00
Brabant>
leaders using offshore companies to hide their wealth. The battle for
Wisconsin heats up, as both parties` front-runners face hurdles and
candidates make a final push before tomorrow`s primary. With the falling
price of oil, one of America`s most reliable allies against ISIS is going
broke. What intense social pressures do American girls face in a world
dominated by smartphones?>
Trump; Hillary Clinton; Ted Cruz; John Kasich; Wisconsin>
GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I`m Gwen Ifill. Judy Woodruff is away.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: inside the Panama Papers, how one of the largest data leaks in history allegedly shows world leaders using offshore companies to hide their wealth.
Also ahead, the battle for Wisconsin. Both parties` front-runners face hurdles, as candidates make a final push before tomorrow`s primary.
And with the falling price of oil, one of America`s most reliable allies against ISIS is going broke.
SAFIN DIZAYI, Kurdish Regional Government Spokesman: Often, people say that Peshmergas are fighting on behalf of the international community and the free world. If that is the case, then there has to be more assistance.
GWEN IFILL: All that and more on tonight`s "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
GWEN IFILL: Europe moved in earnest today to reverse the human flood spilling into the continent. It took the form of deportations from Greece involving the first of what could be thousands of people.
Malcolm Brabant reports on the day`s developments.
MALCOLM BRABANT: As dawn broke, the first of more than 200 migrants, mostly Pakistanis and Afghans, were ferried from the Greek islands back to Turkey.
Escorted by officers from the E.U.`s border agency, they were taken to tents for registration and health checks. At the same time, 32 Syrian refugees were flown from Istanbul to Hannover, Germany, to be resettled. The exchange is part of Turkey`s deal with the European Union to end more than a year of uncontrolled migration.
MAN: Greece and Turkey are implementing the agreement lawfully and the commission and the agencies are on the ground advising with advice and expertise.
MALCOLM BRABANT: The deal aims to discourage economic migrants and those fleeing conflict from making the perilous sea journey, as well as to close down people-smuggling networks. In return, Turkey receives financial aid and expedited E.U. membership talks.
The Turkish prime minister rejected claims that his nation was not safe for returnees.
AHMET DAVUTOGLU, Turkish Prime Minister (through translator): Today, as we take back Syrian refugees from Europe, my request to our police officers is to treat those who consider Turkey with an embrace of mercy with compassion, and don`t distinguish them from our own citizens.
PROTESTERS: E.U., shame on you!
MALCOLM BRABANT: Dozens of protesters gathered at the port in Lesbos to denounce the deportations.
MAN: They are being forcibly returned to Turkey, and Turkey is not a safe country. Turkey has not signed the Geneva Convention in full. Only Syrians are enjoying some kind of protection in Turkey, and all the other migrants and refugees are not protected at all in Turkey.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Human rights groups also claim the operation breaches international refugee conventions.
WOMAN: These are individuals who are fleeing horrific scenes of war and the kind of abuses we know from Aleppo, for example, and we are playing some type of ping-pong with them. These people have a right to asylum, to safety, to protection, and we need to grant it to them.
MALCOLM BRABANT: In all, 50,000 migrants and refugees remain stranded in Greece, unable to travel deeper into Europe. About 4,000 who arrived after March the 20th, the cutoff date, and didn`t receive asylum, are being detained for deportation.
But still, they come. In the last 24 hours, more than 300 people made the dangerous voyage to Lesbos.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I`m Malcolm Brabant.
GWEN IFILL: In the day`s other news: It was primary eve in Wisconsin, and the campaigning went on almost nonstop. On the Republican side, both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz predicted victory. And Democrat Bernie Sanders talked of scoring a win over front-runner Hillary Clinton. We will get a report from Wisconsin, and review the race in general, later in the program.
Two big state governors signed bills today taking their minimum wage to the highest in the nation. In California, the state live-streamed Governor Jerry Brown`s signing of a new law which by 2022 will raise the wage from $10 to $15 an hour.
GOV. JERRY BROWN (D), California: This is about economic justice. It`s about people. It`s about creating a little, tiny balance in a system that every day becomes more unbalanced.
GWEN IFILL: And, in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill setting a $15 minimum for New York City and its suburbs by 2021. The rest of the state will rise to $12.50 an hour. President Obama today commended the state efforts. He urged Congress to hike the federal minimum as well.
The Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a Texas law in the latest battle over legislative districts. The law counts overall population, not just eligible voters, in drawing districts. Challengers said that means some end up with far more voters than others. But the court ruled the method doesn`t violate the principle of one person, one vote.
Amtrak trains in the Northeast are back on normal schedules, after Sunday`s collision that killed two maintenance workers. It happened when a southbound train struck heavy maintenance equipment and derailed outside Philadelphia. CNN reported today the maintenance workers were on the wrong track, but it remains unclear why.
Brussels` main airport ramped up departures today after partially reopening on Sunday. The facility had been closed since last month`s attacks. Security was tight today, as passengers went through stricter check-in procedures. Many said it`s about pushing on, in spite of the terrorists.
MAN (through translator): It`s terribly sad, what happened at the airport. And my first reaction wasn`t to go on holiday anymore, but after a couple of days, I thought that life should go on and that we have to resume all activities. We have to straighten our backs and go on.
GWEN IFILL: Twenty flights were scheduled to leave today, up from three yesterday. Officials say it will be months before full service is restored.
In Iraq, a string of suicide attacks killed 29 people. At least 14 died at a restaurant that`s popular with Shiite fighters in the south. and in Basra, a car bomb in a commercial district left five dead. Search teams sifted through the charred hulks of cars looking for victims. Islamic State extremists claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.
Back in this country, a new analysis finds prices of widely used medications have shot up sharply in five years. Reuters reports manufacturers of four of the top 10 drugs in the U.S. raised prices by more than 100 percent since 2011. The cost of six other medicines increased by more than 50 percent in that time, among them, the arthritis drugs Humira and Enbrel, and the asthma drug Advair.
Heart patients have some new developments to talk over with their doctors. Findings published this week show anti-cholesterol statin drugs can prevent heart attacks even in patients with only a borderline risk. And for those who don`t tolerate statins well, another study finds an alternative is showing promise. It`s known as a PCSK9 inhibitor.
BP`s record settlement over the 2010 Gulf oil spill has cleared its final hurdle. A federal judge in New Orleans today approved the roughly $20 billion deal. Much of it will go to state and local governments. In 2012, BP reached a similar settlement on private damage claims.
And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 55 points to close at 17737. The Nasdaq fell 22 points, and the S&P 500 slipped six.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the Panama Papers, a massive trove of documents exposing the secret world of shell companies and offshore accounts; In Wisconsin, the final push for votes as polls predict tight races for both Democrats and Republicans; and much more.
The project is called the Panama Papers. It represents the work of hundreds of journalists in dozens of countries, coordinated by the International Consortium for Investigative Journalism, or ICIJ.
The project exposes the dealings of a Panamanian law firm called Mossack Fonseca, and its work in allegedly creating shell companies for the global rich and powerful to hide and launder money and to evade taxes. More than 11 million law firm documents were initially provided to a German newspaper by an anonymous source.
Among the world leaders allegedly involved in these schemes, the presidents of Argentina and Ukraine, the king of Saudi Arabia, and the prime minister of Iceland.
The papers also detail the elaborate financial dealings of the friends and relatives of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The real-world effect of these deals is shown, in part, in this video released by ICIJ and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a frequent "NewsHour" partner.
NARRATOR: Over the past three years, Syria`s air forces rained death on more than 21,000 civilians, their bodies ripped apart by exploding barrel bombs, missiles dropped on homes, businesses, bus stops, even hospitals.
These war crimes have been well-documented. Not so the part played by the shadowy world of offshore finance. Behind the scenes, companies using offshore tax havens were accused of supplying fuel to the Syrian air force. In 2014, multiple governments, including the U.K. and U.S., issued bans on doing business with these companies.
But now a new global investigation has revealed that a Panamanian firm helped these companies operate as attacks in Syria continued. That firm, Mossack Fonseca, is a key player in a sprawling, secretive industry that the world`s rich and powerful used to hide assets and skirt rules but setting up front companies in far-flung jurisdictions.
More than 300 journalists trolled through millions of leaked records from Mossack Fonseca to expose an alarming list of clients involved in bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking.
Behind the invoices, e-mails and paper trails are real victims. In Uganda, a company that wanted to sell a prospective oil field paid Mossack Fonseca to help it avoid $400 million in taxes. It was sent the paperwork. The company`s address was changed from one tax haven to another. In a country where one in three people live on less than $1.25 a day, $400 million represents more than the government`s annual health budget.
Uganda spent years in court trying to force the company to pay its taxes. Meanwhile, hospitals in the shadow of the oil field lacked funds for even the most basic equipment. Patients slept on floors and were asked to bring their own medical supplies like sterile gloves and cotton balls.
