Exclusive: Offshore financial industry leak exposes identities of 1,000s of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world David Leigh  The GuardianThe British Virgin Islands, the world's leading offshore haven used by an array of government officials and rich families to hide their wealth. Photograph: Duncan Mcnicol/Getty Images --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

The Netherlands, Berlin's most important ally in pushing for greater budgetary discipline in Europe, has fallen into an economic crisis itself. The once exemplary economy is suffering from huge debts and a burst real estate bubble, which has stalled growth and endangered jobs. Graphic detailing the economic downturn in the Netherlands. By Christoph Schult and Anne Seith   Michel Scheepens is familiar w ...

A new world heaves into view this week with sweeping changes in the fields of welfare, justice, health and tax Monday 1 April Bedroom tax introduced The aim is to tackle overcrowding and encourage a more efficient use of social housing. Working age housing benefit and unemployment claimants deemed to have one spare bedroom in social housing will lose 14% of their housing benefit and those with two or more s ...

Kolkata/New Delhi: In a major embarrassment for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, an SFI student leader was allegedly killed in police custody on Tuesday. Eyewitnesses said Sudipto Gupta (22) was brutally thrashed by the police while he was leading a protest march in Kolkata. But the Chief Minister maintained that the student leader died when he put his head out while being taken in a police van a ...

Unemployment across the 17 EU countries that use the euro has hit 12% for the first time since the currency was launched in 1999. Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said the rate in February was unchanged and at the record high after January's figure was revised up from 11.9% to 12%. Over the month, 33,000 people in the eurozone joined the ranks of the unemployed. Spain and Greece continued to suffer fro ...

Buoyed by its meteoric domestic success, the far right party is planning to expand 'wherever there are Greeks' Rebloged from guardian.co.uk, By Helena Smith in Athens A Golden Dawn rally in Athens in February. The group's success is being linked to a rise in racially motivated attacks on immigrants in Greece. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters Emboldened by its meteoric rise in Greece, the far-right Golde ...

By ELENA BECATOROS Associated Press DRAPETSONA, Greece -- In rain and shrieking wind, the ferry strains at its ropes, the gangplank creaking and scraping against the pier. A sailor on night watch duty huddles over a portable heater at the entrance to the cavernous hull. For seven months, often under harsh winter conditions, Giorgos Polilogidis has waited for one thing: a paycheck. A seasoned veteran of the ...

Repost from  FT Alphaville Raise your hand if you didn’t first hear about the way in which the Dutch government took over ailing SNS Reaal on February 1st and think ‘oh, really now?’ along with an arched eyebrow. The mechanics of the takeover are interesting indeed, but given that two of the four largest Dutch banks have been nationalised, we have a bigger picture question: How much warning was there that S ...

Last Saturday over 2000 people participated in the demonstration in Amsterdam to support the refugees’ struggle for a normal life. Every year the asylum requests of thousands of refugees are denied. According to the Dutch state these people are supposed to return to their country of origin. However, in many cases this is impossible: their country of origin does not provide them with the correct documents, r ...

After Osborne’s disastrous budget yesterday, 63 economists have pledged their support for the People’s Assembly with a letter to the Guardian. George Osborne‘s latest budget confirms that austerity policies are set to continue for years to come (Budget 2013, 20 March). This is a call from economists and academics to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their ...