|  |  |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Authorities looking into allegations that Standard Chartered illegally moved $250bn of Iranian money, sources say The US justice department is looking into allegations that Standard Chartered illegally moved $250bn of Iranian money around the global financial system, according to a source close to the investigation. More than £8bn ($12.5bn) has wiped off the stock market value of the banking group since Monday, when a New York regulator issued a damning report alleging the bank had flouted US laws in its dealings with Iran. The bank's shares lost another 16% of their value Tuesday. A source with direct knowledge of the investigation said the report was now being considered by the justice department, which could pursue a criminal case against the bank and its executives. The justice department works in conjunction with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which monitors and enforces US trade sanctions against countries including Iran. In its report the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) said it had evidence of similar breaches by the bank in Libya, Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sudan, all countries under US sanctions. Both the justice department and NYSDFS declined to comment on the next stage of the investigation. The bank has denied wrongdoing and said the regulator had not provided "a full and accurate picture of the facts". The bank said "99.9%" of the disputed Iranian transactions had complied with US law. In May Standard Chartered announced it was ending its business in Iran after decades of international pressure. John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University in New York, said even a single illegal transaction would be enough to spark a justice department investigation. "There are 20-year sentences for money laundering in the US," he said. The move is another blow for the UK's financial services industry, which has been rounded on in Washington following Barclays' alleged fixing of Libor interest rates, JP Morgan's huge London losses and a devastating US government report that concluded HSBC had acted as banker to criminals and terrorists around the world. The report is also damaging to the bank's top management, who only last week boasted the bank was too "boring" to be afflicted by the scandals sweeping the UK financial services industry. Peter Sands, Standard Chartered's chief executive, was recently tipped as a potential governor of the Bank of England and finance chief Richard Meddings had been linked to the top job at Barclays vacated by Bob Diamond, forced out following the Libor scandal. Peter Henning, professor of law at Wayne State University, said: "Standard Chartered's head is on the chopping block." He said Iran was an oil-rich country that no international bank would chose to ignore. "But the US and Iran have been at each others throats for 40 years. You have to make a choice," he said. Henning said the dramatic share sell-off may yet prove overblown. "In the end this may not be HSBC but the question remains about how many heads will roll and how high up. Diamond has set the benchmark pretty high," he said. James Cox, law professor at Duke University, said: "Frankly it looks like the bank turned more than a blind eye in its quest for profits. Once again we see a bank putting personal gain ahead of public interest." In the UK the Financial Services Authority is keeping a close watch on the situation, as it always does when share prices move so violently. Sands and Meddings have been forced to cut short their holidays and return to London to deal with the crisis. Meddings and Sands both joined Standard Chartered in 2002 – the alleged violations ran between 2001 and 2007. An emergency board meeting is expected to be called shortly. Only a week ago the bank reported its 10th successive year of record profits.
While it is not a household name in the UK, its blue and green logo is familiar site on high streets across Asia and Africa and the bank sponsors Liverpool football club. It employs 90,000 people, some 2,700 of whom are in the UK head office. The timing of the allegations by NYSDFS – which claimed that the bank's actions had left the US "vulnerable to terrorists, weapon dealers, drug kings and corrupt regimes" – has stunned the bank, which insists it is going to defend itself against the claims. Even as it admitted that it had moved "under $14m" for Iranian clients – albeit considerably less than the $250bn outlined in the regulatory order – the bank was unrepentant as it made it clear it would refute the allegations at an appearance before the regulator on 15 August. While it had breached so-called U-turns, which were transactions that US authorities allowed to take place as long as the money did not end up in Iranian banks, it said "well over 99.9% of the transactions relating to Iran complied with the U-turn regulations". The US regulator's 30-page report reproduces emails and conversations between Standard Chartered staff, including a remark from a London-based director when warned by a US colleague of potential problems in dealing with Iran. "You fucking Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians," the director said. The director is not named but the exchange is said to have taken place when the bank's chief executive for America warned, among others, the head group executive director for risk. At the time, October 2006, this title was held by Meddings, who was promoted to finance director the following month. The director for the US at the time was Ray Ferguson, currently running the Singapore business. The bank would not comment on individuals.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Algerian had been thrown out for not trying in 800m
• Makhloufi romps clear of the chasing pack to win 1500m Algeria's Taoufik Makhloufi won the men's 1500m title less than 24 hours after being thrown out of the Olympics for not trying hard enough in Monday's 800m heat. The 24-year-old was subsequently reinstated and romped clear of the chasing pack to win his favoured event. The IAAF had initially taken a dim view of his 800m performance, in which he jogged just 150m before dropping out. "The referee considered he had not provided a bona fide effort and decided to exclude him from participation in all further events in the competition," said an IAAF statement. Locog, however, later released a statement confirming the disqualification had been revoked after a certificate was supplied by a local doctor explaining he had a minor ailment. Makhloufi was thus able to gain readmittance into the Games and took full advantage of his reprieve. The decision to allow Makhloufi back into the Games came after eight badminton players were disqualified from the Olympics last week for deliberately underperforming. The players, comprising four women's doubles teams, were disqualified after trying to lose their final qualifying group matches to secure a more favourable quarter-final draw.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Algerian had been thrown out for not trying in 800m
• Makhloufi romps clear of the chasing pack to win 1500m It would make a decent HM Bateman cartoon: The Man Who Won Olympic Gold After Being Thrown Out For Not Trying. Actually, it is a good story on all sorts of levels. Barely 24 hours after he was excluded from the Games for what many saw as a lack of moral fibre, Algeria's Taoufik Makhloufi won the men's 1500m title at an almost embarrassing canter. Idle perceptions have rarely been confounded so swiftly and utterly. Those Chinese badminton players chucked out for deliberately underperforming last week will wonder afresh whether the rules are being applied entirely evenly across the board. Unlike them, Makloufi was reprieved by the authorities having initially been excluded from the Olympics for making only a cursory effort in Monday's 800m heat, raising all kinds of conflicting questions. The International Association of Athletics Federations had initially taken a dim view of the Algerian's 800m performance, in which he jogged barely 150m before opting to drop out and wander back across the infield. "The referee considered he had not provided a bona fide effort and decided to exclude him from participation in all further events in the competition," said an IAAF statement. Locog, however, later released a statement confirming the disqualification had been revoked after a medical certificate was supplied by a local doctor suggesting he had a knee problem. Makhloufi had clearly not wanted to race in the 800m, particularly after qualifying impressively for the 1,500m final. His judgment, which had looked distinctly suspect, suddenly appears sharper than anyone else's. He was certainly trying this time, going off fastest and muscling his way past fellow runners on two or three occasions to ensure he remained in the leading bunch. Then, with one lap to go, he took off like a bullet, laying waste the field from 200m out to win comfortably in 3min 34.08sec. Leonel Manzano of the United States won the silver in a time of 3:47.79, with Morocco's Abdalaati Iguider taking bronze. The defending Olympic champion, Asbel Kiprop, was prominent in the early stages but finished last after suffering a hamstring problem. Not surprisingly, the former double Olympic 1500m champion Seb Coe rightly described it as "a funny race". The rest of the field either got it tactically wrong or had been lulled into a false sense of security. "I'm really surprised as to why those guys let it run at such a slow pace when they knew that Makhloufi had such a strong finish," said Coe. "They played into his hands." And the knee problem? Let's just say it didn't look life-threatening. Not since the West Indian opener Gordon Greenidge, who used to develop a limp as a prelude to hitting the ball even harder than he did when fully fit, has an injury appeared to have such a positive effect on the supposed patient. Given he did not so much as rub it when he pulled out on Monday, it is a highly unusual medical case. "Every person who wins a race forgets about his aches and pains," retorted Makhloufi airily. "I was told that competing might be a bit dangerous for me. Being thrown out did not have a huge affect on my morale. Following the medical test it was proven I was suffering from a knee injury and I was allowed to compete." Back in the champion's birthplace, Souk Ahras, in the north of Algeria, they will not care about such technicalities. The word "ahra" translates as lion, a reference to the Barbary lions which lurked in the neighbouring forests until their extinction in 1930. There is also a track record of 1500m success in the country, Noureddine Morceli having also won gold in the same event in Atlanta in 1996. "Anyone would dream of following Morceli," said his successor. "I'm very happy to have won and all Algerians will be too." Those raising eyebrows at his sharp improvement this year, during which he has shaved 2.5sec off his personal best, were also given short shrift, with a new coach and huge dedication being cited as the crucial factors: "For seven months I have not seen my family. They've only been able to see me in TV. I've been working hard since I was 15." The fact remains, nevertheless, that he came close to missing out on the greatest day of his life because of an opaque "rule" which seems open to question on a number of levels. Did Usain Bolt try his hardest in the 200m heats? It mattered not because he still finished first. If the cardinal sin is actively trying not to win, where does that leave, say, "joke" bowling in cricket to try to set up a declaration? The British sprint canoeist Richard Jefferies finished a distant last in his 1000m single canoe semi-final on Monday, admitting he was saving himself for his 200m C1 sprint later this week. No one claimed that was disgraceful or demanded his expulsion. Makhloufi, if we are being brutally honest, was simply attempting to improve his chances of winning the one that really mattered to him. To say he has had the last laugh would be an understatement.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Psychologist says Arizona shooting suspect understands charges as Loughner enters plea deal that spares death penalty Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing six people and wounding 13 others, including his intended target: former US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Loughner's plea spares him the death penalty and came soon after a federal judge found that months of forcibly medicating him to treat schizophrenia had made him competent to understand the gravity of the charges and assist in his defence. Under the plea, the 23-year-old college dropout will be sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole. The outcome was welcomed by some victims, including Giffords herself, as a way to avoid a lengthy, possibly traumatic trial and years of legal wrangling over a death sentence. "The pain and loss caused by the events of January 8, 2011, are incalculable," Giffords said in a joint statement with her husband, Mark Kelly. "Avoiding a trial will allow us – and we hope the whole southern Arizona community – to continue with our recovery." Experts had concluded that Loughner suffers from schizophrenia, and officials at a federal prison have forcibly medicated him with psychotropic drugs for more than a year. Court-appointed psychologist Christina Pietz testified for an hour about how she believes Loughner became competent. Loughner listened calmly without expression. His arms were crossed over his stomach, lurched slightly forward and looking straight at Pietz. At one point, he smiled and nodded when psychologist mentioned he had a special bond with one of the prison guards. The decision to spare Loughner a federal death sentence makes sense, said Dale Baich, a federal public defender in Phoenix who handles capital case appeals and isn't involved in the case. "As time went on and there were numerous evaluations, I think everybody had a better understanding of Mr Loughner's mental illness," Baich said. He added: "It appears that he will need to be treated for the rest of his life in order to remain competent."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Authorities looking into allegations that Standard Chartered illegally moved $250bn of Iranian money, sources say The US justice department is looking into allegations that Standard Chartered illegally moved $250bn of Iranian money around the global financial system, according to a source close to the investigation. More than £8bn ($12.5bn) has wiped off the stock market value of the banking group since Monday, when a New York regulator issued a damning report alleging the bank had flouted US laws in its dealings with Iran. The bank's shares lost another 16% of their value Tuesday. A source with direct knowledge of the investigation said the report was now being considered by the justice department, which could pursue a criminal case against the bank and its executives. The justice department works in conjunction with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which monitors and enforces US trade sanctions against countries including Iran. In its report the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) said it had evidence of similar breaches by the bank in Libya, Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sudan, all countries under US sanctions. Both the justice department and NYSDFS declined to comment on the next stage of the investigation. The bank has denied wrongdoing and said the regulator had not provided "a full and accurate picture of the facts". The bank said "99.9%" of the disputed Iranian transactions had complied with US law. In May Standard Chartered announced it was ending its business in Iran after decades of international pressure. John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University in New York, said even a single illegal transaction would be enough to spark a justice department investigation. "There are 20-year sentences for money laundering in the US," he said. The move is another blow for the UK's financial services industry, which has been rounded on in Washington following Barclays' alleged fixing of Libor interest rates, JP Morgan's huge London losses and a devastating US government report that concluded HSBC had acted as banker to criminals and terrorists around the world. The report is also damaging to the bank's top management, who only last week boasted the bank was too "boring" to be afflicted by the scandals sweeping the UK financial services industry. Peter Sands, Standard Chartered's chief executive, was recently tipped as a potential governor of the Bank of England and finance chief Richard Meddings had been linked to the top job at Barclays vacated by Bob Diamond, forced out following the Libor scandal. Peter Henning, professor of law at Wayne State University, said: "Standard Chartered's head is on the chopping block." He said Iran was an oil-rich country that no international bank would chose to ignore. "But the US and Iran have been at each others throats for 40 years. You have to make a choice," he said. Henning said the dramatic share sell-off may yet prove overblown. "In the end this may not be HSBC but the question remains about how many heads will roll and how high up. Diamond has set the benchmark pretty high," he said. James Cox, law professor at Duke University, said: "Frankly it looks like the bank turned more than a blind eye in its quest for profits. Once again we see a bank putting personal gain ahead of public interest." In the UK the Financial Services Authority is keeping a close watch on the situation, as it always does when share prices move so violently. Sands and Meddings have been forced to cut short their holidays and return to London to deal with the crisis. Meddings and Sands both joined Standard Chartered in 2002 – the alleged violations ran between 2001 and 2007. An emergency board meeting is expected to be called shortly. Only a week ago the bank reported its 10th successive year of record profits.
While it is not a household name in the UK, its blue and green logo is familiar site on high streets across Asia and Africa and the bank sponsors Liverpool football club. It employs 90,000 people, some 2,700 of whom are in the UK head office. The timing of the allegations by NYSDFS – which claimed that the bank's actions had left the US "vulnerable to terrorists, weapon dealers, drug kings and corrupt regimes" – has stunned the bank, which insists it is going to defend itself against the claims. Even as it admitted that it had moved "under $14m" for Iranian clients – albeit considerably less than the $250bn outlined in the regulatory order – the bank was unrepentant as it made it clear it would refute the allegations at an appearance before the regulator on 15 August. While it had breached so-called U-turns, which were transactions that US authorities allowed to take place as long as the money did not end up in Iranian banks, it said "well over 99.9% of the transactions relating to Iran complied with the U-turn regulations". The US regulator's 30-page report reproduces emails and conversations between Standard Chartered staff, including a remark from a London-based director when warned by a US colleague of potential problems in dealing with Iran. "You fucking Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians," the director said. The director is not named but the exchange is said to have taken place when the bank's chief executive for America warned, among others, the head group executive director for risk. At the time, October 2006, this title was held by Meddings, who was promoted to finance director the following month. The director for the US at the time was Ray Ferguson, currently running the Singapore business. The bank would not comment on individuals.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rolling report: Follow tonight's action from the Olympic Stadium, including Britain's Robbie Grabarz in the high jump final, with Sean Ingle
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rolling report:Britain's Robbie Grabarz won the bronze medal, while Sally Pearson won 100m hurdles gold
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Leader of the largest rebel unit in northern Aleppo says his forces are in effective control of more than 60% the city Rebel groups claim to be on the verge of seizing control of Aleppo's ancient heart after days of pitched battles with regime troops in the centre of Syria's second city. "We will be in full control on Wednesday morning," claimed Sheikh Tawfiq Abu Sleiman, the leader of the largest rebel unit in northern Aleppo. "We already have two of the walls of the citadel." The battle for the central city is symbolically important for the guerilla force, which now claims to be in effective control of more than 60% of Aleppo. However after two weeks of grinding battles with loyalist forces in most districts, it may not be a harbinger of victory. The large loyalist force that has been travelling to Aleppo for more than one week has arrived and taken positions on the southwestern outskirts, from where tank columns have intensified a barrage of the rebel-held district of Salahedin. However, as rebels and locals alike prepared for a fifth day for an expected attack, some began to doubt that it would take place. "It's psychological warfare, nothing more," said a rebel from Damascus who called himself Abu Firas. "They can't invade with everything they have because most people would defect." Shelling in Salahedin was more intensive on Tuesday than at anytime since rebels took over the neighbourhood in late-July, securing a foothold in Syria's commercial centre. The rows of five story apartment buildings which line the suburbs narrow streets have been hit so heavily that they now look like a giant sand sculpture, whittled down by the wind. Shelling is also taking an increasing toll on parts of the city's north-east, where rebels were forced to relocate on Tuesday after regime jets again attacked the schoolhouse they had used as a base. The tracks of a captured tank – a prized possession — left a silver glaze on a baking hot black bitumen road, betraying the route to the new headquarters nearby. Nothing else moved on the barren streets of the city's north. Aleppo is now in virtual lockdown ahead of what is expected to be an imminent showdown between loyalist forces and opposition guerillas. Late on Tuesday, the shelling in Salahedine had subsided long enough for casualties to be removed for the first time in 24 hours. Among them was a smiling 24 year old from the town of al-Bab, named Zeitoun, who had been hit by a tank round. He was the 63rd rebel from al-Bab to have died in the siege for Aleppo and its surround in the past fortnight, according to the FSA. "We know he will not be the last one," said one of his colleagues, Abu Nour, as he raced back from Aleppo to bury his friend. "But we are right and we will prevail. This is a momentum that cannot be stopped." The young rebel was lowered into the red earth of a graveyard brimming with white tombstones just before the end of another day of Ramadan fasting. "Of course we are sad for his family," said Aheikh Omar, the dead rebel's spiritual leader. "But we are also happy for his family that they raised a man like this. Sacrifice is something we are used to now."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Tehran officials go to Damascus over pilgrims affair, and reach out to Turkey, Lebanon and Qatar in diplomatic offensive Iran has launched a new campaign to intervene in the Syrian crisis, sending its top officials across the Middle East, blasting US "warmongering" and publicly backing a defiant Bashar al-Assad as the country sinks deeper into war. Saeed Jalili, Iran's powerful national security adviser, met the Syrian president in Damascus on Tuesday, while Iran's foreign minister urged Turkey and Qatar to use their influence with Syrian rebels to free 48 kidnapped Iranian pilgrims. Iran said that it was holding the US responsible for the fate of the pilgrims, three of whom were reported killed in shelling on Monday. Anti-Assad fighters have claimed the pilgrims are in fact Iranian Revolutionary Guards helping suppress the 17-month long uprising. The message was passed to Switzerland, which represents US interests in Iran. "Because of the US manifest support of terrorist groups and the dispatch of weapons to Syria, the US is responsible for the lives of the 48 Iranian pilgrims abducted in Damascus," it said. Jalili pledged that Iran would not allow anything to break the "axis of resistance" of which Syria formed a "fundamental element," Syria's ad-Dounia TV reported. The phrase usually also includes Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian group Hamas, united by hostility to Israel. Assad told Jalili of "the determination of the people and government of Syria to cleanse the country of terrorists," the TV station added. Syria, said Assad, was "capable of thwarting the foreign conspiracies". Iran's burst of diplomatic activity appeared designed to take advantage of the collapse of efforts by Kofi Annan, the UN envoy on Syria, though most anti-Assad rebels, like the western and Arab countries that back them, see Iran as part of the problem and incapable of providing a solution. "The Iranians are everywhere," said one western diplomat. "It's hard to know whether they are just concerned by the pilgrim issue — if they are pilgrims —or if this a wider drive to be be proactive and avoid being isolated by the Sunni Arabs." Syrian TV broadcast pictures of the Assad-Jalili meeting — the first shown of the president since 22 July, when he appointed a defence minister to replace one of four security chiefs assassinated by the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Jalili also met Ali Mamluk, Assad's security adviser. In Tehran meanwhile, Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, attacked US "warmongering" and warned that its "malevolence in Syria will consume Israel". Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear programme to preserve its own nuclear monopoly. On Thursday, Tehran is due to host a conference for countries it says have realistic positions on Syria. Lebanon declined the invitation but six other Arab countries are said to have accepted, along with Pakistan, Venezuela, India and Kazakhstan, as well as Russia and China, which have vetoed any UN security council action on the crisis. Next week Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is attending a summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Mecca — potentially putting him on a collision course with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, a key supporter of the Syrian opposition. Iran was conspicuously excluded from June's talks in Geneva on the Syrian crisis convened by Annan at the insistence of the US, Britain and the EU, which are at odds with Tehran over its nuclear ambitions and Middle East policies. Iran said that its foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, would ask Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu to intervene over the pilgrims affair and "to warn and remind the Ankara government of its responsbilities". Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were all told to stop helping "the warmongering policies of the US in Syria," in the words of the Iranian army chief of staff, Major General Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi. Jalil, visiting Lebanon on Monday, said: "We believe that Syria's friends must help to totally stop the violence, organise national dialogue and general elections in this country, and send humanitarian aid for the Syrian population." Lebanon's former prime minister, Saad Hariri, said Jalili was not welcome in Beirut at a time of mass killings by Assad. Iran has always denied allegations that it is providing military assistance to Assad but the Syrian opposition, western governments and Israel all insist it has at minimum sent advisers on security and communications. Iran is said to have passed on expertise it honed in crushing the protests that followed the disputed presidential elections in 2009. Politically Tehran has stood behind Assad while putting out feelers to some Syrian opposition groups. The two countries have had a close alliance since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. In another regional move, Iran sent its vice-president, Hamid Baqai, to Cairo to invite the new Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, to attend the non-aligned summit in Tehran. Iranian-Egyptian relations have been strained for years and remain a highly sensitive issue. Larijani made clear that Iran blamed the US, not Assad, for the situation in Syria. "The fire that you [the US] ignite in the Levant will swallow the terrified Zionists," he told MPs. "Kofi Annan's resignation and US contacts with certain politicians in the region and military support for the Syrian rebels that is meant to throw Syria into chaos shows there is a new plan by international criminals."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From the military to failed jobs to music, the Wisconsin man who shot dead six at a Sikh temple is remembered for his ill will Wade Michael Page's neighbours are largely of one view about the man who shot dead six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on Sunday. "I stayed away from him," said Char Brown, who lived in the same building and said she endured him playing loud rock music late into the night. Another neighbour, Jennifer Dunn, a psychiatric nurse, said she regarded Page as "creepy" in part because he would not look her in the eye. Dunn too complained about the music and said that the night before the attack on the Sikh temple it seemed particularly loud. FBI investigators will be looking into what it was Page was listening to in the hours before the massacre and whether it shaped his state of mind given he played in two white power bands that performed with lyrics urging racial domination. The bands – Definite Hate and End Apathy – came to be an important part of Page's life after a failed army career, dismissal from a series of jobs and a rocky relationship with a girlfriend who left him earlier this year. Char Brown's husband, David, called Page "very standoffish" and "not real friendly". He said he rarely saw Page emerge from his flat other than to go out with an instrument case on his back. But Page's stepmother, Laura Page, said it wasn't always that way. She described him as a "normal little boy" and struggled to explain how he came to be a mass murderer with a Facebook picture of him in front of a Nazi swastika.