WOMAN (through translator): It was a surprise to me, because I expected all of this equipment to be at the health center. No, these things are not there. Nurses say, we cannot work on you. At times, we are forced to leave and return home unattended to.
Some women have lost their legs and babies.
NARRATOR: Uganda ranks among the worst 10 countries in the world for high maternal, newborn and child mortality rates due to a lack of access to good health care.
GWEN IFILL: In a statement to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Mossack Fonseca said it never knowingly allowed the use of its companies by individuals with a relationship to Syria. The law firm said it was quick to report suspicious activity, always cooperated with authorities, and that it doesn`t -- quote -- "offer solutions whose purpose is to hide unlawful acts such as tax evasion."
For more on all of this, we turn to Gerard Ryle, the director of the ICIJ, and Shruti Shah. She`s vice president of Transparency International- USA, a watchdog group that seeks to expose corruption globally.
So, Gerard Ryle, tell us, explain to us what these folks are doing in these dealings, and what is illegal about it?
GERARD RYLE, Director, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Well, a lot of what happens in the offshore world is actually legal, but where you have secrecy, which is exactly what the offshore world abides, then you have the potential for wrongdoing.
And certainly, in the documents that we have seen, there was wrongdoing. I mean, it`s almost ridiculous to think that Mossack Fonseca, this company, didn`t actually know who their clients were. And some of these clients appear on sanctions lists, for instance, or they are drug dealers or mafia bosses.
GWEN IFILL: So, when they put out a statement that says this wasn`t our intent to facilitate anything illegal?
GERARD RYLE: I think it is the whole system here that is wrong.
I think what you`re seeing here is, they are claiming their major -- their clients were actually the banks and the accountancy firms that were basically going to them for their end client. It`s almost unbelievable to think that they actually didn`t know who these people really were.
GWEN IFILL: Shruti Shah, they often say it is what is legal that is the crime.
SHRUTI SHAH, Vice President, Transparency International-USA: You`re absolutely right there as well.
And what Gerard just said was that it is absolutely legal in many parts of the world to form a company without disclosing who the true beneficial owner is, including right here in the United States.
In every state in the U.S., you can form a company without having to disclose who the person is that really controls the company or derives economic benefit from it. And also here, you know, people, gatekeepers such as real estate agents and others, don`t have to do any due diligence on buyers` identities or the sources of their funds.
So, what he has pointed out is really the crux of the problem. The structure needs reform.
GWEN IFILL: Even though, in this case, in these sets of documents, we haven`t seen -- or at least I haven`t read about a lot of U.S. names and U.S. connections.
GERARD RYLE: Well, it is the first time, though, we are actually seeing U.S. jurisdictions coming out in a big leak.
We are seeing a lot of documents from Nevada, for instance, and also from Wyoming, which we have never seen before. But, I mean, people think of the offshore world as being some Caribbean island somewhere. It`s not. It is actually spread around the world. It is in First World places, as well as Third World places.
GWEN IFILL: Where are the most popular places to hide money?
GERARD RYLE: Well, the most popular place to hide money is here in the U.S., in fact, and in Britain.
A lot of the money flow that we see from Russia, from China, from Africa is actually coming in to the banks here in the U.S. and to Britain. And that`s why we`re seeing so many banks in the data. They are actually the users of this world.
GWEN IFILL: Are you saying that it is perfectly fine for people to do that, as long as the laws do not account for anything shady?
SHRUTI SHAH: What I am saying is that it shouldn`t be so easy for money launderers, drug traffickers and other criminals from around the world including corrupt public officials, to be able to access the global financial system with such ease using anonymous companies and hide their true identities.
This veil has to be lifted. We really need to know who the true owners are behind these companies. And we need to end the secrecy, particularly, as Gerard pointed out, Delaware is home to thousands of shell companies. Nevada, which he pointed out.
Now, Mossack Fonseca has a presence in Nevada, and it`s not by accident. Again, it`s one of those states that is known for its business- friendly corporation laws.
GWEN IFILL: Has there been fallout from the publication of this information so far?
GERARD RYLE: Well, before we even published, Vladimir Putin`s spokesman came out last Monday and attacked us because we had sent a list of questions asking why associates very close to him, what we were seeing in the documents is almost $2 billion had flowed through offshore companies involving people very close to Vladimir Putin, including the godfather of his child.
And one of the offshore companies we saw was the owner of a ski resort in Russia where Vladimir Putin`s daughter got married.
GWEN IFILL: I saw that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, his children all have these kinds of companies.
GERARD RYLE: Yes.
Well, we saw the biggest ever protest in Iceland today. In fact, the entire parliament house there was surrounded by people protesting about the fact that we revealed that the prime minister of Iceland had a secret offshore account that had millions of dollars in bank bonds.
And if you recall, in Iceland, there was a crisis a few years ago where all the banks melted down. And he was actually elected to sort that problem out, without telling the people that he had a secret company that had bonds in the same banks.
GWEN IFILL: If you are an ordinary person who has a savings account, a checking account, maybe still a passbook, how does this affect you?
SHRUTI SHAH: Let me explain how it affects you, both in the international stage and right here in the U.S.
In the international scene, when you see corrupt people stealing money from their own people, it leads to loss of trust in government. It creates instability, leads to conflict, and really poses a national security problem for the U.S.
In terms of right here domestic -- in the domestic context, you see the real estate boom in places like Manhattan and also Miami being fueled by these anonymous real estate purchases, which means that ordinary citizens like doctors, nurses, schoolteachers can`t buy houses in these places because they are so unaffordable.
That is how, I think, it really affects us in the U.S.
GWEN IFILL: Gerard Ryle, we`re talking about more than 11 million documents from one single law firm.
GERARD RYLE: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: Is this the tip of an iceberg?
GERARD RYLE: It has to be, because we know that even though Mossack Fonseca is one of the biggest incorporators of offshore companies around the world, there are about 800 others ones around there.
So we are only really seeing a small slice of this world. And what is stunning is that there are so many politicians that we -- what we saw. There are 12 current and former world leaders. There are about 140 politicians in all, and then hundreds more of their associates.
GWEN IFILL: So, Shruti Shah, how do you get to the bottom of this?
SHRUTI SHAH: Well, you need to call for reform.
And this is where they have done us a whole lot of good in calling attention to this issue of anonymous companies. There have been several past investigations which have talked about the role that anonymous companies play in aiding criminals.
I really do hope that this actually leads to actual structural reform, i.e., in the U.S., we start collecting information on beneficial ownership of shell companies. We do ask our gatekeepers, such as people in the real estate industry, to do due diligence.
And, also, responsibility lies with the banks. Banks should be required to determine and verify who the beneficial owner is of their covered clients. I think that all of these three things, if we can manage to do them in the U.S., it would make the U.S. financial system less vulnerable to dirty money.
GWEN IFILL: This seems so much easier said than done. What you just laid out sounds like a very high mountain to change.
SHRUTI SHAH: I would disagree. Two of these things can be done without legislation.
With regard to my last point about, you know, requiring financial institutions to determine and verify the beneficial owner of the (INAUDIBLE) actually proposed a rule in 2014. It still needs to be finalized -- 18 months after the rule was introduced, it has not yet been finalized. Maybe this will give them the push to do it.
GWEN IFILL: Maybe so.
Shruti Shah, vice president of Transparency International, and Gerard Ryle, the director of the ICIJ, thank you both very much.
SHRUTI SHAH: Thank you.
GERARD RYLE: Thank you.
SHRUTI SHAH: Thank you so much.
GWEN IFILL: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": how the drop in oil prices is hurting a key U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS; and a look at the intense social pressures American girls face in a world dominated by smartphones.
But, first, John Yang has been in Wisconsin this past week talking to voters. It`s a battle-tested state that`s seen its share of political turmoil over the past five years.
MAN: Team Trump pass. Make America great again hats.
JOHN YANG: Hours before the doors opened on Sunday, people were already lining up outside of Donald Trump rally in West Allis, Wisconsin.
WOMAN: Go Trump. Whoo!
JOHN YANG: Jim Marlow, a small business owner from Muskego, got here at noon for the event that began at 7:00 p.m.
MAN: I see strength and I see power and I see somebody who`s not afraid to say it like he feels it. Even if he potentially is a little abrasive sometimes, you know what, when I`m in my living room, I`m a little abrasive too.
JOHN YANG: Leanne Patnod (ph) and her daughter, Kayla Lumay (ph), came from Green Bay, 125 miles away.
WOMAN: He may be a billionaire, but he feels a lot of the same way us poor people feel, you know, the tax issue, the illegal immigrants taking jobs, the manufacturing going overseas. You know, we have lost a lot.
JOHN YANG: All of that praise sounds familiar, but Wisconsin is presenting Trump with something he`s never seen before, united opposition from the state`s Republican establishment and conservative media.
DR. CHARLES FRANKLIN, Marquette University Law School: There is clear opposition to Donald Trump because is he front-runner and a real effort in the Republican Party to prevent him from being the nominee.
JOHN YANG: Charles Franklin is the director of the respected Marquette Law School poll. His latest survey shows that Ted Cruz has catapulted into a 10-point statewide lead over Trump.
DR. CHARLES FRANKLIN: That`s a tremendous increase, and I don`t think Ted Cruz`s issue positions changed over that period.
JOHN YANG: Cruz gained momentum last week with an endorsement from Republican Governor Scott Walker.
CHARLIE SYKES, Radio Talk Show Host: The notion that Donald Trump has and that many of the Trumpkins have that the politics is involved with smash-mouth.
JOHN YANG: In addition, conservative talk show hosts like Charley Sykes are using the airwaves to rally their audiences against Trump.
CHARLIE SYKES: Ted Cruz was not my first choice or my second choice. I`m more anti-Trump than I am pro-Cruz. So, you know, the key thing at this point is to stop Donald Trump from getting that 1,237 votes on the first ballot of the convention.
He`s actually almost this cartoon version of every stereotype that liberals would have of what they think of conservative, xenophobic, racist, misogynistic. But the problem is, he`s not a cartoon. He is the leading Republican candidate. And it poses a threat to everything we have claimed about ourselves, everything we have tried to do.
JOHN YANG: What about the other Republican candidate, Ohio Governor John Kasich?
CHARLIE SYKES: The vote on April 5 is going to be a binary choice. This is going to be the closest thing you have had to a head-to-head matchup between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, and I think it is going to be the first of the rest of the campaign.
JOHN YANG: But at a Kasich event at a Madison sports bar over the weekend, Brian Keith, an accountant from Monroe, said he`s sticking with the man from Ohio.
MAN: I think that John Kasich has got a huge ramp to go up to try to make it. But, at the end of the day, maybe there is a chance that if he gets some momentum here in Wisconsin, he starts moving forward, that maybe there is something that can happen.
Donald Trump has no character. Sorry to say it. And from what I have seen with Ted Cruz, I`m not sure that he`s got the amount of character needed either. So we need better-character people running America and helping America be better.
JOHN YANG: The Democratic front-runner is also facing a tough challenge here in Wisconsin. Polls show Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a virtual tie. But the dynamics of that race are very different from the Republicans.
DR. CHARLES FRANKLIN: On the Democratic side, it`s less clear that this is an attempt to prevent Hillary Clinton from being the nominee.
JOHN YANG: Over this snowy weekend at the Dane County farmer`s market in Madison, the talk over breakfast, politics.
WOMAN: They can get behind such extremism as Donald Trump.
JOHN YANG: Retired teachers Ruby and Joe Cabibbo now run a bakery. They like what Sanders says, but they`re voting for Clinton.
JOE CABIBBO, Wisconsin: Reaching too high isn`t necessarily going to get very much done. And I think her approach is more realistic and have a better chance of actually being implemented.
RUBY CABIBBO, Wisconsin: I think part of it is her plans have more forethought and follow-through in them. And I think what she is supposing, she is going to be able to do. And that`s why I`m strongly behind her.
JOHN YANG: But in this liberal enclave, home to the University of Wisconsin, we found a lot of Sanders supporters.
M.J. Bowman (ph) is a nurse.
WOMAN: I tell people all the time don`t listen what people say about Bernie. Listen to what Bernie has to say. And you will get it, because he gets it.
JOHN YANG: Travis Gorash (ph) is a graduate student.
MAN: He believes in a lot of the same interests that I do, mainly getting corporate interests out of politics, decreasing the price of higher education overall. So, out of the two candidates, he is the choice for me.
JOHN YANG: Rachel Beerstra (ph) and Alissa Redazel (ph) are Wisconsin juniors.
WOMAN: I think that like, in this country, big money has just gotten too much into politics, which is, like, exactly what politics shouldn`t be, because it should of and by and for the people.
WOMAN: If you just look at everything that he has been saying over the entire kind of time frame that he has been in politics or around politics, he`s been pretty consistent. And that`s not something that I am seeing with a lot of the other candidates.
JOHN YANG: Polls show this is Sanders` base.
DR. CHARLES FRANKLIN: Sanders is doing enormously well with voters under 45 and unbelievably well among those under 30.
Voters are telling us in their polls that even young voters are going to go to the polls. Now, that`s the great question for Election Day, is, do those young voters really turn out for Sanders and give him that enormous vote, which is holding him up in the polls right now?
WOMAN: I would like to get rid of the stigma for students. I don`t like that, the unreliability. I don`t like that. Don`t think of us as unreliable. Think of us as people that are just as interested in this as you are.