Bailed out banks now worth HALF £1,000 per person cost of saving them as they get ready to report £6BILLION losses

Bailed-out banks worth just HALF the £1,000 it cost each person to save them - as they get ready to admit £6BILLION losses RBS cost £45.5bn to bailout but the stake is now worth just £26bn £20bn paid to bailout Lloyds but shareholding is now worth HALF But executive pay has soared and Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio entitled to £3.46m a year Comments (14) Share The bailed out banks are now worth just over half the £1,000 per person cost of saving them - and are set to reveal combined losses of £6billion. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds received a total of £65.5bn of taxpayers' money - but the Government stake is now worth just £36bn. Their are fears it will be years before the share price rises and taxpayers can get their money back. Bumper pay: Stephen Hester (left), who hates this picture being used, is paid £1.2million a year and waived a near-£1m bonus. Fred Goodwin, right, received £4.2m in 2007 But despite their poor performance the pay of top bankers like disgraced RBS boss Fred 'the Shred' Goodwin and Stephen Hester has rocketed over the last decade.   More... Three of the UK's five largest banks have lost shareholders' money over past decade while bosses reap rewards £500 for EVERY British household: UK faces added £1billion bill to bail out Greece and save crisis-hit euro Don't tell Sid! How the bank shares wipeout hit the savings of the windfall generation Fred Goodwin saw his total pay rocket from £1.27m in 2000 to £4.2m in 2007 - when he received a £2.86m performance-related bonus. Stress: Antonio Horta-Osorio is entitled to £3.46million this year Since 2000, the value of the bank has fallen by 91 per cent. New boss Stephen Hester enjoys a £1.2m salary and only waived a £963,000 shares bonus after being put intense pressure. However, he is still in line to receive shares worth about £660,000 that were awarded as part of the £2m bonus he was handed for his 2010 performance. But as the bosses receive bumper rewards, RBS has announced that 3,500 jobs will go on top of 2,000 which went last summer. Lloyds has more than tripled the amount it pays its chief executive over the past decade. Over the same period the average UK wage increased by just under 40 per cent, to £26,135. In 2000, they paid £856,000 to former boss Sir Peter Ellwood. New chief-executive Antonio Horta-Osorio is entitled to £3.46m this year, although he waived his £1.06m bonus last month. He had six weeks off work at the end of last year because of stress and fatigue. Tomorrow RBS will announce losses of around £2bn while Lloyds is expected to reveal losses of £3.5 billion on Friday. They will blame the poor figures on the eurozone debt crisis and increased regulation. Plans to give the shares directly to taxpayers to ease some of the public anger about the pay enjoyed by bailed-out bankers are reported to have been ditched because the investments are too shaky. Bailed out: Royal Bank of Scotland is set to announce losses of £3.5bn on Friday. It is worth £26bn - and the Government paid £45.5bn The Government injected £45.5bn to take an 82 per cent stake in RBS but those shares are today worth around £26bn despite a 40 per cent rise in the share price in recent weeks. It needs shares, which are currently trading at about 28p, to rise to 50p before it can break even. Lloyds cost £20bn to bailout - but the Government is currently nursing losses of nearly £10billion. Their shares are valued at around 35p and they must rise to 63p. The bank recoveries have been made more difficult because the Government has announced new regulations in a bid to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. They will be forced to separate their retail and investment banking arms which will be expensive to implement and hit profits. The current malaise in the world economy and the Greek debt crisis has added to banks’ woes. The Government is paying £500 million a year in interest payments on the money it borrowed to bailout the banks. 'BAILED OUT BANKERS SHOULD NOT RECEIVE A BONUS' Three out of four people think bosses at bailed-out banks should not get a bonus, according to research. And 58 per cent of respondents to the YouGov poll, commissioned by Sky News, said Britain’s business reputation is being damaged by the actions of bankers. Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, said bonuses cannot continue at the current level. 'Part of the reason for the pay is that the profits were not sustainable,' he told Sky news. 'They were there for a few years but they were not sustainable and the pay moved up to that level of profits and it now needs to be corrected down.' Sir Philip turned down a £1.4 million bonus earlier this month. But Nigel Rudd, former deputy chairman of Barclays, claimed he would have paid more money to Barclays’ former chief executive John Varley. He said: 'Bob Diamond (current chief executive) and John Varley made a huge difference to Barclays as they went through this terrible period. 'You realise Barclays never made a loss throughout all this period? I think John Varley was underpaid actually ... because I think what he did throughout that crisis was phenomenal.' The comments come after weeks of conflict over bankers’ bonuses, in which RBS chief Stephen Hester turned down his £963,000 bonus amid mounting pressure and Lloyds boss Antonio Horta-Osorio waived his payout following a leave of absence.

