A new report sheds light on how world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires and others have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars over the past quarter-century.
The report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists brought promises of tax reform and demands for resignations and investigations, as well as explanations and denials from those targeted.
The investigation, dubbed the Pandora Papers, was published late Sunday and involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.
Hundreds of politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world. Much of the activity did not appear to be illegal.
The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, and associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pope Francis and dozens of religious leaders on Monday signed a joint appeal to governments to commit to ambitious targets at the upcoming U.N. climate conference, while promising to do their own part to lead their faithful into more sustainable behavior.
For the religious leaders, care for the environment is a moral imperative to preserve God’s creation for future generations and to support communities most vulnerable to climate change.
It’s an argument Francis has made repeatedly and most comprehensively in a 2015 encyclical, “Praised Be” and was echoed Monday by imams, rabbis, patriarchs and reverends who shared how their faith traditions interpreted the call, many of them insisting that faith and science must listen to each other to save the planet.
Minnesota Republican activists picked former state Sen. David Hann as the next leader of their party on Saturday.
Hann, a former Senate minority leader from Eden Prairie, defeated entrepreneur Jerry Dettinger by an 8% margin, gaining 53% of the more than 330 votes cast at the GOP’s state central committee meeting in Hopkins.
The party continues to deal with the fallout from federal sex-trafficking charges against prolific GOP donor Anton “Tony” Lazzaro in August that opened the door to a stunning string of allegations of retaliation, harassment and toxicity against Carnahan, who was a close friend of Lazzaro.
Reporter Owen Larson can be reached at orlarson@stthomas.edu.