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posted by martyb on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the Conflicting-statements-containing-nuggets-of-truth dept.

Billions of dollars' worth of gold is being smuggled out of Africa every year through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East – a gateway to markets in Europe, the United States and beyond – a Reuters analysis has found.

Customs data shows that the UAE imported $15.1 billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3 billion in 2006. The total weight was 446 tonnes, in varying degrees of purity – up from 67 tonnes in 2006.

Much of the gold was not recorded in the exports of African states. Five trade economists interviewed by Reuters said this indicates large amounts of gold are leaving Africa with no taxes being paid to the states that produce them.

Previous reports and studies have highlighted the black-market trade in gold mined by people, including children, who have no ties to big business, and dig or pan for it with little official oversight. No-one can put an exact figure on the total value that is leaving Africa. But the Reuters analysis gives an estimate of the scale.

Reuters assessed the volume of the illicit trade by comparing total imports into the UAE with the exports declared by African states. Industrial mining firms in Africa told Reuters they did not send their gold to the UAE – indicating that its gold imports from Africa come from other, informal sources.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gold-africa-smuggling-exclusive/exclusive-gold-worth-billions-smuggled-out-of-africa-idUSKCN1S00IT


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:47AM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:47AM (#834607)

    White people are to blame for black people stealing things from each other and killing each other.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Troll=2, Insightful=1, Funny=1, Touché=1, Total=5
    Extra 'Troll' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:39AM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:39AM (#834613)

    Now you know! And knowing is half the battle! GI JOOOOOE

    * now I know you're just doing a bit of questionable trolling here so I'll clarify for your sensitive little ego. Europe and the US have been the dominant colonizers of the last many centuries and have caused untold amounts of damage to other countries. In the US specifically black people are only relatively recently freed from being treated as sub-human, and black communities are still targeted for abuse and disenfranchisement. Such treatment has lead to widespread poverty, and with poverty you get increased crime. So yes, in the US "white people" are to blame although it is not a personal responsibility you must bear beyond supporting equality.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @07:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @07:03AM (#834640)

      Do Liberia next. Why is whitey to blame? Will whitey be perpetually to blame?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:30AM (9 children)

      by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:30AM (#834673) Homepage Journal

      I have to disagree with your analysis. Slavery was not unique to the US, and abolishment in the US was around the same time as it was abolished through much of Europe, Central and South America. In other places slavery continued apace into the 20th century. Did you know that it was much later, in 1904, that the international community signed the "International Agreement for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic"?

      In other words, blacks in the US didn't have it any worse than anywhere else. Through the 20th century, the black community made huge progress, right up until the 1960s and 1970s, when lots of well-intentioned programs were put in place to help them. Take affirmative action as an example: If you went to a black professional in the 1960s, you knew they were qualified - heck, they probably had to overcome discrimination and were likely better than their white colleagues. After affirmative action, who knows? Is this guy qualified, or is he a diversity hire? That's a huge disservice done to the entire group. Meanwhile, welfare programs were structured in a way that gave huge financial incentives to single parenthood - helping destroy the black family.

      tl;dr: Stop trying to help minorities, because your "help" almost always turns out to be counterproductive. Treat everyone as an individual, regardless of their skin color. Unfortunately, the idea of being simply color-blind (or gender-blind, etc.) is too difficult a concept for the progs and SJWs of the world. They want to help, and who cares if their help turns out to be worse than useless. They still pat themselves on the back, and go on to screw up the next noble cause.

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
      • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:21AM (1 child)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 25 2019, @11:21AM (#834699) Journal

        Stop trying to help minorities, because your "help" almost always turns out to be counterproductive.

        OTOH

        and black communities are still targeted for abuse and disenfranchisement

        still holds. Would be nice to stop doing these self-fulfilling prophecies though.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 26 2019, @05:51PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 26 2019, @05:51PM (#835213)

          "and black communities are still targeted for abuse and disenfranchisement"

          unless you're talking about the government you're full of shit.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:04PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:04PM (#834800)

        It was significantly easier for England to ban slavery than it was in the states. In England the King can just say you aren't going to do it, it took the US an extra 30 years and 700k dead to give room for freedom.

