One of America's best investigative reporters has to go across the pond to get his story run
again...
Well it does involve republican lobbyists that used to employ Jack Abrahamoff, who are raising money for Rudy Giuliani and they are being sued by Tony Blair's brother! - you can't make this stuff up.
from
http://www.gregpalast.com/vulture-fund-threat-to-third-world/#more-1577">Greg Palast's website: A full article detailing the report
from the
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm">BBC Newsnight website
VULTURE FUNDS
Remember Make Poverty History that campaigned to cancel third world debt? And the lofty proclamations by politicians at the G8 in Gleneagles to reduce debt?
Tonight, we have a shocking investigation into vulture funds that make a mockery of these pledges. These companies buy up the debt of poor nations cheaply - when it is just about to be written off - and then sue for the full value of the debt plus interest.
Tomorrow morning a high court judge in London will rule whether a vulture fund can extract more than $40 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $3 million.
Investigative reporter Greg Palast has tracked down the man who represents the company, and you couldn't make it up, he calls himself Goldfinger.
the report by Greg Palast for BBC Newsnight can be viewed with RealPlayer at this link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/tvseq/od/bbc2/nb/rm/video/newsnight_nb.ram">Vulture Funds - BBC Newsnight the report starts about 1min 30secs into the programme.
the report is about 15 minutes long. Video quality is dire.
the really scandalous bits concern the staggering indolence of Bush, who can stop this highway robbery with the stroke of a pen. He has yet to act and the world's poorest nations have money extorted from them.