| | | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | South African athlete says race was unfair, and accuses Brazilian winner Oliveira of running on blades that were too long "Don't focus on the disability," Oscar Pistorius told the world before these Games. "Focus on the ability." How right he was. There was no room for sentimental thoughts or emotional notions after the T44 200m final. It was not a procession or a coronation, but a race, raw and fast. And Pistorius came second. He was beaten to the line by Brazil's Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira, who won in 21.45sec. Pistorius was .07sec behind him. He reacted furiously, telling the TV cameras in his post-race interview that "we aren't racing a fair race". Pistorius was convinced that the running blades Oliveira was using were too long, and called for the International Paralympic Committee to investigate. This from a man who has had to fight long and hard to overturn doubts about whether or not he himself has an unfair advantage when he is competing against non-disabled runners. The twist in the story is that it is the very fact Pistorius wants to run in the Olympics and other able-bodied competitions that cost him here. To do crossover like that, he can only run on blades that have been cleared for use by the IAAF, the sport's governing body. Longer blades, of the kind Oliveira used, are only legal in Paralympic events. If Pistorius switched, he would not be able to run in non-disabled competitions. Besides which, he would undermine his own argument that his success is about the body above the knee, rather than the technology below it. In a sense, he is a victim of his own ambition. It was a sour reaction, cutting through the saccharine notes of so much of the Paralympic coverage. But Pistorius has always insisted that he wants to be known as an athlete, rejecting the labels other people have put upon him, whether they were that he was disabled, differently abled, a cheat, an inspiration, or a role model. And this was an athlete's response to defeat, if a particularly ungracious one. Pistorius has never lost a 200m race before, and he could not quite believe that it had happened. Modest as he may sometimes seem – on the startline he responded to the adoring applause of the 80,000 with a polite little bow – he has, like any champion, a sizeable ego and a temper to match. Once he had had time to cool down, Pistorius was a more gracious, admitting that Oliveira had "played by the rules" and that his blades were within the stipulated limits. But his anger was still there, bubbling away beneath the surface. "He's never run a 21 second race before. That's fact," he said of Oliveira. "He was running high 23s less than a year ago so you just need to look at the facts behind it. I brought it up with the IPC but nothing's been done about it. I believe in the fairness in sport and I believe in running on the right length." Pistorius' point is that Oliveira's blades were too long, increasing his speed in the final few metres. "I've never seen a guy come back from eight metres on the 100 metre mark and overtake me on the finish line." He had been well ahead after the bend, and looked to be coasting to victory, until Oliveira produced a final, astonishing, turn of speed. Still, Pistorius' own time was a lot slower than the world record of 21.30sec he had set in the semi-finals. If he had been able to repeat that, he would have won with ease. But he made a schoolboy mistake, tensing up and slowing down as Oliveira came alongside him. Pistorius seemed as surprised as everyone else in the stadium that suddenly he was in a race for the line. "There's not even another Paralympic amputee to run a 21 second race," he insisted, "let alone a 21.4sec." Like Pistorius, Oliveira had both legs amputated soon after he was born. "I am below the maximum length of blades I could have been," he pointed out. "I don't know who he is picking a fight with. It is not about two blades, it is about training." He was eloquent in his rebuttal. "All I want to do is thank everybody that helped me get here and celebrate, I am not worried about this polemic that has been raised, this polemic is just about Oscar Pistorius, not about myself. For me he is a really great idol and to hear that from a great idol is difficult." For four months, between December 2007 and March 2008, the running blades Pistorius uses were illegal in able-bodied competition. The controversy catapulted him on to the front pages but Pistorius turns surly when the topic comes up now. The blades he uses now are the same ones he was on then and it is ironic that he responded to defeat by attacking his rival, just as others once attacked him. The two men will race again in both the T44 100m and the T44 400m. Pistorius, the poster boy of the Paralympics, could be hard pushed to win either event. The signature star may have lost a little of his lustre, but the Games have gained a rivalry that will shape how they are remembered in years to come.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Self-proclaimed messiah notorious for mass weddings and creation of Unification Church dies in South Korea He married thousands of people in mass weddings, made millions from his church's business interests and was accused of brainwashing his members and breaking up families. But the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church – whose followers became known as "Moonies" – managed to shed the mantle of suspicion and ridicule to become a friend of political and religious leaders before his death in South Korea on Sunday, aged 92. Moon saw himself as a messiah and created a church that became a worldwide movement and claims to have around 3 million members, including 100,000 in the United States. Ahn Ho-yeul, a Unification Church spokesman, told the Associated Press that Moon died at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, north-east of Seoul, with his wife and children at his bedside, two weeks after being hospitalised with pneumonia. The church was seen as a cult in the 1970s and 80s, and was regularly accused of conning new recruits, holding them against their will, splitting families and forcing initiates to give over their life savings. The church responded to accusations by saying many other new religious movements faced similar attacks in their early stages. Allegations of brainwashing which were common in the 1980s have rarely been heard since. Moon was born in what would become North Korea in 1920 to a family that followed Confucian beliefs, but when he was 10 years old the family converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian church. Moon said he was 16 when Jesus Christ called upon him to complete His work. He said he resisted twice before finally accepting the task. He was jailed for five years by the North Korean government in 1948, but escaped in 1950 when his guards fled as United Nations troops advanced. He was an active anti-Communist throughout the cold war. Moon founded the church in 1954 amid the ruins of South Korea and promoted a mixture of Christianity and his own conservative, family-oriented teachings. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible, and fused elements of Christianity and Confucianism – outlining his principles in his book, Explanation of the Divine Principle, published in 1957. In later years, the church built a business empire that included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, Bridgeport University in Connecticut, as well as a hotel and a car plant in North Korea. It acquired a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses in South Korea, and a seafood firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the United States. In 1982, the church sponsored the American film Inchon, about the Korean war. Moon began rebuilding his relationship with North Korea in 1991, when he met the country's founder, Kim Il Sung, in the eastern industrial city of Hamhung. In his autobiography, Moon said he asked Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, and Kim responded that his atomic programme was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people". "The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing. At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation," Moon wrote. He added that he heard Kim tell his son: "After I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to north-south relations, you must always seek the advice of President Moon." When Kim died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. Kim Jong Il died late last year and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un. Moon sent a delegation to pay respects during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il. The church leader also developed good relationships with conservative American leaders, including Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior. However, he was found guilty of tax evasion in the United States, where he lived for 30 years, and served 13 months of an 18 month sentence. As he grew older, Moon quietly handed over day-to-day control of his multibillion-dollar religious and business empire, companies ranging from hospitals and universities to a ballet troupe. His youngest son, the Rev Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other sons and daughters were put in charge of the church's business and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad. After ending his first marriage, Moon wedded a South Korean, Hak Ja Han Moon, in 1960. She often was at Moon's side for the mass weddings. Their youngest son told the Associated Press in a February 2010 interview that Moon's offspring do not see themselves as his successors. "Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said. "Our role is more of the apostles, where we share … where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives [our] two parents have lived." Moon is survived by his second wife and 10 children. Marriage linesThe Reverend Sun Myung Moon's mass weddings were a central aspect of the Unification Church. He conducted his first in Seoul in the early 1960s, and the "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the years. A 1982 wedding at New York's Madison Square Garden, the first outside South Korea, drew thousands of participants. "International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly." In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years, the church said.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Cosmetics firm Ahava singled out for criticism in report by Palestinian human rights organisation Israel is "pillaging" the natural resources of the Dead Sea which lie in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law, a report which singles out the cosmetics firm Ahava for criticism. According to the Palestinian human rights organisation al-Haq, the "appropriation and exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources in the occupied Dead Sea area by Israeli settlers and companies … meet the requirements of the crime of pillage". Its report, Pillage of the Dead Sea, says Israeli restrictions on planning and movement "have severely hampered the ability of Palestinians to use and access their land and other natural resources in the region. The presence of settlers who directly utilise and profit from the Dead Sea wealth has severely exacerbated this situation and contributed to the over-exploitation of the area, resulting in severe environmental damage." Almost two-thirds of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies within the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. The remaining area is in Israel, and the eastern shore is in Jordan. At the lowest point on Earth, 410 metres below sea level, the inland sea is a magnet for tourists keen to float in its salt-saturated waters and for industries which extract its minerals. Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, which manufactures and markets beauty products based on Dead Sea minerals and mud, is located within the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the West Bank. It is licensed by the Israeli government to mine Dead Sea raw materials. According to al-Haq, almost 45% of its shares are owned by Mitzpe Shalem and another Israeli settlement on the Dead Sea shore, Kalia. Within two decades of its launch in 1988, Ahava's annual global sales had reached almost $150m (£95m). The company has been the target of boycott campaigns by anti-settlement activists, which contributed to its decision to close its store in Covent Garden, London, a year ago. The al-Haq report says Ahava is "unlawfully utilising the Palestinian natural resources of the Dead Sea area for its own economic profits and therefore can be considered directly responsible for the pillage of the occupied territory's natural resources in clear violation of customary international law". However, in a letter circulated in 2010, Ahava said: "The mud and minerals used in Ahava's cosmetic products are not excavated in an occupied area. The minerals are mined in the Israeli part of the Dead Sea, which is undisputed internationally." Ahava did not respond to a request for comment on the al-Haq report. The land along the Dead Sea shore was classified as "Area C" in the 1993 Oslo accords, in which Israel has full military and administrative control. Much of the land has been declared or registered as "state land", which has "dispossessed Palestinians of extensive portions of the Dead Sea land, effectively depriving them of the possibility of benefiting from [its] natural resources," according to the report. Al-Haq says "Israel is openly in violation of its obligations under international and humanitarian law as an occupying power … because it is encouraging and facilitating the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and actively assisting their pillaging by private actors." It cites The Hague regulations and the statute of the international criminal court. In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said that, under the Oslo accords, Israel had territorial jurisdiction that includes land, subsoil and territorial waters in Area C. It "therefore would be entitled to licence a company to excavate mud in that area if it chose to do so". The al-Haq report calls on the European Union to adopt restrictions on the import of Israeli products originating from settlements, and urges cosmetic retailers to provide clear information about the origin of products they sell to allow consumers to make an informed choice about purchases.