The Guardian reports:
Twenty-six hedge funds are demanding over £1bn debt repayments from Africa's poorest countries - more than twice the International Red Cross budget for Africa this year. They are using legal loopholes around the world, including the Channel Island of Jersey.
And who exactly are these vultures? Check this out. And this. But as Greg Palast says, we should not forget the economic ‘restructuring' that made all this possible:
I think the focus on Grossman and his fellow carrion chewers is distracting. The destruction of Bosnia's power-pylon industry was the direct consequence of privatising it, bringing the free market to socialist Yugoslavia and Brankovic to power over its debts, allowing him to buy and sell debt securities on the deregulated world financial market.
It was the privatisation of Congo's state cobalt mine and the looting of its riches, all at the behest of the World Bank, IMF and privateers, that drained Congo's treasury.
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The Crown Dependencies and certain British Overseas Territories, though thankfully not the one to which I have connections, urgently need sorting out, even if nowhere near as urgently as the City of London.
Their students should pay only home fees to attend British universities. In return, all provision for them to function as tax havens and as bases for this sort of behaviour should be repealed. A very good deal all round.
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