Stealing Africa - Glencore, commodities, corruption

[Idaho]

The Swiss hishonest??!? Say it ain't so! I guess between melting down gold fillings and being a tax haven to the extremely rich Europeans they have to have some hobbies.

But to be fair, they are just as happy doing the same thing in the USA / UK and probably elsewhere. Companies should be taxed on what it is perceived they earned in the country (I'm sure a decent accountant can stip out these things). The difference in most of Africa is the locals are corrupt enough to take a kickback. That nothing has yet to be done over here is... interesting.

There are honest politicians in Africa, but if they get in the way they get killed and replaced. It's happened time and time again. Patrice Lumumba in the Congo was perhaps the first example. Mark Thatcher was arrested trying to do the same. Africa attracts the greediest and least human.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba

Lumumba’s pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed. The CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job. Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested Lumumba."[25] U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had said "something [to CIA chief Allen Dulles] to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated".[26] This was revealed by a declassified interview with then-US National Security Council minutekeeper Robert Johnson released in August 2000 from Senate intelligence committee's inquiry on covert action. The committee later found that while the CIA had conspired to kill Lumumba, it was not directly involved in the actual murder.

The 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt, also known as the Wonga coup,[1] was an alleged coup attempt against the government of Equatorial Guinea in order to replace President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo with exiled opposition politician Severo Moto, carried out by mercenaries and organised by mainly British financiers. Equatorial Guinea has vast oil and gas reserves.[2] One US official called it "the new Kuwait".[3] Prosecutors alleged Equatorial Guinea's opposition leader, Severo Moto, was to be installed as the new president in return for preferential oil rights to corporations affiliated to those involved with the coup.[4] It received international media attention after the reported involvement of Sir Mark Thatcher in funding the coup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Eq...%A9tat_attempt