November 2005 Archives

By Matt Richtel The New York Times -

NEW YORK Jesse Ventura is no longer governor of Minnesota. But he is still pushing an agenda - in this case, sports betting over the Internet.

Ventura is the new spokesman for BetUS.com, a Web site operated from Costa Rica that lets people wager on sports contests from their home computers. "This is a step toward bringing something above board that clearly many people want to partake in," Ventura said.

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An OECD report shows roughly 7% of Canada's most highly educated workers living abroad. That translates to nearly 500,000 people, the 4th largest number among all OECD nations. No doubt one reason so many Canadians have left is that Canada's income tax law is territorial -- if you live outside Canada, you're not taxed on your foreign earnings.

Unlucky Americans are taxed on all their worldwide income, wherever they may live. The Canadian government is mounting a campaign to persuade Canadians who have left to come back. As a real lure, Ottawa should try cutting income taxes first.

The guns have long been silent but 30 years since its takeover by Morocco, the future of the Western Sahara remains unresolved, writes Ian Black

The anniversary is hardly on many minds, but that is only to be expected. For the event it commemorates sparked what it is still, 30 years on, the world's most forgotten conflict.

WEALTHY savers are finding ever more creative ways to dodge a Europe-wide crackdown on offshore tax havens that came into force on July 1, writes Kathryn Cooper.

The latest escape route, dreamt up by Swiss private banks, uses a type of Luxembourg-based investment firm called a Sicav (société d’investissement à capital variable). The schemes are not subject to the EU savings-tax directive, which ordered member states to share information about people who live in one country but earn savings income in another, in a bid to combat tax fraud.

By Peter Popham -

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumours have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city.

The winners of eGaming Review’s first ever eGaming Industry Awards 2005 were announced on Friday 4 November at a glittering event held at The Brewery in the heart of the City of London.

With close to 600 guests attending, the awards were an indication of how far the offshore online gaming industry had travelled in a short space of time.

PayPal, the internet money-transfer arm of eBay, is to disclose the identity of customers who use the service to evade paying US taxes.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is demanding records of customers using PayPal through offshore accounts in all tax havens, including Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and other UK dependencies, says The Independent newspaper.

By Frances Robles -

Cuba is claiming a victory at the Iberoamerican Summit in Spain, with the government-run media boasting that 17 heads of state used the controversial word ''blockade'' to condemn the U.S. embargo against the communist island.

The summit in Salamanca ended Saturday with a vote to urge Washington to lift the embargo against Cuba, but the declaration used ''blockade,'' the word Cuba prefers and Washington shuns.

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today commended lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers of Congress, for calling for modest reforms to the Patriot Act. In bipartisan "Dear Conferee" letters addressed to members of Congress ironing out the differences between the House and Senate Patriot Act reauthorization bills, 163 members of the House and 25 members of the Senate called for the adoption of the Senate version.

Labuan: The greatest challenge faced by Labuan International Offshore Financial Centre (IOFC) is posed by emerging centres.

"While we after 15 years have developed into a dynamic, reputable international centre, other centres have not remained stagnant.

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