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | South African courts controversy by claiming Brazilian Alan Oliveira's running blades break regulations regarding length "Don't focus on the disability," Oscar Pistorius told the world before these Games. "Focus on the ability." In the end there was no room for sentimental thoughts or emotional considerations. The T44 200m final was not a procession, nor a coronation, but a race, raw and fast. And Pistorius lost. He was beaten to the line by Brazil's Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira winning in a time of 21.45sec. Pistorius was .07sec behind him. He reacted angrily, saying "we are not racing a fair race". He claimed that Oliveira's running blades were too long, breaking regulations, and calling for the International Paralympic Committee to investigate. Pistorius was furious that he had been denied the hat-trick of titles. He has come along way since he won this title for the first time in 2004, and this was supposed to be his peak. Back then he was, in his own words, "a young kid with braces and curly hair". He had only been running for a year or so, having been forced to give up rugby after he shattered his knee while playing in a school match. He has changed more still since he won it for a second time, in Beijing in 2008. He is leaner, sharper, and faster, having lost 11kg. Early in 2009 Pistorius was badly injured in a boating accident. He spent five days in intensive care. It changed his attitude. Before that, he had only dreamed of being an elite athlete. After it, he started to live and train like one. He is not the only one. Oliveira, 20, was born without fibula bones, and had his legs amputated in his first year. Around them, behind them as he crossed the line, were six other men, each with their own stories and struggles. At least one of them wouldn't have been here at all had it not been for Pistorius. Germany's David Behre, running in lane one, was hit by a freight train at a level crossing in September 2007. He was cycling home from a party, late at night. The doctors at the Duisburg Trauma Centre amputated both his legs. The day after the operation, Behre watched a documentary about Pistorius as he lay in his hospital bed, and he thought to himself "maybe I can do that too". When he first heard that story, Pistorius says he thought: "I wish that hadn't happened to you." Not out of pity, he explained, but because "he is quick, and quite a threat in the 200m." There is a little truth in that joke. The only labels Pistorius wants to claim for himself are those of "athlete", and "champion", he has never wanted to be known as disabled, differently-abled, a role model, an inspiration, or any other of the many tags people have given him in his career. He rejects the idea that he is a pioneer. "I have just been hard working and talented enough to compete on an international level," he says. "I did not do this to open the doors. The doors have always been open." And others have been through them. He is not the first Paralympian to cross over into the Olympics, only the most famous. Back in 2006, when Pistorius was competing in the International Paralympic World Cup, obituaries were being written for Neroli Fairhall, who died that year, aged 61. She was a paraplegic who competed in archery for New Zealand at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. There have been others too. The partially-blind runner Marla Runyon finished eighth in the 1,500m for the USA at the 2000 Olympics. Natalia Partyka, a table tennis player who was born without a right forearm, represented Poland at the Olympics in both 2008 and 2012. And Pistorius' own teammate Natalie du Toit, who lost her left leg after being hit by a car, swam in the open water marathon in Beijing. None of them were blessed with the rewards that Pistorius has found. Estimates suggest that he is earning around $2m a year in sponsorship, through his deals with BT, Nike, Oakley, and others. That ranks him fifth on the list of his sport's highest earners, a long way behind Usain Bolt but pretty much on a par with anyone else. Other than the fact that he has a savvy agent and a photogenic smile, the difference between Pistorius and those who came before him is that the governing body of his sport, the IAAF, tried to stand in his way. For four months, between December 2007 and March 2008, the running blades Pistorius uses were illegal in able-bodied competition. The decision was apparently borne out of genuine doubt about whether or not he had an unfair advantage. Aimee Mullins, a double amputee herself and the chef de mission of the USA's Paralympic team at these Games, was just one who suspected that other motivations were at work. "If we allow a person who we view as our inferior to play with us, and then that person beats us, what does that say about us?" The controversy catapulted him on to the front pages. But Pistorius turns surly when the topic comes up now. After all the hours spent arguing his case in laboratories and courtrooms, he has no desire to restate his case now. The blades he uses now are the same ones he was on then, though the manufacturer has given improved models, explicitly designed to cope with running around bends, to his rivals. It was an ironic twist that he responded to this defeat by attacking his rival, just as others once attacked him.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Self-proclaimed messiah who formed own church and presided over mass weddings leaves behind huge business empire The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who turned his Unification church into a worldwide religious movement and befriended North Korean leaders as well as US presidents, has died, church officials said. He was 92. Moon died on Sunday at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, north east of Seoul, South Korea, two weeks after being hospitalised with pneumonia, a church spokesman Ahn told Associated Press. Moon's wife and children were at his side. Moon, born in a town that is now in North Korea, founded his religious movement in Seoul in 1954 after surviving the Korean war. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible. The church gained fame – and notoriety – in the 1970s and 1980s for holding mass weddings of thousands of followers, often from different countries, whom Moon matched up in a bid to build a multicultural religious world. The church was accused of using devious recruitment tactics and duping followers out of money; parents of followers in the US and elsewhere expressed worries that their children were brainwashed into joining. The church responded by saying that many other religious movements faced similar accusations in their early stages. In later years, the church adopted a lower profile and focused on building a business empire that included the Washington Times newspaper, the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan and Bridgeport University in Connecticut, as well as a hotel and a fledgling car manufacturer in North Korea. It acquired a ski resort, a professional soccer team and other businesses in South Korea, and a seafood distribution firm that supplies sushi to Japanese restaurants across the US. The church claims millions of members worldwide, though defectors and other critics say the figure is no more than 100,000. In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people in simultaneous ceremonies worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years. Some were newlyweds and others reaffirmed their vows. He married an additional 7,000 couples in South Korea in February 2010. The ceremonies attracted media coverage but little of the controversy that dogged the church in earlier decades. Born in 1920 in what is now North Korea, Moon said