        Republics and Democracies are a much slower process, but its better than having a King.

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:34PM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:34PM (#834850) Homepage
          And, once they'd incarcerated so many blacks, deliberately, they then signed in laws that made use of the incarcerated for productive work at no pay legal - wayhay - more free slaves! But that was only for temporary spells of course, not like slavery was. So, once you let them out, and they have nothing to live on, and nowhere to live - you arrest them again for vagrancy - wayhay - free slaves for life!!
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:53PM (4 children)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:53PM (#834826) Journal

        Slavery is completely fine because other people did it too. How wonderfully insightful!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:15PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @06:15PM (#834865)

          The alleged slavery in the US has been called into question by the discovery of the empire of Great Tartary (modern day Russian, China, and India) that existed until the 1800s (the largest country in the world in 1771)[1], their 1812 sack of Rome, and eventual wiping from the history books by communists in the 1950s.

          [1] https://digital.nls.uk/encyclopaedia-britannica/archive/144814073#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=796&xywh=-1%2C-468%2C5336%2C4361 [digital.nls.uk]

          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 25 2019, @07:53PM (2 children)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday April 25 2019, @07:53PM (#834879) Journal

            "Alleged slavery"

            Nice, apparently we have Slavery Deniers now too.

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @08:25PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @08:25PM (#834890)

              If we get rid of the man-made word "slavery" and go back to the proper term we can understand better:

              Until the late 18th century, indentured servitude was very common in British North America. It was often a way for poor Europeans to immigrate to the American colonies: they signed an indenture in return for a costly passage. After their indenture expired, the immigrants were free to work for themselves or another employer. It has been argued by at least one economist that indentured servitude occurred largely as "an institutional response to a capital market imperfection".[1]
              [...]
              Between one-half and two-thirds of white immigrants to the American colonies between the 1630s and American Revolution had come under indentures.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude [wikipedia.org]

              • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:28PM

                by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:28PM (#834908) Journal

                All words are man-made you dope. It seems like you REALLY need to brush up on some of them!

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:41AM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Thursday April 25 2019, @09:41AM (#834674)

    White people are to blame ...

    Who modded this as troll? I realised that it was a parody, straight away. No sense of humour guys?

    I was also expecting jokes about this being a "black market".

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:10PM

      by RS3 (6367) on Thursday April 25 2019, @04:10PM (#834803)

      White people are to blame ...

      Who modded this as troll?

      White people.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:13PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:13PM (#834838)

    Fault is complicated: Between the addict, the dealer, the cartel and the farmer, how the blame divides when the farmer is being ripped off or when the addict dies?

    Between the miners, the mine owners, the thieves, the shipping companies, the whitewash operations, the jewelers, the electronics industry and the edge customers, how the blame is divided when the miners are getting ripped off?

    Then you have labor exploitation and the huge profit margins that goes with it...

    Besides, whether it's conflict diamonds, silica (sand for IC), petroleum or gold, many western and eastern countries have a history of sending agents to chop off the heads of locals daring to question the exploration, pricing and why smuggling operations are able to continue under US/UN/International oversight. So, while I wouldn't narrow it down to something as inane as races, I would say that if it continued this long, it's almost definitely the result of the customers' nations either looking the other way, encouraging or flat out facilitating the thefts.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:43PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday April 25 2019, @05:43PM (#834855) Homepage
      It's probably racists who dislike all the african races who are to blame, of that I'm sure.

      But white people? Why would you single those out, given that one of the most racist (in particular anti-black) countries in the world right now is mentioned in the first paragraph of the story?

      And who says they're the "gateway", rather than nothing more than the "recipient"? The markets in london, zurich, new york, singapore, etc. certainly haven't noticed billions of dollars worth of gold flooding into them since this story broke, quite the opposite, the price has had quite a recovery from prior drops: https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves