No possibility of early Lok Sabha polls: Ajit Singh

MUZAFFARNAGAR: Union civil aviation minister party president Ajit Singh has said Lok Sabha polls will take place at their scheduled time and said his party's alliance with Congress will continue in the future.

"The Lok Sabha elections will be held at their scheduled time. RLD's alliance with Congress will continue in the future," Rashtriya Lok Dal president told reporters on Sunday.

He also said his party would not ally with BJP and criticised the Samajwadi party government for the alleged poor law and order situation.

The state government has failed to control corruption and crime in the state and communal riots have also increased and it has failed on all fronts, he claimed.

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Meet the Meteorite Hunter

Michael Farmer is one of the world's only full-time meteorite hunters. Since the 1990s, the 40-year-old Tucson, Arizona, resident has been scouring the world for pieces of interstellar rock, racing to be the first one on the scene and selling his finds to museums and private collectors. On Friday, as Russians reportedly scrambled to collect fragments from a passing meteorite that injured hundreds, Farmer spoke with National Geographic about his unusual line of work.

Why are so many people in Russia busy gathering up meteorite fragments?

It's a historic event. This will be talked about forever. Everyone wants to have a little piece of it. And scientifically, we want to study it. We want to know what's out there, and we want to know how big it is, and we want to know what damage it can cause. The preliminary data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says about 7,000 tons landed.

How many meteorite fragments are known to be on Earth?

There are a couple of hundred thousand known meteorites. Of course, there's millions and millions on the planet; we just have to find them. Most of the Earth is inhospitable—heavy forest, jungle, ocean. Meteorites that fall in the ocean are just gone, disappeared to the bottom.

How many other full-time meteorite hunters are there?

Dedicated, serious meteorite hunters? There are maybe 20 of us. If you add in the part-timers who go somewhere whenever [an impact is] close to them, then you might approach a hundred.

How did you become a meteorite hunter?

Here in Tucson right now we have the world's biggest mineral show going on. I bought a meteorite at this very same show 20 years ago, and I was absolutely obsessed and hooked. Since then I've been around the world more times than I can count—four million miles on American Airlines alone.

How many countries have you been to?

About 70 countries, by my last count. About 50, 59 trips to Africa—a lot of work in Africa. The Sahara and other deserts there make meteorites easier to find than on other terrains, and also keep them well preserved.

What are the challenges you face when you're on a hunt?

Well, you're usually going into a kind of chaotic scene where nobody really knows much. In Africa and other places I go [the locals] don't usually understand what's happening, and most of the time they don't care. They're more concerned with eating that day. But the instant some guy shows up and says, "I'll pay you to find this rock," the whole village empties—and then lots of rocks show up.

Related: Best Meteorites for Tourists

It can be dangerous work. I've been robbed, put into prison. For example, I was in prison two years ago in the Middle East, in Oman—actually sentenced, convicted, and put in prison for three months for "illegal mining activity." Not a very nice time. And the same year, 2011, in the fall I went to Kenya three times, after a major meteorite fell. On the third trip over I had a robbery where they ambushed us and almost murdered me. I was down on my knees, with a bag over my head and a machete on my throat and a gun at my head, being beaten. Luckily they decided to just take everything and leave instead of killing us. It's a dangerous line of work because it involves money, and people want that money.

What's the most valuable meteorite you've found?

Well, I've found three separate moon rocks in the Middle East. [Moon rocks are considered a type of meteorite that came loose from the lunar surface and fell to Earth.] And one of them I sold for $100,000 a week later. It was just a small piece—the size of a walnut. But the best meteorite I found was with my three partners up in Canada. It was actually discovered in 1931, but we went back to the location and discovered 53 kilograms [117 pounds] more. It's an extremely rare type of meteorite called a pallasite, and it's about 4.5 billion years old. We sold it to the Canadian government for just under a million dollars. Now it's in the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, and it's considered a national treasure.

Where else do you sell your wares?

Well, I do shows around the world, in France, Germany, Japan. I go to expos, like this one here in Tucson, which is the biggest mineral show in the world and lasts for three weeks. And museums are always calling me.

Related: Archival Photos of Meteorite Recovery

It's a small market. It's not like I need a shop or anything. People call me or email me or go to my website and check it out. The market these days is so ravenous for anything new that when I get a new meteorite, it's usually sold in hours. I don't even have to work anymore. I just make phone calls to a few people, and it's all gone.

Where do you store your collection?

I have multiple storage sites—never put all your eggs in one basket. And I have lots of bulk material. Sometimes I buy this stuff by the ton, and it goes into storage and I sell it off one piece at a time.

What's the verification process like?

Any meteorite, anything that we want to have an official name, has to go to a laboratory, where it gets sectioned and studied by scientists. For example, I'd guess this meteorite in Russia yesterday will be in a lab in Moscow, being researched within hours.

Related: History's Big Meteorite Crashes

In the collector market, we work collaboratively with the scientists. I supply them with rocks, and they supply me with data, both of which I need to make money. People want to know what something is before they buy it.

Are there legal or ethical implications to meteorite hunting?

There always are. Certain countries have passed laws. But when I was arrested in Oman, they actually had no law—they were just very upset that we were taking lots of meteorites. The only law they could charge us with was illegal mining operations—basically running a company in the country without government licensing. But I won on appeal because we had no mining equipment. We were picking up rocks off the surface of the desert. And a judge said, "If a child could do it, then it's not mining." And I was immediately released and sent home.

But there's always friction between the collecting market and the scientific market. There are scientists out there who believe that no meteorite should be in private hands. Well, I tell you, I've been on hunts all over the world and I've only run into scientists a couple of times. They don't have the time or money to do it. So if it wasn't for us, 99 percent of these meteorites would be lost to science.

What about this meteorite strike—do you think scientists will go to Russia?

I guarantee there'll be scientists from everywhere in the world going to this one.

Are you catching the next flight to Moscow?

Well, of course as a meteorite dealer, I want to own this. I woke up this morning to a hundred e-mails from people begging me to get on a plane and go get it so they can buy a piece.

But I'm probably not going. Getting into Russia can be complicated. I'll just buy some from the Russians when it comes out.

Of course, if this had happened in China or somewhere in Africa, I'd be packing my bags right now and getting on a plane, figuring it all out when I get there.

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Country Star Mindy McCready Shot Herself, Cops Say

Mindy McCready, the country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," but struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son has died of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. She was 37.

Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. today.

There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

McCready's boyfriend, David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.

McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.

She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

Her mother, Gayle Inge, was appointed to be her son Zander's legal guardian in 2007 after McCready was arrested for violating probation on a drug-related charge. The boy's father is McCready's ex-boyfriend Billy McKnight.

Following a custody hearing in May 2011, McCready released a statement, saying, "We have progressed in a positive manner to reunite me and my son, Zander. I feel very optimistic this will happen in the near future."

But just six months later, in November 2011, was accused of violating a court order for failing to bring Zander back to her mother in Florida after a visit. The boy was placed in foster care while McCready and her mother worked out the custody dispute.

McCready's struggle with substance abuse was broadcast in 2010 on the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

McCready also claimed to have carried on a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began was she was 15 years old and he was 28. Clemens denied that the relationship was sexual in nature.

"You know what, I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people that has a normal, quiet existence," McCready told ABC Radio in 2010. "I've been chosen for some reason to be bigger and larger than life in every way. Negative and positive."

McCready, who was born and raised in southern Florida, moved to Nashville when she was 18 to start her music career.

Within a few months, she was starting to work with producer David Malloy, who got her tapes to RLG Records. The company signed her to a contract after seeing her in concert, giving her a record deal less than a year after her arrival in Nashville.

Her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," went gold within six months of its release in April 1996, and eventually went multi-platinum. Two more followed: "If I Don't Stay the Night," in 1997; and "I'm Not So Tough" in 1999.

Her most recent album, "I'm Still Here," featuring new versions of her early hits "Ten Thousand Angels" and "Guys Do It All the Time," was released in March 2010.

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Dominican Republic port contract scrutinized, along with senator, eye doctor’s relationship

SANTO DOMINGO — When the U.S. Embassy set out to press the Dominican government over a long-stalled contract to provide port security, American officials took on some tough opponents. The deal had languished for more than a decade amid stiff resistance from the American Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of American and local businessmen in the Dominican Republic, and the country’s customs authorities.