Laura Page said that joining the military had appeared to be good for her stepson because it "gave him focus". "Now I greatly question that direction. I don't know if the military was good for him. I don't know. I wish I had some answers. And we're not going to have answers because he's dead," she said. Page did well enough after joining in 1992 to be assigned to a psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The unit is regarded in the US military as exclusive. But at the time Fort Bragg was also a recruiting centre for white hate groups including the National Alliance, once regarded as one of the most effective such groups and also among the most extreme because it openly glorified Adolf Hitler. The Military Law Review at the time reported that National Alliance flags were openly hung in barracks and, out of uniform, soldiers sported neo-Nazi symbols and played records about killing blacks and Jews. "White supremacists have a natural attraction to the army," the Military Law Review said. "They often see themselves as warriors, superbly fit and well-trained in survivalist techniques and weapons and poised for the ultimate conflict with various races." In 1995, two soldiers with the 82nd Airborne murdered a black couple in Fayetteville, the city neighbouring Fort Bragg, in a racially motivated attack. Others serving at the base during the 1990s were arrested for hoarding ammunition in preparation for an attack on businesses, including media organisations, owned by African Americans and Jews. Soldiers were also arrested as members of skinhead gangs involved in assaults. Chris Robillard described Page as his "closest friend" in the military. He told CNN that Page was "a very kind, very smart individual" but even then had taken up the white supremacist cudgel. "He would often mention the racial holy war that was coming," he said. "We just looked at it like he was trying to get attention to himself because he was always the vulnerable type of person. Even in a group of people he would be off alone." Another former colleague in the psychological operations unit, Fred Allen Lucas, said that Page called him a "race traitor" for dating Latina women and took to calling other races "dirt people". "It didn't matter if they were black, Indian, Native American, Latin – he hated them all," Lucas told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He said that among Page's tattoos was one that repeated a mantra popular among white supremacists: we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Because the sentence has 14 words, some white supremacists wear tattoos and clothing with the number as a code. Page had the number 14 tattooed on his left shoulder. By the time Page's contract with the army was complete in 1998 he had a poor enough record, marred by drunkenness and failing to report for duty, that the military did not permit him to re-enlist. He had already been demoted from sergeant. After the army, Page drifted between jobs, including a motorbike parts dealership before he was sacked in part because he did not like taking orders from a woman, and then as a lorry driver. But mostly he focussed on playing in white power bands. Sometimes he performed with a Nazi swastika hanging behind the drummer. His first band, Definite Hate, produced an album called Violent Victory with a cover design of a white fist punching a black man in the face. The fist is tattooed with the letters HFFH for "Hammerskins Forever, Forever Hammerskins" after a national skinhead organisation. The Site Monitoring Service, which tracks white supremacist groups, said Page appeared regularly on various white power websites including Stormfront and Hammerskin. He signed off on at least one occasion with "88", used by Nazi sympathisers to mean "Heil Hitler" because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Definite Hate's songs included lines such as: "Wake up, white man, for your race, and your land". Page told Label 56, a record company that distributed his band's albums and sold Definite Hate T-shirts, that he founded his second group, End Apathy, to wake people up. "A lot of what I realised at the time was that if we could figure out how to end people's apathetic ways it would be the start toward moving forward," Page is quoted as saying. "Of course after that it requires discipline, strict discipline, to stay the course in our sick society." After the Oak Creek shooting, Label 56 issued a statement distancing itself from Page. "We have never sought attention by using "shock value" symbols and ideology that are generally labeled as such. With that being said, all images and products related to End Apathy have been removed from our site. We do not wish to profit from this tragedy financially or with publicity," it said. "In closing please do not take what Wade [Page] did as honorable or respectable and please do not think we are all like that." But the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, lists Label 56 as a "hate site" because of its promotion of racist bands such as Children of the Reich and Stormtroop 16. While the local police and FBI said that Page was not on their radar because he had not committed any crimes, he came to the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center a decade ago. It describes Page as a "frustrated neo-Nazi".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Man accused of killing six and wounding Gabrielle Giffords likely to change his plea to guilty if judge finds him fit to stand trial The man accused of killing six people in and wounding 13 others, including former US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, is expected to plead guilty if a judge finds him mentally competent to stand trial for the Tuscon shootings. A federal judge has set a competency hearing for Jared Loughner for 11am local time in US district court in Tucson on Tuesday, to be followed by a change-of-plea hearing if he is found fit to stand trial. Giffords, an Arizona Democrat seen as a rising star in the party, was holding one of her regular "Congress On Your Corner" events at a Tucson supermarket in January 2011 when she was shot through the head at close range. The six people killed in the shooting include a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. A source close to the case has told Reuters that Loughner, who is charged with 49 criminal counts including first-degree murder, is prepared to change his plea to guilty. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf last year. Few other details were available ahead of the hearing, but a plea agreement could potentially spare Loughner from facing the death penalty in the rampage.
The Los Angeles Times reported that psychiatric experts who have examined Loughner were expected to testify that he now understands the charges against him. A spokesman for the US attorney's office in Phoenix has said he could "neither confirm nor deny" the change of plea. Attorneys representing Loughner have not responded to emailed requests for comment. Loughner was determined unfit to stand trial in May 2011 after he disrupted court proceedings and was dragged out of the courtroom. Court appointed experts said he suffered from schizophrenia, disordered thinking and delusions. He has since been held at a US bureau of prisons psychiatric hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he has been forcibly medicated to treat psychosis and make him fit for trial. Tuesday's hearing was to be the fourth to determine if Loughner is mentally competent. US district judge Larry Burns originally set the hearing in June at the request of prosecutors and defense attorneys who wanted a status report after more than a year of treatment and legal wrangling over his competency. Burns previously extended Loughner's stay in the Federal Medical Center facility, noting that "measurable progress" had been made by those treating him. In the early weeks of his treatment, prior to the regime of forced medication, Loughner reportedly paced his cell and passed nights without sleeping. However, clues to his current mental state are few. A psychologist's report on efforts to make him mentally fit to stand trial was due to be submitted to the court in June, but has not been made public.
Giffords, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, resigned from the US House of Representatives in January to focus on her recovery. Her former aide, Ron Barber, who was also wounded in the shooting, won a special election to fill her seat in June and will face re-election in November to serve a full two-year term in Congress.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Moscow court hears closing arguments in feminist band's trial for performing 'punk prayer' against Vladimir Putin in cathedral Prosecutors have called for three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to be jailed for three years after arguing they had insulted all of Russian Orthodoxy and posed a danger to society. "They must be isolated from society," the federal prosecutor Alexei Nikiforov told the Moscow court on Tuesday. He and lawyers for the victims argued that if they were not jailed, they would strike again. The three band members – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – have been charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a "punk prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral. In their closing arguments, prosecutors argued that the women were not carrying out a political act, but acting on deep hatred for Russian Orthodoxy. "They violated the traditions of our country," Nikiforov said. He said the fact that "no politicians" were named in the punk band's song proved it was not a political act. The name and chorus of the song Pussy Riot performed was called Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Out. Prosecutors presented the women as dangerous feminists. "All the defendants talked about being feminists and said that is allowed in the Russian Orthodox church," said Yelena Pavlova, a lawyer for several of the nine victims who said they were insulted by Pussy Riot's performance. "This does not correspond with reality. Feminism is a mortal sin," she said. The Pussy Riot case has reawakened anti-government passions that first emerged when Putin announced last autumn that he was returning to the presidency. Opposition activists have called for an impromptu protest to be held on 19 August. Addressing the court in the afternoon, defence lawyers argued that the women's performance was an act of opposition against Putin and was not motivated by religious hatred. "The 'prayer' they sang was a political one," lawyer Violetta Volkova said. Mark Feygin, another lawyer for the women, gave an impassioned speech warning of the consequences of a conviction, which ended with applause from the journalists witnessing the trial. "Russia has no rule of law. Russia has no justice system," he said. "Nothing has changed from Soviet times." He warned that a guilty verdict would "definitely tear up relations between society and government". Society would never forgive the government for jailing three innocent women, he said, warning that tensions, including between society and the church, were building to similar levels as before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He appeared to accept a conviction as a foregone conclusion: "If the order is handed down from above to jail them, then they will be jailed. This is a political case from beginning to end." Pussy Riot have argued that their February performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was designed to call attention to the politicisation of the Orthodox church, which was a key agitator for Putin's re-election. Church officials have said their trial has been willed by God. The women have apologised if they offended any Orthodox believers. Prosecutors said on Tuesday that their apologies were insincere and that the victims had "the right not to be merciful". They argued that the leader of the church, Patriarch Kirill, had been personally insulted and was "not just an ordinary citizen". The three women addressed the court on Tuesday and urged the judge to deliver a not guilty verdict. A verdict is expected in coming days.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Moscow court hears argument for punk band to be sentenced for insults to Russian Orthodoxy and posing danger to society Prosecutors have called for three members of feminist punk band Pussy Riot to be jailed for three years after arguing they had insulted all of Russian Orthodoxy and posed a danger to society. "They must be isolated from society," federal prosecutor Alexei Nikiforov told the Moscow court. He and lawyers for the victims argued that were they not jailed, they would surely strike again. Three members of Pussy Riot – Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich – have been charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing a "punk prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral. In their closing arguments, prosecutors argued that the women were not carrying out a political act, but were acting on deep hatred for Russian Orthodoxy. "They violated the traditions of our country," said Nikiforov. He said the fact that "no politicians" were named in the punk band's song proved it was not a political act. The name and chorus of the song Pussy Riot performed was called "Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Out". Prosecutors presented the women as dangerous feminists. "All the defendants talked about being feminists and said that is allowed in the Russian Orthodox church," said Yelena Pavlova, a lawyer for several of the nine victims who said they were insulted by Pussy Riot's performance. "This does not correspond with reality. Feminism is a mortal sin," she said. The Pussy Riot case has reawakened anti-government passions that first emerged when Putin announced he was returning to the presidency last autumn. Opposition activists have called for an impromptu protest to be held on 19 August. Speaking to court in the afternoon, Pussy Riot's defence lawyers argued that the women's performance was indeed an act of opposition against Putin and was not motivated by religious hatred. "The 'prayer' they sang was a political one," lawyer Violetta Volkova said. Mark Feygin, another lawyer for the women, issued an impassioned speech warning of the consequences of a conviction, which ended with applause from the journalists witnessing the trial. "Russia has no rule of law. Russia has no justice system," he said. "Nothing has changed from Soviet times." He warned that a guilty verdict would "definitely tear up relations between society and government". "Society will never forgive the government" for jailing three innocent women, he said, warning that tensions, including between society and the church, were building to similar levels as before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He appeared to accept a conviction as a foregone conclusion: "If the order is handed down from above to jail them, then they will be jailed." A verdict is expect by the end of the week.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Rand Paul on GOP speakers list; Carter to address Democrats
• Romney says Obama abandoned welfare reform
• Veepstakes rumors churn as announcement nears
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rand Paul is among those to speak at the RNC, and there's more pressure on the presidential candidates on gun control. Follow the day's political developments live
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Usain Bolt runs a leisurely 20.39sec to win 200m heat
• Liu Xiang clatters into first hurdle and Phillips Idowu fails The 80,000 people who filled the stadium for the morning's athletics session had come to see a little slice of Olympic history in return for the cost of their tickets, and they got it. They had been hoping it would be Usain Bolt who provided it, but all he did was roll out of bed and stroll to a time of 20.39sec to win his 200m heat. It was Liu Xiang's performance in the 110m hurdles that will go into the end-of-Games highlights reels, though not for the reasons he'd have hoped. Liu, the 2004 Olympic Champion, clattered into the very first hurdle in his heat and crashed to the track. In 2008, Liu was the face of the Games, but then, as now, he went into the event with an injury, and went out on the very first morning of his competition. That exit shocked a nation, and silenced a stadium. This time, his dreams dashed all over again, Liu refused to be bowed by what had happened. He picked himself up, cocked his right leg, and hopped the remaining 100m, making a point of reaching the finish line. His fellow hurdlers were waiting for him there, clapping him on along with everyone else in the stadium. There were echoes of Derek Redmond's famous finish in the 400m at the 1992 Olympics, though this time it was another competitor who helped the injured athlete across the line. Liu hopped all the way to the final hurdle, then stopped, wilting. Great Britain's Andy Turner stepped forward to help Liu across the line, where he was put into a wheelchair, and taken away to be treated. Liu suffered an achilles injury when he was competing at Crystal Palace just three weeks ago. He was not the only athlete suffering from old wounds. Phillips Idowu, making his first competitive jump since 1 June, just did not have enough spring in his stride. He was rusty from lack of competition, and his best jump was a mere 16.53m, which was not good enough to put him through to the final. He sat by trackside after being knocked out, looking around him, trying to take in the atmosphere for the last time. Idowu seemed desperately sad. He had just missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime. So did Goldie Sayers, who was knocked out of the women's javelin. Like Liu she injured herself at Crystal Palace, when she had broken her own British record. Sayers's elbow was heavily strapped on Tuesday morning, and, worse still, she says she trapped a nerve in her warm-up and could not even feel her hand. Sayers managed three mediocre throws, and she deliberately spoiled them all by stepping over the foul line. She collapsed to the floor after the third, her body heaving in pain. "Sport is very cruel," she said afterwards. "You can't compete injured, you can't tear ligaments and expect to be on fantastic form. But I thought I had enough in there to qualify. It is a bitter pill to swallow. It is heartbreaking not to be in the final. It is difficult because three weeks ago I was in the best shape of my life and in the same competition I tore my elbow ligament. The irony is that in 20 years of throwing I have never once hurt my elbow." Sayers was not the only British athlete feeling that way, the 110m hurdler Andrew Pozzi has set a string of PBs this year, the last of them in the heats at Crystal Palace. But in the final there he pulled up after clearing the first barrier. The very same thing happened here. "It's the first time I've been full speed out the blocks since Crystal Palace when the injury happened," he said. "I thought I could manage it and get over hurdle two but it completely wiped out and that was me." His team-mates Lawrence Clarke and Turner both made it through, in joint ninth after both posted times of 13.42sec. The USA's Aries Merritt was comfortably fastest, in 13.07sec. Things went a little better in the women's 5,000m, where Julia Bleasdale ran brilliantly to set a new personal best of 15min 2sec. She qualified seventh for the semi-finals, a little way ahead of Jo Pavey, whose 15:02.80 was good enough to get her through as a fastest runner-up. Both were a way behind Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba, who looks set to repeat the long-distance double she did in Beijing. Christian Malcolm made it to the next round of the 200m too, in 20.59sec. His team-mate James Ellington, though, had a straightforward shocker, and unlike Sayers, Idowu and Pozzi, he had no real reason for it. He finished in 21.23sec, almost a second behind the fastest man in the field, Ecuador's Alex Quinonez.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Fears that Rupert Murdoch group has failed to learn corporate governance lessons prompt church to offload £1.9m stake The Church of England has sold all of its shares in News Corporation because it fears Rupert Murdoch's media empire has failed to learn lessons from the phone-hacking scandal. The church first raised concerns about the News of the World's "reprehensible and unethical" conduct more than a year ago, and had been trying to force News Corp into improving its corporate governance. However, the CofE on Tuesday said in a statement that it was "not satisfied that News Corporation had shown, or is likely in the immediate future to show, a commitment to implement necessary corporate governance reform." The church's investment bodies, the Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board, announced the sale of their total £1.9m shareholdings, which represent 0.005% of News Corp's total publicly traded stock. Andrew Brown, secretary of the Church Commissioners, said: "Last year's phone-hacking allegations raised some serious concerns amongst the church's investing bodies about our holding in News Corporation. "Our decision to disinvest was not one taken lightly and follows a year of continuous dialogue with the company, during which the church's ethical investment advisory group (EIAG) put forward a number of recommendations around how corporate governance structures at News Corporation could be improved. However the EIAG does not feel that the company has brought about sufficient change and we have accepted its advice to disinvest." The church had been engaged in "board-level dialogue" with News Corp and had raised its concerns about the phone-hacking scandal in person at News Corp's AGM last year. "Selling shares is a last resort," said Edward Mason of the EIAG said last year. "We prefer to use our voice. It's a question of sustained dialogue." The last time the church divested all of its investment in a company was in 2010 when it sold all of its £3.6m shares in Vedanta Resources over concerns of human rights violations at the company's Indian mines.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Congregation killed and wounded when gunmen open fire on Deeper Life church in the town of Otite in Kogi state Gunmen fired on worshippers in a church in central Nigeria, killing at least 19 people, including the pastor, and wounding others, the military has said. The attack targeted a Deeper Life church in the town of Otite in Kogi state, about 250km (155 miles) south-west of Nigeria's capital, Abuja. Police and soldiers surrounded the church on Tuesday morning, witnesses said. It was unclear how many people were wounded in the attack Monday night. The gunmen surrounded the church during a service and opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Olorunyomi said. The pastor was among the dead. Soldiers searched for gunmen through the night, but had made no arrests as of Tuesday, he added, No group has claimed responsibility. The killings come as Nigeria faces continuing attacks from a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. The sect, whose name mean "western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's Muslim north, has attacked churches in the past, though never as far as south. However, Boko Haram is thought to have carried out a February prison break in the town of Koton-Karifi in Kogi state in which 119 inmates escaped. In September 2010, the sect freed about 700 inmates in a large-scale prison break in the north-east city of Bauchi. Boko Haram also has launched suicide car bomb attacks around Abuja in the past. The sect is thought to have carried out more than 660 killings this year in Nigeria. Nigeria, with a population of more than 160 million people, is largely divided into a Muslim north and Christian south. Boko Haram attacks have increased tensions over the last year.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Failure of Proton-M carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites is latest in series of mishaps for Moscow's space programme An unmanned Russian rocket and its payload of two communications satellites has failed to reach orbit, the latest in a series of failures that has dogged Moscow's space programme. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday that a secondary booster module of the Proton-M rocket carrying Russian and Indonesian satellites had switched off earlier than expected minutes after it took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late on Monday. The error replicates a mishap that scrapped the Express AM-4 satellite last summer at a cost of $265m (£170m), casting doubt on the reliability of the workhorse Russian rocket. Roscosmos said in a statement that the Briz-M booster had fired its engines on schedule, but they had burned for only seven of the programmed 18 minutes and 5 seconds needed to push the satellites into their planned orbit. "The chances that the satellites will separate from the booster and reach the designated orbit are practically non-existent," a space industry source told the state news agency RIA. Launches of such Proton rockets will most likely be suspended pending expert analysis of the failure, the Russian industry source said. Moscow, which carries out around 40% of global space launches, is struggling to restore confidence in its industry after a string of mishaps last year, including the failure of a mission to return samples from the Martian moon Phobos. Indonesia's Telkom-3, the first satellite Jakarta has purchased from Moscow, was built by Russia's ISS-Reshetnev with communication equipment made by the French-led satellite maker Thales Alenia Space. It had a capacity of 42 active transponders to cater to the growing demand of Indonesia's satellite business service. Russia's Express MD2 was a small communication satellite, made by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, for the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC).
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