Category: Corruption

Airbnb is facing the prospect of a tax bill worth hundreds of millions of euros following an Italian court ruling in an evasion case. Prosecutors in Milan say a judge authorised the seizure of €779.5m (£677m) from the short-term property rental platform. They said it related to an alleged failure by the company to comply with laws that require Airbnb to pay Italian tax authorities 21% of landlords’ rental income in the country. The requirement dates back to an EU…

Telecom Italia SpA has agreed to sell its land-line network to KKR & Co. in a government-backed deal valued at around €22 billion ($23.6 billion), according to people familiar with the matter. The phone carrier’s board of directors, after a marathon meeting that started on Friday, approved the grid sale to the US private equity giant on Sunday without making it conditional on a vote by shareholders, the people said, asking not to be identified as the decision isn’t yet public. The approval…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and money laundering by a New York jury in a landmark criminal verdict that is likely to condemn the former crypto tycoon to decades in prison […] The decision […] was delivered just after 7.40pm on Thursday, following less than five hours of deliberation by the jury’s nine women and three men over seven charges including wire fraud on FTX customers and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and money laundering. Bankman-Fried was…

Washington D.C., Nov. 2, 2023 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged John Hughes, president and chief compliance officer of registered investment adviser Prophecy Asset Management LP, for his involvement in a multi-year fraud that concealed losses of hundreds of millions of dollars from investors. Prophecy Asset Management advised multiple hedge funds and reported more than $500 million in assets under management. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Hughes and his associates at Prophecy Asset Management misled the funds’ investors,…

Jordan, a key US ally, said Wednesday it has recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to remain out of the country in protest over the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Jordan’s deputy PM said the return of the ambassadors is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.” Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994. Meanwhile, Bolivia said on Tuesday it had broken diplomatic ties with Israel because…

DUBAI: The only cancer treatment hospital in the Gaza Strip has gone out of service after it ran out of fuel, health officials said on Wednesday. The director of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital told a press conference aired by Al-Jazeera TV that the hospital, which mainly treats cancer patients, had used up its fuel and was now out of service. “We tell the world don’t leave cancer patients to a certain death due to the hospital being out of service,”…

The Trump era was very, very good to the country’s giant telecom monopolies. Trump officials doled out billions in tax breaks (AT&T nabbed $42 billion alone) and billions more in poorly tracked subsidies. It also approved anticompetitive mergers without even reading the details, and handed out all manner of regulator favors like the dismantling of net neutrality or the elimination of media consolidation rules. In absolutely every instance telecoms like AT&T and Comcast claimed these efforts would boost broadband deployment…

Hackers have accessed approximately 632,000 emails from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies this year, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed. The report detailed a large-scale cyberattack in May 2023 in which emails from US government offices, private sectors, airlines, and academic entities were accessed by a suspected Russian group called “CL0P.” Alongside electronic personal data, the actors breached internal tracking codes and government employee survey links issued by agencies. Through File Transfer Software The cybercriminals…

ACAPULCO, Mexico — As a bright, hot sun filled Acapulco in the days following the furious arrival of Hurricane Otis, it revealed a city utterly transformed by destruction. The Category 5 storm slammed into the Pacific coast early Wednesday, killing at least 27 people, with at least four still missing, according to Mexican officials. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, pledged unlimited resources and thousands of troops. But residents and tourists in the city of 1 million people say they’ve…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began testifying at his fraud trial on Friday, saying the innovative business he hoped would move the cryptocurrency ecosystem forward ended up doing the opposite and hurting customers. The onetime cryptocurrency golden boy lost his businesses and his reputation as a pioneering entrepreneur in an emerging facet of finance when a rush of customers withdrew their money last year, exposing that billions of dollars were missing. Bankman-Fried, 31, acknowledged some of his failures early in his…

Iran is currently grappling with a severe water crisis, a situation clearly underscored by the United Nations’ water status and conditions index. The crisis is most pronounced in the central plateau of Iran, where an absolute water shortage is unfolding. Regime officials have often attributed this crisis to factors like low rainfall and excessive water consumption. However, the Majlis Research Center has emphasized that mismanagement has played a pivotal role in exacerbating the situation. The parliament’s research arm has also…

Just putting three meals a day on the table was a struggle for millions of people in the U.S. last year. That’s the sobering conclusion of a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found hunger in the U.S. rose sharply in 2022. The report found that 44.2 million people lived in households that had difficulty getting enough food to feed everyone in 2022, up from 33.8 million people the year prior. Those families include more than 13…

According to Al Jazeera, their Gaza bureau chief, Wael Al Dahdouh, tragically lost his wife, son, daughter, and grandson in an Israeli airstrike that occurred on Wednesday. The explosion targeted a residence in the Nuseirat refugee camp, located in central Gaza, where the family sought refuge following their displacement. “Members of the family of our colleague Wael Al Dahdouh, including his wife, son, and daughter, were martyred in an Israeli bombing,” Al Jazeera wrote in an on-air message. Al Jazeera…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried plans to testify at his fraud trial, his lawyer told a federal judge Wednesday, ending speculation over whether a man who embraced the spotlight during his years atop the cryptocurrency world could remain silent after prosecutors portrayed him as a greedy entrepreneur who stole billions of dollars from customers. Attorney Mark Cohen told Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that he planned to call three witnesses “and then our client is also going to be testifying” after prosecutors…

The streets of Gaza are empty of cars. Many of its bakeries are shuttered; meat suppliers have no refrigeration. Doctors perform operations by flashlight. Although 62 aid trucks have entered Gaza since last weekend carrying much-needed food, water and medical supplies, none have delivered fuel — which Israel has blocked over concerns it could be stolen and used by Hamas. As a result, aid groups have escalated their warnings, saying the lack of fuel has reached a critical point. UNRWA,…

The administration of Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis has taken the significant measure of associating a pro-Palestinian student group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with terrorism. They have directed state universities to prohibit the group, alleging its support for Hamas militants who recently attacked Israel. Amid escalating Israeli actions in Gaza, several college students have shown support for Palestinians.This has led to criticism from some Jewish scholars and potential employers. However, Florida’s stance is more severe, accusing the SJP…