Ambassador Raul Yzaguirre’s team pushed the government to enforce the contract — which calls for operating X-ray scanners to screen cargo at the country’s ports — despite objections over its merits and its price tag.

The port deal has come under heightened scrutiny in the United States in recent weeks because of its chief investor, a wealthy Florida eye doctor named Salomon Melgen who stood to gain a windfall if the contract was enforced, and his close friend Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

Menendez, whose relationship with Melgen is the subject of a Senate ethics inquiry, was a major beneficiary of the doctor’s generosity, repeatedly flying on his private plane to the Dominican Republic, staying as a guest at his seaside mansion and receiving large campaign contributions. Melgen donated $700,000 to Menendez and other Senate Democrats last year. The senator was also the most powerful champion of the port deal, publicly urging U.S. officials to pressure Dominican authorities to enforce the contract.

Menendez pointed to the port security deal at Yzaguirre’s confirmation hearing to become ambassador, an aide to the senator said, asking him to put a priority on security efforts aimed at countering drug trafficking through the Dominican Republic. Melgen, too, sought Yzaguirre’s help in enforcing the contract.

Yzaguirre, for his part, received help from both men in becoming ambassador. They had provided a crucial boost to his nomination when it ran into trouble.

The details of efforts by Yza­guirre and embassy staff on behalf of the port security contract remain sketchy. But the ambassador spoke approvingly of stepping up drug interdiction measures when Dominican reporters specifically asked him about the port deal. And embassy officials told the American Chamber of Commerce that they were seeking a resolution of the contract favorable to an American investor, according to William Malamud, the chamber’s executive vice president.

Though it was unusual for a U.S. Embassy to cross swords with the local American chamber, embassy officials said they were doing what U.S. diplomats around the world do when American investors get ensnared in legal or bureaucratic problems.

But this was no routine case because of the relationship among the three men: the senator, the eye doctor and the envoy.

When Yzaguirre’s nomination in 2009 to become ambassador to the Dominican Republic was held up by Republicans in Congress over other disputes with the State Department, Melgen and Menendez came to his aid. At the time, Menendez chaired the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that handled Caribbean affairs. With the nomination stalled, Melgen spoke with the senator and registered once again his support for Yzaguirre being confirmed, according to Melgen’s lawyer.

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Pakistani city mourns after bomb kills 81

QUETTA, Pakistan: The death toll from a devastating bomb attack on Shiite Muslims in southwest Pakistan rose to 81 on Sunday, as the community threatened protests if swift action was not taken against the killers.

The bomb containing nearly a tonne of explosives, hidden in a water tanker, tore through a crowded market in Hazara town, a Shiite-dominated area on the edge of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, early on Saturday evening.

The death toll from the blast, which demolished a nearby two-storey building, rose to 81 overnight, senior police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP, while 178 people were wounded.

Baluchistan has increasingly become a flashpoint for the surging sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and Shiites, who account for around a fifth of the country's 180 million people.

Saturday's attack takes the death toll in sectarian attacks in Pakistan this year to almost 200, compared with more than 400 in the whole of 2012 -- a year which Human Rights Watch described as the deadliest on record for the country's Shiites.

It was the second major attack on Shiites in Quetta this year, after a double suicide bombing on a snooker club in the city on January 10 killed at least 92 people, the deadliest ever attack on the community in Pakistan.

Protests in the wake of the snooker hall attack prompted Islamabad to sack the provincial government and suspend its legislature and Shiite leaders said there would be more demonstrations if the culprits behind the market bombing were not caught.

Azizullah Hazara, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, Sunday gave a 48-hour deadline to the provincial government to launch targeted operations against the killers or they would launch protests.

Provincial home secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani said the dead and injured included women and children, and confirmed all the people trapped under rubble at the site of the collapsed building had been removed.

Durrani said that after clearance from doctors some 25-30 seriously wounded people would be airlifted to Karachi.

The chairman of the Shia Conference, Daud Agha, put the death toll at 83 and 194 wounded.

"Today a special mourning ceremony for the martyrs of last month's attack was already planned. We will announce the future course of action and time for burials after that in the afternoon," Agha told AFP.

The banned militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack -- as it did for the snooker hall bombing and a February 1 attack on a Shiite mosque in northwest Pakistan that killed 24.

There is anger and frustration among Shiites at the apparent inability or unwillingness of the authorities to tackle LeJ. Activists say the failure of the judiciary to prosecute sectarian killers allows them to operate with impunity.

Sayed Qamar Haider Zaidi, a spokesman for Shiite groups in the area, condemned the Pakistani government for not providing protection to the community and announced three days of mourning and protest over the attack.

A large number of people gathered outside shops destroyed in the bombing and shopkeepers sifted through the debris to salvage any usable items on Sunday, an AFP photographer at the scene said, adding that people wept as they found human flesh and pieces of limbs.

Pakistan's national flag was flying at half mast after the provincial government declared a day of mourning over the killings and markets were closed.

Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, also suffers Islamist militancy and a regional insurgency which began in 2004, with rebels demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

- AFP/xq

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Election Commission bars 2171 candidates from contesting election for not disclosing expenditure details

NEW DELHI: In a bid to ensure free and fair elections and curb the use of money power, the Election Commission has disqualified as many as 2,171 candidates for failing to furnish details of expenditure incurred while contesting parliamentary and assembly polls.

These candidates will face the bar for three years from the date of disqualification by the Commission, with the maximum being up to January 2016.

The move is part of the poll body's measures to bring in financial transparency and propriety in the conduct of elections which forms the larger part of electoral reforms process.

While Maharashtra tops the list with 260 disqualified candidates, it is followed by Chhattisgarh 259 candidates. They are followed by Haryana with 197 candidates, Odisha 188 and Madhya Pradesh 179.

Uttar Pradesh has 159 candidates disqualified. Jharkhand has 118 candidates and Tamil Nadu 97.

Among the Parliamentary constituencies, Uttar Pradesh has a maximum of 158 candidates debarred from contesting, while Chhattisgarh has the maximum of 240 debarred candidates when it comes to State Legislative Assemblies.

All these candidates were disqualified under Section 8A read with 11 (A) (2) and 10A of Representation of the People Act, 1951, for failing to submit their poll expenditure accounts within the stipulated 30-day period from the date of announcement of results.

While most such candidates are non-serious candidates, some candidates had filed their returns within the stipulated 30-day period but those were not found in proper order and thus stood disqualified.

The Commission has sent the list of all such barred candidates to Chief Electoral Officers for further sending such names to the respective Returning Officers. Earlier, it had disqualified as many as 3,275 contestants in September 2009.

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Picture Archive: Making Mount Rushmore, 1935-1941

Photograph from Rapid City Chamber of Commerce/National Geographic

There's no such thing as Presidents' Day.

According to United States federal government code, the holiday is named Washington's Birthday, and has been since it went nationwide in 1885.

But common practice is more inclusive. The holiday expanded to add in other U.S. presidents in the 1960s, and the moniker Presidents' Day became popular in the 1980s and stuck. It may be that George Washington (b. February 22, 1732) andAbraham Lincoln (b. February 12, 1809) still get the lion's share of attention—and appear in all the retail sale ads—on the third Monday in February, but the popular idea is that all 44 presidents get feted.

Mount Rushmore is a lot like that one day a year writ large—and in granite. It's carved 60 feet (18 meters) tall and 185 feet (56 meters) wide, from Washington's right ear to Lincoln's left.

The monument's sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, grew up in Idaho, a first-generation American born to Danish parents. He studied art in France and became good friends with Auguste Rodin. Borglum mostly worked in bronze, but in the early 1910s he was hired to carve the likenesses of Confederate leaders into Stone Mountain in Georgia.

He was about to be fired from that job for creative differences about the same time that a South Dakota historian named Doane Robinson had an idea. Robinson wanted to have a monument carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota, maybe Western historical figures like Chief Red Cloud and Lewis and Clark, each on their own granite spire. (Plan a road trip in the Black Hills.)

Robinson hired Borglum and gave him carte blanche. Borglum was looking for something with national appeal, so he chose to depict four presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Borglum wanted to represent the first 150 years of the nation's history, choosing four presidents as symbols of their respective time periods. He took a tour of western South Dakota, searching for an ideal canvas.

The sculptor was looking for three things: a surface strong enough to sculpt, a mountain big enough to hold several figures, and a mountain face that received morning sunlight. Mount Rushmore fit the bill and was already part of a national forest, so it was easy to set aside as a national memorial.

Work started in 1927. Calvin Coolidge attended the dedication ceremony. It took 14 years to finish the carving, conducted mostly in summertime because of the area's harsh winters.

There were approximately 30 workers on the mountain at any give time. In total about 400 had worked on it by the time the monument was finished. Though the project involved thousands of pounds of dynamite and perilous climbs, not a single person died during the work.

Borglum himself died of natural causes in 1941, though, just six months before the project was declared "closed as is" by Congress that Halloween. His son Lincoln—named for his father's favorite president—took over.

In the photo above, a worker refines the details of Washington's left nostril.

About 90 percent of the mountain was carved using dynamite, which could get within 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of the final facial features. For those last few inches, workers used what was known as the honeycomb method: Jackhammer workers pounded a series of three-inch-deep holes followed up by chiselers who knocked off the honeycomb pieces to get the final shape. Then carvers smoothed the "skin's" surface.

—Johnna Rizzo

February 16, 2013

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Meteor Blast Creates Rush to Cash In

The shattered glass and broken walls caused by the massive explosion of a monstrous meteor over this remote, industrial Russian city is not even cleaned up, and people are already trying to cash in.

Some residents want to turn this city known mostly for its tank factory into a tourist destination, while others from all around the world are determined to find fragments of the meteorite.

Meteor hunters say it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. A small piece of the space rock that exploded over Russia Friday could be worth thousands of dollars, and bigger chunks could fetch hundreds of thousands.

SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia

"I haven't been able to sleep for the last two days because of this," said Michael Farmer, who runs the website Meteor Hunter. "This is a once in a lifetime event. We've never seen anything like this in the last hundred years."

He said he started planning a trip to Chelyabinsk as soon as the meteorite exploded.

"The next morning I was on the phone working on visas. I'd like to get a visa and get over to Russia as quickly as possible," he said. "When this type of thing happens, you know hours count so we try to arrange that as fast as possible."

A day after a massive meteor exploded over this city in central Russia, a monumental cleanup effort is under way.

Authorities have deployed around 24,000 troops and emergencies responders to help in the effort.

Officials say more than a million square feet of windows -- the size of about 20 football fields -- were shattered by the shockwave from the meteor's blast. Around 4,000 buildings in the area were damaged.

Nasha gazeta, www.ng.kz/AP Photo

The injury toll climbed steadily on Friday. Authorities said today it now stands at more than 1,200. Most of those injuries were from broken glass, and only a few hundred required hospitalization.

According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.

NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs, but it did not cause major damage because it occurred so high in the atmosphere.

"This was caused by a small asteroid, about 15 meters in diameter, coming in at around 18 kilometers per second, that's in excess of 40-thousand miles per hour," NASA planetary scientist Paul Abell said. "As the asteroid comes in, it interacts with the atmosphere and effectively it converts all the energy, the kinetic energy of the asteroid, the mass of the asteroid and the velocity and it's actually that velocity, the asteroid just effectively explodes and that creates the pressure wave, the blast wave that comes down."

Treasure hunters hoping to cash in on the bits of space rock aren't the only ones eager to find pieces of the meteor, Abell said. Scientists say the material could offer valuable information.

"One of the things we'd like to learn is first of all, what was the composition of the asteroid, where did it come from," he said. "We know it came from the asteroid belt but can we link it to a bigger asteroid and also, get an idea of the dispersal pattern."

Residents said they still can't believe it happened here.

"It was something we only saw in the movies," one university student said. "We never thought we would see it ourselves."

Throughout the city, the streets are littered with broken glass. Local officials have announced an ambitious pledge to replace all the broken windows within a week. In the early morning hours, however, workers could still be heard drilling new windows into place.

Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.

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Will young adults face ‘rate shock’ because of the health-care law?

Many young, healthy Americans could soon see a jump in their health insurance costs, and insurance companies are saying: It’s not our fault.

The nation’s insurers are engaged in an all-out, last-ditch effort to shield themselves from blame for what they predict will be rate increases on policies they must unveil this spring to comply with President Obama’s health-care law.

Insurers point to several reasons that premiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer more-comprehensive coverage than many currently provide. Also, their costs will increase because they will be barred from rejecting the sick, and they will no longer be allowed to charge older customers sharply higher premiums than younger ones.

Supporters of the law counter that concerns about price hikes are overstated, partly because federal subsidies will cushion the blow.

The insurers’ public relations blitz is being propelled by a growing cast of executives, lobbyists, conservative activists and state health officials. They increasingly use the same catchphrase — “rate shock” — to warn about the potential for price surges.

Aetna chief executive Mark T. Bertolini invoked the term at his company’s recent annual investor conference, cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average and could more than double for particular groups such as the young and healthy.

The danger of rate shock has also become the favored weapon of conservative opponents of the law, repeated in a drumbeat of op-eds and policy papers in recent weeks.

The argument is a powerful one because the success of the law, which was the signature domestic accomplishment of Obama’s first term, depends on enough people signing up for insurance, particularly healthy people. The issue is surfacing as the most recent significant challenge in implementing the health-care overhaul.

Supporters of the law complain that the warnings amount to a smear attack by special interests and political partisans, akin to earlier claims that the law would allow bureaucrats to deny life-saving care to save money.

“‘Rate shock’ is the new ‘death panels,’ ” said Wendell Potter, a former head of communications for the health insurer Cigna who is now a critic of the industry. “They’ve chosen these words very carefully to scare people. It’s the ideal term for what is, at its core, a fear-based campaign.”

Yet even analysts who favor the law concede that it will result in higher costs for some young, healthy people.

Most of the new rules that could push up premiums will not apply to plans sponsored by large employers, only to those sold to individuals and small businesses. These policies will be available on insurance marketplaces, or “exchanges,” that the law sets up in each state beginning in 2014, and that are ultimately expected to serve about 26 million people.

The law will require insurers to offer a generous package of benefits for exchange plans, including coverage of maternity care, prescription drugs and treatment for mental illness. It also caps customers’ out-of-pocket expenses.

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EU states want 'fair tax share' from big business

MOSCOW: The finance ministers of Britain, France and Germany on Saturday launched a new drive to force big business to pay its fair share of tax and halt the schemes of top firms to keep payments to a minimum.

Britain's George Osborne, France's Pierre Moscovici and Germany's Wolfgang Schaeuble said it was time for internationally-coordinated action to clamp down on the practice of shifting profits from the company's home country to pay less tax under another jurisdiction.

The drive -- which is backed by a study by the Organisation for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) on the consequences of the so-called profit shifting -- comes as cash-strapped governments try to use every means to inject new funds into their budgets.

"We are talking about something that is fundamentally legal. We need to modify the law," admitted the OECD secretary general Angel Gurria. "Avoiding double taxation has become a way of having double non-taxation."

"No single country can go by itself," he said at a news conference on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Moscow, insisting that the drive was not aimed at "bashing" individual corporate giants.

Schaeuble said it was "unfair that multinational companies should be able to use globalisation as a tool" not to pay their fair share of taxes while Moscovici described the issue as a "matter of fairness for our citizens".

Osborne said that current global tax rules had been developed almost 100 years ago -- along principles set out by the League of Nations in the 1920s -- and few changes had been made since.

"This means that the tax system does not reflect how international companies do business."

"We want businesses to pay the taxes that we set in our countries. And this cannot be achieved by one country alone. No one country can create an international tax system by itself."

According to the OECD, some multinational companies use strategies that allow them to pay just five per cent in corporate taxes while smaller businesses are paying 30 per cent.

It says that practices have become more aggressive in the past decade, with some multinationals creating offshore subsidiaries or shell companies and taking advantage of the tax breaks offered in the countries where these are registered.

- AFP/ck

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