Tax and Spend
NEED TO KNOW
Tax and Spend
IRELAND
Ireland received a windfall of around $14 billion recently when a decade of litigation ended and the European Court of Justice found that Apple owed the country that much in back taxes and interest. “Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover,” the court wrote, according to the BBC.
The decision might bring an end to a remarkable era in Irish history.
As World Politics Review explained, American tech giants like Dell, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Yahoo! and other international companies have flocked to Ireland since the country cut its corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent in the 1990s, resulting in massive investments and employing more than 400,000 people. This shift altered Ireland forever, transforming it into a fully developed country and vaulting the so-called Celtic Tiger into the global economy.
However, the European Union, of which Ireland is a member, was long angered by what it saw as unfair competition and a flouting of the rules.
Still, while Apple complained that the court was forcing Ireland to change the rules, EU anti-trust chief Margrethe Vestager welcomed the judgment. “Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice,” Vestager said.
Many Irish citizens were “flabbergasted” when the case revealed that their leaders had opposed taking the money, added Social Europe. The Eur 14 billion fine amounts to 16 percent of last year’s total tax revenue of Eur 88 billion. The company had benefited for over two decades, the commission said, from two illegal Irish decisions that had artificially reduced its tax charge to as low as 0.005 percent.
The decision will have more implications Experts at Brussels think tank Bruegal, for instance, feared the ruling might ironically solidify low-tax countries’ status as a tax haven because, while it punished the company for not paying sufficient taxes, it vindicated Apple’s aggressive tax strategy of profit-shifting.
In the meantime, the Irish are talking about what they want to do with the money. The Dublin metro could receive billions of euros to improve its rail network or the government could build seven children’s hospitals, or 40,000 very-much needed homes with the cash, wrote the Irish Sun.
An upcoming election on Nov. 29 will give them a chance to see whose plans are most popular.
Prime Minister Simon Harris called elections a year early in a bid to win an unprecedented fourth successive term in office for his center-right Fine Gael political party, the Guardian reported. Fine Gael, which is expected to garner 24 percent of the vote, is now in a coalition with another mainstream party, Fianna Fáil, which is polling at 21 percent. Opposition party Sinn Féin is expected to come in third with 18 percent.
Fine Gael candidates have called for spending more than $10 billion on new homes, the Irish Times reported. The party already had a plan to build more than 300,000 homes for more than $40 billion through 2030.
Sometimes, tax-and-spend works just fine, according to the polls. “We have the Shinners (Sinn Féin) on the back foot for a change and we need to keep them there,” a Fianna Fáil lawmaker told Politico.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Re-ignited
SYRIA
Syrian rebels launched a large-scale offensive against government forces Wednesday, capturing strategic territory in the northern Aleppo province and marking the first significant flare-up between the two sides since 2020, as fighting in the country’s protracted civil war escalates once more, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The operation, named “Deterrence of Aggression”, targeted Syrian regime forces in western Aleppo and saw the rebels seize 13 villages, including Urm Al-Sughra and the strategically important Base 46, the largest military base in the region, according to opposition sources.
The offensive involved thousands of fighters from various factions, including the Free Syrian Army and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a jihadist group that the United States has designated as a terrorist organization. Videos circulated online showed rebels celebrating in captured areas, but these claims have not been independently verified.
Rebel forces said they launched the offensive in retaliation for recent artillery shelling by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to CNN.
By Thursday, fighters had advanced to within three miles of Aleppo city, prompting fears of escalating violence. The White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer civil defense group, reported that 12 civilians had been killed and dozens injured in government airstrikes and artillery fire, with hundreds of families displaced.
The death toll from clashes was reported to have exceeded 200 by Friday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
Syrian state media has not provided details on the fighting, while pro-government sources mentioned the battles without specifying outcomes.
The conflict comes as Syria remains fragmented and unstable despite diminished fighting in recent years.
Analysts warn that the Assad regime – supported by Russian airpower and Iranian-aligned militias – is expected to mount a strong counteroffensive to reclaim lost territory.
Julien Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations described the situation as indicative of Syria’s fragility.
“In essence, this is the story of Syria today: The regime has won the bigger picture civil war but remains broken, overstretched, and does not have the resources to maintain firm control over a still fragmented country,” he told the Journal.
Syria’s civil war began in 2011 following the Arab Spring uprisings across the region. The ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians and displaced millions, according to the United Nations.
While Assad’s regime has regained control over most of the country, rebel groups continue to hold territory in the north, particularly in Aleppo and Idlib provinces. The Syrian leader has received international condemnation over alleged human rights abuses, including chemical attacks in cities, bombings of schools and hospitals, as well as widespread torture.
The offensive coincides with escalating regional tensions – Israel has intensified airstrikes in Syria, targeting Hezbollah supply lines, and tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in Lebanon have returned to Syria amid mounting violence.
‘Tip of the Iceberg’
AFRICA
Police arrested more than 1,000 people suspected of cybercrimes across 19 African countries between September and October, Interpol announced this week, in a coordinated operation aimed at combatting rising cyber threats on the continent, the Washington Post reported.
The operation, dubbed Operation Serengeti, was a joint cooperation between Interpol and the African Union’s policing agency, Afripol.
It targeted cybercrimes such as ransomware, phishing, digital extortion, and online scams. Local law enforcement agencies and private-sector partners, including Internet service providers, played a major role in the effort.
Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza called the results a testament to international cooperation, noting that cybercrime’s increasing complexity demands collective action.
The international police organization identified some 35,000 victims worldwide, with financial losses totaling nearly $193 million.
In Kenya, police arrested nearly two dozen individuals connected to a credit card fraud operation that caused $8.6 million in damages. In Senegal, authorities apprehended eight suspects, including five Chinese nationals, for running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 1,800 people of $6 million, Africanews noted.
Meanwhile, Nigerian police arrested a suspect behind cryptocurrency scams, believed to have made over $300,000.
The operation also uncovered human trafficking networks in Cameroon, where victims from seven countries were lured with false job offers, then held captive and forced to operate pyramid schemes.
According to a United Nations report and Interpol findings, many people involved in online scams are trafficking victims coerced into illegal activities under abusive conditions.
Urquiza and other officials also warned about the growing sophistication of cybercrime, including the use of AI-powered malware and digital extortion. Afripol executive director Jalel Chelba emphasized the need for continued international collaboration to address emerging threats.
While Operation Serengeti marks significant progress, Urquiza cautioned that these arrests represent “just the tip of the iceberg,” underscoring the ongoing challenges posed by cybercrime, which costs the global economy hundreds of millions annually.
Gag Order
ISRAEL
The Israeli government this week unanimously approved sanctions against Haaretz, the country’s oldest newspaper, citing its critical coverage of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and recent remarks by its publisher calling for international sanctions against Israeli leaders, Axios reported.
The decision will require all government bodies and state-funded entities to sever ties with the publication, including ceasing advertising and subscriptions.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, who proposed the sanctions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval, accused the newspaper’s publisher, Amos Schocken, of undermining Israel’s legitimacy and supporting its enemies.
Karhi highlighted Schocken’s late-October speech at a conference in the United Kingdom, where he criticized Israel’s settlement policies, described Palestinian militants as “freedom fighters” and advocated for sanctions against Netanyahu and other leaders, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Haaretz condemned the decision as an attack on press freedom, accusing Netanyahu of dismantling Israeli democracy and of “trying to silence a critical, independent newspaper.”
The sanctions on Haaretz follow a broader pattern of government measures targeting critical media. In May, Israeli police shut down Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem bureau, citing national security concerns under a new law empowering the communications minister to close foreign media offices.
Schocken’s speech had labeled Israeli settlement expansion as “ethnic cleansing” and described ongoing actions in Gaza as a “second Nakba” – referring to the “Nakba” (Arabic for “catastrophe”) which was the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during and after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which followed the creation of the State of Israel.
Press freedom advocates, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the government’s actions, warning that silencing dissenting voices could erode democratic norms.
The decision intensifies scrutiny of Israel’s domestic policies amid the ongoing conflict that has already displaced millions and killed thousands in Gaza, drawing sharp criticism from international organizations.
DISCOVERIES
Pachyderm Pranks
Elephants are renowned for their intelligence, their ability to use tools, and their complex social behaviors, including mourning and burying their dead.
Now, a new study adds a surprising twist: They can use hoses to shower themselves and even to play pranks on each other.
That conclusion arose after a research team closely documented the impressive and creative hose-handling skills of Mary, a 54-year-old Asian elephant at the Berlin Zoo in Germany.
Dubbed “the queen of showering,” Mary skillfully manipulated the hose with her trunk to spray water over different parts of her body. She even used a lasso-like technique to reach her back and adjusted her grip to clean her legs.
“Elephants are amazing with hoses,” Michael Brecht, a senior author of the study, said in a statement.
But Mary wasn’t the only star of the show.
Anchali, a mischievous 12-year-old elephant, often interrupted Mary’s showers by kinking or clamping the hose to cut off the water. Over time, she became more adept at these tricks, developing a technique researchers called a “trunk stand,” where she used her weight to flatten the hose.
Brecht and his colleagues remain unsure about what Anchali’s motivations were, although they quipped that she was probably “trying to sabotage Mary.”
“Does she think it’s funny? I think it’s very funny, but we really don’t know,” Brecht told the Guardian.
Playfulness, curiosity, or perhaps even spite – since Mary has occasionally been aggressive toward Anchali – could all be at play.
The study also revealed that elephants show “highly lateralized” behaviors, favoring one side of their body depending on whether they are left- or right-trunked. Mary, a left-trunked elephant, preferred to shower the left side of her body.
Lucy Bates, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Portsmouth who wasn’t involved in the study, said the findings are a reminder of how much we still have yet to learn about animals.
“I am convinced that elephants – and possibly lots of animals – do all sorts of interesting things that we often miss, or dismiss as one-offs or anecdotes,” she told Science magazine.