Pandora Papers and the latest European efforts to combat money laundering, tax evasion and tax avoidance

Following the revelations of the Pandora Papers on offshore financial mechanisms which allow European citizens to avoid paying tax obligations and to commit tax evasion or money laundering offenses, the European Parliament adopted Resolution 2021/2922 (RSP) requiring Member States to take urgent and decisive action, both legislative and investigative, to combat this type of criminal behavior. As a response to the request formulated by the Parliament, the European Commission drafted a Proposal for a council Directive laying down rules to prevent the misuse of shell entities for tax purposes by introducing new monitoring and reporting regulations.

Côte d’Ivoire

Côte d’Ivoire first experienced a civil war in 2002, but the country’s rapid socio-political disintegration after the demise of Félix Houphouët-Boigny in 1993 produced several risk factors that would eventually culminate in atrocity crimes between 2010 and 2011. This article identifies a weak state that only exercised jurisdiction over the south of the country, years of instability driven by horizontal inequalities and an identity crisis, past abuses that had gone unpunished, and election disputes that served as triggers for atrocity crimes. The deeply polarized nature of Ivorian society meant that local mechanisms for resolving disputes and building peace were not wholly effective, even though they helped to resolve disputes and prevent violence in some local communities. Findings from the Ivorian case demonstrate the need to pay closer attention to the structural and proximate factors that underpin conflicts. Côte d’Ivoire also presents lessons on the need for decisive action in the face of unfolding atrocity crimes. There was a need for timely and decisive response in accordance with the principles of R2P. Nonetheless military intervention was delayed for months, resulting in avoidable fatalities.

Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and The Value of Triangulation

Droughts are complex and gradually evolving conditions of extreme water deficits which can compromise livelihoods and ecological integrity, especially in fragile arid and semi-arid regions that depend on rainfed farming, such as Kitui West in south-eastern Kenya. Against the background of low ground-station density, 10 gridded rainfall products and four gridded temperature products were used to generate an ensemble of 40 calculations of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess uncertainties in the onset, duration, and magnitude of past droughts. These uncertainties were driven more by variations between the rainfall products than variations between the temperature products. Remaining ambiguities in drought occurrence could be resolved by complementing the quantitative analysis with ground-based information from key informants engaged in disaster relief, effectively formulating an ensemble approach to SPEI-based drought identification to aid decision making. The reported trend towards drier conditions in Eastern Africa was confirmed for Kitui West by the majority of data products, whereby the rainfall effect on those increasingly dry conditions was subtler than just annual and seasonal declines and greater annual variation of rainfall, which requires further investigation. Nevertheless, the effects of increasing droughts are already felt on the ground and warrant decisive action.

Impacts of Digital Transformation on Mobility and Transportation Sector

It is indeed a fact that the digital transformation has been changed rapidly in the last few years, and the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in accelerating the wheel toward intelligent and digital transformation in all sectors; some countries have been recovered quickly from the pandemic and managed to eliminate most of the obstacles while others still struggling. The public transport sector PT during COVID-19 pandemic was affected directly, which is an inevitable result that disrupted the system. This paper will investigate through an online questionnaire survey the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and the digital transformation on transportation modes and activities by evaluating the current situation and assessing future transportation sustainability and whether it will continue to recover appropriately. The research will identify user's awareness, attitude, and behavior toward PT before and during COVID-19, as the trend has been in favor of private vehicles and avoidance of PT, therefore increasing confidence in PT requires decisive action from governments, policymakers, and planners to keep pace with the intelligent transformation. Keywords; COVID19, transportation, sustainability, digital transformation, transportation modes, and activities.

Governing the covid-19 Pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa: Containment Measures as a Public Good

What determined how governments in the Middle East and North Africa reacted to the global covid-19 pandemic? We develop a theoretical argument based on the political costs of different policy options and assess its empirical relevance. Distinguishing between the immediate costs associated with decisive action and the potential costs of uncontrolled spread that are likely to accrue over the long term, we argue that leaders who have fewer incentives to provide public goods to stay in power will lock down later than their more constrained counterparts. We find empirical support for this argument in statistical analyses covering the 1 January – 30 November 2020 period using the Oxford covid-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) and our own original data on the timing of mosque closures and strict lockdowns across the region. We also illustrate our argument with a description of the response to the pandemic in Egypt.

Analysis of the institutional landscape and proliferation of proposals for global vaccine equity for COVID-19: too many cooks or too many recipes?

This article outlines and compares current and proposed global institutional mechanisms to increase equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, focusing on their institutional and operational complementarities and overlaps. It specifically considers the World Health Organization's (WHO’s) COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) model as part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) initiative, the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative, the proposed TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement) intellectual property waiver and other proposed WHO and World Trade Organization technology transfer proposals. We argue that while various individual mechanisms each have their specific individual merits—and in some cases weaknesses—overall, many of these current and proposed mechanisms could be highly complementary if used together to deliver equitable global access to vaccines. Nonetheless, we also argue that there are risks posed by the proliferation of proposals in this context, including the potential to disperse stakeholder attention or to delay decisive action. Therefore, we argue that there is now a clear need for concerted global multilateral action to recognise the complementarities of specific models and to provide a pathway for collaboration in attaining global equitable access to vaccines. The institutional infrastructure or proposals to achieve this amply exist at this point in time—but much greater cooperation from industry and clear, decisive and coordinated action from states and international organisations are urgently needed.

Uncertainty in Drought Identification Due to Data Choices, and the Value of Triangulation

Droughts are complex and gradually evolving conditions of extreme water deficits which can compromise livelihoods and ecological integrity, especially in fragile arid and semi-arid regions that depend on rainfed farming, such as Kitui West in south-eastern Kenya. Against the background of low ground-station density, 10 gridded rainfall products and four gridded temperature products were used to generate an ensemble of 40 calculations of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to assess uncertainties in the onset, duration and magnitude of past droughts. These uncertainties were driven more by variations between the rainfall products than variations between the temperature products. Remaining ambiguities in drought occurrence could be resolved by complementing the quantitative analysis with ground-based information from key informants engaged in disaster relief, effectively formulating an ensemble approach to SPEI-based drought identification to aid decision making. The reported trend towards drier conditions in Eastern Africa was confirmed for Kitui West by the majority of data products, whereas the rainfall effect on the increasingly dry conditions was more subtle than annual and seasonal declines and greater annual variation, which warrants further investigation. Nevertheless, the effects of increasing droughts are already felt on the ground and warrant decisive action.

Nilai Pendidikan Karakter Peduli Sosial dan Menghargai Prestasi pada Teks Narasi Buku Siswa Bahasa Indonesia VII

Moral decline in the nation's next generation is now increasingly worrying. This can be seen from the increasing number of juvenile delinquency that occurs. Examples are cases of drug abuse, free sex, bullying, and various criminal acts committed by minors. To prevent this from getting worse, it is necessary to take decisive action and inculcate character values ​​that must be carried out by various parties, one of which is the teacher. Literature is one of the media that can be used to instill character values ​​in students. This study will analyze the character values ​​contained in the narrative text in the Indonesian Student Book Revised 2017 Edition for class VII. This study used descriptive qualitative method. The source of the data in this study came from the narrative text in the Indonesian Language Student Book Revised 2017 Edition for Class VII. Data collection with documentation technique by reading and taking notes. Data analysis techniques include data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that there were six forms of social care character values ​​with indicators a) the ability to be willing to give help to others, b) the students' awareness to be willing to sacrifice, and c) the ability to share the suffering of others. There are five forms of character value appreciating achievement with indicators a) appreciating the achievements of others, b) studying diligently for high achievement, and c) being grateful for the achievements achieved by contributing to the benefit of the nation, state, and religion.

UKRAINE, QUO VADIS? AFTERTASTE HOLIDAY

The fourth and final article prepared in the Centre for Ukrainian Studies of the Institute of Europe of the RAS for the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence cycle, devoted to the way in which the features of transformation of Ukrainian society and the State addressed in previous articles were reflected in the celebrations, discourses and narratives. The opportunity to analyse the country’s path has not been fully exploited. The anniversary events were held, leaving a sense of understatement. This to a certain extent characterizes the situation – internal and external – in which the Ukrainian Republic found itself at the beginning of the fourth decade of its sovereign independent existence. His romantic period is over, and the realistic one has not been started yet. A sense of general uncertainty and political indecision has been left from the events and judgments of the anniversary year. The conclusion proposed by the author of the article is that the time for waiting, declarations and palliatives for Ukraine has passed. It is time for sober judgment and decisive action. Countries face a decisive reboot of the political system and a critical review of the goals, means and pace of modernization and development.

How does crisis affect the conflict between technocracy and populism? Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

The article focuses on the relationship between technocracy and populism during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis. On one hand, this relationship has been defined by populist denial, displacement of crisis, and rejection of the technocratic consensus on the need for urgent and decisive action in the face of the global pandemic. On the other hand, COVID-19 has also led to convergence between the two sides and populist approximation to technocracy more akin to ‘technopopulist’ compromises and politics. The article shows that this pattern of antagonism and approximation has been shaped by three constitutive features of the state of exception and emergency during the COVID-19 crisis: (1) discursive securitization of the threat, (2) the use of extraordinary tools and measures under the licence of precautionary principle, and (3) institutional concentration of power. While COVID-19 is an extreme case in all three respects, the lessons learned from the pandemic advance our general understanding of technocracy and populism as constitutive features of contemporary politics.