IRS teams with Australia, UK, to expose tax cheats

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. is teaming up with Australia and the U.K. in an effort to expose tax cheats from around the world.

Tax agencies from the three countries have acquired "a substantial amount of data" about potential tax cheats from many countries hiding assets in Singapore, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and the Cook Islands, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday.

The agencies are offering to share the information with other countries, so they can prosecute their citizens.

"This is part of a wider effort by the IRS and other tax administrations to pursue international tax evasion," said acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller. "Our cooperative work with the United Kingdom and Australia reflects a bigger goal of leaving no safe haven for people trying to illegally evade taxes."

Taxpayers can hold offshore accounts for a number of legitimate reasons, even in known tax havens. They may want to diversify their investments, facilitate international business transactions or get easier access to money while living or working overseas. But, the IRS notes, many people hide money in countries that don't share banking information to evade taxes.

The data obtained by the tax agencies identifies potential tax cheats as well as the tax advisers who are helping them, the IRS said. The agency declined to say where it got the information.

The IRS stepped up its efforts to go after international tax cheats in 2009, when Swiss banking giant UBS AG agreed to pay a $780 million fine and turn over details on thousands of accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets from American customers.

Since then, the agency has conducted three voluntary disclosure programs in which tax cheats can come clean in exchange for reduced penalties and no jail time. A total of 38,000 people have come clean under the programs and the IRS says it has recouped more than $5.5 billion in penalties and interest.

The IRS is using information from people who have come forward to target banks and financial advisers, but an agency spokesman declined to say whether the disclosure program produced the information being shared by the U.S., Australia and the U.K.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-09-US-Tax-Cheats-IRS/id-4d28a278dccc4dfeb040255b3832bc84

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PFT: Fairley says Lions are Super Bowl-bound

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As Jets quarterback Geno Smith prepares for his first series of NFL practice sessions at the team?s rookie minicamp, one of the guys who presided over the offensive practices at Smith?s most recent stop is defending Smith from criticism.

?I never got the sense he was a diva or pampered or anything in my involvement with him,? West Virginia offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson told Brian Costello of the New York Post. ?I never had one problem with him other than he watched too much film.?

Before the draft, Nolan Nawrocki of Pro Football Weekly skewered Smith.? After the draft, Yahoo! Sports and ESPN.com published critical quotes from anonymous sources regarding Smith.

?He?s going to play for a long time,? Dawson said this week. ?I think the Jets are going to be more than happy that they have him.? He?s going to work his [butt] off. It?s almost a positive for the Jets organization because if everything would have went smooth and he had been picked in the top five he probably wouldn?t be as motivated as he is right now.

?In my talks with him after the draft, he?s so fired up right now to prove this [jerk] wrong that he?s going to work and do it.?

Compounding Smith?s problems is that his camp didn?t launch an aggressive counterattack in response to Nawrocki?s scathing scouting report.? And with Smith firing his agents only days after the draft, he had no one in place to attempt to change the narrative and alter the perception arising from the Yahoo! Sports and ESPN reports.

Perception in this context is key.? His reported plan to leave the draft (ESPN reported it, Smith has denied it) after the first night fueled the perception that he can?t handle adversity, for those who already believed that.? His decision to fire his agents in the wake of the draft fueled the perception that he?s inclined to externalize blame.

In fact, we?ve (I?ve) been criticized, primarily by those who tend to look for reasons to criticize us (me), for pointing out the connection between Smith?s reported plan to leave the draft and the reaction from those who already have a dim view of him.

It?s a reasonable at worst, dead-on 100-percent accurate at best interpretation of the impact of the behavior on the opinions of those who believe the negative things reported about Smith.? Those who think I?m biased against Smith, who played college football at West Virginia University, apparently aren?t aware of my Mountaineer connection.? (I grew up in West Virginia, went to law school in Morgantown, live 30 miles from the school, and attended every home football game that I can.)

What I wrote about Smith after the first round of the draft contained the same advice I would have given Smith if he were my client, friend, cousin, nephew, or son.

Good advice is what he and every young player (and every young person) needs.? Here?s hoping that Geno Smith gets it from everyone around him, and that he heeds it.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/09/nick-fairley-thinks-the-lions-are-going-to-the-super-bowl/related/

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Drugmakers, health groups bring poor girls vaccine

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) ? Two multinational drugmakers are teaming up with top global health groups to protect millions of girls in the world's poorest countries from deadly cervical cancer.

Starting with pilot programs in eight Asian and African nations, the ambitious project ultimately is intended to inoculate more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries by 2020. Given that most women killed by cervical cancer live in developing countries, the project could have a huge impact.

The endeavor was announced Thursday by the GAVI Alliance, a public-private partnership that's worked with drugmakers to deliver affordable vaccines to poor countries to treat childhood illnesses that are big killers.

"This is a transformational moment for the health of women and girls across the world," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, which is short for Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

"A vast gap currently exists between girls in rich and poor countries. With GAVI's programs we can begin to bridge that gap so that all girls can be protected against cervical cancer no matter where they are born," he said in a statement.

Drugmakers Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC initially will provide 2.4 million doses of their vaccines against cancer-causing human papilloma virus ? for a fraction of the cost commanded in Western countries.

Merck will supply its Gardasil for $4.50 per dose, and Glaxo its Cervarix for $4.60 per dose. In the U.S., the shots cost well over $100 apiece, and a three-dose series over six months is required.

The vaccines protect against the strains of human papilloma virus, or HPV, that most commonly cause cancer. The virus, transmitted during sex, causes cervical cancer as well as vaginal, vulvar, anal and oral cancers. The vaccines prevent roughly 70 percent of those cancers.

In developed countries, older girls and women routinely get Pap tests to check for cervical cancer or signs of precancerous changes in cervical tissue. They're treated promptly, often before cancer begins, and few die. And increasingly, young girls and now boys as well are vaccinated with either Gardisil or Cervarix, starting as young as age 9 so they're protected well before they become sexually active.

Not so in poor countries.

"They don't have the benefit of screening to catch cancer early, when it can still be treated," Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, president of Merck Vaccines, said in an interview.

As a result, 85 percent of the 275,000 women killed by cervical cancer each year live in poor countries, where HPV is most prevalent.

"It is a disease that has devastating, life-threatening consequences and it is preventable," said Gerberding, an infectious diseases expert who's a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Our aim is to do what we can to make the vaccine available."

The GAVI project will begin "demonstration projects" administering the vaccines to girls aged 9 to 13, starting in Kenya as early as this month. Then it will be expanded to Ghana, Laos, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.

The goal is for the governments of those countries to show they can set up a national system ? with medical staff, clinic supplies, distribution systems and supply management all well organized ? to provide the vaccines over the long term. The program also will bring an opportunity to teach the girls about nutrition, sexual health and HIV prevention.

Already, GAVI is planning to provide the shots nationwide in Rwanda, starting next year.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., is providing 93 percent of the shots initially. It's also agreed to provide more shots at an even-lower price in the future, if higher volumes of vaccines are ordered, as that would reduce production costs.

Merck and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline are among the world's biggest makers of vaccines, and both have long provided many for free or at discounted prices to health programs in poor countries.

GAVI also will work with the heavy hitters of global health and development groups, including the CDC, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank. Other partners include the charities, corporations and 18 wealthy countries that help fund GAVi.

In the U.S., the vaccines have become steady money makers since they were launched a half-dozen years ago, but they haven't turned into the mega-sellers initially envisioned.

That's partly because of their high price here, but also because of political fights. Some conservative groups opposed the vaccines, arguing that giving adolescents a vaccine to protect them against a virus transmitted by sexual activity would encourage it.

___

Follow Linda A. Johnson at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/drugmakers-health-groups-bring-poor-girls-vaccine-112248163.html

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From military prot?g? to critic, Nawaz Sharif eyes power in Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif, a twice-elected prime minister, is widely seen as the leading contender for the prime minister slot in Pakistan after the May 11 general elections. If elected, he could represent a swing away from the decades-long hold the military has had over the civilian government.

In a 1988 interview, a young Mr. Sharif on the campaign trail said that he admired the late Pakistani general-turned-dictator Zia-ul-Haq. ?He had done some very good work in the country. He set very good precedents in the politics of the country which had a very healthy impact.?

Twenty-five years later, Mr. Sharif ? the head of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) - is no longer publicly admiring army chiefs. If anything, he?s been pointedly reminding Pakistanis of something that might be considered obvious: The powerful Pakistan Army is actually headed by the prime minister ? not the other way around.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Pakistan? Take this quiz.

That truth ? as per Pakistan?s Constitution ? is still a controversial thing to say out loud. But Sharif, who has battled with three army chiefs in his tenures as prime minister, has promised to make sure the military knows its place.

?Sharif?s focus is the economy and how to transform it,? says Sohail Warraich, one of the country?s foremost commentators on politics and the author of a book on Sharif called, ?Who?s the traitor?? A major reason for his conflict with the military came when Sharif decided to make amends with India. ?When [Sharif] came to the realization that ?until we come to peace with India, there can?t be any progress in the economy?? there was bound to be a disagreement with the military.?

UP AND DOWN

Sharif, a scion of an industrialist Punjabi family, has had a long, rocky political career, serving as chief minister of the Punjab Province, and twice as the country?s prime minister, from 1990-1993 and 1997-1999.

Though he was known and applauded for his economic liberalization policies, Sharif was never able to complete a full term. His years in power were marked by poor governance, allegations of corruption, political battles, and a military coup.

After Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998 in response to India?s nuclear tests, the brief moment of nationalistic, jingoistic joy that looked set to make him a national hero for the history books, turned into panic when international sanctions and a freeze on foreign currency accounts hit the country. A year later, a war with India in Kargil turned into another political disaster for Sharif and his eventual attempt to fire the Army chief ? Gen. Pervez Musharraf ? backfired when the Army organized a quick coup (Sharif recently called for a probe into the 1999 Kargil war, further ruffling military feathers).

Warraich says that the air of a ?huge patriot? that Sharif believed he had achieved after the 1998 nuclear tests, was decimated in the Kargil war. ?The patriot became a traitor,? he says. ?He had to go to the US and ask for insurance for his life.?

But after eight years in exile, Sharif returned to Pakistan, quickly rebuilt his fractured party, and won a majority of seats in Punjab, where the majority of the population lives.

He?s also setting himself up for a figurative fight with the Pakistani military. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani recently dismissed the idea that Pakistan has been dragged into a US war, while Sharif has said he wants to open dialogue with the Pakistani Taliban, carefully avoiding condemning the group.

Zulfiqar A. Balti, Sharif?s personal photographer who once worked for the Bhuttos before switching to Sharif, describes his employer as a caring father who didn?t push his children to join politics (though his daughter, Maryam has been dabbling in politics for the past few years, while his wife Kulsoom campaigned for him when he was imprisoned by Musharraf) and donates generously ? and anonymously ? to funding healthcare for patients with cancer.

?There is a humbleness about him that attracts people,? Mr. Balti says, who hovers by Sharif?s shoulder as he addresses rallies and press conferences. ?And he has a lot of patience," Balti says.

That the two warring politicians of the 1990s ? Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif ? put their differences aside to forge an agreement (called the Charter of Democracy) was a major breakthrough for Pakistani politics. Balti punctuates his point by several anecdotes of how Sharif forgave and forgot many who defected from the PML-N, or how he dealt with the PPP.

For all of Sharif?s perceived civility, there?s also a shadow that follows him.

TARGET OF CRITICISM

Reports that his party garnered support from the banned anti-Shiite group, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, in the last general election and his own vague stance on militancy have turned off voters and made his party the target of intense criticism.

"This is my personal view, but every time the PML-N is in government there have been injustices." said Father Ashraf Gill of the Catholic Church in Gujranwala. Gill rattles off a number of attacks on Christians during the PML-N's government in Punjab. Gill, who credits the interim government in Punjab with having played a positive role in preventing a major attack on his church this April, said: "If the PML-N had been in government then and these terrorists were around, we would have been ruined too."

Sharif has managed to stave off the criticism by one about-turn: pulling Sheikh Waqas Akram into the party, a former Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid legislator who is strongly opposed to the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan in the Jhang district. The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan chief Ahmed Ludhianvi said that he was "still angry with the PML-N" over the move. "I gave a file on Akram to Nawaz Sharif myself and I was promised that they would never get him on board."

But even now, with Imran Khan?s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf nipping at the heels of Nawaz Sharif?s tiger ? the party?s election symbol ? the consensus among many voters in Punjab, even those who aren't supporting him, is that ?Nawaz Sharif will win."

WORKING WITH IMRAN KHAN?

It?s still too soon to know how many National Assembly seats Sharif?s party will win ? or whether he can serve for a third time as Pakistan?s prime minister. Estimates for seats range from 80 to 100 (a party needs 172 seats for majority), which could put PML-N in the lead to form a coalition and the next government.

But the fight remains wildly unpredictable, however, which has rattled the PML-N. After all, until a few months ago, the election was all but Sharif?s. And Imran Khan?s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which emerged in 2011 as a viable rival for the ?throne of Lahore,? was mired in infighting. A recent resurgence of Khan?s PTI, however ? manifested in the large rallies it has held in Punjab in the final stretch to the elections ? appears to have begun to put significant momentum behind Khan.

And even if Sharif manages to defy the pundits and Khan?s supporters, there is a long battle ahead and many opponents along the way: the militants waging war in the tribal areas, an upper house of parliament controlled by the PPP, and most importantly, the military, which still holds most of the keys to ensuring a five-year term in government.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Pakistan? Take this quiz.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/military-prot-g-critic-nawaz-sharif-eyes-power-144840932.html

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Forsythe NWR Grand Reopening Celebration | Galloway Sports ...

Saturday, May 18, 2013, 8:00 am

799 E Great Creek Rd, Galloway, NJ | Get?Directions??
FREE

Galloway, N.J. ? Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge will host a ?Grand Reopening? event on Saturday, May 18 from 8:00 a.m. to noon in commemoration of the completed repairs to the Refuge?s 8 mile Wildlife Drive. The public is invited to activities beginning with an 8:00 a.m. bird and nature walk. A ceremony with featured speakers is planned for 9:00 a.m., and will be followed with activities for all ages through noon. The event will be held at the Refuge?s main location at 800 Great Creek Road in Galloway, NJ.

Congressman Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2) and Refuge Manager Virginia Rettig will speak at the event. Activities for the public will also include bird and nature walks at 8, 10 and 11 a.m. There will be a family archery activity beginning at 10:00 a.m., as well as children?s activities in the Refuge?s Nature Discovery Area and the opportunity for attendees to explore new exhibits in Forsythe?s Visitor Information Center. The Wildlife Drive will also be open for exploration, with Certified Interpretive Guides stationed at key viewpoints to help visitors better enjoy and understand the refuge. Light refreshments will be available free of charge, and no pre-registration is necessary

Children?s activities will include the opportunity to plant seeds in home-made pots, scavenger hunts, animal puppets, and the chance to meet T.R. Bear. The bird and nature walks will be led by expert guides, and loaner binoculars will be available.

Hurricane Sandy created large holes in the top and sides of the Wildlife Drive, which had been closed since the hurricane last October but reopened on April 20. The 8-mile Wildlife Drive traverses marshland and forest, and is the most popular destination on the refuge, with over 100,000 visitors in a normal year. The Federal Highway Administration funded the repairs through the Emergency Relief to Federally Owned Roads program at a total cost of $1.4 million.

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Source: http://galloway.patch.com/events/forsythe-nwr-grand-reopening-celebration

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Kenya wind project closes in on full funding after AfDB loan

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's Lake Turkana Wind Power project secured a $149.5 million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) on Tuesday which officials expect to help speed full funding of one of Africa's largest wind projects.

Kenya aims to plug a power supply shortfall which coupled with an ageing grid means frequent blackouts that hurt industry in east Africa's biggest economy.

Turkana Wind will have a capacity of 300 megawatts on completion in 2015 and produce electricity equivalent to almost 20 percent of the country's installed power.

The AfDB loan includes a partial risk guarantee which is expected to unlock another 300 million euros from other lenders such as the European Investment Bank, officials said.

"We expect to close the financing very shortly," Gabriel Negatu, AfDB's regional director for East Africa, told a news conference.

"We expect some form of groundbreaking by the end of this year," he said.

"To satisfy the bank requirements under project finance is very challenging. Quite rightly so because the banks are taking risks and they want these risks to be mitigated," Carlo Van Wageningen, chairman of Turkana Wind, told Reuters. "(This is) ...proof that financial close is now in sight."

Kenya has enormous wind resources with the site of the Turkana project.

"The winds are very special in that area and among the best, if not the best, in the world. They are very consistent and very predictable," Van Wageningen said.

Some 365 850-kilowatt wind turbines will be installed in the far north county of Marsabit.

Danish firm Vestas has won contracts to supply turbines to KenGen, the country's biggest power producer, which already runs a tiny wind farm near the capital Nairobi.

Kenya, which has been praised by the United Nations Environmental Programme for a progressive energy policy, opened up to independent power producers 15 years ago, ahead of many states in the region.

AfDB said it would fund several other energy sector projects in east Africa, including a hydro-generation plant in Uganda and development of gas fields in Tanzania.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kenya-wind-project-closes-full-funding-afdb-loan-124447439.html

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