Syrian troops kill 27 in village raids

 

Syrian troops and militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad captured and then shot dead 27 young men in northern villages and two foreign journalists were killed in shelling of the besieged city of Homs, activists said on Wednesday. The two Western journalists were killed on Wednesday when shells hit the house they were staying in, activists and witnesses said. They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, and French photographer Remi Ochlik. A witness told Reuters by phone that shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping. Violence continued to spread. Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds and hands tied lying dead in streets. The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said. "Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed," the organization said in a statement. "Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar al-Assad," the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings. One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon. "This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi al-Saeed, his brother Hussein and (their relative) Bashir Mohammad al-Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad's forces in the February 21 massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background. The raids came as the United States appeared to open the door to eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying that if a political solution to the crisis was impossible it might have to consider other options. The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the U.S. State Department on Tuesday, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which so far has stressed a policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives. "We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarization of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures." Asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed. "That said ... if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures," she said, declining to elaborate. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet representatives of some 70 countries and organizations in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps in response to the nearly year-long uprising against Assad. The United States and its allies hope the Tunis conference will allow them to begin drawing up a plan for Syria after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed Arab League peace plan at the U.N. Security Council. With both Russia and Iran firmly backing Assad's government, political analysts say tacit U.S. support for arming rebel fighters could be risky given Syria's complex ethnic and religious make-up and strategically important position.

UN watchdog says nuclear talks with Iran failed

 

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it had failed to secure an agreement with Iran during two days of talks over disputed atomic activities and that the Islamic Republic had rejected a request to visit a key military site. In the second such trip in less than a month, a senior team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had travelled to Tehran to press Iranian officials to start addressing mounting concerns that the Islamic Republic may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The outcome seems likely to add to already soaring tension between Iran and Western powers, which have ratcheted up sanctions on the major oil producer in recent months. "During both the first and second round of discussions, the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin. Iran did not grant permission for this visit to take place," the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement after the Feb 20-21 talks. The IAEA named Parchin in a detailed report in November that lent independent weight to Western fears that Iran was working to develop an atomic bomb, an allegation Iranian officials reject. "It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin. We engaged in a constructive spirit, but no agreement was reached," said IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. Earlier, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the country's ISNA news agency that Tehran expected to hold more talks with the U.N. agency, whose task it is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world. But Amano's spokeswoman, Gill Tudor, made clear no further meetings were planned: "At this point in time there is no agreement on further discussions," she said. Iran rejects accusations that its nuclear program is a covert bid to develop a nuclear weapons capability, saying it is seeking to produce only electricity. But its refusal to curb sensitive atomic activities which can have both civilian and military purposes, and its track record of years of nuclear secrecy has drawn increasingly tough U.N. and separate U.S. and European punitive measures. The United States and Israel have not ruled out using force against Iran if they conclude diplomacy and sanctions will not stop it from developing a nuclear bomb. In Washington, no immediate comment was available from the U.S. State Department on the IAEA statement. The five-member IAEA team led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts was seeking answers from Iran about intelligence suggesting its declared civilian program is a facade for a weapons program. STILL TIME FOR DIPLOMACY? Last year's IAEA report suggesting Iran had pursued military nuclear technology helped precipitate the latest rounds of European Union and U.S. sanctions, which are causing economic hardship in Iran ahead of a parliamentary election in March. One key finding was information that Iran had built a large containment chamber at Parchin southeast of Tehran in which to conduct high-explosives tests, which the U.N. agency said were "strong indicators of possible weapon development." The IAEA said intensive efforts were made to reach agreement in the talks on a document "facilitating the clarification of unresolved issues" in connection with Iran's nuclear program, particularly those relating to possible military dimensions. "Unfortunately, agreement was not reached on this document," it said in an unusually blunt statement. The IAEA mission's lack of progress may also have an impact on the chances of any resumption of wider nuclear negotiations between Iran and the six world powers, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. The West last week expressed some optimism at the prospect of new talks, particularly after Iran sent a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton promising to bring "new initiatives," without stating preconditions. But the United States and its allies may become more reluctant if they feel that the Islamic state is unlikely to engage in substantive discussions about its nuclear activities. The deputy head of Iran's armed forces was quoted on Tuesday as saying Iran would take pre-emptive action against its enemies if it felt its national interests were endangered. "Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran's national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions," Mohammad Hejazi told the Fars news agency. In retaliation for oil sanctions, Iran, the world's fifth-largest crude exporter, has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a third of the world's seaborne oil, while the United States signaled it would use force to keep it open. The White House said there was still time for diplomacy. "Israel and the United States share the same objective, which is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon," White House spokesman Jay Carney said when asked about a weekend visit to Israel by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. "There is time and space for diplomacy to work, for the effect of sanctions to result in a change of Iranian behavior."