he was 16 he became a Christian. While preaching the gospel in North Korea in the years after the country was divided, Moon was imprisoned in the late 1940s for allegedly spying for South Korea – a charge Moon disputed. He quickly drew young followers with his conservative, family-oriented value system and unusual interpretation of the Bible. He conducted his first mass wedding in Seoul in the early 1960s. The "blessing ceremonies" grew in scale over the next two decades, with a 1982 wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York – the first outside South Korea – drawing thousands of participants. "International and intercultural marriages are the quickest way to bring about an ideal world of peace," Moon said in a 2009 autobiography. "People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with people from countries they consider to be their enemies so that the world of peace can come that much more quickly." Moon began rebuilding his relationship with North Korea in 1991, when he met the country's founder Kim Il Sung in the eastern industrial city of Hamhung. Moon said in his autobiography that he asked Kim to give up his nuclear ambitions, with Kim respondeing that his atomic programme was for peaceful purposes and he had no intention to use it to "kill my own people." "The two of us were able to communicate well about our shared hobbies of hunting and fishing. At one point, we each felt we had so much to say to the other that we just started talking like old friends meeting after a long separation," Moon wrote. He added that he heard Kim tell his son: "After I die, if there are things to discuss pertaining to North-South relations, you must always seek the advice of president Moon." When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, Moon sent a condolence delegation to North Korea, drawing criticism from conservatives at home. Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong Il, sent roses, prized wild ginseng, Rolex watches and other gifts to Moon on his birthday each year. When Kim Jong Il died late last year and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un, Moon sent a delegation to pay its respects during the mourning period. Moon also developed good relationships with conservative American leaders, including former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. Despite this, he served 13 months at a federal prison between 1984 and 1985 for tax evasion. The church says the US government persecuted Moon because of his growing influence and popularity with young people in the country, his home for more than 30 years. As he grew older, Moon handed over day-to-day control of his multibillion-dollar religious and business empire – which also included hospitals and a ballet troupe – to his children. His youngest son, the Rev Hyung-jin Moon, was named the church's top religious director in April 2008. Other sons and daughters were put in charge of the church's business and charitable activities in South Korea and abroad. After ending a first marriage, Moon remarried a South Korean, Hak Ja Han Moon, in 1960. She was often at Moon's side for the mass weddings. His youngest son told Associated Press in a February 2010 that Moon's offspring do not see themselves as his successors. "Our role is not inheriting that messianic role," he said. "Our role is more of the apostles, where we become the bridge between understanding what kind of lives [our] parents have lived." Moon is survived by his second wife and 10 children.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Democrats see opportunities in Romney's perceived weakness on foreign policy and on conservative social issues Democrats opened a fresh offensive on Mitt Romney's foreign policy Sunday, painting the Republican White House hopeful as a war-monger looking to take the US into further Middle East conflicts. Campaigning in Pennsylvania, vice president Joe Biden attacked Mr Romney's international agenda as laid out in last week's convention address, suggesting that it put him out of step with the US's priorities overseas. "He said it was a mistake to end the war in Iraq and bring all of our warriors home. He said it was a mistake to set an end date for our warriors in Afghanistan and bring them home," Biden told supporters. He added: "He implies by the speech that he's ready to go to war in Syria and Iran." The charge is a serious one in a country that has become less enthusiastic over foreign intervention as a result of more than a decade of conflict. It also suggests that Democratic strategists believe Obama can bolster his campaign by running on foreign policy, an area in which they believe he has a clear edge over his opponent. In past campaigns, the issue of international affairs has often been seen as a strong area for the Republicans. But Obama supporters point towards the end of conflict in Iraq and troop draw down in Afghanistan, as well as the assassination of terror chief Osama bin Laden, as evidence of the current administration's success overseas. In last week's speech in Tampa, Romney sought primarily to turn the screw on Obama over the issue of the economy. But in the parts of the address dedicated to foreign policy, the Republican presidential candidate struck out at the White House for not coming down hard enough on Iran, stating that "every American is less secure today" as a result of a perceived soft line on Tehran. He also criticised Obama directly for distancing America from traditional Middle East ally Israel and for his dealings with Russian president Vladimir Putin. "Under my presidency, our friends will see more loyalty and Mr Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone," Romney told the party faithful. On the stump today, Biden hit back saying: "He wants to move from co-operation to confrontation with Putin's Russia. And these guys say the president's out of touch?" In a broad attack taking in criticism of Romney's personal tax arrangements, the vice president continued, according to a local ABC affiliate: "Out of touch? Swiss bank account, untold millions in the Cayman Islands. Who's out of touch, man?" Painting Romney's agenda as an out-of-date blueprint for America is becoming a theme of the Obama team's attack in the election run-up. Yesterday in the key battleground state of Iowa, a fired-up Obama called on American voters to back his plan to take the country forward. "We have come too far to turn back now," he said at the start of a four-day tour of swing states leading up to a crucial set-piece address at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. He contrasted his platform with that of the Republican White House ticket, which he said was "better suited for the last century". Romney didn't offer "a single new idea" during Thursday's address in Tampa, the president said, adding: "It was a rerun. We'd seen it all before, you might as well have watched it on a black-and-white TV." For his part, the Republican candidate - who delivered a competent speech in Tampa – spoke with more passion than is sometimes expected of him while campaigning Saturday in Ohio. To cheers of "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt", he promised to deliver a "winning season" for America, pledging that under his watch "America is going to come roaring back". He also tried to frame himself as a "unity" candidate, lambasting his opponent for "divisiveness and bitterness" on the campaign trail. "I will bring us