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THE OECD CRACKDOWN ON CARIBBEAN TAX HAVENS IS SEEN AS LACKING TEETH

Over the past year, the number of countries on an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development "gray list" of tax havens that have not fully implemented internationally agreed upon tax standards has dropped to 17 from more than 40.

The OECD hails this as progress in a campaign to stamp out untaxed and illicit cash flows across the world, but critics say that the compliance bar was set far too low. The stakes are certainly high, as the signing of bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA) is the centerpiece of OECD and G20 efforts to crack down on tax havens. The amount of money in tax havens has been estimated at $11.5 trillion by the Tax Justice Network, a respected and independent advocacy group that monitors such trends.

Spurred by public outrage over bonus-earning bankers and frauds by wealthy financiers, G20 leaders launched a campaign in April 2009 to name and shame tax havens and penalize those who failed to tighten standards and transparency.

But some say the havens are getting off lightly, and that it is more or less business as usual. For starters, they say the number of TIEAs a country needs to sign to get off the "gray list" list is far too low at 12. In addition, the countries tax havens sign with may have little money moving offshore.

Take the example of the Bahamas, a balmy Atlantic archipelago and international financial center that is home to more than 250 licensed bank and trust companies. It moved off the OECD "gray list" in March after signing 18 TIEAs, surpassing the 12 required bilateral agreements. These included TIEAs with the "Nordic Seven," which include Sweden and Norway, but also Greenland and the Faroes Islands.

"Among the 'Nordic Seven' are Greenland and the Faroes Islands. Not many people there will have bank accounts in the Bahamas, compared to Latin American countries that are really suffering from capital flight," said David Spencer, an attorney in New York who has written extensively on international taxes.

The 18 agreements signed by the Bahamas included few countries suffering from excessive capital flight. Brazil is not included, nor any single African state. And inking TIEAs with the "Nordic Seven," who typically sign onto such agreements collectively, allows a country to get more than half way toward their 12 in one fell swoop.

Nudging countries to move from this list has been touted as an important development in bringing much-needed financial transparency to the opaque world of tax havens and capital flight from poor countries. The OECD refers to the process and categories as a "progress report" and contends that the process has to start somewhere.

"We needed to start with something objective, if you have no agreement you have not started the process," said Pascal Saint-Amans, head of the Global Forum Secretariat at the OECD.

Critics concede that some progress has been made.

"This does represent a movement in the right direction. Once you start the ball rolling, the OECD could raise it to 40 agreements. These countries have agreed to waive bank secrecy in tax matters in at least some cases," Spencer said.

"Developments in international tax law move slowly."

Some activists say this is intentional, arguing that financial interests in the developed world benefit from capital flows from less developed regions.

"To be blunt, countries like the United Kingdom, USA and Luxemburg, are very heavily reliant upon inflows of capital from the South such as Latin America or Africa. By and large, we turn a blind eye to the origins of that capital," said John Christensen, London-based director of the Tax Justice Network.

"The majority of the tax havens in the Caribbean act as conduits for capital, they are rungs on the ladder for illicit financial flows from South to North," he said.

And this role had been etched into their historical DNA.

"If you look at the history of the development of tax havens you will find that over half of them were linked to what was the British Empire and then during the period of decolonization, successive British governments actively encouraged them to become tax havens because they would act as conduits for capital flows toward London," Christensen said.

Funds traced to one man accused of being a Ponzi schemer, Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, who is awaiting trial for allegedly operating a $7 billion fraud from his offshore bank in Antigua, have been found in the Britain, Switzerland and Canada.

The TIEAs also provide a framework for exchanging information upon request, which is not the same as an automatic exchange of information. For one thing, the requesting government -- say, Greenland -- would need to know about the foreign bank account in the first place.

"The problem is that you have to know what you are looking for before you ask for it. 'On request' is not the international standard, though the OECD claims that it is," said Nicholas Shaxson, a Swiss-based researcher. The OECD says that not long ago, governments did not even have this power at their disposal.

"This is a criticism we are accustomed to ... We agree that automatic exchange is more efficient. But it now allows tax administrations to make these requests where before they were deprived of any means (of doing so)," said Saint-Amans.

Several Caribbean leaders have condemned the OECD tax standards as "discriminatory," arguing that some financial centers in the United States and Europe are also less than transparent, but have not been subjected to the same scrutiny as many of the Caribbean territories that have been singled out.

