Debt Vultures Shot for Chanukah

Debt Vultures Shot for Chanukah: "We got'm. I can hardly believe it. Yesterday, the financial vultures, the carcass-chewers who were preying on the dirt-poor African nation of Liberia, gave up. Refresher: In February, for BBC Television Newsnight and In These Times, our team hunted down a predator with a Ph.D., Dr. Eric Hermann, who, for a couple pennies on the dollar, secretly bought the right to collect a $6 million debt owed by Liberia. Hermann and his flock of vulture partners demanded Liberia pay $43 million--a devastating sum for that nation--or he would, in effect, block aid funding for that nation's recovery from civil war. The nation was now Hermann's economic hostage. I was investigating the strange links between Hermann and a company named Hamsah Investments; it smelled of fraud. Tipped off that I was about to arrive with a camera crew to question Hermann about this, his giant hedge fund operation in Harrison, N.Y., unbolted the company signs from the office building wall, locked their office doors and required their staff to hide inside in silence. I took the information to Liberia's President Ellen Sirleaf and public worldwide via BBC. Within two days, Britain's Parliament voted to stop vultures from using poor nations to…

"