together," he told would-be voters in the state. But the Romney camp received a blow of sorts over the weekend with the suggestion that any bump resulting from the party's convention looks to be short lived. Having opened up a poll lead of a couple of points in the immediate aftermath of the Tampa get-together, a Reuters/Ipsos survey of voting intention put Obama back in front on Saturday night by the slenderest of margins – 44% to Romney's 43%. As the run-down to the 6 November national ballot creeps closer, the Republicans are increasingly tying their hopes to focusing the electorate on a sluggish economic and a job market in which some 8.3% remain frozen out. They also have a clear edge when it comes to the money they have at their disposal to spend on attack ads. In contrast, Obama's strategists appear to be opting for a wider attack on the Republican Party's conservative social agenda and Romney's perceived weakness on matters of foreign policy. The addition of Paul Ryan to the White House ticket, as Romney's vice presidential pick, has opened up an additional avenue of attack for Obama along the lines of safeguarding Medicare from the Wisconsin representative's plan to turn the seniors' healthcare safety net into a voucher system. Moreover, at this week's convention, aides to the president will be hoping to counter some of the harm that could be inflicted as a result of their war-chest shortfall, by means of an Obama speech that could re-ignite a base that is seen to be less enthusiastic than it was four years ago.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Investigation puts British government under spotlight for allowing members of former Egyptian dictatorship to retain assets in UK Britain has allowed key members of Egypt's toppled dictatorship to retain millions of pounds of suspected property and business assets in the UK, potentially violating a globally-agreed set of sanctions. The situation has led to accusations that ministers are more interested in preserving the City of London's cosy relationship with the Arab financial sector than in securing justice. Hosni Mubarak, the ousted former president, was sentenced to life in jail in June. A six-month investigation, conducted by BBC Arabic and released in conjunction with the Guardian and al-Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper, has identified many valuable assets linked to his family and their associates that have not been frozen. These include luxury houses in Chelsea and Knightsbridge and companies registered in central London. One member of Mubarak's inner circle has even been permitted to set up a UK-based business in recent months, despite being named on a British Treasury sanctions list (pdf) of Egyptians who are linked to misappropriated assets and subject to an asset-freeze. In response to the investigation, the Foreign Office said it was working closely with its Egyptian counterparts to hunt down Mubarak regime assets. The Treasury, which has a dedicated unit tasked with implementing financial sanctions, said it was confident it had acted properly. Both departments said they could not comment on individual cases. The revelations will embarrass British ministers, who have previously expressed support for the Arab uprisings and vowed to take "decisive action" to track down and return illicit funds taken out of Egypt. Yet 18 months on from the downfall of Mubarak, publicly-accessible records from Companies House and Land Registry indicate that the fortunes of regime figures convicted of embezzling money from Egypt remain at least partially on UK soil and untouched by British authorities. The problem is compounded by the apparent lack of political will in Egypt when it comes to chasing former regime assets – a situation which some experts attribute to the continued influence of major players from the Mubarak era. Egypt's government is currently pursuing a lawsuit against the UK Treasury for dragging its heels on asset recovery. "This is a collective crime from both the British and Egyptian governments," said Dr Mohamed Mahsoob, a public investigator who led enquiries into Egypt's "stolen billions" and who has since been appointed to the country's new cabinet. "The UK is one of the worst countries when it comes to tracing and freezing Egyptian assets," he said. "The British are saying that they need official requests from the Egyptian government before they take any action and that until this happens they are allowing the free movement of assets and the closure of certain accounts of companies beyond UK borders, to be reinvested elsewhere under different guises in order to prevent it from being retrieved. "This is pure political profiteering that doesn't reflect the concept of British justice and democracy that we teach in Egyptian universities. "The UK is doing nothing less than bleeding Egyptian assets, which can only be to the detriment of the Egyptian nation." An aggressive free-market reform programme instituted by the Mubarak regime in the 1990s and 2000s saw previously state-owned companies and landholdings shift into the hands of private businessmen at an astonishing rate. Prominent "big sharks" within the ruling NDP party – including Mubarak's playboy son and assumed successor Gamal – amassed huge riches. Popular anger with the scale of corruption was a driving force behind Egypt's revolution. As political shockwaves from Egypt's upheaval spread throughout the region, Britain's political leaders scrambled to realign themselves with the revolutionaries. David Cameron declared that the UK government was a friend of the Egyptian people and ready to "help in any way we can". Three days after Mubarak's downfall, with popular pressure to recover Egypt's 'stolen billions' mounting in the street, the interim government in Cairo requested that western authorities freeze the assets of several former regime members who were suspected of embezzling public funds and hiding them in property and business interests. William Hague, the foreign secretary, told MPs the request would be co-operated with, and government ministers promised "firm, decisive and prompt action". Yet although Switzerland took only half an hour to begin freezing Egyptian regime assets following Mubarak's overthrow, the UK took 37 days to follow suit – a delay which critics say could have allowed assets to be liquidated and illicit funds to be moved offshore. And while Switzerland has frozen almost £500m of suspect Egyptian assets, the UK has frozen less than a fifth of that and returned none of it to Egypt. Meanwhile nearly half of Egypt's population lives below the poverty line, and the country's government has just agreed a controversial £3bn loan with the IMF to help stabilise its economy. Professor Mark Pieth, one of the world's leading authorities on cross-border asset recovery, said the revelations were not surprising. "As a citizen I would be outraged," he told the BBC. "But as a lawyer I would say it doesn't astonish me that much because I'm not sure that the rules on so-called PEPs [Politically Exposed People] are really fully implemented in the UK. The state is not bending over backwards yet to help." He added: "Egypt had a strong relationship to the west, and quite a strong relationship to the UK for that matter. "I'm thinking especially of all sorts of Arab banks with their subsidiaries in the City of London. If you go for a walk in the City you can see them – I'm pretty sure that Egyptian