CUBA’S OPERATION MIRACLE IS BENEFITING THOUSANDS OF SALVADORANS

Over 10,000 Salvadorans have been benefited by Operation Miracle, a Cuban-Venezuelan program aimed at improving or return the vision of people of scant economic resources.

Wladimir Ruiz, charge d’affaires of the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador, explained this is a humanitarian mission, free of charge for patients, the Juventud Rebelde newspaper reports on Saturday.

Since the implementation of the program in El Salvador in 2006, people suffering from drooping eyelids, cataracts, granulation tissues and other eye problems have travelled to Havana or Caracas to receive treatment or surgery.

After a recess of several months due to the health emergency caused by the A (H1N1) virus, Operation Miracle resumed its activities on March 18, when100 patients travelled to Venezuela to cure their eyes.

Health Deputy Minister Violeta Menjivar said that her country plans to organize 14 flights this year and that they’re studying the possibility of opening an eye center in the Central American nation, with the help of Venezuela, to treat patients.

Boosted by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, Operation Miracle began in 2004, and has so far benefited over 1.6 million people in 35 nations.

OLD PUERTO RICO BIRTH CERTIFICATES TO BE SCRAPPED DUE TO IDENTITY THEFT LEAVING MANY IN LIMBO

All birth certificates previously issued by the government of Puerto Rico will become invalid, starting July 1, 2010.

A new law in Puerto Rico aimed at combating identity theft is already sparking fears of an anti-Latino backlash against many U.S. residents born on the island. Starting July 1, all birth certificates previously issued by the government of Puerto Rico will become invalid. After that, anyone needing proof that they were born on the island will have to apply for a new birth certificate.

But several states aren't even bothering to wait. California, Ohio and Nevada have announced in recent weeks that they have stopped accepting birth certificates from Puerto Rico as proof of identity for driver's licenses or other ID.

Since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, anyone born there is automatically a citizen. Because of that, the island's birth certificates have been coveted for years by identity-theft rings.

The Puerto Rico legislature passed the new law in January after the Department of Homeland Security warned that 40% of some 8,000 fraudulent passport cases reviewed by the State Department had used birth documents from the island.

"We have a responsibility to protect the identity of our population," Luis Balzac, a spokesman for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, said yesterday.

But some Latino leaders here are warning that the poorly publicized law will create unintended problems for an estimated 1 million Puerto Rico-born residents living in the 50 states - including 300,000 in New York.

"This is a major blunder," Cesar Perales, president of the national civil rights group Latino Justice/PRLDEF said. "Everyone will now begin questioning all documents from Puerto Rico."

Perales appealed in a letter to Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Fortuno, yesterday to postpone the law's implementation, citing "the very intense anti-Latino climate" in the country "due to the influx of Latino immigrants."

Puerto Rico-born residents of California, Perales noted, can't get a driver's license today using their birth certificate, and they can't get a new valid birth certificate from Puerto Rico until after July 1.

"We can assume that many other jurisdictions will follow [the example of California and Ohio] and will begin to question the validity of all documents issued in Puerto Rico," Perales wrote. "The resultant harm . . . may very well be massive."

The 4 million residents of Puerto Rico do not see it as that big deal. Many are accustomed to periodically applying for new copies of birth certificates, with some securing as many as 20 certificates over a lifetime.

In fact, one of the reasons identity theft exploded in Puerto Rico is that public schools have always required parents to supply an official copy of a child's birth certificate each time a student enrolled in a new school. The schools then kept copy on file.

Several criminal rings were uncovered in recent years that had managed to steal thousands of such school files. The new law prohibits schools from keeping official copies of birth certificates.

But for those living on the mainland, especially anyone needing to apply for a passport or a driver's license over the next few months, the transition of new birth certificates could be a nightmare. "No one knows how the island's government will process millions of new birth certificate applications this year," Perales said.

Officials say they will charge only $5 for an application that can be submitted by mail, and that they will waive that fee for anyone who is over 60 or a veteran. But the government will not accept any applications until after July 1, so there is bound to be an avalanche of paperwork during the summer.

Already, dozens of Web sites have sprung up to exploit the expected demand.

Those seeking reliable information should visit the Web site of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration at prfaa.com