• The Guardian reports 12 nations of the European Union, including Ireland, blocked a proposed rule to compel multinational corporations to reveal how much profits they generate in each of the 28 EU states. The proposal was designed to shine a spotlight on U.S.-based tech giants including Apple, Facebook and Google which have avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes by operating in low tax nations like Ireland, Luxemburg and Malta.
(“12 EU states reject move to expose companies tax avoidance,” The Guardian, Nov. 28, 2019)
• Two years ago, the corporate consultancy McKinsey & Company sent a confidential report to New York City Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte. It laid out the results of a new initiative called “Restart,” designed to decrease the level of inmate violence, gang related assaults and attacks on corrections officers.
(“NYC paid McKinsey to stem jail violence. Instead violence soared,” Propublica, Dec. 10, 2019)
• Fifteen years after being deployed to Iraq, Marine Corps veteran Peter Berg is still haunted by his time in combat, remembering lost comrades in the so-called “Triangle of Death” amidst a raging insurgency. He regards the ongoing turmoil in Iraq, where security forces in Baghdad recently killed more than 100 people during anti-government protests last month, as a repudiation of the U.S. war effort.
(“Healing the moral injury of war,” Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 7, 2019; )
This week’s News Summary was narrated by Ruth Baumgartner.