cronies of the Mubarak family and members of that system felt quite comfortable depositing money in the UK. "It's probably cosier to bring your money to your friends at an Arab bank in the City of London. "[For the British government] Egypt's military generals are probably still a guarantor for safety whereas the new parliament and the new president are probably looked on with reservation. "I would expect Britain is careful not to squarely go against the remnants of the old regime." Public records show a number of apparently unfrozen UK-based assets linked to Egyptian regime figures, some of whom are now in jail in Cairo for economic fraud. Gamal Mubarak was on a list published by the Treasury in March 2011 detailing 19 Egyptians whose assets were to be frozen. Yet MedInvest Associates, a London-based investment firm of which Gamal was a director, has never been frozen. Gamal subsequently stepped down as director and in February MedInvest was quietly dissolved voluntarily, potentially allowing its assets to be transferred abroad beyond the reach of investigators. Gamal Mubarak is also heavily linked with a £10m London home round the corner from Harrods department store. The Knightsbridge house is named as Mubarak's place of address in his company filings for MedInvest and listed as the Mubarak family home on the birth certificate of Gamal's daughter, born in London in 2010. But the property has not been frozen for investigation. Gamal is now in jail in Cairo, awaiting verdict on money laundering charges. Another figure on the Treasury's sanctions list has actually been allowed to open a new business in the UK. Naglaa el-Ghazarley, wife of former tourism and housing minister Ahmed el-Maghrabi – now serving a five-year jail sentence in Egypt for corruption – registered Essential Designs by Nejla last November, almost eight months after the UK promised to freeze her assets. The company's registered address in Chelsea also remains unfrozen. Tim Daniel, a lawyer specialising in asset recovery, said it was "extraordinary" that someone on the sanctions list could begin trading in the UK in this way. Judge Assem el-Gohari, the official in Egypt's ministry of justice responsible for tracing stolen funds, insists that he has challenged the UK authorities over their inaction, but was told in response that British investigators need more information to proceed. "The British government is obliged by law to help us but it doesn't want to make any effort at all to recover the money. It just says: Give us evidence. Is that reasonable? "We're in Egypt. How can we search for money in the UK? We believe the UK has breached international law and the anti-corruption agreements." Alistair Burt, minister for the Middle East and North Africa, denied Britain was not doing enough. "We are working closely with their [Egypt's] authorities to identify and restrain assets their courts have identified as stolen," he said. "It is crucial that the recovery and return of stolen assets is lawful. It is simply not possible for the UK to deprive a person of their assets and return them to an overseas country in the absence of a criminal conviction and confiscation order. "We are therefore working closely with the appropriate authorities in Egypt to help them understand the legal process and how to work with it effectively and efficiently, including through expert-to-expert contacts in the UK and Cairo, the signing of a memorandum of understanding on intelligence sharing with the Egyptian financial intelligence unit, and increased police-to-police intelligence co-operation." Andy Slaughter, the shadow justice minister, said the evidence unearthed by the investigation showed that the UK government is "effectively turning a blind eye" to money stolen from the Egyptian people. "Twenty minutes work by officials could have identified very substantial assets belonging to the old Egyptian regime. We used to be a place where international justice was seen to be done, and now we're turning a blind eye to every type of abuse," he said. • Egypt's Stolen Billions will be broadcast on BBC2's Newsnight on Monday and on the BBC Arabic channel for the next two weeks Sanctions and the lawThe international community uses financial sanctions to try to shape the behaviour of specific regimes and individuals, as well as to stop funds from slipping into terrorist hands and prevent those suspected of economic fraud from squirrelling their fortunes away beyond public reach. Sanctions are imposed at a supranational level by either the UN (under Article 41 of the UN charter) or the EU (under Article 11 of the Treaty of the EU), though in practice each nation retains its own set of legal procedures when it comes to setting and implementing sanctions and the energy with which they go about their task often depends on political will. With its huge financial centre and valuable property market, London is a global magnet for international assets, meaning that the British authorities are regularly called into action when sanctions are applied. The UK foreign office is responsible for setting overall policy regarding sanctions while a dedicated unit in the Treasury implements the sanctions themselves – usually by contacting private financial institutions like banks and investment funds and asking them to freeze relevant assets. The official British sanctions list (pdf) is constantly updated and currently runs to 74 pages, listing everyone from al-Qaida fugitives to Congolese warlords and North Korean politicians.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti is arrested after witnesses say he added pages of Qur'an to girl's bag The case against a Pakistani Christian girl potentially facing a death sentence for allegedly burning sacred Islamic texts has been thrown into doubt after her local mullah was arrested on accusations of tampering with evidence in order to frame her. Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti appeared in court on Sunday after witnesses claimed to have seen him adding pages of the Qur'an to a bag of ashes Rimsha Masih had been carrying away for disposal last month in order to strengthen the case against her. Although many of the cases brought under the country's much criticised blasphemy laws are thought to be spurious, the Rimsha case is thought to be the first time in the more than two decades since the laws were introduced that someone has been arrested for fabricating evidence. But while the dramatic turn of events delighted the girl's supporters, a prosecution lawyer insisted he would press ahead with the case against her. Last month a local man, Malik Hammad, spotted the girl with the ashes and accused her of burning a prayer book that included passages from the Qur'an, a particularly provocative form of blasphemy which can carry the death penalty. Police arrested the girl amid uproar in the neighbourhood of Mehrabadi, a poor area on the outskirts of Islamabad. Locals had been whipped into a frenzy by Chishti, who reportedly showed the burned pages to mosque-goers at evening prayers and led a crowd of people to Rimsha's house. But after two weeks of controversy during which the case has been criticised by both human rights groups and even hardline religious conservatives, three of Chishti's deputies have come forward to implicate the mullah. Hafiz Mohammad Zubair told Geo TV that he witnessed Chishti putting two pages of the Qu'ran into a plastic bag of ashes in order to strengthen