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The UK's tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer. The proposal by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.

GENEVA (Reuters) - George Clooney has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama by headlining an exclusive event for Americans in Geneva, one of the world's most affluent cities. The Hollywood actor and director, fresh from the world premiere of the Coen brothers' comedy "Burn After Reading" in Venice, slipped without fanfare into the Swiss city on Tuesday for his first appearance on behalf of the Democratic nominee. Some 170 contributors have paid $1,000 a head to attend a cocktail party with Clooney at a museum in Geneva's Old Town on Tuesday evening. And 75...

The UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has warned that an initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will bring the EU closer to mandating unrestricted legal abortion for its member states. PACE has proposed a draft resolution on the problem of the abandonment of children, particularly newborns, in Europe. But as with most discussions of the problems facing mothers, the resolution quickly reveals the strong pro-abortion mindset of its drafters, who call on member states to push for greater liberalisation of abortion restrictions. The resolution reads, "To fight against abandonment, the Assembly...

LONDON, March 2 - After months of rancorous debate over its status and standards, the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation won a reprieve on Wednesday when the government approved a further 10-year Royal Charter guaranteeing compulsory public financing. But for the first time in the 83 years that the BBC has been this country's prime public service broadcaster, the government called for a radical overhaul of its top management. It also urged the institution to desist from "copycat" programming intended to "chase ratings for ratings sake." "Overwhelmingly the public like and trust the BBC," Tessa Jowell, the culture minister, told Parliament...

The European Union's (EU) resumption of arms sales to China "is a dangerous development that runs counter to the advance of liberty and threatens U.S. security interests, as well as those of Japan and Taiwan," charges Rep. Henry Hyde, R-IL. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Thursday, Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee disputed the EU's contention that the arms embargo against China is no longer warranted on human-rights grounds. Hyde scoffed at the claim, noting, "The many Chinese citizens who remain in prison 15 years later for activities related to Tiananmen might feel differently." "The Communist Party...

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series. (Part one can be read here.) BERLIN – In two days of closed-door meetings recently, an international bureaucracy of industrialized nations—whose membership is dominated by “old Europe”—was attempting to “persuade” low-tax nations to raise taxes and eviscerate financial privacy. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which receives some $50 million annually from U.S. taxpayers, has for six years pushed for eliminating what it calls “harmful tax competition”—which can be best described as any policy that undermines the ability of welfare states like France, Belgium, and Germany to...

North Korea 25.6 % Iraq 18.8 % The United States 55.6 %