Financial Transparency Coalition

In January 2013′s Taxcast: A significant ruling against Dell in Spain, India shelves rules that would have tackled corporate tax abuse until 2016, the EU threatens to blacklist Switzerland and Naomi takes a look at ‘Google Capitalism.’ (An extended edition to kick off 2013 – just under 20 mins).

Stealing Africa, a documentary in the series Why Poverty that focuses on the case of the international mining giant Glencore in Zambia, is a must-watch for anyone concerned with domestic resource mobilization, global poverty, the resource curse, or illicit financial flows. These topics mesh together to one simple idea: money that should be staying in Africa's poorest nations is in fact fleeing at an astounding rate, and something needs to be done about it.

Shruti Shah of Transparency International-USA wrote a great op-ed on Devex last week. Ms. Shah connects the dots between the crimes committed at HSBC, the influx of money to the United States from kleptocrats like Teodorin Obiang, and the hundreds of thousands of anonymous shell corporations created every year in the United States. The result? Individuals are able to use the United States and its institutions to, "export, launder and conceal ill-gotten gains" derived from corruption.

Satirist Stephen Colbert dismantled HSBC on his show last night. He criticizes both HSBC for helping to launder tremendous amounts of drug money, helping to finance murder, and the U.S. government for treating them as "Too Big to Jail." Below are two videos: the first shows Colbert directly addressing HSBC, and the second is an interview with Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on the scandal.