US says it will 'consider other measures' to end bloodshed

 

The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the State Department, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which thus far has stressed its policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with representatives of some 70 countries in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps to respond the nearly year-long uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed.

Afghan Koran burning at Bagram sparks fresh protests

 

American demonstrations are under way in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad over the burning of copies of the Koran by Nato troops. Shots have been fired in Kabul, where protesters have gathered outside a US military base. On Tuesday, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, apologised after soldiers put copies of the Koran in an incinerator at Bagram airbase. The charred remains of the books were found by local labourers. Protesters in Kabul shouted, "Death to America!" and threw stones at the main US base in the city. Pro-Taliban slogans At least four policemen have been injured, reports the BBC's Andrew North, in Kabul. Witnesses at the protests in Kabul said security guards were firing into the air. There are also reports of people chanting pro-Taliban slogans. General John R Allen: 'When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them.' Demonstrators blocked the road linking Kabul with the eastern city of Jalalabad. A riot police unit was attacked by protesters in Kabul and fled, the AFP news agency reported. One protester, 18-year-old Ajmal, told Reuters: "When the Americans insult us to this degree, we will join the insurgents." Two senior Afghan officials told the BBC that religious materials held by Taliban prisoners had been confiscated because US officials suspected they were using them to send secret messages to each other. US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said he and Gen Allen apologised to the Afghan people "and disapprove of such conduct in the strongest possible terms". After previous incidents, many Afghans find it hard to understand how US forces could have allowed the Koran to have been burned, our correspondent says. Last year, at least 24 people died in protests after a hardline US pastor burned a Koran in Florida. The US embassy in Kabul has tweeted that it is on lockdown and all travel is suspended. On Tuesday, one person was wounded and five detained after troops at Bagram, 60km (40 miles) north of Kabul, fired rubber bullets at protests. Bagram includes a prison for Afghans detained by Nato forces.

Boozy films 'turn children into drinkers'

 

Experts say that teenagers who have seen the most films featuring alcohol are twice as likely to start consuming alcohol as those who watched the least. Parents should closely monitor the films their children watch, advise the researchers, while Hollywood should look at phasing out drinking scenes, just as it has for smoking. The team, from a number of US universities, aliken American films to the flu virus, quickly spreading risky drinking behaviour around the globe. For two years they conducted regular phone interviews with 6,500 children, aged 10 to 14 at the start of the study. They asked them about the films they watched, whether they consumed alcohol, whether they drank without their parents knowing, and whether they took part in 'binge' drinking.  They found watching lots of films with drinking scenes was one of the most powerful factors, when it came to predicting both whether a child would start drinking, and progress to binge drinking. Only being an older child at the start of the study, and having lots of friends who drank, were more important when it came to predicting who took up drinking. Writing in the British Medical Journal Open, they suggested that Hollywood should place "similar emphasis" on vetting films for drinking scenes, as they already did for smoking scenes.

Fresh hope in pancreatic cancer war

 

Pancreatic cancer cells can be destroyed by combining two drugs, researchers have found - giving hope that more effective treatments can be developed to combat the disease. The research by Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute showed in mice that combining a chemotherapy drug called gemcitabine with an experimental drug called MRK003 sets off a chain of events that ultimately kills cancer cells - multiplying the effect of each drug on its own. MRK003 blocks an important cell signalling pathway called Notch in both pancreatic cancer cells and the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels supplying tumours with essential nutrients. Experts found the addition of MRK003 to gemcitabine - a drug used commonly in patients with pancreatic cancer - increased the ability of gemcitabine to destroy tumours. The research was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicin, and study author Professor David Tuveson said: "We've discovered why these two drugs together set off a domino effect of molecular activity to switch off cell survival processes and destroy pancreatic cancer cells." Around 8,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year and the disease is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the UK. Survival rates are very low in relation to other cancers and the length of time between diagnosis and death is typically short, usually less than six months. The most recent data for England show that around 16% of patients survive their disease beyond 12 months after diagnosis - prompting the need for new treatments. The discovery is now a clinical trial being led by Duncan Jodrell, professor of cancer therapeutics at the University of Cambridge. He said: "We're delighted that the results of this important research are now being evaluated in a clinical trial, to test whether this might be a new treatment approach for patients with pancreatic cancer, although it will be some time before we're able to say how successful this will be in patients."

Lloyds Bank strips five directors of more than £1 million in bonuses

 

It will be the first time a British bank has exercised a “clawback” option on executive pay packages since the financial crisis and will lead to calls for similar moves at other lenders, including the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Daily Telegraph has learned that Lloyds is taking back a bonus from senior bankers over their role in the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI). Eric Daniels, Lloyds’ former chief executive, will lose at least £360,000 of his 2010 bonus. Four other current and former directors will each have to forgo about £250,000. The move comes after weeks of pressure from politicians and consumer groups for the banking sector to answer concerns that some bonus awards do not match individual performances. The Financial Services Authority has also called for Britain’s banks to reflect one of the worst customer mis-selling scandals in recent memory in the pay packages of those responsible.

Whitney is laid to rest: Late singer buried at private ceremony in home town

 

Following a very public farewell to Whitney Houston at a funeral attended by thousands yesterday, the late singer will be laid to rest in a private ceremony in New Jersey today. The tragic star will be buried at the Fairview Cemetery in Westfield where her father, John Russell Houston Jr., was interred in 2003. Houston's silver casket was reportedly watched over by 10 security guards after it left the invitation-only service attended by some of the music world's biggest stars yesterday.

As Old Francs Expire, France Makes a Small Mint

Greece may be scrambling for revenue, but the French treasury has just banked some 550 million euros for doing nothing — simply letting the French franc, created in 1360, finally perish. Enlarge This Image Thibault Camus/Associated Press People lined up at a bank in Paris on Friday to convert old French francs to euros, the common European currency, before the francs were rendered worthless. Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors Friday was the last day that French francs could be turned into the Bank of France, the central bank, in exchange for the common European currency, the euro, a little more than a decade after it was introduced as bills and coins. The approximately 550 million euros represents the francs still outstanding, somewhere, which are now worthless, and which will be registered as revenue for the French state. As the franc died, it is the future of the euro that seems at question now, an irony that hardly escaped some of those waiting in line at the bank to exchange the francs they had found stashed away in drawers, coat pockets and old purses. (Only bills were exchangeable; coins went out of circulation in 2005.) Emmanuelle Hamon, 47, said she was dubious about the fate of the euro. “I want to believe in it,” she said. “But I don’t know how, concretely, we’re going to make it.” A former advertising executive and journalist, she said she felt a bit betrayed, as if Europeans had been handed a bill of goods, now that floundering countries like Greece are causing troubles for the entire euro zone. “I was attracted to the notion of community,” she said. “We were all hoodwinked.” And like many, she believes that the euro brought with it higher prices. She had found 220 francs, or 33.54 euros at the fixed rate of 6.55957 francs to the euro. She is planning to give her bonus euros to a charity that fights hunger, she said. As for the franc itself, she said she had no special sentiments. “I thought they were pretty, that’s all I can say.” For some it was a sad day, to be sure. As Ms. Hamon noted, the franc notes and coins were varied and beautiful. The euro, on the other hand, seems like the product of an off-day at the design studio, made worse by the fact that the bills feature no recognizable buildings or portraits. The theory behind keeping some images off was that any European — even Beethoven, whose music was used for the European Union anthem — would be too national. Aurélien Duchene, an 18-year-old student, said that he liked the idea of the euro as a way to gather countries together, but that it meant prices went up. Pulling his earphones out to hear questions, he remembered that when he was 8 or 9 years old and the currency changed, he said, “For one franc you got a big bag of candy, and for one euro, one got less.” The current economic crisis had various causes, Mr. Duchene said. “But I think that changing from the franc to the euro is also a cause.” (Indeed, fixed rates and the common currency have meant countries cannot adjust the value of their currency in response to differing economic circumstances.) Shanel Maklouf, 17, said earnestly, while her friends giggled, that the euro had been “very bad for France,” and had helped cause its economic difficulties, “which grow day by day.” Going back to the franc is impossible, she said, “even if it would be a good thing,” especially for the poorer classes. “My mother waits for only one thing, that the franc returns.” The far-right National Front candidate in the coming presidential election, Marine Le Pen, is the only significant politician calling for France to pull out of the euro zone — and the European Union — and return to the franc. More mainstream politicians and economists regard the idea as folly, even as some Greeks begin to consider returning to the drachma. The Greeks, by the way, have until March 1 to switch their old drachmas into euros. Tania Capo-Chichi, 30, is a hairstylist, currently unemployed. She waited in line at the bank with her 5-month-old son in a stroller and a small windfall — 1,000 francs, worth 152.45 euros — she found digging through various bags, she said. She had no attachment to the old franc, but no idea how the current euro crisis, which she said no one was really explaining to people, would end. “It won’t come to a stop overnight,” she said. But she was sure the euro would endure, one way or another, as Europe evolves. “It’s ours,” she said, “even if we don’t necessarily like it.

Iran Court Starts Trial in $2.6 Billion Bank Fraud

Tehran court began hearing the trial of 32 defendants on Saturday in a $2.6 billion bank fraud case described as the biggest financial swindle in the country’s history, state television reported.   Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, read the text of the indictment against the suspects, who wore prison uniforms at the opening session at the Revolutionary Court, which deals with cases involving security and organized crime. The charges involve the use of forged documents to get credit at one of Iran’s top financial institutions to purchase assets, including state-owned companies. Iran’s judiciary has banned the news media from identifying the defendants by their full names. The primary defendant is referred to in reports by his nickname, Amir Mansour Aria, and he is described in the Iranian news media as the head of a business empire. The state television Web site quoted the indictment as saying the owners of the Aria Investment Development Company used “incorrect connections with executive and political elements” to accrue wealth. “Dozens of instances of bribe payments to staff and managers of banks have taken place under various titles,” it said. The indictment also said that company managers undermined the country’s economic security through fraud and by paying large bribes to illegally accumulate several billion dollars. State television said the top defendant has been charged with being “corrupt on earth,” an Iranian legal term meaning that the defendant is an enemy of God. The charge carries the death penalty. Aria pleaded not guilty, but he acknowledged that he had violated some laws. “Some violations were committed, and all that was on my order,” the state television Web site quoted him as telling the court. “I had no intention of committing treason against the country and the system. If I wanted to do so, I would have taken the money out of the country.” One of the suspects in the case, Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Bank Melli, now reportedly lives in Canada.

'Kinky' nuns and tattooed Christs spark controversy for Spanish gallery

 

Catholics and conservatives have denounced as blasphemous two recent exhibitions in Madrid featuring kinky nuns in lingerie and tattooed and near-naked Christs, demonstrating outside one gallery. Catholic group AES called a demonstration for Friday evening outside the Fresh Gallery in Madrid against its latest exhibition: "Obscenity", a collection of photographs by Canadian artist Bruce LaBruce. The 50 pictures on display include a portrait of Spanish actress Rossy de Palma in a black and white habit and see-through corset with a rosary between her teeth. One shows a well-known singer, Alaska, dressed as a sexy saint with a communion wafer on her tongue, while in another she hugs a tattooed Christ to her breast in a kinky tribute to Michaelangelo's Pieta sculpture. Around 50 protesters demonstrated outside the Fresh gallery Friday evening bearing placards reading "For a unified and Catholic Spain" and "God Exists". LaBruce himself was unrepentant. "How can fascists attempt to assert any sort of moral authority over anything?" he said. LaBruce, 48, whose work has often sparked protests and censorship, wrote on the gallery's website that "the lives of the saints are full of ecstatic acts of sublimated sexuality."

Spanish duke to be questioned by judge in embarrassing first for Madrid's royal family

 

Spain's royal family has long enjoyed a level of privacy and respect that the Windsors could only dream of. But, in an uncomfortable first for the Madrid monarchy, one of their number will face questioning from a judge this week in a scandal which has rocked the royal family and raised questions over the future of the monarchy. Inaki Urdangarin, the son-in-law of King Juan Carlos, is preparing for a court appearance in which he will defend himself in a widening embezzlement scandal. Hearings into the case began last weekend at a court in Palma on the Balearic island of Majorca and will culminate on Saturday with the long anticipated appearance of the Duke of Palma, who received the title when he married Cristina, the King's youngest daughter, in 1997. The Duke, 44, a former professional handball player who won Olympic medals for Spain in the sport, was formally made a suspect in the wide-ranging fraud case that alleges the embezzlement of millions of euros of government funds through a non-profit organization he co-directed between 2004 and 2006. Investigators claim to have discovered a "black hole" in the accounts of the Noos Institute, which organised sporting and tourism events for the regional governments of the Balearic Islands and Valencia.

Morocco bans Spain’s El Pais newspaper over royal cartoon

 

Morocco has banned the distribution of Thursday’s edition of Spain’s influential El Pais, as a cartoon published by the newspaper allegedly tarnished King Mohammed VI’s name, an official said. “The decision to ban (the paper) was made on the basis of article 29 of the press code” that protects the monarch, the senior communication ministry official told AFP on Saturday. “The caricature contains a deliberate intention to smear the (king’s) image to harm the king personally,” he added. The cartoon, which was picked up by a Moroccan website, accompanied an article by Spanish journalist Ignacio Cembrero, who knows Morocco well. Contacted by AFP, Cembrero said the Moroccan reaction surprised him as the small cartoon was “friendly and rather likeable”. It seemed to be the first time that a foreign publication was banned for the stated reasons since the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) came to power in Morocco in January, he added. So far Morocco has only banned weeklies that carried images of the Prophet Mohammed, or of God, which is forbidden under Muslim tradition. Earlier this month French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur fell into that category after printing an image of God. And last month the magazine was banned when a cover story on the Arab world included the supposed face of the Prophet Mohammed. Morocco also banned French weekly l’Express in January for publishing a 95-page dossier on Islam including a face meant to represent Mohammed’s.

British man killed and 24 injured after coach crash during half-term skiing holiday

 

British man was killed and 24 others were injured when a coach carrying school pupils home from a half-term skiing trip careered off a motorway in northern France today. At least four teenagers are in a serious condition following the accident on the A26 road, near Chalons-en-Champagne, in the Ardennes region. The dead man's name has not been released. He was 61 years old.

A TRUSTED accountant who fleeced $45 million from financial group ING Holdings has been jailed for at least seven years.

