For the politicians, it’s all about jobs and buckets of money - as much as an extra $20 billion for local production - to retain a few Coalition seats in South Australia. So soon after seeing off the car industry, the Liberal Party dominated by economic “dries” has embraced industrial policy in a big way, in alliance with the Socialists of President François Hollande.
As the Hong Kong-based website Asia Sentinel has pointed out, “DCNS’s operations face questions across almost the entire globe, including in Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Saudi Arabia and Chile, with bribes and kickbacks reportedly comprising 8 per cent to 12 per cent of DCNS’s entire budget.”
One of the notable scandals was the alleged payment, with approval by the late president François Mitterrand, of $US400 million in bribes to Taiwan’s then ruling Kuomintang in 1991 for the sale of six frigates, with another $US100 million going to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee to keep Beijing quiet. A more recent scandal, still simmering in Malaysia and France, involves the payment of €114 million in commissions to an associate of then Malaysian defence minister Najib Razak (now prime minister) in 2002 for the $US1.25 billion order of two Scorpène-class submarines for the Malaysian navy.
Multiple allegations of corruption in jurisdictions across the globe, as well as the spectre of murder in Malaysia and Taiwan, could threaten Australia’s newest defence contractor, French company Direction des Constructions Navales Services (DCNS), which was announced as the winner of Australia’s multi-year $50 billion contract to build 12 conventional submarines — beating arch rival Germany’s ThyssenKrupp, and a Japanese consortium led by industrial conglomerate Mitsubishi — to secure the contract to work with ASC (formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation).
And the murky dealings around DCNS don’t stop in Malaysia. In 1991, DCNS sold navy frigates to Taiwan in a deal that was later found to have involved the payments of “unauthorised commissions“.
In 1993, the body of head of procurement for the Taiwanese navy, Captain Yin Ching-feng, was found floating off the coast of Taiwan in 1993, eventually triggering a corruption investigation. Six other ex-naval officers were later indicted in connection with this.
Here's the amazing list of submarines this French company has built for other nations
One of the reasons a wary Australian government may have chosen the French over the Germans is that the Germans hadn’t built a submarine as big as the one Australia was seeking. The problem for Japan is that it was unable and/or unwilling to meet one of the key political considerations for the Turnbull government – a local construction capability.
crap the pomes have had there heads up republicans where the sun don't shine for donks... myself i'd not be talking to the west ukraine to my mind they are responsible for the murder of 38 aussies aboard mh17
The leaders of Russia, Germany and France have agreed to meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine on Sept. 4-5 in China on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
could be, perhaps not so much about rations rather an expression of concern relating to the conduct of west ukraine government and nato's likely response if things get out of hand. be better if the put a tent up for the pope in between appossng forces of evil in that region
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