| |  | | | | | SHUTTING DOWN Feed My Inbox will be shutting down on January 10, 2013. To find an alternative service for email updates, visit this page. | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Account of events leading up to death of the US ambassador and three other Americans finds 'grossly inadequate' security Four US State Department officials have resigned after a damning investigation into the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, in Benghazi in on 11 September found "systematic failures" of leadership and "grossly inadequate" security. The report said that US personnel on the ground acted with "courage and readiness to risk their lives to protect their colleagues, in a near impossible situation" during two sustained attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi and a nearby annex that killed Stevens and three other American officials. But it also described confusion, lack of transparency and inadequate leadership at senior levels, and strongly criticised the use of a Libyan armed militia as security for the Benghazi consulate. Three of those who resigned were the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, Eric Boswell; the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, Charlene Lamb; and an official who was at first unidentified but later named by the Associated Press as Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary of state overseeing the Maghreb nations of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The independent review board – chaired by a former US ambassador, Thomas Pickering, with Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as his deputy – strongly condemned the handling of security by Lamb and Boswell, and their lack of co-operation. "Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the report said. Lamb appeared at a congressional hearing into the attack in October where she defended the security measures taken in Benghazi. "I made the best decisions I could with the information I had," she said. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she would implement all of the report's recommendations for improving the protection of US missions, some of which were classified. That includes asking Congress to permit a shift in spending to ramp up diplomatic security. Congress was briefed in secret on classified aspects of the report on Wednesday. It is expected to hold a public hearing on Thursday following months of mostly partisan attacks against the White House and the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who were accused of attempting to cover up al-Qaida involvement in what was described as a terrorist attack. The issue helped force Rice to withdraw her bid to become US secretary of state in the face of Republican hostility. But the report does not come to a conclusion as to who was responsible for the Benghazi killings, or what their links were. The report did not add a great deal to what is already known about the attack but it did discount the contentious claim which caused problems for Rice, and which she later rowed back on, that that the assault was prompted by protests in Cairo over an anti-Muslim video placed on the web by a man in California. It also provided insight into the ferocity of the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi saying it involved "arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars" against the main consulate compound, a security annex and on officials travelling between them. According to the timeline in the report, the attack began at about 9.40pm with "dozens of individuals, many armed" entering the consulate compound through the main gate. A US guard hit the alarm. He told the inquiry that there had been no warning from the militia assigned to defend the consulate or the unarmed security guards, and that some of them swiftly fled. The intruders grabbed cans of fuel used for the generator to set fire to one of the buildings in the compound and to burn cars. They then broke into a building which also housed the "safe area" where Stevens was being protected by US security officials. "Men armed with AK rifles started to destroy the living room contents and then approached the safe area gate and started banging on it," the report said. Then the attackers left, perhaps driven away by the smoke from the fire which engulfed the safe area and "made breathing difficult and reduced visibility to zero". Stevens and the two security men with him tried to escape the "thick, black smoke". The ambassador became separated. He was later found by Libyans who broke into the consulate and taken to hospital, but he was already dead from smoke inhalation. Another American official also died from the smoke. The US embassy in Tripoli scrambled to react, chartering a plane to carry seven security personnel to Benghazi. The US Africa Command also sent a surveillance drone over Benghazi. The report said that shortly after the security team from Tripoli arrived at the annex it came "under mortar and RPG attack, with five mortar rounds impacting close together in under 90 seconds". Two security personnel died in the fighting at the annex. The report blames a number of contributing factors for the security failures from budget cuts to the fact that security personnel relied too heavily on intelligence to warn of impending attacks and didn't pay enough attention to what was going on around them, including a series of assaults over previous months in the International Red Cross and British diplomats. At a press conference on Wednesday, Mullen criticised officials in Washington for rejecting requests from personnel in Benghazi for better security. "We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability," he said. "State Department bureaus that were supporting Benghazi had not taken on security as a shared responsibility, so the support the post needed was often lacking and left to the working level to resolve." Instead, security was assigned to a Libyan armed militia group, the February 17 Martyrs' Brigade (February 17), to protect the Benghazi consulate. Lamb defended that decision during her congressional testimony in October. But the report said this was clearly inadequate and that when the attacks came the militia neither raised the alarm nor stayed around to fight. "At the time of Ambassador Stevens' visit, February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying Special Mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours," the report said. It also said the Libyan government's response during the attack was "profoundly lacking". The report prompted strong criticism of the State Department by some politicians. "My impression is the State Department clearly failed the Boy Scout motto of be prepared," said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. "They failed to anticipate what was coming because of how bad the security risk already was there. … They failed to connect the dots. They didn't have adequate security leading up to the attack and once the attack occurred, the security was woefully inadequate." Another congressman, Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the House intelligence committee, said the report showed security was "plainly inadequate, intelligence collection needs to be improved, and our reliance on local militias was sorely misplaced".
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three men who worked for unnamed bank accused of conspiring with US clients to hide more than $420m, says attorney's office Three Swiss bankers accused of conspiring with US clients to hide more than $420m (£258.4m) from the tax-collecting US internal revenue service have been indicted, according to the US attorney's office in Manhattan. The indictment named Stephan Fellmann, Otto Huppi and Christof Reist, all former client advisers with an unnamed Swiss bank. None of the bankers have been arrested, authorities said. Their attorneys were not immediately known. The indictment said the unnamed bank did not have offices in the United States. Banking secrecy is enshrined in Swiss law and tradition, but it has recently come under pressure as the United States and other nations have moved aggressively to tighten tax law enforcement and have demanded more openness and cooperation. In April, two Swiss financial advisers were indicted in the US on charges of conspiring to help Americans hide $267m in secret bank accounts. In January, prosecutors charged three Swiss bankers with conspiring with wealthy taxpayers to hide more than $1.2bn in assets from tax authorities. UBS, the largest Swiss bank, in 2009 paid a $780mn fine as part of a settlement with US authorities who charged the bank with helping thousands of wealthy Americans to hide billions of dollars in assets in secret Swiss accounts.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ACLU seeks to prove refusal of driving licenses to those with 'deferred status', as in Arizona and Nebraska, is unconstitutional Three young undocumented immigrants who have been authorised to live and work in the US under Barack Obama's deportation reprieve have filed a lawsuit challenging a Michigan state policy that denies them driving licenses. They say the ban defies common sense, violates the US constitution and runs contrary to the Michigan governor's goal of his state coming to be the most "pro-immigration" in the nation. Michigan is one of three states to deny driving licenses to those who have recently been granted special "deferred status", after entering the country illegally as children. The lawsuit – brought by One Michigan, an organisation which advocates for immigrant youth – follows a similar action filed last month against Arizona governor Jan Brewer. Brewer provoked controversy when she issued an order to officials not to issue those with deferred status any state identification, including driving licenses. Nebraska has a similar policy. "Michigan's governor has said that his goal is to become the most 'pro-immigration' governor in the country; there is nothing more pro-immigration than allowing young people to fulfill their dreams of working and going to school," said Miriam Aukerman, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which filed the complaint with the National Immigration Law Center. In February, Rick Snyder, Michigan's Republican governor, said he wanted people to know he was the most "pro-immigration governor in the United States". The action, filed in the US district court for the eastern district of Michigan, in Detroit, on Wednesday, challenges Ruth Johnson, Michigan's secretary of state, who has decided that although those with "deferred status" are authorised to live and work in the US, they are not authorised to be present in the US. Aukerman said: "Secretary [Ruth] Johnson's argument that someone can be authorized to work, however somehow not authorized to be present in this country, defies common sense and breaks the law." Leen Nour El-Zayat, a third-year pre-medical student at Wayne State University who has lived in the US since she was eight, said she was concerned that she would not be able to continue her studies or work if she could not drive. "I need to be able to drive so I can get a job and attend medical school, which I have wanted to do since I was a little kid," said El-Zayat, 20, one of the three plaintiffs in the case. "I just want to serve as a role model for my younger siblings and continue contributing to my community." The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) order, passed by Obama in June allows undocumented young immigrants who came to the US as children to live and work in the US for a renewable period of two years. Obama came up with the order after failed attempts to pass the DREAM Act, which would have granted permanent residency to certain undocumented residents. An estimated 1.76 million young people in the US are eligible for the DACA programme, including 15,000 in Michigan and 80,000 in Arizona, according to the American Immigration Council. Michael Tan, a staff attorney at ACLU, said: "The [Michigan] secretary of state is under the erroneous view that people on DACA are not authorised to be present in the US. It is based on a erroneous interpretation of the law." Tan said this view ran contrary to DACA policy and had a "terrible real-life effect for the 15,000 people here. They cannot go about their daily lives, they can't get to work, to school". Tan, who said a similar legal challenge was being considered in Nebraska, said: "Michigan should not join Arizona and Nebraska in standing in the way of talented young immigrants who want to pursue their educational and career goals. We need to remove obstacles that prevent our youth from supporting their families, succeeding at school and contributing to a country they call home, and instead focus on common sense immigration reform." The complaint asks for a ruling that DACA recipients are legally authorized to be in the US and, therefore, are eligible for licenses. It also states that Michigan's policy violates the supremacy clause of the constitution by interfering with federal immigration law, and violates the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause by discriminating against certain non-citizens.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Account of events leading up to death of the US ambassador and three other Americans finds 'grossly inadequate' security Three US State Department officials have resigned after a damning investigation into the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, in Benghazi in on 11 September found "systematic failures" of leadership and "grossly inadequate" security. The report said that US personnel on the ground acted with "courage and readiness to risk their lives to protect their colleagues, in a near impossible situation" during two sustained attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi and a nearby annex that killed Stevens and three other American officials. But it also described confusion, lack of transparency and inadequate leadership at senior levels, and strongly criticised the use of a Libyan armed militia as security for the Benghazi consulate. Those who resigned included the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, Eric Boswell; the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, Charlene Lamb; and a third official who was not named. The independent review board – chaired by a former US ambassador, Thomas Pickering, with Admiral Michael Mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as his deputy – strongly condemned the handling of security by Lamb and Boswell, and their lack of co-operation. "Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the report said. Lamb appeared at a congressional hearing into the attack in October where she defended the security measures taken in Benghazi. "I made the best decisions I could with the information I had," she said. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she would implement all of the report's recommendations for improving the protection of US missions, some of which were classified. That includes asking Congress to permit a shift in spending to ramp up diplomatic security. Congress was briefed in secret on classified aspects of the report on Wednesday. It is expected to hold a public hearing on Thursday following months of mostly partisan attacks against the White House and the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who were accused of attempting to cover up al-Qaida involvement in what was described as a terrorist attack. The issue helped force Rice to withdraw her bid to become US secretary of state in the face of Republican hostility. But the report does not come to a conclusion as to who was responsible for the Benghazi killings, or what their links were. The report did not add a great deal to what is already known about the attack but it did discount the contentious claim which caused problems for Rice, and which she later rowed back on, that that the assault was prompted by protests in Cairo over an anti-Muslim video placed on the web by a man in California. It also provided insight into the ferocity of the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi saying it involved "arson, small arms and machine gun fire, and the use of RPGs, grenades, and mortars" against the main consulate compound, a security annex and on officials travelling between them. According to the timeline in the report, the attack began at about 9.40pm with "dozens of individuals, many armed" entering the consulate compound through the main gate. A US guard hit the alarm. He told the inquiry that there had been no warning from the militia assigned to defend the consulate or the unarmed security guards, and that some of them swiftly fled. The intruders grabbed cans of fuel used for the generator to set fire to one of the buildings in the compound and to burn cars. They then broke into a building which also housed the "safe area" where Stevens was being protected by US security officials. "Men armed with AK rifles started to destroy the living room contents and then approached the safe area gate and started banging on it," the report said. Then the attackers left, perhaps driven away by the smoke from the fire which engulfed the safe area and "made breathing difficult and reduced visibility to zero". Stevens and the two security men with him tried to escape the "thick, black smoke". The ambassador became separated. He was later found by Libyans who broke into the consulate and taken to hospital, but he was already dead from smoke inhalation. Another American official also died from the smoke. The US embassy in Tripoli scrambled to react, chartering a plane to carry seven security personnel to Benghazi. The US Africa Command also sent a surveillance drone over Benghazi. The report said that shortly after the security team from Tripoli arrived at the annex it came "under mortar and RPG attack, with five mortar rounds impacting close together in under 90 seconds". Two security personnel died in the fighting at the annex. The report blames a number of contributing factors for the security failures from budget cuts to the fact that security personnel relied too heavily on intelligence to warn of impending attacks and didn't pay enough attention to what was going on around them, including a series of assaults over previous months in the International Red Cross and British diplomats. At a press conference on Wednesday, Mullen criticised officials in Washington for rejecting requests from personnel in Benghazi for better security. "We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability," he said. "State Department bureaus that were supporting Benghazi had not taken on security as a shared responsibility, so the support the post needed was often lacking and left to the working level to resolve." Instead, security was assigned to a Libyan armed militia group, the February 17 Martyrs' Brigade (February 17), to protect the Benghazi consulate. Lamb defended that decision during her congressional testimony in October. But the report said this was clearly inadequate and that when the attacks came the militia neither raised the alarm nor stayed around to fight. "At the time of Ambassador Stevens' visit, February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying Special Mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours," the report said. It also said the Libyan government's response during the attack was "profoundly lacking". The report prompted strong criticism of the State Department by some politicians. "My impression is the State Department clearly failed the Boy Scout motto of be prepared," said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. "They failed to anticipate what was coming because of how bad the security risk already was there. … They failed to connect the dots. They didn't have adequate security leading up to the attack and once the attack occurred, the security was woefully inadequate." Another congressman, Adam Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the House intelligence committee, said the report showed security was "plainly inadequate, intelligence collection needs to be improved, and our reliance on local militias was sorely misplaced".
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Obama maintains optimism that an agreement can be reached as Republicans call White House posture 'irrational' Talks over a deal to avert the fiscal cliff appear to have collapsed into a war of words, with President Obama telling Republicans in Congress to "peel off the partisan war paint" and a spokesman for House speaker John Boehner calling the White House's posture "bizarre and irrational". Obama attempted to lay the blame for the lack of progress on the Republicans in the House of Representatives. "They keep on finding ways to say no, instead of finding ways to say yes," Obama told a news conference on Wednesday. But the president said he was still optimistic that he could reach an agreement with Boehner, the speaker of the House and the Republican leader in Congress, insisting that the two sides were not that far apart. "I'd like to get it done before Christmas. There's been a lot of posturing up on Capitol Hill instead of going ahead and getting stuff done, and we've been wasting a lot of time," Obama said. Boehner himself issued a terse response, calling on the president to back the "plan B" legislation being prepared by House Republicans, designed to avert looming tax increases for households earning less than $1m. "The president will have a decision to make. He can call on Senate and House Democrats to pass this bill. Or he could be responsible for the biggest tax increase in American history," Boehner said in a 51-second statement to the media, which ended abruptly when he left without answering questions. The tense stand-off comes after optimistic signals earlier in the week that the two sides were close to an agreement over budget cuts and revenue. That ended on Monday evening when Boehner informed the administration that Republicans were readying their "plan B". The White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate majority bluntly rejected the Republican stopgap measure, with the White House claiming that the "plan B" gave away too much in tax cuts to the wealthy and pledged to veto the bill if it passed. There has been no official contact between Obama and Boehner since then, with time running out before the automatic tax hikes and budget cuts scheduled to come into effect at the start of the new year. Boehner's "plan B" has taken a further beating from conservatives and GOP members of Congress. Although the measure was backed by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, two other influential conservative lobby groups – Heritage and the Club For Growth – condemned it for sanctioning a tax increase. "As leaders of broad-based American citizen groups, we call upon Republican House members to vote no on speaker Boehner's tax hike known as 'plan B'," read a letter from a coalition of conservative Republicans backed by the Club for Growth. The president was due to leave Washington on Friday and travel to Hawaii for Christmas with his family. But the White House says those plans have been put on hold, and that Obama will remain in he White House in an attempt to foster a deal. In his press conference – held to announce a task force to tackle gun violence, headed by vice-president Joe Biden – Obama made a reference to the tragic events in Newtown a few days earlier, saying that the nation wanted to see politicians in Washington willing to compromise so that more pressing concerns could be dealt with. "If you just pull back from the immediate, you know, political battles, if you kind of peel off the partisan war paint, then we should be able to get something done," he said. Earlier in the day, White House communication director Dan Pfeiffer described the Republican back-up plan as unbalanced. "The congressional Republican 'plan B' legislation continues large tax cuts for the very wealthiest individuals – on average, millionaires would see a tax break of $50,000 – while eliminating tax cuts that 25 million students and families struggling to make ends meet depend on." Pfeiffer added: "This approach does not meet the test of balance, and the president would veto the legislation in the unlikely event of its passage." In response, Boehner's spokesman Brendan Buck said: "The White House's opposition to a back-up plan to ensure taxes don't rise on American families is growing more bizarre and irrational by the day."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Senior executive resigns and three others moved after damning report on shelved Newsnight exposé of TV star's sexual abuse of children A scathing report into the BBC's handling of a shelved Newsnight exposé of Jimmy Savile revealed a culture of "suspicion and mistrust" at the corporation, riven by factions and in-fighting with "rigid management chains" that rendered it "completely incapable" of dealing with the scandal when it was exposed. One senior BBC executive resigned and another three were moved from their jobs following the publication of the 185-page report by Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News. After a six-week inquiry that examined more than 10,000 emails and other documents and interviewed 19 people, at a cost of £2m, Pollard described the scandal as "one of the worst management crises in the BBC's history". "This report shows that the level of chaos and confusion was even greater than was apparent at the time. The efforts to get to the truth behind the Savile story proved beyond the combined efforts of the senior management, legal department, corporate communications team and anyone else for well over a month," Pollard said. "Leadership and organisation seemed to be in short supply." Newsnight's investigation into allegations of child sex abuse by the late Jim'll Fix It presenter was abandoned last December. The corporation found itself engulfed in a crisis it could not control after the revelations were broadcast in an ITV documentary in October. Pollard said the decision to axe the Newsnight investigation into Savile was "deeply flawed" but "done in good faith" by the programme's editor, Peter Rippon. He dismissed any suggestion of a cover-up or that the Newsnight editor was put under "undue pressure" by his bosses ahead of two planned BBC tributes into Savile last Christmas. Former BBC director general George Entwistle was criticised as being "unnecessarily cautious" about the Savile investigation. Entwistle, who resigned at the height of the crisis in November following an erroneous Newsnight report about Lord McAlpine, claimed not to have read emails from two senior colleagues hinting at Savile's "dark side". BBC director of news Helen Boaden was censured for not taking "greater responsibility" as her division went into "virtual meltdown" in October and November. Boaden offered to resign at the height of the scandal, said the report, but the offer was not accepted by Entwistle. Boaden, who stepped aside from her job for the duration of the Pollard inquiry, will return to her role on Thursday. But her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, announced his retirement after publication of the report and will leave next year after 39 years with the BBC. Mitchell faced some of the toughest criticism in the report, with his decision to remove Newsnight's Savile report from a list of sensitive BBC programmes described by Pollard as a "serious mistake". Rippon and his deputy, Liz Gibbons, will move to new roles within the BBC, as will BBC Radio 5 Live controller Adrian Van Klaveren. He oversaw Newsnight's disastrous 2 November report that falsely linked McAlpine to an allegation of child sex abuse after Boaden and Mitchell were "recused" from Savile-related coverage. Gibbons was acting editor of Newsnight when it broadcast the inaccurate McAlpine story. A second report – published by the editorial standards committee of the BBC Trust – on Newsnight's McAlpine story revealed that three unnamed employees had been subject to disciplinary action following a "grave breach" of standards. In an email exchange with his programme's star presenter Jeremy Paxman, revealed in report, Rippon admitted he "may be guilty of self-censorship. In the end I just felt ... 40-year-old contestable claims about a dead guy was not a NN story and not worth the fuss". Rippon stood by his decision not to pursue the original Savile investigation. Culture secretary Maria Miller said the report "raises serious questions around editorial and management issues at the BBC and I look to the [BBC] trust to help tackle these". Pollard's report said the "most worrying aspect" of the affair was that the BBC showed a "complete inability to deal with the events that followed". There were harsh words about Rippon's blog, published on 2 October, explaining why Newsnight dropped its Savile investigation in December 2011. The BBC was later forced to admit the blog contained factual inaccuracies and correct it – but this took nearly three weeks. "The preparation of the blog can only be described as chaotic. When clear leadership was required, it was not provided," Pollard concluded. He said there had been a "complete breakdown in communication all the way up the chain, effectively from Peter Rippon to George Entwistle". He added, at a press conference following the report's publication: "There was an element of personal difficulty between the key personalities as well, that's quite shocking in a way. Newsrooms can only operate on the basis of trust and mutual confidence and discussion. A lot of that was missing." Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, said he welcomed the report's findings that there was no corporate cover-up of the Newsnight report, saying it was an allegation that went "right to the heart of the BBC's reputation and integrity". But he said the affair had revealed a "lack of professional camaraderie and a lack of collegiate behaviour which I find pretty surprising". Responding to the report, journalist Liz MacKean, who worked with producer Meirion Jones on the shelved Newsnight report, said the BBC's decision not to run it was a "breach of our duty to the women who trusted us to reveal that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile" Jones added: "The BBC pulled the investigation and ran the tributes into Sir Jimmy Savile that caused all this chaos and let down the victims and trust in the BBC – I hope the BBC now takes measures to make sure nothing like that ever happens again." Tim Davie, the BBC's acting director general until Lord Hall takes up the role in March, admitted the BBC had "taken a hit" in terms of public trust. The BBC said "proportionate" action would be taken against a "small number of individuals" as a result of the Pollard report's findings. Asked why no one had been fired, Davie said: "I would say 'go to the report, look at it calmly and think what is fair and proportionate. That is not to say there aren't learnings for many people from this affair, but that doesn't necessitate summary dismissals or disciplinary action." Sir John Tusa, the former head of the BBC's World Service and a former presenter of Newsnight, called for a root-and-branch review of the news and current affairs operation at the BBC. He blamed "over-management and over-bureaucratisation" at the corporation and added: "An organisation that allowed that sort of structure to grow up so that people can't make decisions, has got something to do – it has got to be cleared out." Entwistle, who quit after 54 days in the job following a much-criticised interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said he was "pleased that the Pollard report makes it clear I played no part whatever in Newsnight's decision not to broadcast the Savile investigation - just as I was not personally to blame in any way for the journalistic failures on Newsnight when it broadcast its erroneous report about the North Wales care home". Former BBC director general Mark Thompson, now chief executive of the New York Times, was spared particular criticism in the Pollard report. It said there was "no reason to doubt" Thompson's testimony that he had not focused on the controversy and had not read other media stories about the aborted Savile investigation.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | President pledges to force action on gun control as politicians implored to summon 'courage' in wake of Newtown massacre Barack Obama is to put the issue of tackling gun violence at the heart of his second term, placing his vice-president in charge of a task force to produce concrete proposals on the reform of firearm laws within weeks. In an announcement that places him on a collision course with entrenched and powerful vested interests, Obama pledged on Wednesday to force action on one of the most emotive issues in the US. Aware of the dangers of letting the emotion released by the Newtown shootings fade, he ordered the task force, under vice-president Joe Biden, to produce legislation that could be sent to Congress in January. "This time, the words need to lead to action," he said, referring to past massacres in which a sense of public outrage failed to translate into legislation. The gun issue was not part of Obama's election campaign in 2008 or again this year. But the killings in Connecticut of 20 small children and six teaching staff has changed the president's attitude. Teachers died trying to shield the children. It was time for politicians, Obama said, to display "one tiny iota of courage those teachers in Newtown summoned on Friday". Obama's comments were welcomed by the most high-profile advocate of gun control, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who only a few days ago had been scathing about the president's apparent lack of commitment. "I was very encouraged by the president's strong statement and his announcement is an important step in the right direction. The country needs his leadership if we are going to reduce the daily bloodshed from gun violence that we have seen for too long," Bloomberg said. Speaking at a White House press conference, Obama made it clear that the Connecticut shootings had changed the debate in the US. "I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this," Obama said. "It won't be easy, but that can't be an excuse not to try." Proposals on tackling gun violence will be in his inauguration speech on 21 January. "There is no doubt this has to be a central issue," he said. The task force will look at changing gun laws, improving access to mental health care and at what Obama described as the glorification of violence in American culture. Speaking as more funerals were held in Newtown, he dismissed the idea that the American public did not have the attention span that required them to maintain support for new gun controls. "I have more confidence in the American people than that," he said. "I hope our memories are not so short that … we don't remain passionate about it a month later," he added. For decades, successive presidents and members of Congress from both parties have avoided dealing with the gun violence because of the opposition they were certain to face. In recent history, Bill Clinton came the closest to taking action, when he backed the legislation in 1994 that banned automatic weapons, though the Bush administration allowed this to lapse in 2004. The photographs of victims aged only six and seven and the bravery of their teachers appears to have changed American attitudes more than earlier shooting sprees. It has also created a fear among parents and children who had wrongly assumed that at least elementary schools were safe. At the press conference, Obama ran through a list of fatalities that had taken place across America since the Newtown shooting. Emphasising the point about how easy it is to obtain weapons, an 11-year-old boy in Utah took a handgun, though unloaded, to school on Monday, saying he wanted it to protect himself in case of a repeat of what had happened in Newtown. He has been detained on weapons charges. The National Rifle Association, which has led opposition to almost every piece of gun legislation, issued a statement on Tuesday saying it was prepared to make "meaningful contributions". It will face questions on Friday at its first press conference since Newtown to elaborate on whether or not it will oppose measures proposed by the White House that include a ban on automatic weapons, for reducing the number of bullets in a magazine and for eliminating loopholes that allow for sales at gun shows without the same background checks as at a store. Obama, in a direct message to the NRA, said that many of its members were mothers and fathers who had been touched by Newtown and he hoped the organisation would reflect on that. Some senators backed by the NRA have come out in favour of change as a result of Newtown. Others who have lain low were beginning to emerge to say that the atrocity had not changed their views and they will oppose any changes to existing gun laws. Representative Robert Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, who is to chair the House judiciary committee, expressed opposition to new legislation in response to Newtown. "We're going to take a look at what happened there and what can be done to help avoid it in the future, but gun control is not going to be something that I would support," Goodlatte told Roll Call. Obama showed irritation with Congress, which has held up for years the appointment of a new director the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, an important position in the fight against gun crime. He bristled at the press conference when a reporter, Jake Tapper of ABC News, asked him why as president he had not tackled gun reform until now. "Where have you been?" Tapper asked. Obama, usually imperturbable in public, said he had not been "on vacation" and was busy with the economic crisis and two wars. After a minute or two, he gathered himself and said the Newtown shooting required all Americans, himself included, to reflect.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | United Nations estimates that almost £1bn is needed to slow 'dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation' in Syria If any doubt lingered that the crisis in Syria was grave and getting worse, the decision by the United Nations to launch its biggest aid appeal to date has doused it. The UN, which estimates it will need $1.5bn (£0.9bn) to slow a "dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation" in Syria, made the plea for aid in unusually strident terms. The facts on the ground are stark and irrefutable. At least 1.5 million people, possibly as many as 2.2 million, are internally displaced and that figure is growing daily. Over the past three days alone, an estimated 150,000 Palestinians have fled Syria's largest refugee camp. Thousands of Palestinians in the 11 other camps are also reported to be considering leaving as violence steadily drives them from their refuges. Collectively, the numbers of Syrians on the move dwarf any refugee crisis in recent memory. They are fleeing cities that have become ghettoised, initially through the rampant destruction of regime shelling and lately through an uncompromising two-way fight that is whittling away historical cities and starving their inhabitants. Aleppo, and its surrounds, is now one of the hungriest places on Earth. Those who have fled have done so to survive – and not just because of the shelling. Many who remain in the rebel-held east of the city have the gaunt and haunted look of the chronically undernourished, with plaintive eyes desperately seeking respite. Parts of Aleppo, much of Homs and even sections of Damascus are now in worse shape than even Sarajevo or Grozny ever were. The UN is trying to raise $520m to cater for the needs of the 4 million people, almost a quarter of Syria's total population, who it thinks may need help by next summer. Another $1bn will be needed to meet the needs of about 1 million refugees who have fled to neighbouring states. That figure is close to double the number of refugees registered in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. "Violence in Syria is raging across the country and there are nearly no more safe areas where people can flee and find safety," Radhouane Nouicer, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria, has said. Much work needs to be done to turn the sought-after dollars into meaningful aid deliveries. Hubs desperately need to be established near border points. Agreements to secure supply lines have to be urgently struck with opposition groups. Political risks need to be taken, not just by global leaders, but by the chiefs of the humanitarian groups themselves, who are good at recognising need, but also adept at falling behind protocols that act as choke points. Big decisions also need to be taken elsewhere as Syria sinks further towards catastrophe. Lebanon has limited capacity to take in fleeing Palestinians; Jordan does not seem to want them; and the journey to Turkey is too dangerous. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, demanded that fleeing Palestinians should be allowed to enter the West Bank. The move would require the consent of Israel, which controls the borders, but it has yet to respond. By nightfall on Wednesday, the appeal had still to be lodged with the UN Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugee issues in the territories. The stakes in Syrian are enormous and the UN recognition of the scale of the crisis is a historic moment. But failure to get the aid moving soon will mean the next landmark could be even worse.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Charges come as Swiss bank was fined $1.2bn (£940m) by global regulators for manipulating the key rate Two former UBS employees have been charged by the US authorities in connection with allegations they attempted to rig Libor just hours after Swiss bank UBS was fined $1.2bn (£940m) by global regulators for manipulating the key rate. The bank was found to have made corrupt payments to brokers in an "extensive and widespread" attempt to manipulate key benchmark interest rates. The £160m portion of the fine levied by the Financial Services Authority is the largest ever imposed by the City regulator and surpasses the previous record – the £59.5m imposed on Barclays in June for attempted manipulation of the Libor and Euribor rates. The total Barclays fine was £290m, and led to the resignation of chief executive Bob Diamond days later but the FSA said the UBS offences were "considerably more serious". At UBS at least 2,000 requests for "inappropriate submissions" to the key rates were documented and at least 45 individuals "including traders, managers and senior managers were involved in, or aware of, the practice of attempting to influence submissions", the FSA said. The FSA feared every one of those submissions was potentially suspicious. In an agreement with the US department of justice, the Japanese arm of UBS pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud, and is paying US regulators a total of £740m. It is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the City, following the record £1.2bn fine on HSBC for money laundering and £415m penalty levied on Standard Chartered for Iranian sanction-busting. In Washington, attorney general Eric Holder said two former UBS employees – Tom Hayes and Roger Darin – had been charged with conspiracy and that Hayes was also charged with wire fraud and an antitrust violation. "By causing UBS and other financial institutions to spread false and misleading information about Libor, these alleged conspirators – and others at UBS – manipulated the benchmark interest rate upon which many consumer financial products – including credit cards, student loans, and mortgages – are frequently based," Holder said. The City regulator, the FSA, said UBS had colluded with interdealer brokers to influence submissions to the yen Libor rate and that corrupt brokerage payments of thousands of pounds a quarter were made to reward brokers for their efforts to manipulate the Libor submissions of other banks on the Libor panel. The UBS fine exposes the full scale of the attempts to manipulate the two rates – London interbank offered rate (Libor) and the Euro interbank offered rate (Euribor). In its report the FSA said it had found a UBS trader agreeing with a counterpart that he would attempt to manipulate UBS's submissions in "small drops" in order to avoid arousing suspicion. The trader made it clear that he hoped to profit from the manipulation and referred explicitly to his UBS trading positions and the impact of the Japanese Libor rate on those positions. He offered to "return the favour" and entered into illicit transactions in order to incentivise and reward his counterparts. For example, on 18 September 2008, a trader explained to a broker: "if you keep 6s [i.e. the six month Japanese yen Libor rate] unchanged today … I will fucking do one humongous deal with you … Like a 50,000 buck deal, whatever … I need you to keep it as low as possible … if you do that … I'll pay you, you know, 50,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars … whatever you want … I'm a man of my word". Illicit fees of more than £170,000 were generated for the broker. Five internal audits had failed to uncover the attempts to manipulate Libor. Tracey McDermott, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "The findings we have set out in our notice do not make for pretty reading. The integrity of benchmarks such as Libor and Euribor are of fundamental importance to both UK and international financial markets. UBS traders and managers ignored this. "UBS's misconduct was all the more serious because of the orchestrated attempts to manipulate the Japanese yen Libor submissions of other banks, as well as its own, and the collusion with interdealer brokers and other panel banks in co-ordinated efforts to manipulate the fix." The Swiss regulator Finma said that most of the requests were made by one trader who worked in Tokyo from 2006 to 2009. "The same trader also contacted employees at third-party banks and independent brokers, thereby seeking to influence the Libor submissions of third-party banks," Finma said. Finma is requiring the bank – which had to be bailed out by Switzerland during the 2008 financial crisis – to pay Sfr59m (£40m) in disgorgement of profits. UBS has already cleared out its top management. The latest reshuffle took place last year when a rogue trading incident was uncovered and led to the jailing last month of former trader Kweku Adoboli. Sergio Ermotti, the chief executive, said the "misconduct" does not reflect the values of the firm. "We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behaviour. No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of this firm and we are committed to doing business with integrity," Ermotti said. He said that 30 or 40 people had now left the bank. UBS will now report a loss this quarter as a result of the penalties. Investigations continue into banks and other financial firms as part of the global probe into rate rigging. Royal Bank of Scotland is in settlement talks over its role. A criminal investigation into Libor has begun and the Serious Fraud Office arrested three men last week.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | MP who was on board flotilla that attempted to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza in 2010 has faced long campaign for expulsion An Israeli-Arab politician who took part in an attempt to breach the blockade of Gaza has been disqualified from standing in next month's general election after being accused of undermining the state of Israel. The central elections committee voted 19-9 to back a motion brought by rightwingers against Haneen Zoabi's candidacy. The decision has been automatically referred to the supreme court, which must rule before the end of the month. Before the hearing, Zoabi said her disqualification would mean "disqualifying an entire generation of young Arabs". Danny Danon, a member of parliament for the ruling Likud party who presented a 11,000-signature petition calling for Zoabi's disqualification, told the Guardian: "Her place is not in the Knesset [Israeli parliament] but in jail. Democracy must have its limits." Zoabi had worked "against the interests of the state and for our enemies," he added. One of 11 MPs representing Arab parties, Zoabi has faced a robust campaign since she took part in a flotilla of ships attempting to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza in May 2010. Nine Turkish activists were killed when Israeli commandos stormed the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, on which Zoabi was a passenger. Her parliamentary privileges were revoked but an attempt to bring criminal charges against her failed. She was assigned special protection after a number of death threats were made against her. The committee cited Zoabi's participation in the flotilla as the chief reason for her disqualification. David Rotem, an MP for the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, told the committee: "To say that a member of Knesset was aboard the Mavi Marmara does not constitute the critical mass equalling support for a terrorist organisation reflects a lack of understanding of what happened aboard that ship." Another far-right MP, Michael Ben-Ari, said the aim of the disqualification was to ensure "our kids will be able to live in a normal Jewish state, not one in which 30 Zoabis serve in the Knesset". Jamal Zahalka, the leader of Zoabi's Balad party, earlier said his party would boycott the election in the event of her disqualification. "Our problem is not that we are terrorists but rather that we are democrats in an environment that does not believe in democracy," he said. "We are tired of apologising for demanding full equality for all Israeli citizens. We're tired of sitting in the dock for being patriotic Palestinians." Israel's attorney general had advised that there were insufficient grounds to disqualify Zoabi. The committee voted against disqualifying Balad and another party representing Arab citizens of Israel, Ra'am-Ta'al, from fielding candidates. It has yet to consider petitions to bar three religious Jewish parties.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Part one of an exclusive Royal Ballet performance of the Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Obama asks Biden to bring government agencies together to address gun violence in America in wake of Newtown shootings Barack Obama will announce on Wednesday that Joe Biden, the vice-president, will lead an effort to come up with policies to address gun violence amid calls for action following the massacre of 27 people including 20 children in Connecticut last week. The president is not expected to announce policy decisions but instead lay out the process by which his administration will move forward, White House aides said. Obama has turned to Biden in the past to take a role in high-profile policy initiatives, such as efforts to seek a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011. Biden's mission – to co-ordinate a process among government agencies to formulate policies in the wake of the Newtown shootings – comes just days after an attack that appears to have generated a national outcry for greater efforts to stem gun violence. The Connecticut massacre was the fourth shooting attack to claim multiple lives in the United States this year. The president issued a call to action at a memorial service in Newtown on Sunday, demanding changes to the way the United States deals with gun violence. Obama said that in coming weeks he would "use whatever power this office" holds to start efforts to preventing further such tragedies. However, gun control has been a low priority for most US politicians due to the widespread popularity of guns in America and the clout of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun industry lobby. The constitutional right to bear arms is seen by many Americans as set in stone, and even after mass shootings, politicians have tiptoed around specific steps to limit access to lethal weapons. Even so, the horror of the Newtown killings, in which a 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother before shooting dead 20 children aged six and seven and six adults before killing himself, has provoked an apparent change of heart in some politicians who have previously opposed gun control. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would back US senator Dianne Feinstein's effort to reinstate an assault weapons ban. The president also would favor any law to close a loophole related to gun-show sales, he said. Efforts to limit high-capacity gun ammunition clips would be another area of interest, Carney said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow how the day unfolded after the UN launched a record $1.5bn appeal for Syria as the rapidly deteriorating crisis forced it to revise aid plans
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Daughter of dictator Park Chung-hee narrowly beats liberal Moon Jae-in election that has fired national imagination Park Geun-hye, whose father ruled South Korea with an iron first for 18 years, became the country's first female president on Wednesday, narrowly beating her opponent in one of the most divisive elections for years. With more than 70% of the votes counted, Park led with 51.6%, while her only rival, Moon Jae-in, was on 48%, according to the national election commission. TV pictures showed Park being mobbed by flag-waving supporters outside her home in the Gangnam district of Seoul as it became clear she had fended off a late surge by Moon. She later thanked her staff before making a brief appearance in front of crowds in central Seoul. Her victory, she said, was a sign that the country's economy would recover. Moon, a leftwing former human rights lawyer from the Democratic United party, conceded defeat and congratulated Park on her victory. Park, 60, had to overcome resentment towards her privileged background and accusations that her Saenuri party was too close to the powerful chaebol conglomerates that dominate the South Korean economy. While her gender was a frequent talking point among pundits, it did not appear to have been a major influence on voters. The election has captivated South Koreans, who turned out to vote in huge numbers despite below-freezing conditions. The country's election commission put turnout at 75.8%, the highest in 15 years. Moon, who appealed more to younger voters, had stated that he needed a turnout of 77%to stand a chance of making it to the presidential Blue House. Many voters were divided over Park's suitability to tackle mounting economic problems, improve welfare for a rapidly aging population and improve relations with North Korea after five years of deteriorating cross-border ties under the current hardline president, Lee Myung-bak. The legacy of her father, Park Chung-hee, continued to divide the country 33 years after his death. Older, conservative voters credit him with promoting rapid industrialisation and laying the foundations for the powerful economy of today. Others, though, have never forgotten his ruthless crackdowns against opponents, some of whom were tortured or executed, and blame him for delaying the arrival of democracy. Moon, 59, was among the democracy activists imprisoned during Park's rule, which ended in 1979 when he was assassinated by his intelligence chief. Five years earlier, Park Geun-hye, then aged just 22, had been forced into the role of first lady after her mother, Yuk Young-soo, was killed by a North Korean assassin's bullet intended for her husband. Fond memories of her mother, South Korea's most popular first lady, and a belief that she had inherited her father's determined streak, may have given Park the vital few votes that secured her victory. "Park is good-hearted, calm and trustworthy," said Lee Hye-young, a 50-year-old housewife from Seoul. "And I think she would handle North Korea better. Moon would want to make too many concessions to North Korea." Park Hye-sook, a 67-year-old president of the capital, said she trusted Park. "She will save our country. Her father rescued the country." North Korea did not become a major issue in the election until last week, when it successfully launched a rocket and sent a satellite into orbit. Both candidates said they would seek greater engagement with the North, although Park may have benefited from her demand that the regime abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Park, who said she had never married or had children so she could devote her life to public service, will inherit a formidable array of economic problems when she takes office on 25 February. Inequality and youth unemployment have increased under Lee, who by law cannot seek a second term, and the economy is forecast to grow this year at its slowest pace since 2009.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US Treasury plans to sell remaining stake of 300m shares on open market as government looks set to lose billions on bailout General Motors is to spend $5.5bn to buy back some of the shares owned by the US Treasury, which says it plans to sell its remaining stake in the company over the next 15 months. GM said on Wednesday it will buy back 200m shares of its stock from the Treasury by the end of this year. The government, in turn, plans to sell its remaining stake of 300m shares on the open market over the next 12 to 15 months. GM will pay $27.50 for each share, about an 8% premium over Tuesday's closing price of $25.49. The shares shot up more than 8% in pre-market trading to $27.57. The deal almost certainly means that the government will lose billions on a $49.5bn bailout that saved GM from being auctioned off in pieces during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. GM's buyback will cut the Treasury's stake to 19% from 26.5%. For it to break even, Treasury would have to sell the remaining 300m shares for average of about $70. For GM, getting the government out of its business removes a major business obstacle. GM chief financial officer Dan Ammann told reporters that GM has market research showing that government ownership has held down sales of the company's cars and trucks. "This is fundamentally good for the business," he said at a hastily called news conference Wednesday morning. The government got its stake as part of the bailout of GM that began nearly four years ago. The Treasury Department said in a statement that it would sell the remaining 19% stake "in an orderly fashion" within the next 12 to 15 months, subject to market conditions. Treasury said it will have recovered more than $28.7bn of its investment through repayments of loans, sales of stock, dividends, interest and other income after GM buys back the 200m shares. But that leaves Treasury about $21bn short of recouping its investment. In 2008 and 2009, the US Treasury bailed out GM to help stabilize and restructure the company at the trough of the financial crisis. The bailouts of GM and Chrysler were part of the $700bn Trouble Asset Relief Program created by Congress during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008. "The auto industry rescue helped save more than a million jobs during a severe economic crisis," said Timothy Massad, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability. "The government should not be in the business of owning stakes in private companies for an indefinite period of time." Massad said that exiting the GM investment "is consistent with our dual goals of winding down TARP as soon as practicable and protecting taxpayer interests." Although GM is paying a premium for the government shares, Ammann said it's still a good deal for GM shareholders. The number of shares on the market will reduced about 11% which should increase the value of the remaining shares. The move was approved by the GM board on Tuesday evening after the company got opinions from its management and financial advisers, GM said. Government-ordered pay restrictions will remain in effect. But a ban on corporate jet ownership and requirements on manufacturing a certain percentage of GM cars and trucks in the US will be lifted. GM says it already has exceeded the manufacturing requirements and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The company said it has no immediate plans to buy or lease corporate jets.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Islamic militants blamed for killings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the day after five health workers died in similar attacks Three more health workers vaccinating children against polio have been shot dead in Pakistan in attacks blamed on Islamic militants, bringing the total killed this week to eight. Wednesday's attacks all took place in the restive western frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – one just outside the city of Peshawar and two others in the town of Charsadda. Two men and a woman have been killed. The volunteers were taking part in a three-day government-led drive, supported by the World Health Organisation and Unicef, to vaccinate tens of millions of children at risk from polio in Pakistan. After a decades-long struggle by multilateral organisations, governments and NGOs worldwide, the disease is now endemic only in three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. On Tuesday, a teenage volunteer was killed in Peshawar and four others were killed in the southern city of Karachi. It was not clear who was behind the shootings but Taliban insurgents have repeatedly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a western plot. Relatives of those shot earlier this week said several of the victims had received death threats in recent days. Some confusion has emerged about whether and to what extent the anti-polio drive has been halted after a security meeting between officials in the hours following Tuesday's killings. The United Nations in Pakistan has pulled all staff involved in the campaign off the streets, Michael Coleman, a spokesman, said. However, the Pakistani government said immunisation had continued in some areas without UN support, although many workers refused to go out. Women health workers held protests in Karachi and the capital, Islamabad. "We go out and risk our lives to save other people's children from being permanently handicapped, for what? So that our own children become orphans?" Ambreen Bibi, a health worker, said at the Islamabad protest. Government officials admit they have been caught off guard by the violence, saying they had not foreseen attacks in areas far from the Taliban strongholds in the north-west of the country. "We didn't expect such attacks in Karachi," said Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, minister for human rights, who oversees the polio campaign. Some Islamists and Muslim preachers in Pakistan say the polio vaccine is a western plot to sterilise Muslims to stop population growth. Other religious leaders have tried to counter that myth. However there has been a severe backlash against immunisation for polio and other diseases in Pakistan since the CIA used a local doctor to set up a fake vaccination programme as the agency closed in on Osama bin Laden in his hiding place in the northern town of Abbottabad last year. In July, a Ghanaian doctor was shot in Karachi, a day after leaders of factions of the Pakistani Taliban reaffirmed a ban on immunisation in the country's restive tribal areas. Statistics released in October showed an improvement in the polio situation in Pakistan, with 47 children paralysed in 27 districts compared with 154 in 48 districts in 2011. However, in 2005 only 28 new cases were registered. Officials and campaigners say there is reason to be optimistic that polio can be eradicated in Pakistan if a "final push" can be made. In neighbouring India, a mass vaccination campaign involving more than a million volunteers reduced cases nationally from 741 to 42 between 2009 and 2010, and down to a single case last year.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | US president tells Paul Kagame that backing rebel group in eastern Congo is 'inconsistent with desire for stability and peace' Barack Obama has urged the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, to halt support for rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a move welcomed by critics of Kagame's government. The United States, and in particular its UN ambassador, Susan Rice, have been accused of turning a blind eye to Rwanda's meddling in its neighbour, partly because of residual guilt over the 1994 genocide. But in a phone call to Kagame, Obama "underscored that any support to the rebel group M23 is inconsistent with Rwanda's desire for stability and peace". The White House said the US president stressed "the importance of permanently ending all support to armed groups in the DRC, abiding by the recent commitments he made… and reaching a transparent and credible political agreement that includes an end to impunity for M23 commanders and others" who committed rights abuses. Obama "welcomed President Kagame's commitment to moving forward in finding a peaceful solution" in eastern Congo, it added. A recent UN report presented detailed evidence that the Rwandan government is backing the rebels, a charge that Kagame's government has repeatedly denied. M23 members have allegedly perpetrated rapes, recruited child soldiers and carried out summary executions in eastern Congo. America has been criticised for a muted response. Rice, who is close to Kagame, delayed the UN report's publication for weeks and prevented a security council resolution from explicitly naming Rwanda as a supporter of M23. While Britain and others have suspended financial support to Rwanda, the US cut only $200,000 (£128,000) of military aid from a programme worth around $200m. Last week 15 leading campaign groups and thinktanks wrote to Obama accusing him of a failed policy and called for the president to impose sanctions. His intervention has been hailed as potentially signalling a new, tougher approach. "It's good news for us," said Jean-Baptiste Ryumugabe of the Rwandan opposition Social Party Imberakuri. "We hope Paul Kagame will listen to President Obama because up to now many presidents and many organisations have asked him to stop fuelling the rebel group in eastern Congo but he refused. We have to hope he will now react positively." Ryumugabe called for the US to take further measures such as cutting financial aid and limiting visas for travel to the US. "They have many things they can do to stop this aggression," he said. Other Rwandan opposition groups said they were "greatly encouraged" by Obama's remarks. "It is absolutely important that the United States has taken this important and crucial step in seeking to bring president Paul Kagame to account for his actions in the Democratic Republic of Congo," said a letter addressed to Obama by the Rwanda National Congress and FDU-Inkingi. "Your voice and effort to bring Rwandan leaders of the M23 rebellion to account will be instrumental in stopping and reversing the carnage in DRC." But some questioned why Obama did not speak out sooner. Carina Tertsakian, senior researcher on Rwanda for Human Rights Watch, said: "They've lagged behind in terms of coming out strongly to denounce Rwandan support for M23. They've been unforthcoming. "Obama's words come quite late given how far the situation in eastern DRC has deteriorated in recent months, but we welcome talks at such a high level." In a further sign that US patience is wearing thin, the treasury department has imposed sanctions against two leaders of M23, Baudoin Ngaruye and Innocent Kaina, who are accused of using child soldiers. Ngaruye was cited for targeting children through "killing, maiming, and sexual violence". The move comes just weeks after a UN security council sanctions committee added the two men to its consolidated travel ban and asset-freeze list. Tertsakian urged the US to impose sanctions on senior Rwandan officials, including the defence minister and army chief of staff, because of their links to the rebellion in Congo. The US has launched a fresh appeal for the arrest and prosecution of Sylvestre Mudacumura, the head of Rwanda's main Hutu rebel group, and Congo's Bosco Ntaganda, an ex-general who spurred the ongoing mutiny in the east. Both are the subject of outstanding international criminal court warrants. M23 seized the strategic town of Goma in eastern Congo on 20 November as Congolese troops retreated to the nearby town of Minova. An investigation by the UN has found at least two deaths and 126 cases of rape in and around Minova in the 10 days that followed. Nine Congolese army soldiers have been arrested.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Latest anti-austerity protest comes after six-notch credit rating upgrade underlines that 'Grexit' is no longer a pressing danger to the euro area
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Strategy of killing gang leaders has led to proliferation of smaller and more dangerous groups, says new attorney general The fracturing of Mexico's organised crime syndicates by a government-led crackdown on drug cartels has created between 60 and 80 new trafficking gangs, according to the nation's attorney general – far more than were active six years ago. Speaking on Mexican radio on Tuesday, the attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said former president Felipe Calderón's efforts to stamp out drug trafficking by going after the kingpins had only succeeded in splintering the gangs, spawning many smaller and more dangerous criminal syndicates. The critique extended an attack by President Enrique Peña Nieto's new government on Calderón's security policy, which focused on killing and capturing the heads of cartels. Murillo Karam told MVS Radio officials were working to identify all of the country's 60 to 80 small- and medium-sized drug trafficking gangs. In its last public evaluation of the strength of Mexico's cartels, the Calderón administration issued a report in August naming only eight large organisations. It said, however, that at least one cartel – the Beltrán-Leyva group – had split into fragments after a government offensive that killed its leader. Murillo Karam elaborated on the new administration's criticism of the Calderón strategy, holding it directly responsible for a rise in kidnappings and related crimes over the last six years. "It led to the seconds-in-command – generally the most violent, the most capable of killing – starting to be empowered and generating their own groups, generating another type of crime, spawning kidnapping, extortion and protection rackets," he said. The secretary of the interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, launched the critique of Calderón's strategy by telling a meeting of Mexico's national security council on Monday that while financial resources dedicated to security had more than doubled, crime had increased, and with the capture of dozens of drug capos, cartels had splintered and become more dangerous. Calderón repeatedly emphasised before leaving office that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords – a strategy backed by the US government with hundreds of millions in funding and close co-operation with American law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies. Osorio Chong and Peña Nieto have promised to move away from that focus on leaders and towards reducing crimes against ordinary citizens – most importantly homicides, kidnappings and extortion. Nearly three weeks into their administration, however, they have offered few details on how they will do that.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Strategy of killing gang leaders has merely led to proliferation of smaller and more dangerous groups, says new attorney general The fracturing of Mexico's organised crime syndicates by a government-led crackdown on drug cartels has created between 60 and 80 new trafficking gangs, according to the nation's attorney general – far more than were active six years ago. Speaking on Mexican radio on Tuesday, the attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said former president Felipe Calderón's efforts to stamp out drug trafficking by going after the kingpins had only succeeded in splintering the gangs, spawning many smaller and more dangerous criminal syndicates. The critique extended an attack by President Enrique Peña Nieto's new government on Calderón's security policy, which focused on killing and capturing the heads of cartels. Murillo Karam told MVS Radio that officials are now working to identify all the country's 60 to 80 small- and medium-sized drug trafficking gangs. In its last public evaluation of the strength of Mexico's cartels, the Calderón administration issued a report in August naming only eight large organisations. It said, however, that at least one cartel – the Beltrán-Leyva group – had split into fragments after a government offensive that killed its leader. Murillo Karam elaborated on the new administration's criticism of the Calderón strategy, holding it directly responsible for a rise in kidnappings and related crimes over the last six years. "It led to the seconds-in-command – generally the most violent, the most capable of killing – starting to be empowered and generating their own groups, generating another type of crime, spawning kidnapping, extortion and protection rackets," he said. The secretary of the interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, launched the critique of Calderón's strategy by telling a meeting of Mexico's national security council on Monday that while financial resources dedicated to security had more than doubled, crime had increased, and with the capture of dozens of drug capos, cartels had splintered and become more dangerous. Calderón repeatedly emphasised before leaving office that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords – a strategy backed by the US government with hundreds of millions in funding and close cooperation with American law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies. Osorio Chong and Peña Nieto have promised to move away from that focus on leaders and towards reducing crimes against ordinary citizens – most importantly homicides, kidnappings and extortion. Nearly three weeks into their administration, however, they have offered few details on how they will actually do that.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | • Newsnight editor Peter Rippon, his deputy Liz Gibbons and 5 Live boss Adrian Van Klaveren to move to new BBC jobs
• Deputy director of news Stephen Mitchell retires amid criticism and is to leave BBC after 38 years
• Helen Boaden will return to her post as director of news on Thursday Chaos and confusion, a lack of leadership from senior executives and an adherence to "rigid management chains" meant that the BBC proved "completely incapable" of dealing with the Jimmy Savile affair, according to an excoriating 185-page report into the handling of and fallout from the decision to axe a Newsnight investigation into child sexual abuse by the late presenter. Peter Rippon, Newsnight's editor, is to be replaced, after the report by former head of Sky News Nick Pollard – costing £2m and published on Wednesday – found that his decision to drop the Savile investigation was "seriously flawed". But Pollard concluded that Rippon's decision was "done in good faith" without him being put under "undue pressure" by his bosses, the BBC's director of news Helen Boaden and her deputy director, Stephen Mitchell. Yet it was Mitchell who faced some of the most serious criticism from Pollard and he announced his retirement on Wednesday. He will leave the BBC in 2013 after nearly 40 years. Pollard said that Mitchell made a "serious mistake" in deciding to remove the intended Newsnight Savile film from the BBC's "managed risk programmes list" in November 2011. This would have flagged the existence of a potentially controversial item to other BBC executives. However, there were harsh words for many other BBC executives too. The BBC Radio 5 Live controller, Adrian Van Klaveren, who oversaw Newsnight's disastrous 2 November report that falsely linked Lord McAlpine to an allegation of child sex abuse after Boaden and Mitchell were "recused" from Savile-related coverage, is also moving to another job at the corporation, like Rippon. Liz Gibbons, the Newsnight deputy editor who oversaw the 2 November report, is also moving to a new BBC role. Boaden will return to her post on Thursday after she was "recused" during the Pollard inquiry. A second report – published by the editorial standards committee of the BBC Trust – that examined the circumstances around the disastrous misidentification ofMcAlpine by Newsnight – also revealed that three unnamed employees had been subject to disciplinary action following a "grave breach" of standards. Pollard's report said the "most worrying aspect" of the Savile/Newsnight affair was that the BBC showed a "complete inability to deal with the events that followed". In a clear criticism of George Entwistle – the director general who resigned on 10 November after being overwhelmed by the Savile scandal – and other senior executives, Pollard said they proved unable to get to the bottom of what had happened with the axed Newsnight film that would have revealed the truth about Savile in late 2011. "The efforts to get to the truth behind the Savile story proved beyond the combined efforts of the senior management, legal department, corporate communications team and anyone else for well over a month," Pollard said. He noted that a culture of suspicion and "an apparent adherence to rigid management chains and a reluctance to by pass them" hampered a resolution. There were particularly harsh words about Rippon's blog, published on 2 October shortly before an ITV documentary finally exposed Savile's sex abuse, explaining why Newsnight dropped its investigation into the same allegations in December 2011. The BBC was later forced to admit the blog contained factual inaccuracies and correct it – but this took nearly three weeks. "The preparation of the blog can only be described as chaotic. When clear leadership was required, it was not provided," Pollard concluded. "The BBC was thrown into disarray by the errors in the blog and had no structure in place to deal with them. What is marked is both the time it took for the errors to be addressed and the fact that for some time at least, no one individual fully stepped up and took responsibility for the issue." Reaction to the report
The BBC Trust, responding, said it would be the "first and top priority" for incoming director general Lord (Tony) Hall to "reform" the BBC's management culture. Accepting that the BBC had dominated by "chaos and confusion" that could have been "avoided by better leadership" the trust said it expected change from Hall within "three months" of his arrival in March. Maria Miller, the culture secretary who criticised the BBC's response to the Savile scandal, said the Pollard report "raises serious questions around editorial and management issues at the BBC and I look to the trust to help tackle these. "I also remind the trust how vital it is to publish all relevant evidence, as soon as possible, in order to rebuild public trust and confidence in the BBC," Miller added. "It remains critical that we do not lose sight of the most important issue in this – the many victims of sexual abuse by Savile. I urge the BBC to now focus on the review into those abuses, and ensure it is swift and transparent. I will remain in close touch with the trust as they oversee this work." Pollard told a press conference following the publication of his report on Wednesday: "Perhaps the most worrying aspect was not the decision to drop the [Newsnight] story but complete inability to deal with the events that followed for a few months after the Savile investigation was halted." He said there had been a "complete breakdown in communication all the way up the chain, effectively from Peter Rippon to George Entwistle". He added: "There was an element of personal difficulty between the key personalities as well, that's quite shocking in a way. Newsrooms can only operate on the basis of trust and mutual confidence and discussion. A lot of that was missing." Tim Davie and Lord Patten reactions
Tim Davie, the acting BBC director general, told the press conference that he had tried to be reasonable when it came to disciplining staff in the wake of the Newsnight affairs. "I would say 'go to the report, look at it calmly and think what is fair and proportionate'. That is not to say there aren't learnings for many people from this affair, but that doesn't necessitate summary dismissals or disciplinary action," Davie said. He conceded that the BBC had "taken a hit" in terms of public trust, and added "any degree of arrogance or assumption that trust will bounce back is ill-founded. We need to earn it day, in day out. This is a long process not a 24-hour job." Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, said that he was frustrated by the lack of teamworking at the top: "While the BBC is a fantastic organisation and does great journalism, there has been in some part a lack of professional camaraderie and a lack of collegiate behaviour which I find pretty surprising." The chairman also said Pollard's report did not change the trust's thinking as regards the £450,000 payoff for George Entwistle, who resigned after only 54 days in the job, even though it revealed that he did not read an email from a colleague that referred to Savile's "dark side" shortly after the former presenter died in October 2011. Patten added that "this report doesn't, I think, give us any reasons for thinking there would have been grounds for summary dismissal", which would have reduced Entwistle's payoff by half. Patten said the BBC would "continue to take legal advice" but that "I am not going to finish up in a long and expensive legal battle which might end up costing the BBC more". Entwistle said in a statement: "Pollard's report underlines the fact that any managerial shortcomings relating to Newsnight's aborted Savile investigation were largely the result of unsatisfactory internal communications. These flowed from silos and other structural issues that I had identified when I became DG and had begun work to resolve. I welcome Nick Pollard's recommendations in this area. "I took the decision to resign as director general in November 2012 because I thought it was important to take responsibility, as head of the organisation, for the mistakes Newsnight made in its report on child abuse in North Wales. "I am pleased that the Pollard report makes it clear I played no part whatever in Newsnight's decision not to broadcast the original Savile investigation – just as I was not personally to blame in any way for the journalistic failures on Newsnight when it broadcast its erroneous report about the North Wales care home." Rippon said he did not agree with Pollard's conclusion that his decision not to broadcast Newsnight's Savile investigation was flawed, but added that it was the right time to move on. "Given all that has happened regarding the programme over the last few months, I recognise that it is right for Newsnight now to have a fresh start." Mitchell said: "Given the strain over the past month since being told to stand aside from the job I loved, having endured the Pollard review process and now having read its criticisms, I have decided that it is in my interests and those of the BBC that I bring my career to a dignified end. "Whilst I feel vindicated that the review has found that I put no undue pressure on Peter Rippon, I disagree with the remainder of Mr Pollard's criticisms in relation to me." • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Strategy of killing cartel leaders has merely led to proliferation of smaller and more dangerous gangs, says new attorney general The fracturing of Mexico's organised crime syndicates by a government-led crackdown on drug cartels has created between 60 and 80 new trafficking gangs, according to the nation's attorney general – far more than were active six years ago. Speaking on Mexican radio on Tuesday, the attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said former president Felipe Calderón's efforts to stamp out drug trafficking by going after the kingpins had only succeeded in splintering the gangs, spawning many smaller and more dangerous criminal syndicates. The critique extended an attack by President Enrique Peña Nieto's new government on Calderón's security policy, which focused on killing and capturing the heads of cartels. Murillo Karam told MVS Radio that officials are now working to identify all the country's 60 to 80 small- and medium-sized drug trafficking gangs. In its last public evaluation of the strength of Mexico's cartels, the Calderón administration issued a report in August naming only eight large organisations. It said, however, that at least one cartel – the Beltrán-Leyva group – had split into fragments after a government offensive that killed its leader. Murillo Karam elaborated on the new administration's criticism of the Calderón strategy, holding it directly responsible for a rise in kidnappings and related crimes over the last six years. "It led to the seconds-in-command – generally the most violent, the most capable of killing – starting to be empowered and generating their own groups, generating another type of crime, spawning kidnapping, extortion and protection rackets," he said. The secretary of the interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, launched the critique of Calderón's strategy by telling a meeting of Mexico's national security council on Monday that while financial resources dedicated to security had more than doubled, crime had increased, and with the capture of dozens of drug capos, cartels had splintered and become more dangerous. Calderón repeatedly emphasised before leaving office that his forces had captured 25 of Mexico's 37 most-wanted drug lords – a strategy backed by the US government with hundreds of millions in funding and close cooperation with American law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies. Osorio Chong and Peña Nieto have promised to move away from that focus on leaders and towards reducing crimes against ordinary citizens – most importantly homicides, kidnappings and extortion. Nearly three weeks into their administration, however, they have offered few details on how they will actually do that.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Arrival of indigenous edition of fashion's most famous glossy magazine has become a badge of sophistication Here's a simple test of the economic development and consumer sophistication of a nation: visit a newsstand, and look for a copy of Vogue. The arrival of an indigenous edition of fashion's most famous glossy magazine has become a barometer of the emergence of an affluent middle class, and a siren call to a luxury industry looking for new markets. Launches in Thailand and Ukraine next year will bring the number of international Vogues to 21. Until the 1960s, there were only five editions of Vogue: in the US, UK, France, Italy and Australia. In the past 40 years, economic growth around the globe has been tracked by the arrival of Vogue editors: Russia, Japan, Korea and Taiwan have had their own Vogues since the 1990s, while the first decade of the 21st century saw launches in China and India, among others. The launch of Turkish Vogue two years ago indicated the country's emergence as a luxury market. Because the printing cost of a copy of Vogue is much higher than the cover price, advertising is crucial. For this reason, the appetite of the luxury industry to reach consumers in a country is what brings Vogue to the newsstand. As Condé Nast's chairman, Jonathan Newhouse, said when announcing the 2013 launch of a Kiev-based edition of his magazine: "The Ukraine is ready for Vogue … Kiev is booming, and there is a strong market demand for luxury products and the experience Vogue can offer the reader." But the arrival of Vogue has also become a badge of sophistication for a country. The desire among consumers for a Vogue specific to that country, rather than imported editions, grows as a middle class gains confidence. The lofty, imperial decrees of a magazine printed in a distant western capital no longer satisfy women secure in their own ideals of style and beauty and looking for publications which reflect these. When Turkish Vogue launched in 2010, the 562-page debut issue boasted 252 pages of advertising including Dior, Escada and D&G and the masthead featured Mary Fellowes, formerly of British Vogue – but at the Paris launch party, the editor in chief chose a dress by Turkish designer Hakaan Yildirim. Vogue Thailand recently provided a teaser cover image of its debut cover, featuring the Thai model Si Tanwiboon, who has walked in Paris fashion week shows including Jean Paul Gaultier and Louis Vuitton. Each edition of Vogue takes on something of the character of that country. Japanese Vogue is eccentric and edgy, reflecting the lively fashion cultures of Tokyo. Russian Vogue is edited by Victoria Davydova, whose graduate thesis was on the financial structure of the beauty industry; the models rarely smile. Indian Vogue has had Indian models on every cover in 2012, but this is unusual. China had the Beijing-born model Liu Wen on three consecutive September issues, but has also featured the US models Arizona Muse and Karlie Kloss in 2012. Spanish Vogue's cover models this year included Penélope Cruz, but also Kate Moss dressed as a matador. Vogue Brazil most often features Brazilian models, in particular Gisele Bündchen, but in Korean Vogue a run of blond models has included Britain's Cara Delevingne, the Dutch Lara Stone and the American Carolyn Murphy. Japanese Vogue aroused controversy when a video of a shoot with the US model Crystal Renn appeared to show her temples being pulled back to give her eyes a more Japanese appearance. The magazine insisted the technique is commonly used to define bone structure on camera, and was not intended to alter ethnicity.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | At least 2,000 requests for 'inappropriate submissions' to Libor were documented at the Swiss bank, leading the City watchdog to levy its largest ever fine Swiss bank UBS made corrupt payments to brokers in an "extensive and widespread" attempt to manipulate key benchmark interest rates which has cost the bank Sfr1.4bn (£944m) in fines from global regulators. The £160m portion of the fine levied by the Financial Services Authority is the largest ever imposed by the City regulator and surpasses the previous record – the £59.5m imposed on Barclays in June for attempted manipulation of the Libor and Euribor rates. The total Barclays fine was £290m, and led to the resignation of chief executive Bob Diamond days later but the FSA said the UBS offences were "considerably more serious". At UBS at least 2,000 requests for "inappropriate submissions" to the key rates were documented and at least 45 individuals "including traders, managers and senior managers were involved in, or aware of, the practice of attempting to influence submissions", the FSA said. The FSA feared every one of those submissions was potentially suspicious. In an agreement with the US department of justice, the Japanese arm of UBS pleaded guilty to one charge of wire fraud, and is paying US regulators a total of £740m. It is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the City, following the record £1.2bn fine on HSBC for money laundering and £415m penalty levied on Standard Chartered for Iranian sanction-busting. The City regulator said UBS had colluded with interdealer brokers to influence submissions to the yen Libor rate and that corrupt brokerage payments of thousands of pounds a quarter were made to reward brokers for their efforts to manipulate the Libor submissions of other banks on the Libor panel. The UBS fine exposes the full scale of the attempts to manipulate the two rates – London interbank offered rate (Libor) and the Euro interbank offered rate (Euribor). In its report the FSA said it had found a UBS trader agreeing with a counterpart that he would attempt to manipulate UBS's submissions in "small drops" in order to avoid arousing suspicion. The trader made it clear that he hoped to profit from the manipulation and referred explicitly to his UBS trading positions and the impact of the Japanese Libor rate on those positions. He offered to "return the favour" and entered into illicit transactions in order to incentivise and reward his counterparts. For example, on 18 September 2008, a trader explained to a broker: "if you keep 6s [i.e. the six month Japanese yen Libor rate] unchanged today ... I will fucking do one humongous deal with you ... Like a 50,000 buck deal, whatever ... I need you to keep it as low as possible ... if you do that ... I'll pay you, you know, 50,000 dollars, 100,000 dollars ... whatever you want ... I'm a man of my word". Illicit fees of more than £170,000 were generated for the broker. Five internal audits had failed to uncover the attempts to manipulate Libor. Tracey McDermott, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "The findings we have set out in our notice today do not make for pretty reading. The integrity of benchmarks such as Libor and Euribor are of fundamental importance to both UK and international financial markets. UBS traders and managers ignored this." "UBS's misconduct was all the more serious because of the orchestrated attempts to manipulate the Japanese yen Libor submissions of other banks, as well as its own, and the collusion with interdealer brokers and other panel banks in co-ordinated efforts to manipulate the fix," she said. The Swiss regulator Finma said that most of the requests were made by one trader who worked in Tokyo from 2006 - 2009. "The same trader also contacted employees at third-party banks and independent brokers, thereby seeking to influence the Libor submissions of third-party banks," Finma said. Finma is requiring the bank – which had to be bailed out by Switzerland during the 2008 financial crisis – to pay Sfr59m (£40m) in disgorgement of profits. UBS has already cleared out its top management. The latest reshuffle took place last year when a rogue trading incident was uncovered and led to the jailing last month of former trader Kweku Adoboli. Sergio Ermotti, chief executive, said the "misconduct" does not reflect the values of the firm. "We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behaviour. No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of this firm and we are committed to doing business with integrity," Ermotti said. He said that 30 or 40 people had now left the bank. UBS will now report a loss this quarter as a result of the penalties. Investigations continue into banks and other financial firms as part of the global probe into rate rigging. Royal Bank of Scotland is in settlement talks over its role. A criminal investigation into Libor has begun and the Serious Fraud Office arrested three men last week.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Calls for stringent and swift punishment after 23-year-old victim stripped and dumped on a roadside with severe internal injuries The brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus has provoked thousands of Indians to join demonstrations to demand action from authorities, who have long ignored persistent violence and harassment against women. In the streets of the capital and in parliament, there were calls for stringent and swift punishment against those attacking women, including a proposal to make rapists eligible for the death penalty. "I feel it is sick what is happening across the country. It is totally sick, and it needs to stop," said Smitha, a 32-year-old protester who goes by only one name. Thousands of demonstrators clogged the streets in front of New Delhi's police headquarters, protested near parliament and rallied outside a major university. Angry university students set up roadblocks across the city, causing massive traffic jams. "We want to jolt people awake from the cosy comfort of their cars. We want people to feel the pain of what women go through every day," said Aditi Roy, a Delhi University student. Hundreds rallied outside the home of the city's top elected official before police dispersed them with water cannons, a move that earned further condemnation from opposition leaders, who accused the government of being insensitive. Meanwhile, the victim lay in a critical condition in the hospital with severe internal injuries, doctors said. Police said six men raped the woman and savagely beat her and her companion with iron rods on the bus – which passed through several police checkpoints on its route around the city – before stripping them and dumping them on the side of the road on Sunday night. Delhi police chief Neeraj Kumar said four men have been arrested and a search was under way for the other two. Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, visited the victim, promised swift action against the perpetrators and called for police to be trained to deal with crimes against women. "It is a matter of shame that these incidents recur with painful regularity and that our daughters, sisters and mothers are unsafe in our capital city," she wrote in a letter to Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit. The outpouring of anger is unusual in a country where attacks against women are rarely prosecuted. The Times of India newspaper dedicated four pages to the attack on Wednesday, demanding an example be made of the rapists, while television stations debated the nation's treatment of its women. Opposition lawmakers shouted slogans and protested outside parliament and called for making rape a capital crime. Cutting across party affiliations, lawmakers demanded the government announce a plan to safeguard women in the city. The home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, told parliament he had ordered increased police patrols on the streets, especially at night. Shinde said the government had introduced bills to increase the punishment for rapes and other crimes against women, but they were bogged down in parliament. Analysts and protesters said the upsurge of anger was chiefly due to increasing incidents of crime against women and the seeming inability of authorities to protect them. "We have been screaming ourselves hoarse demanding greater security for women and girls. But the government, the police and others responsible for public security have ignored the daily violence that women face," said Sehba Farooqui, a women's rights activist. Farooqui said women's groups were demanding fast-track courts to deal with rape and other crimes against women. In India's painfully slow justice system, cases can languish for 10 to 15 years before reaching court. "We have thousands of rape cases pending in different courts of the country. As a result, there is no fear of law," says Ranjana Kumari, a sociologist and head of the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. "We want this case to be dealt with within 30 days and not go the usual way when justice is denied to rape victims because of inordinate delays and the rapists go scot-free," Farooqui said. Analysts say crimes against women are on the rise as more young women leave their homes to join the workforce in India's booming economy, but deep-rooted social attitudes that women are inferior remain unchanged. Many families look down on women, viewing the girl child as a burden that forces them to pay a huge dowry to marry her off. Kumari says a change can come about only when women are seen as equal to men. Rapes in India remain drastically underreported. In many cases, families do not report rapes due to the stigma that follows the victim and her family. In other instances, families may decide not to report a rape out of frustration with the long delays in court and harassment at the hands of the police. Police forces are reluctant to register cases of rape and domestic violence in order to keep down crime figures or to elicit a bribe from the victim. In a sign of the protesters' fury, Khushi Pattanaik, a student, said death was too easy a punishment for the rapists, they should instead be castrated and forced to suffer as their victim did. "It should be made public so that you see it, you feel it and you also live with it – the kind of shame and guilt," she said.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates after Syria's newly elected rebel leader claimed Assad could be toppled in a month if anti-government forces were supplied with anti-aircraft weapons
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unusual statement expected from the UK, France, Germany and Portugal follows blunt criticism by US of construction plans The four European members of the United Nations security council are drawing up a strong joint condemnation of recent Israeli moves to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem amid growing international censure. The unusual statement, expected this week from the UK, France, Germany and Portugal, follows blunt criticism from the US of Israel's announcement on Monday of plans to build an extra 1,500 homes in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo. US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "We are deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing this pattern of provocative action. These repeated announcements and plans of new construction run counter to the cause of peace. Israel's leaders continually say that they support a path towards a two-state solution, yet these actions only put that goal further at risk." William Hague, the British foreign secretary, urged Israel to revoke the decision, saying that if it was implemented "it would make a negotiated two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, very difficult to achieve". All Israeli settlements were "illegal under international law", he added. French officials also sharply condemned the move, describing it as illegal colonisation. According to Palestine's envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, all members of the 15-strong security council, with the exception of the US, will add their weight to international condemnation following the council's Middle East meeting on Wednesday. They will say continuing settlement activity is illegal and must stop, he said. On Tuesday, the general assembly passed a non-binding resolution condemning settlement activity by 196 votes to six. The approval of the next stage in the construction of hundreds of apartments in Ramat Shlomo, across the pre-1967 Green Line, follows Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's authorisation last month of the development of a controversial expanse of land near Jerusalem known as E1. The Ramat Shlomo plan caused a major diplomatic row between Israel and the US when it was first announced during a visit to Jerusalem by US vice-president Joe Biden in the spring of 2010. Construction on E1 has been opposed by the US for many years as it would in effect close off East Jerusalem – intended to be the future capital of Palestine – from the West Bank, and further divide the West Bank into northern and southern spheres. Planning authorities are this week also considering the next stage in plans to develop a new settlement in the south of the city, called Givat Hamatos, which would add to the ring of settlements blocking easy access between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Netanyahu has made it clear that the acceleration of settlement expansion around Jerusalem is a direct response to the UN general assembly's recognition of the state of Palestine last month. But some Israeli analysts believe it is also being driven by next month's general election in Israel, in an attempt to consolidate the rightwing vote for the ruling Likud party in coalition with hardliner Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu. "This is our campaign," a Likud source told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. "Until now, it has worked excellently. The timing is deliberate." European diplomats in Jerusalem warn that the construction of Givat Hamatos and the development of the E1 area are "game-changers" which could kill any chance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Court in northern France to proceed with sex offence inquiry against former IMF chief relating to prostitution ring French judges have decided not to drop aggravated pimping charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. His lawyer says the former International Monetary Fund chief will appeal. The verdict on Wednesday came just over a week after Strauss-Kahn settled a separate civil case in New York with the hotel maid who accused him of attempted rape in May 2011, ending his presidential ambitions and career at the IMF. While the New York settlement brought his US legal woes to an end, the decision by the court in Douai, in northern France, removed the prospect of a quick conclusion to the last sex offence inquiry he faces. "Dominique Strauss-Kahn's defence team is certain that he will ultimately be cleared of these absurd accusations of pimping," lawyer Henri Leclerc said in a statement, adding that he planned to take the matter to France's supreme court. Strauss-Kahn, once tipped to become president of France, is under fire over sex parties with prostitutes in the so-called Carlton Affair, named after a hotel in northern France at the centre of the inquiry. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have said he attended "libertine" gatherings but did not know some women present were paid. His lawyers argue that consorting with prostitutes is not illegal and that investigators have no grounds for pursuing him on the grounds that his behaviour could be construed as pimping, which is illegal.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Court in northern France to proceed with sex offence inquiry against former IMF chief relating to a luxury prostitution ring French judges have decided not to drop aggravated pimping charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn. His lawyer says the former International Monetary Fund chief will appeal. The verdict on Wednesday came just over a week after Strauss-Kahn settled a separate civil case in New York with the hotel maid who accused him of attempted rape in May 2011, ending his presidential ambitions and career at the International Monetary Fund. While the New York settlement brought his US legal woes to an end, the decision by the court in Douai, in northern France, removed the prospect of a quick conclusion to the last sex offence inquiry he faces. "Dominique Strauss-Kahn's defence team is certain that he will ultimately be cleared of these absurd accusations of pimping," lawyer Henri Leclerc said in a statement, adding that he planned to take the matter to France's supreme court. Strauss-Kahn, once tipped to become president of France, is under fire over sex parties with prostitutes in the so-called Carlton Affair, named after a hotel in northern France at the centre of the inquiry. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers have said he attended "libertine" gatherings but didn't know some women present were paid. His lawyers argue that consorting with prostitutes is not illegal and that investigators have no grounds for pursuing him on the grounds that his behaviour could be construed as pimping, which is illegal.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Latest anti-austerity protest comes after six-notch credit rating upgrade underlines that 'Grexit' is no longer a pressing danger to the euro area
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Three separate attacks on Wednesday leave two dead and one in a critical condition in latest assaults on campaign to stamp out crippling disease Three more workers in a polio eradication campaign have been shot in Pakistan, and two of them killed, the latest in a string of attacks that has partially halted the UN-backed global health campaign to stamp out the crippling disease. Following the violence, the United Nations in Pakistan has pulled all staff involved in the immunisation campaign off the streets, spokesman Michael Coleman said. There were at least three separate attacks on Wednesday. In the north-western district of Charsadda, men on motorbikes shot dead a woman and her driver, police and health officials said. Hours earlier, a male health worker was shot and badly wounded in the nearby provincial capital of Peshawar. He remains in a critical condition, said a doctor at the Lady Reading hospital where he is being treated. Four other women health workers were shot at but not hit in nearby Nowshera, said Jan Baz Afridi, deputy head of the expanded programme on immunisation. It is not clear who is behind the violence but some Islamists, including Taliban militants, have long opposed the campaign, with some saying it is aimed at sterilising Muslims. The Taliban have repeatedly issued threats against the polio eradication campaign, and health workers have reported receiving calls telling them to stop working with the "infidels". But a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Ihsanullah Ihsan, has his group was not involved in the violence. On Monday and Tuesday, six female health workers were killed in attacks in the southern port city of Karachi and in Peshawar. The youngest was 17. The shootings, five of which happened in Karachi, home to 18 million people, led provincial health authorities to suspend the polio eradication campaign in the province of Sindh. But authorities in Khyber Paktunkhwa province, where the capital is Peshawar, said they would not accept a recommendation to suspend the campaign even as the United Nations ordered its staff to suspend work. "You know halting the campaign at this stage would create more problems as it's not a one-day phenomenon. If we stopped the campaign it would encourage the forces opposing the polio vaccination," said a provincial official, Javed Marwat. Despite this, many health workers have said they would not be going to work until the security situation improved. The Taliban have repeatedly said the campaign is a western conspiracy to sterilise or spy on Muslims. They have also said the vaccinations could only continue if attacks by US drone aircraft stopped. Their suspicions increased after it emerged that the CIA had used a fake vaccination campaign to try to gather information about Osama bin Laden, before he was found and killed in a northern Pakistani town last year. On Wednesday, the Pakistani prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, said the campaign needed to go on. "We cannot and would not allow polio to wreak havoc on the lives of our children," he said in a statement. Pakistan had 20,000 polio cases in 1994 but vigorous vaccination efforts had brought the number down to 56 in 2012, the statement said. A global vaccination campaign has eradicated the disease from everywhere except Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Polio can paralyse or kill within hours of infection. It is transmitted person-to-person, meaning that as long as one child is infected, the disease can be passed to others.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates after the UN launched a record $1.5bn appeal for Syria as the rapidly deteriorating crisis forced it to revise aid plans
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates after the UN launched a record $1.5bn appeal for Syria as the rapidly deteriorating crisis forced it to revise aid plans
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Huynh Trong Hieu detained on his way to receive human rights award on behalf of father and sister, also prominent bloggers Vietnamese authorities have stopped a blogger from flying to the US to pick up a human rights award on behalf of his father and sister, triggering criticism from the American embassy. Huynh Trong Hieu said on Wednesday that police detained him at Ho Chi Minh airport on Sunday night as he was checking in. They questioned him for two hours and took his passport, which had a valid American visa. He was then released. "I was prepared for the fact that they would ban me from leaving the country as they had prevented many people who dared to promote democracy and human rights in Vietnam," Hieu said by telephone. "By banning those people from leaving the country, the government wants to give a warning to others that they have the authority to decide the fate of all its citizens." Hieu was flying to the US to receive a Hellman-Hammett award from Human Rights Watch on behalf of his father, Huynh Ngoc Tuan, and sister, Huynh Thuc Vy, who are both prominent bloggers. Each year the group gives cash grants to selected writers for their commitment to free expression in the face of government persecution. Hieu said he was travelling on behalf of his father and sister because they thought they wouldn't be allowed to leave. The US is seeking closer ties with Vietnam, in large part because it shares concerns with Hanoi over China's increasing assertiveness in south-east Asia. But it is vocal in its criticism of the country's human rights record, which most observers say is getting worse. "We are troubled by the intervention of Vietnamese authorities to prevent Huynh Trong Hieu from travelling to the United States," the embassy said in a statement. "We urge the Vietnamese government to lift travel restrictions on Mr Hieu and take steps to allow his family and all Vietnamese to peacefully express their views without fear of retribution." In a separate case in neighbouring Laos, which like Vietnam is under one-party Communist rule, the respected social activist Sombath Somphone disappeared on Saturday afternoon in the Lao capital, Vientiane. Friends said he had been taken in by police and they last saw him getting into his car to drive home from the development agency he founded. The US also voiced concern about Sombath's disappearance. State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US was urging the Lao government to make an effort to locate him. Laos has an authoritarian government with little tolerance for dissent, but friends and associates said Sombath's work was not directly political. An official who answered the phone at the government's press office in Vientiane said: "It's too early to give any information regarding the disappearance because there is not enough evidence to reach a conclusion." The official declined to give his name. One of Sombath's colleagues in Vientiane said he had seen video showing the activist in police custody in Laos. It was not explained where the video footage came from or under what circumstances it was reviewed. Sombath, 60, received the Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership, one of Asia's top civil honours, in 2005. He was director until five months ago of the Participatory Development Training Centre, which he founded in 1996 to promote education and leadership skills. A statement from Thai NGOs said they had sent a letter of concern to senior officials in Laos and embassies there.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | High turnout could hand victory to Park Geun-hye's leftwing challenger Moon Jae-in and signal thaw in ties with North Korea South Koreans have voted in freezing winter temperatures for a new president in a battle between the daughter of their former military ruler and a man her father jailed for political activism. The next president of Asia's fourth largest economy will have to deal with a hostile North Korea, under young and untested new leader Kim Jong-un, and a slowing domestic economy. The conservative candidate, Park Geun-hye, had a thin lead in polls published last week, the last allowed under election rules. Park's leftwing challenger, Moon Jae-in, has promised to perform global pop sensation Psy's Gangnam Style "horse dance" if turnout hits 77%. Such a turnout would signify a high level of participation by young voters who pollsters say could propel Moon into the presidential Blue House. Three hours before polls closed turnout was 59.3%, higher than the two previous presidential elections and well on track to achieve 70%. If Park wins, the unmarried 60-year-old would be the first female leader of the country. "I trust her. She will save our country," said Park Hye-sook, 67, who voted in an affluent Seoul district early on Wednesday morning. "Her father … rescued the country," said the housewife and grandmother, who is no relation to the candidate, reflecting the admiration many older voters feel for former president Park Chung-hee which has translated into support for his daughter. She has pledged dialogue with impoverished North Korea, whose rocket launch last week reinforced fears it is developing a long-range missile, and promised a tough line on the isolated country's nuclear and missile programmes. Park, wearing a red muffler, was cheered by crowds chanting her name as she entered the polling station and urged voters to "open a new era". Moon is a former human rights lawyer who has promised unconditional aid for North Korea and to reintroduce an engagement policy that ushered in closer ties between the cold war rivals. Those ties started unravelling with the shooting by North Korea of a tourist from the south in 2008 and deteriorated with the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010, for which the north denies responsibility, and the shelling of a South Korean island the same year. Moon cast his ballot in the southern city of Busan and said voters disenchanted by five years of conservative rule under Lee Myung-bak, who is constitutionally limited to a single term, had the chance to "change the world with their vote". More than 40 million people are eligible to vote. Polling stations will close at 6pm (9am GMT) and the three network television stations will announce the result of a jointly conducted exit poll shortly afterwards. While Park's bid to become president has stirred debate and divisions about her father's rule, and the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea also hangs over the country, the main issue in the election has been the economy. While outwardly successful and home to some of the world's biggest companies, such as Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, South Korean society has become steadily more unequal. Park advocated a broader welfare policy than when she ran five years ago, when she failed to win the conservative presidential nomination, but says she will not raise taxes or spend more money to boost the economy, instead relying on cutting wasteful spending. Moon, by contrast, has proposed an $18bn (£11bn) jobs package, boosting maternity pay and taxing the super-rich. He has also pledged to repeal a controversial free trade agreement with the US. Park's father took power in a 1961 coup and helped push South Korea from poverty to developed nation status but at the cost of repressing human rights and democracy. His wife was shot by a North Korean-backed assassin who was targeting him in 1974 and his then young daughter took on the role of South Korea's first lady until Park's own killing in 1979 by his security chief after a drunken night out. The younger Park has at times sought to appeal to the spirit that her father embodied. On Tuesday, she evoked his economic call to arms of "Let's Live Well" in a bid to rally her party faithful. But at other times she has stumbled over apologies to victims of her father's rule and sought to appeal to her mother's softer image. Moon, jailed in 1975 when he was a student activist, has attacked Park "for living the life of a princess". His only political experience was as an aide to former president Roh Moo-hyun, who was his law partner.
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