Time to slay a few dragons.
Way back in time, when my ex and I got together, he was en route to becoming an accountant, while I was a flower child product of Rhodes journalism. I’d settled on the course because my other alternative – at Maritzburg Varsity – had a mandatory maths course.
Myths of women and finance
Bangalore: In the previous union budget, when Finance Minister P. Chidambaram proposed an idea to have exclusive banks for women he never thought he would appoint Arundhati Bhattacharya as the chairperson for the country’s biggest bank- State Bank of India. There has been increased number of women in the banking sector that was previously a male dominated industry.
Here is a list of those women achievers in the world of government-run financial institutions, compiled by Economic Times.
5 Most Powerful Indian Women In Financial Institutions
Organized Crime has a strong lobby. Why do whistleblowers have no protection?
Women networks worldwide have to Honor-Roll people who work against corruption.
“Very limited” provisions to protect whistleblowers.
Poor protection of whistleblowers in most EU states
Whistleblowers Are Regulators of the Last Resort
The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been a terrible ordeal, costing an estimated 6 million lives since 1997. Part of what funded the long conflict was gold mined illegally in the resource-rich Congo. So far the parties that have been sanctioned by the United Nations for illegal mining and exploitation of the gold have all been African.
Now the net has widened. The Swiss NPO TRIAL announced that it was targeting a Swiss gold refinery part owned by Commerzbank and the Austrian mint for refining gold from the Congo. TRIAL said it filed a criminal complaint against gold refiner Argor-Heraeus, accusing the firm of refining 3 tons of gold ore pillaged from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. TRIAL suspects Argor-Heraeus “of being guilty of the crime of laundering the proceeds of a major crime … and handling goods pillaged during an armed conflict,” it said in a statement.
Swiss Gold Refiner Accused Of Abetting Congo War Via Money Laundering
Trial_Stop_Pillage_NewsRelease
Tria_Pillage_E-Congo
ArgorHeraeus_Commercial_Register
ArgorHeraeus_Comp_Presentation
Women seem to be breaking into the long male-dominated areas of economic policy making and financial regulation. But how real is the apparent shift?..
Is the glass ceiling cracking in finance ?
More sophisticated than you thoughtA new study reveals how Somali piracy is financed
Ransoms Total Over US$339 Million, Says new research
Washington, November 1 — Between US$339 million and US$413 million was taken in ransom from the hijacking of ships off the coast of Somalia and the Horn of Africa between 2005 and 2012, according to a report released today. The study – carried out by the World Bank, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and INTERPOL – reveals that much of the ransom money was used to fuel a wide range of criminal activities on a global scale.
PIRACY remains a concern for ships passing the Horn of Africa, 
even though the number of incidents has plummeted since 2011, when armed protection was beefed up on board many large vessels. The topic grips the public imagination. Witness the success of “Captain Phillips”, a film in which a vessel captained by the actor Tom Hanks is hijacked by Somalis. Yet the pirate economy is poorly understood. A report*, to be released on November 4th by the World Bank, the UN and Interpol sheds new light.
A new study reveals how Somali piracy is financed
Pirate Trails World Bank UNODC Interpol report
More Corruption Reports
With ties between Washington and many close allies strained because of eavesdropping revelations and differences over U.S. policies in the Middle East, the Obama administration can take some comfort from an improvement in ties with China.
Tensions with allies rise, but U.S. sees improved China ties
China and the European Union sought to mend ties on Thursday after narrowly avoiding a trade war this year, but the EU’s trade chief told Beijing to stop handing out state subsidies that Brussels says are illegal.
China and Europe make up after averting trade war
US Rewards international AML Efforts
The U.S. signed an agreement with Panama that will result in the sharing of more than $36 million in forfeited assets from a 2000 money-laundering case involving Panama-based jewelry stores.
It marks the first time the U.S. shared assets with Panama, and it’s the second-largest sum of forfeited assets ever shared by the Justice Department with a foreign government, the department said in a statement.
“For more than 12 years, the assistance of the Panamanian authorities has been consistent, reliable, and broad-ranging,” said James Cole, deputy attorney general, in the statement.
The assets being shared result from an investigation into a jewelry store, operating in the Colon Free Trade Zone in Panama. It was found that the owners washed massive amounts of profits derived from narcotics trafficking through Speed Jewelers and another jewelry business, Argento Vivo SA.
The confiscated property will be used to strengthen the ability of the Republic of Panama to combat money laundering and the seizure of illicit goods in criminal investigations and prosecution ,” said the U.S. statement .
The standard cliché is that, relatively speaking, men are financial daredevils who like risk and that women are cautious and want security. Alternatively expressed, men are more risk friendly than women. Or to rephrase the title of a bestseller, “men buy shares from Mars and women have a savings account on Venus.” Articles published in the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) and in various other sources, shed new light on the combination of myth and reality captured in the above paragraph.
The Unique Ways Women Approach Finance
