Free Republic

Years before more than a hundred media outlets around the world released stories Sunday exposing a massive network of global tax evasion detailed in the so-called Panama Papers, U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed for a Bush administration-negotiated free trade agreement that watchdogs warned would only make the situation worse. .... while Obama championed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthy, he pursued and eventually signed the Panama agreement in 2011. Upon Congress ratifying the pact, Clinton issued a statement lauding the agreement.... Critics, however, said the pact would make it easier for rich...

he prime minister of Iceland resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to political pressure two days after an enormous leak of documents from a secretive Panamanian law firm about offshore shell companies and tax shelters. The resignation of the prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was the first prominent political fallout from the document leaks known as the Panama Papers, which have shed a harsh light on the private financial activities of many rich and powerful people.

David Cameron has repeatedly boasted about cracking down on secret offshore tax schemes that funnel vital funds away from ­hospitals, schools and defence. But the PM was keeping tight-lipped about his own family’s use of such havens after it was claimed his dad Ian paid no UK duty for 30 years on a firm run from the Bahamas. When asked if any Cameron cash was hidden in offshore accounts, Downing St replied: “That’s a private matter.”

Sergei Roldugin is Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest friend. They met when Putin was training to become a KGB officer at school, where Roldugin's brother was one of Putin's classmates. Roldugin introduced Putin to his future wife, Lyudmila, and the couple made him the godfather of their eldest daughter in 1985. ...Roldugin is not the only friend and confidant of Putin's mentioned in the Panama Papers. The reports mention Putin’s judo sparring partners, the wives of Putin’s spokesman and a governor, sons of economy and deputy interior ministers,...

A group of news media outlets published articles on Sunday based on what they said were 11.5 million leaked documents from a Panama law firm that helped some of the world’s wealthiest people — including politicians, athletes and business moguls — establish offshore bank accounts. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said its reporters had obtained the documents from a confidential source. The newspaper then shared the files with other media organizations, like The Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In an article, the investigative journalism organization said the documents revealed the offshore accounts of 140 politicians and public...

A storm is coming By Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer The interrogation room in which Iceland’s recent history was rewritten is sparse, furnished only with a table, some chairs, and a computer. A camera is fixed to the wall, and the frosted, double-glazed windows have completely blocked out the sound of the gale-force winds in Reykjavik’s Faxafloi Bay. It was in this room that some of Iceland’s most powerful bankers, executives, and investors had to answer to special investigator Olaf Hauksson. A tall man with a heavy build, Haukkson has spent the past six years investigating the transactions that brought...

The expansion of the Panama Canal, a $5.3 billion project almost two years behind schedule and plagued by cost overruns and contractor disputes, is expected to open by the end of June, according to the agency that operates the waterway. The Panama Canal Authority has resolved problems associated with contractors and seepage from the new locks discovered during testing, said Jose Ramon Arango, senior international trade specialist at the agency that operates the 50-mile (77- kilometer) waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The authority is planning a test of the new locks with a tanker in May...

More than 100 Cuban migrants from among the 1,300 stranded in Panama on Sunday received immigration permits that early next week will allow them to travel legally to Mexico, where they will be able to continue their land journey to the United States. This is the first group to resume their trek from Panama to the United States after Costa Rica closed its border in December saying it was unable to continue housing the more than 7,000 Cubans who were also trying to make it to the United States but who had been stranded there after being denied passage through...

A portion of the Spanish treasure Fort Pierce salvor Daniel Porter recovered in 2012 from a galleon sunk in 1631 in a hurricane off Panama is back in his hands. Porter, 53, the managing partner of Fort Pierce-based Maritime Research and Recovery LLC, attempted in September to bring home about 100 silver coins and other artifacts with an estimated value of $500,000 when they were seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at the behest of Panama’s government. The items were part of Porter’ share of more than 10,000 such items minted in Peru that were recovered during a...

The hunt is on for billions of dollars in ill-gotten assets accumulated by the family of Saddam Hussein, now believed to be scattered in a labyrinthine network of front companies and secret bank accounts from Panama to Switzerland to Jordan. As U.S. forces moved into Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, investigators reported signs of large sums of money moving from Iraqi government-controlled accounts to private accounts in the Middle East. "People with connections are trying to loot what they can," said one private investigator with access to information about money flows around the region. < SNIP > One of the...

Former president Jimmy Carter on Wednesday will make a rare address to the upper chamber of the British Parliament to draw attention to the eradication of the Guinea worm disease, according to the Associated Press.

A quarter of Republicans think White House hopeful Ted Cruz is disqualified to serve as U.S. president because he was born in Canada to an American mother, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Republican voters nearly mirror independents and the broader electorate in their belief that Cruz cannot hold the White House, with 27 percent of all voters and 28 percent of independents responding he should be disqualified. Cruz, a U.S. Senator from Texas who was born to a U.S. citizen mother and Cuban father in Calgary, Alberta, has brushed aside the attacks about his eligibility as pure politics. But...

Precolombian seafarers left what is now mainland Panama to settle on Pedro Gonzalez Island in the Perlas archipelago about 6,000 years ago, crossing 50-70 kilometers (31-44 miles) of choppy seas -- probably in dugout canoes. Dolphins were an important part of the diet of island residents according to Smithsonian archeologist Richard Cooke and colleagues from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA and Colombia's Universidad del Norte... According to the results of recent excavations, published in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, 8 percent of the mammal specimens -- bones and teeth -- recovered from a prehistoric scrap heap, or midden,...

The State Department's April 2015 "Country Report on Terrorism" no doubt came as sweet music to the ears of Special Interest Alien (SIA) smugglers. These are the smugglers of migrants from the spawning grounds of Islamic terrorism that, as I have been arguing, American homeland security leaders must strategically target with much greater aplomb to reduce the prospect of a Paris-like border infiltration attack here.The April 2015 report noted that Latin American nations had only made "modest improvements to their counterterrorism capabilities and their border security" from the previous year(s). It noted corruption, weak government institutions, weak or non-existent legislation,...

A delayed opening of the Panama Canal expansion past the April 2016 deadline is looking more and more likely as 2015 comes to a close and work continues to repair a crack that formed in one of the new lock complexes. Panama Canal Authority (ACP) Administrator Jorge Quijano gave an update on the expansion project at an industry event in Panama City on Friday, telling attendees that the project now stands at 96% complete and assuring that delivery is still expected in the second quarter of 2016, even though a final date remains to be determined.

Spanish galleon San Jose sank more than 300 years ago in battle with British, while carrying vast cargo of gold and precious stones Colombia’s discovery of the 300-year-old, shipwrecked galleon San Jose, thought to be loaded with some $10 billion in gold and precious stones, could shed light on an important period in Spanish colonial history but also spawn legal battles over the valuable cargo. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said his country spent two years studying historical maps, meteorology and used the latest sea-searching technology to locate the Spanish vessel, which sank during a battle in 1708 in the...

The Spanish galleon San José was overloaded with 200 passengers and 700 tons of cargo on a summer night in 1631 when it smashed into a rock off the Pacific coast of Panama, spilling silver coins and bars into the Gulf of Panama. More than 400,000 coins and at least 1,417 bars were lost over a 40-mile trail. Four hundred years later, that shipwreck has become one of the latest to land in a legal quagmire over who should have the rights to historic artifacts trapped under the sea. This one involves the United Nations, the United States Department of...

The nation of Panama has looked at their rising crime rate and increased gang activity, and has decided that the only think that will stop bad guys with guns is law-abiding citizens with guns. Panama’s decision has to be chilling to supporters of citizen control worldwide, as they see another nation embracing the reality that centralized control does nothing to protect the citizenry from crime.

A core sample pulled from the concrete of the Cocoli Locks where cracks and leaks have appeared does not bode well for the Panama Canal expansion project, which is on a strict deadline for completion in April 2016.

As Panama deals with increases in crime rates, forged gun permits, and rising gang activity, the government is set to lift the ban on firearm imports, in an effort to promote personal safety. panama-guns The UNODC estimates that an average of 700,000 firearms circulate within Panama’s streets. (Entorno Inteligente) Public Safety Minister Rodolfo Aguilera said the country will follow in the footsteps of the United States and Switzerland, where the right to bear arms is believed to lead to fewer homicides. “Everything seems to indicate that there is no direct correlation in the aphorism that says more guns mean more...