More money flows out than in

BRUSSELS: The EU and US President Donald Trump seem to have differing positions on dealing with Russia, climate change and global trade, European Council President Donald Tusk said after talks with Trump yesterday.

Tusk said they agreed on countering militant violence and on Ukraine: “We discussed foreign policy, security, climate and trade relations,” Tusk said in Brussels after he and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker met Trump.

“We agreed foremost on counterterrorism. Some issues remain open like climate, trade and… Russia, but on the Ukraine conflict it seems we’re on the same lines.” Reuters JAKARTA: Indonesia’s antiterrorism unit raided the home of a suspected suicide bomber yesterday as authorities linked attacks that killed three police officers at a Jakarta bus station a day earlier to the Islamic State militant group.

Six police officers and six civilians were also wounded in the twin blasts set off five minutes apart by two attackers in the Kampung Melayu area of the Indonesian capital late on Wednesday, police said. The attacks were the deadliest in Indonesia since January last year, when eight people were killed, four of them attackers, after suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the capital. Reuters MANCHESTER/LONDON: British police have stopped sharing information on the suicide bombing in Manchester with the US, a British counter-terrorism source said yesterday after police said leaks to the US media risked hindering their investigation.

Police are hunting for a possible bomb-maker after the 22-year-old attacker, British-born Salman Abedi, detonated a sophisticated device at a concert venue packed with children on Monday night, killing 22 people and injuring 64.

As the situation remained tense in Manchester, police were responding to a call at a college in the Trafford area. Army bomb disposal experts had arrived at the college.

The decision to stop sharing police information with US agencies was an extraordinary step as Britain sees the US as its closest ally on security and intelligence. “This is until such time as we have assurances that no further unauthorised disclosures will occur,” said the counter-terrorism source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official threat level was raised after the Manchester attack to “critical”, its highest level, meaning a further attack could be imminent. Troops have been deployed to free up police officers for patrols.

After a series of police raids in and around Manchester, eight people are in custody in connection with the suicide bombing. One of them is Abedi’s brother but police have not confirmed that. Abedi’s father and younger brother were arrested in Tripoli in Libya, the family’s original home. Manchester’s police chief said Abedi was part of a network, and the media reported authorities suspect he received help constructing the bomb and planning the attack.

Police chiefs have made clear they are furious about the publication of confidential material in US media, including bomb site photographs in the New York Times, saying such leaks undermined relationships with trusted security allies.

“This damage is even greater when it involves unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major counter-terrorism investigation,” a National Counter Terrorism Policing spokesperson said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May was to raise the issue with US President Donald Trump at a Nato summit in Brussels yesterday.

The pictures published by the New York Times included remains of the bomb, the rucksack carried by the suicide bomber, and showed blood stains amid the wreckage.

The Financial Times reported that such images are available across a restricted-access encrypted special international database used by government ordnance and explosives experts in about 20 countries allied with Britain. It said the database was built around a longstanding US-British system.

The BBC said Manchester police hoped to resume normal intelligence relationships soon but were furious about the leaks.

Britain routinely shares intelligence with the US bilaterally, and also as part of the “Five Eyes” network which also includes Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

UNDERDEVELOPED or overexploited? Against the narrative that Western aid “helps” poverty in Africa, a new study shows that the pillaging of Africa by Western economic interests is still the major source of poverty.

A coalition of British and African-based development campaign groups published research on Wednesday that indicates that Africa has an annual financial deficit of over $40 billion (R515bn) in capital leaving the continent each year, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported.

The research claims that approximately $203bn flowed out of the continent in 2015 in the form of repatriated profits of multinational corporations, money moved into tax havens, and costs imposed by climate change adaptations.

This massive outflow of capital from the historically colonised continent far exceeds that which flows into it, which, according to the coalition, is only $162bn.

“Africa is rich,” the study notes. “Its people should thrive, its economies prosper. Yet many people living in Africa’s 47 countries remain trapped in poverty, while much of the continent’s wealth is being extracted by those outside it.”

The study also notes the role that Western governments and international organisations have in “pushing economic models that fuel poverty”.

For example, the study describes how extractivist companies which export minerals, oil, and gas, are able to export massive quantities of wealth while paying little in taxes due to institutionalised tax incentives.

However, the study notes these tax policies “are the result of long standing policies of Western governments insisting on Africa lowering taxes to attract investment”.

Companies are also frequently able to avoid paying what little taxes they do owe through the illicit use of tax havens. According to the coalition’s research, $68bn of capital outflow from Africa is in the form of illicit financial flows, which they define as the illegal movement of cash between countries into tax havens.

“The key message we want to get across is that more money flows out of Africa than goes in, and if we are to address poverty and income inequality we have to help to get it back,” Tim Jones, an economist at the Jubilee Debt Campaign said.

The report is highly critical of the role that foreign aid from Western governments has on the continent, claiming that it is often simply funding to promote privatisation of public services, free trade, and private investment.

“If aid is to benefit Africa, it must be delinked from Western corporate interests,” the report says.

“Money is leaving Africa partly because Africa’s wealth of natural resources is simply owned and exploited by foreign, private corporations. In only a minority of foreign investments do African governments have a shareholding; even if they do this tends to be small, usually around 5% to 20%,” the report says.

Its findings are consistent with the recorded impacts of a centuries-long history of colonial and neo-colonial exploitation of Africa’s resources and labour.

“There’s such a powerful narrative in western societies that Africa is poor and that it needs our help.

“This research shows that what African countries really need is for the rest of the world to stop systematically looting them. While the form of colonial plunder may have changed over time, its basic nature remains unchanged,” Aisha Dodwell, of Global Justice Now said, according to The Guardian.

Former president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah said half a century ago that: “The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world.”