G-20 finance ministers back plan to stop use of tax havens

By DAVID McHUGH


1 of 14 PROTEST PHOTOS

Italian Policemen in riot gears clash with demonstrators during a protest against the G20 Economy and Finance ministers and Central bank governors' meeting in Venice, Italy, Saturday, July 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Top finance officials representing most of the world’s economy have backed a sweeping revision of international taxation that includes a 15% global minimum corporate levy to deter big companies from resorting to low-rate tax havens.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries endorsed the plan at a meeting Saturday in Venice.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal would end a “self-defeating international tax competition” in which countries have for years lowered their rates to attract companies. She said that had been “a race that nobody has won. What it has done instead is to deprive us of the resources we need to invest in our people, our workforces, our infrastructure.”

The next steps include more work on key details at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and then a final decision at the Group of 20 meeting of presidents and prime ministers on Oct. 30-31 in Rome.

Implementation, expected as early as 2023, would depend on action at the national level. Countries would enact the minimum tax requirement into their own laws. Other parts could require a formal treaty. The draft proposal was approved July 1 in talks among more than 130 countries convened by the OECD.

Italy hosted the finance minister’s meeting in Venice because it holds the rotating chair of the G-20, which makes up more than 80% of the world economy. The event also attracted around 1,000 protesters under the banner “We Are The Tide,” an umbrella group of environmental and social justice activists, including opponents of large cruise ships and the hordes of tourists they bring to the lagoon city. A small group scuffled Saturday with police after breaking away from an approved demonstration area.

The U.S. already has a minimum tax on overseas earnings, but President Joe Biden has proposed roughly doubling the rate to 21%, which would more than comply with the proposed global minimum. Raising the rate is part of a broader proposal to fund Biden’s jobs and infrastructure plan by raising the domestic corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%.

Yellen said she was “very optimistic” that Biden’s infrastructure and tax legislation “will include what we need for the United States to come into compliance” with the minimum tax proposal.

Republicans in the Congress have expressed opposition to the measure. Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has blasted the OECD deal, saying, “This is an economic surrender to China, Europe and the world that Congress will reject.”

The international tax proposal aims to deter the world’s biggest firms from using accounting and legal schemes to shift their profits to countries where little or no tax is due — and where the company may do little or no actual business. Under the minimum, companies that escape taxes abroad would pay them at home. That would eliminate incentives for using tax havens or for setting them up.

From 2000-2018, U.S. companies booked half of all foreign profits in seven low-tax jurisdictions: Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland.

A second part of the tax plan is to permit countries to tax a portion of the profits of companies that earn profits without a physical presence, such as through online retailing or digital advertising. That part arose after France, followed by other countries, imposed a digital service tax on U.S. tech giants such as Amazon and Google. The U.S. government regards those national taxes as unfair trade practices and is holding out the threat of retaliation against those countries’ imports into the U.S. through higher import taxes.

Under the tax deal, those countries would have to drop or refrain from national taxes in favor of a single global approach, in theory ending the trade disputes with the U.S. U.S. tech companies would then face only the one tax regime, instead of a multitude of different national digital taxes.

___

McHugh reported from Frankfurt, Germany.

Yellen: Compete on economic strengths, not low tax rates

By DAVID McHUGH  today

1 of 9

United States Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen speaks arrives to attend a press conference at a G20 Economy and Finance ministers and Central bank governors' meeting in Venice, Italy, Sunday, July 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that deterring the use of tax havens will let countries compete on economic fundamentals — instead of by offering ever-lower tax rates that deprive governments of money for infrastructure and education.

Yellen spoke after finance ministers from the Group of 20 major economies endorsed a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15%, a measure aimed at putting a floor under tax rates and discouraging companies from using low-rate countries as tax havens.

“This deal will end the race to the bottom,” she said at a news conference after the end of the meeting in Venice.

“Instead of asking the question: ‘Who can offer the lowest tax rate?,’ it will allow all of our countries to compete on the basis of economic fundamentals – on the skill of our workforces, our capacity to innovate, and the strength of our legal and economic institutions.”

“And this deal will give our nations the ability to raise the necessary funding for important public goods like infrastructure, R&D, and education.”

The global minimum proposal faces political and technical hurdles before it would take effect. Details are to be ironed out in coming weeks at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, followed by a final endorsement by presidents and prime ministers of the Group of 20 at an Oct. 30-31 meeting in Rome.

Countries would then need to legislate the rate into their own laws. The idea is for headquarters countries to tax their companies’ foreign earnings at home if those earnings go untaxed in low-rate countries. That would remove the reason for using complex accounting schemes to move profits to subsidiaries in low-tax nations where the companies may do little or no actual business.

The U.S. already has such a tax on overseas profits, but the rate is below the 15% minimum. Congressional Republicans have expressed opposition to President Joe Biden’s proposal to raise the rate on overseas corporate profits to 21% to help pay for infrastructure and investments in clean energy. The Democratic president has only a narrow majority in Congress.

Three European Union countries that took part in talks over the minimum tax have refused to endorse the proposal. Ireland, Hungary and Estonia could obstruct adoption in Europe, where tax matters at the EU level require unanimity. Ireland, whose low tax rates are part of its pro-business economic model, has said its 12.5% headline rate is a fair rate.

The tax proposal would also give countries the right to tax part of the profits of big global companies that earn money in their jurisdiction but have no physical presence. Examples would include online retailing and digital advertising.

Some countries, led by France, have already started imposing such taxes on U.S. tech companies such as Google and Amazon. The U.S. considers such taxes to be unfair trade practices and has threatened retaliation through tariffs on imported goods. Under the tax deal, countries would drop those taxes in favor of a single global approach.

Yellen: US regulators to assess risk posed by climate change

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

1 of 2

United States Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen arrives to attend a press conference at a G20 Economy, Finance ministers and Central bank governors' meeting in Venice, Italy, Sunday, July 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says she will lead an effort by top U.S. regulators to assess the potential risk that climate change poses to America’s financial system, part of a wide-ranging initiative launched by the Biden administration.

Yellen says the regulatory review, which will be done by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, will examine whether banks and other lending institutions are properly assessing the risks to financial stability. She chairs the committee, which includes Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other financial regulators.

“The current financial system is not producing reliable disclosures,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for the Venice International Conference on Climate and released in Washington.

As part of President Joe Biden’s whole-of-government approach, Yellen said, the council will examine what should be done to improve current regulations on climate-related financial disclosures.

The council was created by Congress in 2010 to improve regulatory coordination in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Banking executives are concerned that the administration’s effort could lead to increased regulatory oversight that will drive up banks’ cost of doing business and lessen their ability to make loans.

Yellen said the United States also intended to enlist the support of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral development banks to focus more resources on combating climate change. The World Bank and the regional development banks are leading sources of the loans used by poor nations for dams and other development projects.

“Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change with poverty, food security and health outcomes impacted by extreme weather shocks,” Yellen said.

She said the administration is backing international efforts to mobilize $100 billion per year from a variety of public and private sources to support efforts by developing countries to combat climate change.

Yellen said she planned to convene a meeting of the heads of the international lending institutions to discuss ways to better align their efforts with the Paris climate agreement. The Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, but Biden reversed that decision after taking office this year.

Since taking over as Treasury secretary, Yellen has been one of the leading voices in the administration to boost government efforts to combat climate change.

The administration is also making a big push to include huge investments to slow global warming in the multitrillion-dollar infrastructure spending measures Biden is pushing Congress to approve. That effort has run into Republican opposition with various Biden climate initiatives striped out of a bipartisan infrastructure measure.

Environmentalists say a larger, Democratic-only package that is now being developed needs to meet Biden’s ambitious climate promises such as moving the country to carbon-free production of electricity and becoming a global leader in use of electric vehicles and the creation of millions of jobs in solar, wind and other clean-energy industries.

The Venice international conference on climate Sunday followed a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 major economies in Venice on Saturday. That group backed a sweeping revision of international taxation that includes a 15% global minimum tax on corporations to deter big companies from seeking out low-rate tax havens.

The measure is scheduled to be a key agenda item when Biden and other G-20 leaders meet for a summit in Rome on Oct. 30-31.

Boris Johnson’s £11.6bn climate fund to be swiped from aid budget

Exclusive: UN agreement says money should be ‘new’ – making UK stance like ‘a bailiff leaving a bunch of flowers’, prime minister told

Rob Merrick
Deputy Political Editor@Rob_Merrick

Boris Johnson’s promise of more than £11bn to help poorer countries adapt to the climate emergency will be paid for by even deeper cuts to the UK’s other overseas aid projects, The Independent has learned.

Failure to provide fresh funding leaves the prime minister’s claim to be leading the world on the environment in tatters ahead of hosting the Cop26 summit in the autumn, campaigners say.


It also breaks a United Nations-brokered agreement that the cash must be “new and additional”, they claim, with one likening it to “a bailiff leaving a bunch of flowers”.

The government has been criticised on all sides for its existing £4bn-a-year aid cuts, with a project in Malawi to help farmers adapt to climate change among the latest to have fallen victim. At least three similar schemes are expected to follow.

The World Health Organisation has already warned that “hundreds of thousands of people” will die from the cuts, amid fury that MPs have been denied the vote on the move they were promised.

Recommended
Boris Johnson must ‘turn rhetoric into action’ to tackle climate and nature crises, says top scientist

Government told to ‘stop dragging heels’ amid delay to net zero review


In Cornwall last month, the prime minister hailed his £11.6bn climate commitment to the developing world – spread over 5 years – and vowed to pester other countries to stump up cash before Cop26 in Glasgow.

“We, as the rich nations of the Earth, we need to build our credibility with those countries in asking them to make cuts in CO2,” he said- in relation to contributions to a hoped-for $100bn UN annual fund.

“Because this country, which started the Industrial Revolution, is responsible for a huge budget of carbon that’s already in the atmosphere.”

But the government has now quietly conceded that the entire £11.6bn – worth around £2.3bn each year, between 2021 and 2026 – will come from official development assistance (ODA), the aid budget.

Mr Johnson is already under fire for breaking a promise to give MPs a vote on the decision to slash aid spending from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of national output, swiping £4bn a year from the pot.


Catherine Pettengell, UK director of the Climate Action Network, said the promise of “new and additional” resources for the flagship UN Climate Adaptation Fund was being broken.

“Reducing the aid budget, while at the same time drawing on it as the only source of climate finance, will inevitably harm the most vulnerable in society,” she said.

Tracy Carty, Oxfam’s senior climate adviser, said: “We welcome the UK’s commitment to climate finance, but when it’s coming from a declining aid budget it’s a bit like your bailiff leaving a bunch of flowers.”

And Preet Gill, the shadow international development secretary, condemned “empty greenwashing” that would hit “the world’s most vulnerable people and weaken their ability to take action on the climate crisis”.

The revelation that no new money will be made available comes after the government’s independent climate advisers warned the aid cuts are already “undermining” the climate finance pledge.

The Prosper (Promoting Sustainable Partnerships for Empowered Resilience) project in Malawi is working with farmers to “reduce the impact of climate shocks” through new agricultural practices, better irrigation and early warning systems.

But the £25m scheme, funded from the government’s Building Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change (BRACC) programme, has now been axed, despite being given an A** rating – forcing staff redundancies and the closure of four district offices.

“The cut has dealt a severe blow to our efforts to build the resilience of extremely poor communities in Malawi to adapt and cope with climate shocks such as droughts,” said Danny Harvey, executive director of the aid agency Concern Worldwide.

The world’s richest countries first committed to spending $100bn a year on a Climate Adaptation Fund to help poor nations adapt to global heating way back in 2009 – but only $79bn has been raised.

The UK is seen as being “somewhere in the middle” of the G7, behind France, Germany, Japan and Canada, but ahead of the US and Italy.

The fund recognises the “guilt” of industrialised nations – for centuries of carbon emissions – and is meant to help developing countries protect themselves against the devastating effects of global heating, while cutting their own emissions.

At Cancun in 2010, the Cop16 summit, rich countries promised funding would be “new and additional”, noting the “urgent and immediate needs of developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.

But the government has now revealed that the entire £11.6bn counts as ODA – meaning no extra funding will be brought forward.

Furthermore, only £1.4bn will be allocated to climate finance in 2021-22, raising fears that most of the spending will be left to the end of the five-year period.

But, in Cornwall, Mr Johnson suggested the UK had gone as far as it intends to, saying: “We are now asking other countries to make a change.

“We are going to be on everybody’s case between now and the summer, and on into the autumn, to get those commitments and to make sure that we get the world into the right place for Cop.”

The Foreign Office defended the arrangement on the grounds that the “international climate finance commitments are new and additional to any previous commitments” to the UN fund.

“While the seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK economy has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions, the UK aid budget this year will still be more than £10bn, making us one of the biggest donors in the G7,” a spokesperson said.

Philanthropists including Bill and Melinda Gates pledge £100m to cover part of UK foreign aid cut


Billionaires stepping in to partially restore the UK’s foreign aid budget has been described as ‘embarrassing’

Lamiat Sabin@LamiatSabin


The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is reported to be one of the world’s largest charities
(AP)

The government is under increasing pressure to reverse its multibillion-pound cut to foreign aid, after a group of charities and super-rich philanthropists pledged to help plug the gap with emergency funds.

Criticism of the government’s cut, which equates to a shortfall of £4 billion a year, came from Labour and the Archbishop of Canterbury.


It comes after a report revealed that the consortium of charities, which includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will today pledge more than £100 million to a one-year plan to partially replace the cuts

The donation by the charities – including the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the ELMA Foundation and Open Society Foundations – is to target projects tackling preventable diseases and offering family planning, according to The Sunday Times.

The UN’s family planning agency (UNFPA) is set to lose about 85 per cent of its funding from the UK, a cut of approximately £130m.

Prime minister Boris Johnson’s government had announced in November last year a reduction in foreign aid from 0.7 per cent of national income – which is enshrined in law – to 0.5 per cent.

The government said the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic had forced ministers to take “tough but necessary decisions”.

As a group of about 50 Tory MPs, including Mr Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, continues to demand a Parliamentary vote on the government’s decision to slash the foreign aid budget

The emergency funding from the charities was welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who said it was “desperately needed”, but he called on the government to restore its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid.

Labour’s shadow international development secretary Preet Kaur Gill said the philanthropists’ decision to step in had embarrassed the UK.

“This is a shameful moment for this Conservative government,” Ms Gill said in a statement.

“As low income countries continue to battle against the pandemic, this contribution to try and plug some of the gap left by the government’s slashing of life saving paid programmes is welcome, but it will only be able to prevent the very worst of the damage caused.

“The government’s decision to cut the aid budget, against the wishes of Parliament, has already cost lives and they must reverse it or put to a vote as soon as possible.”

A government spokesperson has said that the UK will “return to spending 0.7% of GNI [gross national income] on international development as soon as the fiscal situation allows.”

US alarmed as Saudi lawsuits threaten to expose secrets


Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 

Former Saudi spymaster Saad Aljabri has alleged in a lawsuit that Saudi Crown Prince MBS has sent assassins to kill him in Canada where he lives in exile -

 Aljabri family/AFP/File


Riyadh (AFP)

Two lawsuits pitting Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler against a former intelligence czar threaten to expose highly sensitive US government secrets, prompting Washington to consider a rare judicial intervention, documents show.

The cases in US and Canadian courts centre on corruption allegations levelled by state-owned Saudi companies against Saad Aljabri, a former spymaster who long worked closely with American officials on covert counterterrorism operations.

That marks the latest twist in a long-running feud between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Aljabri.

Aljabri's patron, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN), is currently in Saudi detention after being deposed as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup.

The legal drama sheds light on Shakespearean rivalries in the top echelons of the Saudi royal family, but Washington fears that a bitter courtroom showdown risks exposing sensitive information related to its covert operations.

A rare US Justice Department filing in a Massachusetts court in April noted Aljabri's intention to "describe information concerning alleged national security activities".

"The (US) government is considering whether and how to participate in this action, including if necessary and applicable, through an assertion of appropriate governmental privileges," the filing said, without elaborating.

In a second filing a month later, the Justice Department asked the court for more time as national security matters require "'delicate' and 'complex' judgements by senior officials".

The filing said the government was prepared to "provide further information" to the court in secret.

Legal experts have said Washington could invoke the "state secrets privilege", which would allow it to resist a court-ordered disclosure of information deemed harmful to US national security.

The CIA declined to comment to AFP. The Justice Department, which experts say only rarely intervenes in civil lawsuits, did not respond to a request for comment.

- 'Vendetta' -

Last year, Aljabri alleged in another lawsuit that MBS sent "Tiger Squad" assassins to kill him in Canada, where he lives in exile, while detaining two of his children to pressure him to return home.

The feud took a new turn this March when state-run company Sakab Saudi Holding accused Aljabri of embezzling $3.47 billion while working at the Ministry of Interior under MBN. It urged the Massachusetts court to freeze his $29 million Boston property assets.

This came weeks after multiple state-owned companies sued Aljabri in Toronto on similar allegations. A Canadian court subsequently announced a worldwide freeze of Aljabri's assets.

While denying any financial wrongdoing, Aljabri's legal team says he is caught in the rivalry between MBS and MBN, who has not been publicly seen since his detention in March 2020.

State-run Sakab, which court filings say was established in 2008 by MBN, was part of a network of front companies to provide cover for clandestine security operations with the United States.

In order to prove his innocence, the court would need to probe Sakab's finances, including how they were used to "finance sensitive programs" operated in partnership with the CIA, the US National Security Agency and the US Defense Department, said a filing by Aljabri.

"Dr Saad would never expose covert counterterrorism projects that saved thousands of lives, including Americans," a source close to the former spymaster told AFP.

"Unfortunately, MBS's blind vendetta against Dr Saad has cornered him in a position where he is compelled to do so in order to defend himself in court."

- 'Endanger lives' -

While the Justice Department considers moves to prevent any disclosure of state secrets in Massachusetts, it remains unclear how it could do the same in the Ontario court, over which it has no direct sway.

The Aljabri source acknowledged any exposure could endanger "those who participated in (counterterrorism) operations, reveal sources and methods, and hinder... similar operations in the future".

A US lawyer representing MBS declined to comment on the litigation.

But a source close to the Saudi leadership repeated multi-billion dollar corruption allegations, while accusing Aljabri of "poisoning the Saudi-US relationship".

Several US officials who have worked alongside Aljabri have voiced support for him, with some acknowledging that he was privy to sensitive information.

"Dr Saad worked directly with at least the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, White House, Department of State, and Department of the Treasury," former CIA official Philip Mudd wrote in a US court affidavit.

"When the United States had actionable intelligence or tactical information, we gave it to Dr Saad."

In its April filing, the Justice Department said it anticipated engaging with both sides to understand their positions, suggesting it was keen for an out-of-court settlement.

"The more important thing for me is that MBS is holding Dr Saad's kids, essentially extorting Dr Saad," Daniel Hoffman, a former director of the CIA's Middle East division, told AFP.

"That's very much against the humanitarian values of the United States."

© 2021 AFP

'Not worth it': LA restaurants boost pay to lure wary workers

Issued on: 11/07/2021 -

Los Angeles restaurants wanting to land a qualified worker increasingly have to stand out from the crowd Frederic J. BROWN AFP/File
4 min
ADVERTISING


Los Angeles (AFP)

Businesses have reopened in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the United States, with "We're hiring" signs everywhere. But if life has a pre-Covid feel, a new challenge has arisen for restaurants: workers are not willing to return at any cost.

"We are dealing with a staffing shortage that I have not experienced in my career," said Skyler Gamble, a manager at Acme Hospitality, which oversees several restaurants in Santa Barbara around two hours' drive north of Los Angeles.

"Our experience in the last six to nine months as business levels have rebounded, is that fewer and fewer candidates respond to job postings."

The hospitality industry was slammed by coronavirus and pandemic-related restrictions, shedding millions of jobs.

But any restaurateurs counting on a return to normal have experienced a rude awakening.

Classified ads abound on the internet -- waiters, cooks and bartenders are in high demand.

But in a major shift in power, employers wanting to land a qualified worker increasingly have to stand out from the crowd.#photo1

Craig Martin, who owns Cafe 50's on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, has to replace a cook. Faced with a lack of applications, he is offering a $2,000 hiring bonus -- $500 per month over four months.

Like many who are trying to hire, Martin blames pandemic-related unemployment benefits for the apparent labor shortage.

Many former service industry employees are "not even thinking to look for jobs," he said.

- 'Not rushing back' -

The reality is more complex, said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the low-wage work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Employers complaining about the market should acknowledge that they are simply unable to find workers "at the wage and quality of job" they are willing to offer, he said.#photo2

Many hospitality workers do not receive paid sick leave or health care benefits, and are "still not willing to come back into the labor force because they still feel very much at risk of the virus," particularly with Covid variants spreading, he said.

The issue of childcare, especially during the summer months, is also affecting women's return to the workplace.

For University of California Berkeley economist Sylvia Allegretto, there is "definitely not a worker shortage."

"But employers find it strange that workers are taking their best options as the economy opens up and not rushing back to the lowest paying jobs with low to no benefits," said Allegretto.

- 'Abused at work' -

Before the pandemic, Kenzie McMillan worked as a waitress at a Hollywood restaurant.

Overnight in March 2020, she lost her job with "no heads up, no warning," and without compensation.

When her former boss called in June last year asking her to return, she said no. Going back to work would have meant losing her unemployment benefits, and she feared passing the virus to a housemate who has an autoimmune disease.

"It's not worth it, again I wasn't getting paid enough," said the 27 year-old, who did not get medical insurance at the restaurant job, and was getting "tired" from the physical demands of the work.

For Allegretto, it is clear that employers are going to have to "up their game to compete for workers."#photo3

Both Acme Hospitality and Martin -- of Cafe 50's -- said they have increased their wages.

But it is "hard to forecast" whether the improved pay and benefits currently on offer in many establishments will remain once the economy fully recovers, which is not likely until late next year, said Lopezlira.

"The whole workforce has changed," said McMillan, who sees parallels with the #MeToo movement.

Women were exploited "for so long until they were like, 'oh, actually I don't have to do this and I can actually say no,'" she said.

McMillan found a new job in April, at a trendy Hollywood hotel, where she is paid $17.50 an hour and finally has medical insurance.

"We've realized that we don't actually have to be abused at work," she said.

© 2021 AFP

Six years a slave: Indian farm workers exploited in Italy


Issued on: 11/07/2021 - 

In the Agro Pontino, a major hub for greenhouse farming, floriculture and buffalo mozzarella production, Indians have been a presence since the mid-1980s 

Filippo MONTEFORTE AFP/File

Sabaudia (Italy) (AFP)

When Balbir Singh refers to his ordeal, he uses the Italian word "macello", which roughly translates as "mess" -- but it is hardly enough to convey what the migrant Indian farm worker has endured.

For six years, he lived in what can only be described as slave-like conditions tending cattle in the province of Latina, a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers like him.

"I was working 12-13 hours a day, including Sundays, with no holidays, no rest," Singh told AFP.

The farm owner paid him 100 to 150 euros ($120 to $175) a month, he said, which amounts to less than 50 cents an hour.

The legal minimum for farm workers is around 10 euros an hour.

Singh was rescued by a police raid on March 17, 2017 after appealing for help via Facebook and WhatsApp to local Indian community leaders and an Italian rights activist.

Officers found him living in a caravan, with no gas, hot water or electricity, and eating the leftovers that his boss either threw in the bin or gave to chickens and pigs.

Singh had to wash in the stables, with the same hosepipe he used to clean cattle, and it was made clear to him he should not complain.#photo1

"When I found a lawyer ready to help me, (the owner) told me... 'I'll kill you, I'll dig a hole, throw you in it, and fill it up'... he had a gun, I saw it," he recalled.

Singh said he was beaten up a couple of times, and had his identity papers taken away.

His former employer is now on trial for labour exploitation, while Singh is living in a secret location for fear of retribution.

- Brutal exploitation -

Singh's story is extreme, but it fits into a wider picture of brutal exploitation of migrant farm labourers in the Agro Pontino -- the Pontine Marshes, the plain around Latina -- and elsewhere in Italy.

The UN's special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery estimated in 2018 that more than 400,000 agricultural workers in Italy risk being exploited and almost 100,000 likely face "inhumane conditions".

Last month, a 27-year-old from Mali collapsed and died in the southeastern Apulia region after working a day in the fields in temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

In the Agro Pontino, a major hub for greenhouse farming, floriculture and buffalo mozzarella production, Indians have been a presence since the mid-1980s.

They work on land drained from marshes in the 1930s, one of the biggest public works projects enacted under dictator Benito Mussolini.

Sociologist Marco Omizzolo, the rights activist who helped free Singh, says between 25,000 and 30,000 Indians live in the Agro Pontino, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab region.#photo2

Under an illegal but well-established system, they live under the thumb of "caporali", the gangmasters who recruit farm labourers on behalf of land owners.

Typically, they are offered contracts but then are paid for only a fraction of their work.

"You may work 28 days, but they'll mark only four on your pay slip, so at the end of the month you may get 200, 300 euros," Omizzolo told AFP.

"Formally, it is all by the book," he added.

The reality is far grimmer, as shown by a recent police investigation that offered fresh evidence of widespread opioid abuse among the Indian community.

That operation led to the arrest of a doctor in the beach town of Sabaudia. He was accused of illegally prescribing more than 1,500 boxes of Depalgos, a powerful painkiller containing Oxycodone and given to cancer patients, to 222 Indian farm workers.

"The drug presumably allowed them to work longer in the fields by relieving pain and fatigue," Latina chief prosecutor Giuseppe De Falco told AFP.

- 'Fight for rights' -

The problem of exploitation of farm workers has not gone unnoticed in parliament. It was under an anti-caporali law passed in 2016 that Singh's employer was prosecuted.

But unions say there are still too few checks and labour inspectors to enforce the law properly.

Sociologist Omizzolo, who works with the Eurispes think tank, spent years researching farm labour abuse in the Latina area -- some of it undercover.

He lived for three months in Bella Farnia, a village mostly occupied by Indians, working incognito in the fields.#photo3

He, too, now lives under police protection, after several death threats.

In 2019, he was given a knighthood by President Sergio Mattarella in recognition of his "courageous work".

In 2016, the sociologist was instrumental, along with the Flai Cgil trade union, in organising the first-ever strike of the Agro Pontino's Indian workers.

Since then, their hourly pay has risen from three euros or less per hour to around five euros -- although this is still only half the legal minimum.

Omizzolo recognises the working conditions are still far from ideal. But the protest, he said, made the Indians understand that "it pays to fight for your rights."

© 2021 AFP

Sotheby's sells diamond for $12.3 million in crypto, most expensive digital currency transaction ever

Sotheby's sold a Banksy artwork for $12.9 million worth of cryptocurrency in May

Sotheby's just set the world record for the most expensive piece of jewelry ever sold for cryptocurrency, auctioning off a 101.38-carat diamond for $12.3 million of either Bitcoin or Ether on Friday.

The cryptocurrency sale of the pear-shaped D Flawless diamond, named "The Key 10138," shows Sotheby's "commitment to innovation," the company said.

"Diamonds are keys to understanding the history of the Earth, reminding us of our human condition and the transcendental power of beauty," Wenhao Yu, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Jewellery in Asia, said about the sale.

"With the name ‘The Key 10138,' we wanted to celebrate this enlightening virtue, while also alluding to the crucial function of digital keys in the world of NFTs and cryptocurrency."

The Key 10138 is one of only ten diamonds with more than 100 carats to ever come to auction and is the second largest pear-shaped diamond to ever appear on the public market. (Photo courtesy of Sotheby's)

The auction house accepted Bitcoin or Ether through Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange that went public earlier this year.

It's far from Sotheby's first foray into cryptocurrency.

In May, during an auction headlined "DISRUPTOR OF ART MEETS DISRUPTOR OF FINANCE," Sotheby's sold a piece of artwork by Banksy for $12.9 million in cryptocurrency.

A month before that, Sotheby's accepted cryptocurrency for a batch of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, which are unique digital assets that use blockchain technology to verify scarcity.

Can Europe escape Gazprom's energy stranglehold?

When it comes to gas supplies to the EU, Russia's state-owned corporation steps on the brakes. Is Russia building up political pressure in order to push through the operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?


Europe needs Russian gas to stay warm when temperatures drop

Trouble is brewing on the European gas market. In the wake of a long, cold winter, natural gas reservoirs are unusually low and should, in principle, be refilled very quickly. Russia's state-owned corporation Gazprom could increase supplies.

The market leader, however, has not done that, despite prices recently reaching a 13-year high. In turn, there is growing concern across Europe that there may be insufficient gas supplies for the upcoming winter.
No additional transit through Ukraine

Gazprom has not booked any additional gas transit through Ukraine in July, although deliveries of Russian natural gas to the EU will drop by more than 2 billion cubic meters this month.

Due to scheduled maintenance, the two remaining transportation routes to Germany will be temporarily discontinued. The Yamal pipeline across Belarus and Poland was shut down this week, and the much larger Nord Stream pipeline through the Baltic Sea will be closed between July 13 and July 23.

Russia's "Fortuna" vessel is one of two ships which are laying pipes for the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline

"It appears Gazprom not only optimizes price and quantity, but that it would rather exert pressure in order to ensure completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline," Joachim Endress, head of the Berlin-based consulting firm Ganexo, observes in his second-quarter 2021 Gas Market Report.

Gazprom insists that it fulfills all its obligations.

"Long-term contracts are the basis of our business in Europe. We strictly fulfill our customers' orders, and we book transit capacities accordingly, not vice versa," the corporation's press department told DW.
Unusually empty natural gas reservoirs in Germany, Austria

Gazprom's fulfillment of its contractual obligations has not been challenged. The question remains why the corporation was not — despite high demand and prices — increasing its supplies to Europe and what exactly it was doing to fulfill those obligations, Heiko Lohmann, a Berlin-based independent gas market expert, told DW.

"What's notable, and this is really something new, is that Gazprom obviously fulfills its contracts by taking significantly more gas than usual from reservoirs in Europe and, possibly, even by purchasing trading quantities on the European market. At least, that's what I hear from dealers," Lohmann said.

As a result of this approach, Gazprom's two most important reservoirs in Europe — the first, the largest in the EU, in the northwestern German town of Rehden, the other, in the western Austrian town of Haidach — were almost totally depleted at the beginning of summer, and replenishment has only just begun. "This is utterly unusual for Gazprom and calls for political interpretation," the expert said.

Nord Stream 2 'crucially important' for EU energy security

No secure supply without Russia

Such interpretation can be found rather easily in official Russian media. State news agency Novosti offered the following explanation for the strategy and tactics of the state-owned Russian gas corporation: "During the assessment of any move by the corporation on the European market one should always bear in mind one crucial fact: Gazprom must finish construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline."

Austria's largest natural gas reservoir is located in Haidach, near Salzburg

The Novosti article straightforwardly recognizes that "Russia withholds its supplies" and not just with the aim of replenishing both corporation and public coffers. "The second — and no less important — aim is to accustom our Western partners to the obvious idea: guaranteeing their own security of supply is only possible in close partnership with Russia."

It appears, at the moment, that Europe will, via Ukraine, only receive as much gas as stipulated in the Russian-Ukrainian five-year transit contract concluded at the end of 2019. For Gazprom, it makes no sense to provide less as the booked quantity must be paid completely either way. The corporation, however, also doesn't want to book additional capacities at a much higher charge.
Political pressure from Moscow in favor of Nord Stream 2?

The contract, however, stipulates that during the first year, 2020, transit quantities should amount to 65 billion cubic meters, but that they are reduced thereafter, in 2021 to 2024, to 40 billion cubic meters annually, since Gazprom assumed at the time of signing that construction of Nord Stream 2 would be completed — which was thwarted by US sanctions.

A gas-compressor station in Boyarka, near Kyiv: Ukraine is a key transit country for gas supplies to Western Europe

This is what brings about the current situation: Europe receives, via Ukraine, significantly less gas than it likely will need. At the same time, Gazprom fulfills its contractual obligations by letting its European reservoirs run dry, and the corporation can afford itself extended maintenance service to both its pipelines into the EU.

Ultimately, all this could lead to a situation in which, at some point in autumn perhaps, Russia's state-owned corporation tells the Europeans to choose between two alternatives: Either grant an operating license for Nord Stream 2 — construction of which will probably have been completed by then — with its capacity of 55 billion cubic meters very quickly, or face major gas supply problems during the winter as reservoirs are still half empty, and the Russian energy giant can choose not to increase gas deliveries through Ukraine

Also at stake: the role of natural gas in decarbonization

This scenario is supported by the fact that, during an auction on July 5, Gazprom did not want to book additional transit capacities in either Ukraine or Poland for one year in advance, arguing that this could still be done on a monthly or quarterly basis. This seems to be another clear signal that, from autumn 2021, the Russian state-owned corporation plans to service increased gas demand in Europe exclusively through its own new pipeline in the Baltic Sea.

A protester at a Fridays for Future demonstration in Cologne, Germany

For the time being, Heiko Lohmann, who has said, "It would be much more comfortable for Europe to have this pipeline," does not believe that such an obvious attempt at blackmailing Europe is possible.

"Thus far, Gazprom has never really exerted pressure on its Western European buyer countries — at least, it has never become known," he said. "If a precedent happened now, for the first time, this would have devastating consequences for Gazprom in the political debate."

For if Gazprom actually began "to exert overt pressure" in autumn, this would enormously fuel an already heated debate in Europe about the short-, medium- and long-term role of gas within the framework of decarbonization and strengthen the position of all those who champion a much quicker withdrawal from using natural gas, Lohmann told DW.

Initially, though, Europe would have a serious supply problem.

Heiko Lohmann is an independent gas market expert