the case against the girl. Zubair said: "I asked him what he was doing and he said this is the evidence against them and this is how we can get them out from this area." Chishti was brought blindfolded and handcuffed before a court in Islamabad on Sunday morning where he was ordered to remain in police custody for 14 days. Tahir Naveed Chaudhry from the All Pakistan Minority Committee said it had always maintained that evidence was planted on her. "And now it is proved that the whole story was only designed to dislocate the Christian people," he said. "He must be prosecuted under the blasphemy law as it will set a precedent against anyone else who tries to misuse that law." In a bail application made last week defence lawyers said Rimsha was just 13 years old and should therefore be tried under Pakistan's juvenile justice system. It also claimed the girl had Down's syndrome and therefore "cannot commit such a crime". On Sunday the head of the country's Ulema council, a board of senior clerics, demanded the punishment of Chishti and the immediate release of Rimsha. However, Rao Abdur Raheem, the lawyer representing the girl's accuser Hammad, said the development did not change his case. He said he was "1,000% sure" that her bail application, due to be heard on Monday, would be rejected. "Our case is totally separate from the case against Chishti," he said. "The man who accused him of adding pages from the Qur'an also confirmed that Rimsha burned a book containing verses from the Qur'an." Chishti had made no secret of his distaste for the several-hundred-strong Christian community of Mehrabadi, even appearing on national television to bemoan the noisiness of church services which he said had disturbed Muslim residents, the overwhelming majority in the area. He also welcomed the panicked departure of most of the Christians from the area following the furore. He had reportedly made an announcement from the mosque's loudspeaker telling them to leave the area. "We are not upset the Christians have left and we will be pleased if they don't come back," Chishti told the Guardian on 18 August. However, his actions may well have alienated the community's Muslim landlords who rely on poor Christian families to rent their properties. Human rights groups say the blasphemy laws are often used to settle vendettas and property disputes. People have been sentenced to long jail terms on extremely weak evidence, some of which cannot even be examined in court for fear of repeating the alleged blasphemy. Others have been killed by furious mobs, such as last July when a mentally ill man was dragged from a police station in Punjab province and burned alive in the street. Ali Dayan Hasan, head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said he hoped the arrest of Chishti would "act as a deterrent to further frivolous charges and will seek to temper this atmosphere of impunity with which extremists incite violence against vulnerable people in the name of blasphemy". But it is unlikely the controversy over Rimsha will lead to fundamental reform of Pakistan's blasphemy laws as the country gears up for an election. Last year two prominent politicians were assassinated by religious hardliners after speaking out against the law. Mumtaz Qadri, a former security guard who last year gunned down his boss, Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab at the time, is regarded by many Pakistanis as a hero for killing a man who had publicly criticised the blasphemy laws and given his backing to a Christian woman who had been sentenced to death for the crime.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Level of post-election Gallic gloominess comes close to all-time high – or low – recorded in 2005 under Jacques Chirac A new Socialist president and a freshly appointed leftwing government have not made the French especially happy, according to a poll that found two-thirds are pessimistic about the future. In the latest of a series of surveys carried out three months after François Hollande won office, 68% of those asked said they were worried for themselves and their family. The level of Gallic gloominess comes close to the all-time high – or low – recorded in 2005 shortly after Jacques Chirac was elected for a second term in office, when the pessimism was shared by 70% of people. Hollande's predecessor as president, the right-of-centre Nicolas Sarkozy, made only 50% of French people fearful for the future. Dimanche Ouest France, the newspaper that commissioned the survey, said 2005 was a "historic peak of measured pessimism" and that those with the most bleak outlook were those over 65 years old, small businessmen and women and the unemployed. The most cheerful, it declared, were labourers. "It's the first time that concern is so high at the start of a presidential mandate," the pollsters Ifop reported. It is not only opposition voters who see dark clouds ahead: 58% of Socialist party supporters said they had found little comfort in having the left in power for the first time in 15 years. A separate survey published a week ago found that Hollande's approval rating had steadily declined since his election victory in May, to 54%. The Socialist government has been hit by a 13-year high in unemployment and the announcement of widespread redundancies at Peugeot and the supermarket chain Carrefour.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | In the midst of a heated election, Mitt Romney's former company is among a dozen firms facing scrutiny over tax practices At least a dozen US private equity firms – including Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's former company - have been subpoenaed by the New York state attorney general as part of a probe into whether a tax strategy they employed is proper, a source familiar with the situation confirmed. Among the firms being targeted are Bain Capital, KKR & Co LP, TPG Capital LP, Apollo Global Management LLC and Silver Lake Partners LP, the source said. Bain was once headed by Romney, who hopes to unseat President Barack Obama in the upcoming US elections. The subpoenas, which were sent out in July, seek documents related to the conversion of fees these private equity firms charge for managing investors' assets into fund investments, the source said. This means the investigation predates the release last month of confidential Bain fund documents by Gawker that revealed such a practice. The practice is known as a "management fee waiver." As fund investments, the income would be taxed as capital gains, which attract rates around 15%. Without the conversion, the fees would be ordinary income, taxed at rates around 35%. Other firms that received subpoenas include Sun Capital Partners; Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; Crestview Partners; H.I.G. Capital; Vestar Capital Partners; and Providence Equity Partners. Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office, declined to comment. The firms were not immediately available for comment. The investigation comes in the midst of a heated US presidential election campaign. Romney has been scrutinized for his tenure as head of Bain, through which he amassed much of his estimated $250m fortune. The timing of the probe and Schneiderman's credentials as a Democrat could raise eyebrows in political circles. Romney's record at Bain is already a target of attack by President Barack Obama's campaign and has put an uncomfortable spotlight on the industry. A probe into a potential tax dodge by the industry could further play into the Democrats' hands. Romney earned about $13m in income over the past two years from carried interest, or the portion of a private equity fund's profits that goes to its managers, according to his campaign, which has issued a statement denying that he ever profited from using a management fee waiver. With the latest probe, Schneiderman, who has been in office for less than two years, follows in the footsteps of predecessors Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer, who played the role of sheriff of Wall Street. Schneiderman, who is co-chair of a mortgage crisis unit under Obama, has looked into mortgage practices at banks. Other high-profile cases involving financial institutions include an investigation of possible manipulation of the Libor benchmark international lending rates by banks. The tax probe is being conducted out of the New York Attorney General's Taxpayer Protection Bureau, which was set up in early 2011. The agency was established "to root out fraud and return money illegally stolen from New York taxpayers at no additional cost to the state," according to the AG's website. In April, the AG's office also sued Sprint Nextel Corp for more than $300m, accusing the company of tax fraud by deliberately not collecting or paying millions of dollars of taxes for its cell phone service. Private equity firms sometimes grant investors a waiver of their management fee - typically charged at 1-2% of investments - in exchange for being able to use that capital as their own investment income in the fund. The benefit for the investor is recouping the fee, while the fund manager gets extra incentive to make the fund perform well, but is also taxed less on this money. The internal revenue service has so far not banned such a practice, which some private equity fund managers argue is done to align their interests more with those of their investors rather than to reduce taxes. They point out that money that is secure for the fund manager as a management fee is being converted into carried interest, which is far from guaranteed.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Prosecutors drop charges against 270 miners accused of killing striking colleagues, but say they may be recharged later South African prosecutors have provisionally withdrawn murder charges against 270 miners who had been accused of killing 34 striking colleagues shot dead by police, but said they could be recharged when investigations were complete. Public anger had been mounting at the charges, made under an apartheid-era law under which the miners were deemed to have had a "common purpose" in the murder of their co-workers. The killing of the strikers last month at the Marikana mine, run by platinum producer Lonmin, was the worst such security incident since the end of white rule in 1994, and recalled scenes of apartheid-era state brutality. "Final charges will only be made once all investigations have been completed. The murder charges against the current 270 suspects will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court," Nomgcobo Jiba, the acting national director of prosecutions, said in a televised news conference. In all, 44 people were killed in the recent wave of violence stemming from an illegal strike and union turf war. Leading members of the ruling African National Congress had also expressed dismay at the charges as a public backlash grew. "We are all surprised and confused by the National Prosecuting Authority's legal strategy," the ANC's chief whip in parliament said on Friday. President Jacob Zuma has seen his support eroded over the killings and the state's handling of the matter, with his enemies saying he is more interested in protecting the mining industry and powerful labour groups than the miners.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Prosecutors drop charges against 270 miners accused of killing striking colleagues, but say they may be recharged later South African prosecutors have provisionally withdrawn murder charges against 270 miners who had been accused of killing 34 striking colleagues shot dead by police, but said they could be recharged when investigations were complete. Public anger had been mounting at the charges, made under an apartheid-era law under which the miners were deemed to have had a "common purpose" in the murder of their co-workers. The killing of the strikers last month at the Marikana mine, run by platinum producer Lonmin, was the worst such security incident since the end of white rule in 1994, and recalled scenes of apartheid-era state brutality. "Final charges will only be made once all investigations have been completed. The murder charges against the current 270 suspects will be formally withdrawn provisionally in court," Nomgcobo Jiba, the acting national director of prosecutions, said in a televised news conference. In all, 44 people were killed in the recent wave of violence stemming from an illegal strike and union turf war. Leading members of the ruling African National Congress had also expressed dismay at the charges as a public backlash grew. "We are all surprised and confused by the National Prosecuting Authority's legal strategy," the ANC's chief whip in parliament said on Friday. President Jacob Zuma has seen his support eroded over the killings and the state's handling of the matter, with his enemies saying he is more interested in protecting the mining industry and powerful labour groups than the miners.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Move comes amid effort to thoroughly vet members amid string of deadly insider attacks on soldiers of the US and its allies US Forces in Afghanistan said on Sunday they have suspended training new recruits to the Afghan Local Police (ALP) amid a spike in the number of insider attacks which are damaging trust between Afghans and their allies. The ALP is a militia, set up two years ago by US Forces, in villages where the national police force - a separate body trained by Nato - is weak. The ALP has been beset by allegations of abuse and widespread corruption. Rogue shootings have killed 45 Nato-led troops so far this year – and 15 last month alone – despite the coalition taking steps to try prevent the attacks, such as requiring foreign soldiers to carry loaded weapons at all times. In a statement, US Forces said they will temporarily suspend training of about 1,000 new ALP recruits while they re-vet members currently belonging to the 16,000-strong force. "We believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan Local Police," it said. A member of the ALP shot dead two troops from the US Special Forces last month. Other rogue attacks, such as the killing of three Australian troops this week, were carried out by men wearing the uniforms of the 350,000-strong Afghan army and police, trained by Nato. The ALP is a flagship project of US General David Petraeus, who was replaced last year by US General John Allen as commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan. Allen has said he believes around a quarter of insider killings are carried out by the Taliban who have managed to infiltrate Afghan security forces. The rest are sparked by other reasons, such as personal grudges. The insider killings are particularly troubling as security transition plans gather pace. Under those plans, all foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire