fever, and chlamydophila pneumoniae, flavivirus infection, human rhinovirus, adjuvants, Canarypox virus, Fowlpox virus, Sealpox virus, and dog flu.

The global market for pharmaceuticals topped $1 trillion in sales in 2014. The world’s 10 largest drug companies generated $429.4 billion of that revenue. Five of the top 10 companies are headquartered in the U.S. are Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Abbot Laboratories, Merck, and Eli Lilly.
With the help of staggering profits and 1,100-plus paid lobbyists, the industry has gained powerful leverage on Capitol Hill. From 1998 to 2014,  

Big Pharma spent nearly $2.9 billion on lobbying expenses — more than any other industry. The industry also doled out more than $15 million in campaign contributions from 2013-14.  But the large amount of cash Big Pharma bestows on government representatives and regulatory bodies is small when compared with the billions it spends each year on direct-to-consumer advertising.

The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world whose governments allow prescription drugs to be advertised on TV.  A single manufacturer, Boehringer Ingelheim, spent $464 million advertising its blood thinner Pradaxa in 2011. The following year, the drug passed the $1 billion sales mark.
Big Pharma tends to weaken the objectivity of even the most honest health professionals while encouraging them to overprescribe medications. Consider the numbers:

• Advertising instead of research: For every $1 spent on “basic research,” Big Pharma spends $19 on promotions and advertising.
• Distribution of free drug samples: The U.S. has one pharmaceutical sales representative for every five office-based physicians.
• Sponsorship of symposiums and medical conventions: Drug and medical device makers spend lavishly on doctors, including covering meals, travel, seminars and conventions that sometimes look more like vacations.

Bottom-line: The US Pharmaceutical Industry has become crooked to the core and many Democratic and Republican politicians are making sure to keep it that way

Read more: PHARMAGEDDON: And few Americans even know that it’s happening! | The Millennium Report

Bulgarians allege government-mafia ties

Opposite the diminutive Bulgarian parliament building, beneath the dual shadows of the gleaming Radisson hotel and the neoclassical monument to Tsar Alexander II, a handful of scruffy tents flap in the breeze.

As dusk approaches, police officers wearily begin the daily ritual of erecting metal fencing around government buildings, dotted all the way down the Tsar's eponymously named boulevard, as the tones of drums and vuvuzelas combined with the clamour of Ostavka["resign!"] strike up in the distance.

What begun in February as a spontaneous outpouring of scorn by Bulgarians of all ages following a dramatic hike in energy bills led to the resignation of the centre-right GERB party. It has since mushroomed into a daily demand for increased transparency and accountability in public life.

Oresharski's new government almost immediately blew much of its perceived credibility on June 14, following the appointment of Delyan Peevski, a controversial media baron, to head the national security agency.

Despite Peevski's speedy resignation, the crowd had already mobilised, registering frustration at the political chicanery of all parties, spawning demonstrations that have been remarkable for their longevity.

Atanas, currently unemployed but desperately seeking a job, took a few moments away from softly playing the national anthem on the piano placed by activists beneath the Tsar statue to echo sentiments widely held by the crowd:  "We are against all those who ever ruled Bulgaria. We want our government to be ruled by regular people like us, not these parties or oligarchs and mafia."

Read more: Bulgarians allege government-mafia ties - Features - Al Jazeera English

Wall Street’s gravy train of bonuses starts at a ‘measly’ $250,000

Industry big-wigs are crying poor while still on track to scoop up more than most working stiffs could hope to earn in our entire lives.

Bankers like Jamie Dimon — described by Roger Lowenstein in a recent New York Times magazine profile as America’s least hated banker (a backhanded compliment if ever there was one) — believe they are being unfairly targeted. They obviously aren’t listening to the rest of the world. A recent poll shows more than 7% of Americans think big bonuses should be banned at Wall Street firms that took taxpayer bailouts.

The European Union has unveiled stringent new rules to rein in bonus payouts. This side of the Atlantic, Barack Obama blasted them as fat-cat bankers.

But in the US there is no sign that banking will spontaneously change its ways and even less sign that the authorities can come up with a measure that would force banks to act, even if there was a political will to do so.

