UN GLOBAL TAX

Story 1-UN wants GLOBAL TAX. Story 2-Greece Quake. Story 3-Underwater volcano caught on tape.

The United Nations in your walletMay 26, 2006by Sally McNamara ( bio archive )
Email to a friend Print this page Text size: A A In spite of some pretty torrid scandals in recent years, the United Nations (U.N.) is far from finished. In fact, Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the U.N., is leading the gambit for perhaps its biggest power-grab yet – independent tax-raising powers or globo-taxation.

In fact, the U.N. is deeply committed to establishing this ‘sovereign’ power for itself – independent of the scrutiny and direction of its large aid donors (namely the United States). It wraps this concept up in the intentionally boring globo-speak of ‘enhanced dialogues on tax co-operation’ and ‘new innovative funding mechanisms,’ but that is just intended to put a pretty bow on top of a very ugly concept – the removal of the exclusive sovereign power of nation states to levy taxes on its citizenry.

Cliff Kincaid, President of America’s Survival, Inc., has just published a devastating chronology of the U.N.’s sustained campaign for global taxes, noting the 2001 High Level Panel on Financing for Development as a turning-point in the debate. Not only did that meeting call for the establishment of an International Tax Organization, it blatantly outlined two major areas where globotaxation might easily be levied – a currency transactions tax and a carbon tax – both of which would disproportionately hit the U.S.

Since then, a succession of high-level meetings, summits and conferences have been busy gathering steam for this concept: the Millennium Development Goals, the 2005 World Economic and Social Survey, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Commission Report on the Social Dimension of Globalization and so on and so on; they all share this notion that globotaxation is the most ‘innovative’ solution to long-term funding for the U.N. They propose globotaxes on everything from air transportation to aviation fuel, from airline tickets to carbon emissions, from currency transactions to arms. The list is as ambitious as it is scary. The long arm of the U.N.’s IRS could be in your pocket soon.

One of the U.N.’s more fruitful attempts at global taxation is the formal plan to levy a tax on airline tickets. In November 2005, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, and Spain issued a joint statement calling for a ‘nationally applied, internationally coordinated’ tax to be levied on air transport travels. The French government has been the first one to bite the bullet, and from July onward, passengers will pay between one and 40 euros on all flights taking off in France. With enthusiastic U.N. support and much back-slapping for President Chirac, Chile has undertaken plans to do the same, with Belgium and Germany currently hovering in the wings to do so. Luckily, both Great Britain and the U.S. have resisted Mr. Annan’s calls for others to follow suit. But make no mistake: the rot has started. Britain’s Liberal Democrats are openly advocating for taxation on aviation fuel as a way of reducing climate change, and with the current spin-over-substance streak running through the Conservative Party, anything is possible from our normally reliable British partners.

Of course, France’s projected annual revenue of $248 million is not nearly enough for the U.N.’s aspirations and the finger-pointing – largely toward to U.S. – is really gathering steam now. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Secretary General Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, has gone as far as to say that the U.S. is coming up short in its global aid commitments to the tune of $65 billion a year. Of course, Dr. Sachs is a vocal proponent of globo-taxation to make up the difference. At the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development, Dr. Sachs helpfully points out that: “A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin.

The undercurrent of this debate should not be ignored – any global tax will not be a tax on income, at least not at first; there wouldf be riots in the streets if that happened. Any global tax will stealthy enacted and will have to be far-removed from the scrutiny of ordinary taxpayers. So, what better way to circumvent the problem than to tax corporate America, especially the energy companies who both the U.N. and the European Union have been collectively obsessed with since President Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Feeding on media hysteria about imminent global disaster and excessive corporate profits, the proposition seems easier and easier to sell from a public relations perspective.

There is maybe a glimmer of hope though. John Bolton, the ever-sensible U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has flat-out said that the United States accepts neither global aid targets nor global taxes, and President Bush has backed him. But it cannot always be assumed that the White House will be this sensible. Indeed, Bill Clinton told the Millennium Summit in 2000 that national sovereignty needed to be put aside for the sake of a more active U.N.. And for activism you can read – more of the same, with a tax raising platform to boot.

Sally McNamara is the Director of International Relations at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

5.3-magnitude quake hits Greece in Ionian Sea Fri May 26, 6:30 AM ET

ATHENES (AFP) - An earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale has been recorded in the Ionian Sea, but was not felt at the nearby island of Zakynthos. The epicenter of the quake, registered early Friday at 2314 GMT, was located about 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Athens, a spokeswoman for the Athens Observatory's Geodynamic Institute saidFriday.Since April, a series of earthquakes has been registered around the island of Zakynthos, none of which have caused major damage.

However Friday's quake "is not linked to the seismic activity registered in April near the island," the Greek news agency ANA quoted seismologist Vassilis Karakostas as saying. Greece is more affected by seismic activity than any other European country and bears the brunt of half of all earthquakes on the continent.

Undersea volcano eruption caught on tape By HIROKO TABUCHI,
Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago TOKYO - An unmanned probe got within feet of a violent underwater eruption in the Pacific Ocean, returning with the clearest footage ever captured of seismic activity under the sea, a team of Japanese and U.S. researchers said.
The footage, released Thursday by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, shows gray ash and rock spewing from the underwater NW Rota-1 volcano as it erupted in October. Lava streams down the volcano, which is 1,800 feet under water in the Mariana Arc volcanic chain, some 60 miles north of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. The Japanese-American research team also collected sediment samples, team leader Yoshihiko Tamura said. The Hyper Dolphin probe went as close as 7-10 feet from the eruption.

We believe it's the first time anybody has captured quality footage of an underwater eruption from such a close distance," Tamura said. Analysis of the footage and sediment could help explain how repeated eruptions of underwater volcanos eventually give rise to islands and even continents, Tamura said. Further research could shed light on the very fundamentals of how land masses are formed," he said. Preliminary research findings are reported by Tamura, Robert W. Embley of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other team members in this week's edition of the journal Nature.