For the complete report: Wall Street’s gravy train of bonuses starts at a ‘measly’ $250,000 | Full Comment | National Post

Italy - Ciao, baby! Why Italy just can't say no to Silvio Berlusconi

Ronald Reagan was known as the Teflon president, but Berlusconi's ability to shrug off misfortune beggars such metaphors. Ten months ago, as I was preparing to leave Rome, Berlusconi seemed doomed. It was his wife Veronica that had done for him: her announcement last April that she wanted a divorce seemed to break the spell in which he had held his country hypnotised for years. Suddenly, it seemed, people began to see him for what he was. Veronica's comments about him frequenting under-age girls, her condemnation of the "trash" – buxom showgirls – he wanted to put up for election to the European parliament, her cryptic remark that "my husband is not well" – all this from the woman who had stood by her man stoically for nigh on 30 years, cast him in a new and ghastly light. He might be mega-rich, brilliant, energetic, charismatic – but what a creep! What an appalling character to have thrown your lot in with! And what horrors might that pregnant phrase "non sta bene" – "he's not well" – contain? What raptures of megalomania, sadism or psychosis might the unlucky Veronica have been privy to?

For years Berlusconi has behaved more like a Roman emperor than an elected Prime Minister, but in the autumn of his years the tendency has become even more extreme. But the dismaying element today is the extent to which his adversaries let him get away with it: the last person to land a blow on him was the unbalanced character who hurled a bronze model of Milan's Duomo in his face at New Year. No one could claim that Italy was buoyant with Berlusconi at its head. Even the sort of phoney and palsied recovery that Britain experienced after the crash has eluded it. Industrial output plummeted by more than 17 per cent last year, and the nation's public debt of €1,663bn is the third highest in the world. Add this to the sleaze piling up on all sides and one would expect Berlusconi to get a terrible drubbing in the coming polls. Yet that is unlikely to happen – and not only because of the feebleness of the opposition. As a new book spells out, Berlusconi has a hold over a huge swathe of his electorate, who will vote for him no matter what.

According to the Italian writer Curzio Maltese, in The Bubble: The dangerous end of the Berlusconian dream, ever since he entered politics Berlusconi has appealed, more or less openly, to the nation's millions of tax evaders. And this is one constituency that he has never disappointed.

Italy today is devouring its own entrails. Private affluence and public squalor; constantly shrinking budgets which inflict vicious blows on schools and universities and hospitals and museums while the entrenched gerontocracies which preside over them are untouched; talented and vigorous youth who flee abroad to find study and work opportunities in ever-greater numbers, while their less-enterprising contemporaries struggle to make ends meet in jobs with miserable pay and no security; organised crime which constantly extends its reach; fear and hatred of immigrants, cynically encouraged by politicians in the government: this is Berlusconi's dismal legacy.

For more: Ciao, baby! Why Italy just can't say no to Silvio - Europe, World - The Independent

Canada.com: Mafia suspect arrested in Netherlands

For the complete report from Canada.com click on this link

Mafia suspect arrested in Netherlands

A member of a notorious Italian crime syndicate, sentenced in his homeland to life imprisonment for murder, has been arrested in the Netherlands, Dutch prosecutors said Friday. The 29-year-old man, Gianluca Racco, was arrested Thursday in Aalsmeer in the west of the country. According to Italy's ANSA news agency, He is listed as one of Italy's 100 most wanted fugitives. Citing sources among Italy's caribinieri, it said he was linked to the Commisso di Siderno mafia family. He had "probably been hiding for some time in the Netherlands" and was living in the town of Hoofddorp, the prosecution office said in a statement. Racco is the third member of the 'Ndrangheta, considered to be among the most violent Mafia organisations, to be arrested in the Netherlands in the past nine months. In March, Dutch police arrested Giovanni Strangio, a key suspect of a deadly 2007 shooting in Germany in which six people were killed, at a town near Amsterdam. He was extradited Italy in May. His brother-in-law was arrested in November in Amsterdam. He had been sentenced in absentia in Italy to nearly 15 years in prison for drug trafficking.