 

Rajina Rita Subramaniam splurged the money on lavish products, including jewellery which she never wore, and numerous expensive properties, all of which remained vacant except for one, for which she did not charge rent. In sentencing her in the NSW District Court in Sydney today, Judge Michael Finnane described as "staggering" the sheer size of the amount she stole from ING over a five-year period. The 42-year-old, from Castle Hill in Sydney's northwest, pleaded guilty to 22 counts of obtaining benefits by deception and four counts of dealing with the proceeds of crime. When police went to her workplace, they found 21 boxes stored under her desk and nearby. "When these boxes were searched, police found large quantities of jewellery, fountain pens, champagne, crystal and Michael Jackson memorabilia," the judge said. "Much of the jewellery was still in boxes that had not been opened." The judge said that outwardly, Subramaniam was leading a normal life with her husband in a suburban house and none of the money was used to pay off any of their debt. "The agreed facts demonstrate that she became accepted as a wealthy woman and a very desirable customer of a number of large jewellery firms," the judge said. At times she would spend millions of dollars in a single lunch hour and she lavished gifts on the shop assistants. "Each of them received commissions for sales to her, and giving presents to them, in my opinion, is consistent with her wanting to be accepted and praised," Judge Finnane said. "Her gifts of $1.3 million to one shop assistant and something like $240,000 to another shop assistant are consistent with her wanting to be loved and accepted." The judge said everything she did in stealing the money and using the proceeds "points to someone who got gratification from being able to be thought of as wealthy and generous". He referred to her having frequent sex with an ING supervisor and to her husband's statement that he joined in the sexual activity, which sometimes happened between them in motel rooms or at their home. Subramaniam claimed to police that the frequent sexual intercourse she had with the employee at work was part of her ill treatment by staff. "She claims that part of the reason for engaging in fraud was resentment towards ING and her wanting revenge," the judge said. The judge said while the sexual activity may have been abusive in her mind, it appeared to have been consensual. While she was not mentally ill, she had mental disorders that needed intensive counselling, he added. He set a maximum term of 15 years.

Syria bloodshed is outrageous, says Obama

 

President Obama has accused Syrian government forces of responsibility for "outrageous" bloodshed and called again for Bashar al-Assad to step down as troops sealed off of a rebel stronghold in the city of Homs and bombarded it using tanks, helicopters and artillery. Speaking after a White House meeting with the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, Obama spoke briefly on Syria. He said: "We both have a great interest in ending the outrageous bloodshed that we've seen and see a transition from the current government that has been assaulting its people." His comments come as the international community struggles to find a common voice with which to confront President Assad. Eyewitnesses said roads in and out of Baba Amr, in the south-east of Homs, were blocked, preventing the evacuation of children or the wounded, and food, water and medicine were running out fast in the besieged suburb. The international community appeared to flounder over a coherent response. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the Russian and Chinese veto of a security council resolution on the crisis over the weekend as "disastrous for the Syrian people". He said the failure to agree on collective action "has encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people". The UN and the Arab League proposed a joint observer mission, and talks continued over the formation of an ad hoc "friends of the Syrian people" group to put pressure on the Assad regime without help from Moscow and Beijing. Speaking at an international gathering in Sweden, David Cameron said: "It is quite clear that this is a regime hell-bent on killing, murdering and maiming its own citizens … we need to take the toughest possible response we can." But the options the prime minister listed reflected a cautious, incremental approach the UK and other western governments have pursued after the security council debacle. "We also need to work with the [Syrian] opposition to try and help shape their future and assist them in whatever way we can. We also need to put together the strongest possible contact group of like-minded nations," Cameron said. Foreign secretary William Hague said there were no plans to arm Syrian rebels. He would not guarantee that Britain would not become involved in military action, but stressed: "We are clearly not planning military intervention." Amid speculation that the UK could assist the rebels with weapons or other equipment, Hague told Sky News: "Britain is not engaged in that and we haven't done that in any of the conflicts or we certainly don't have any plans to do such. "We are intensifying our contacts with opposition groups, opposition groups mainly outside Syria. "We're also increasing our support for organisations that get food and medical supplies in to people so badly affected by this situation." In the absence of international consensus, there was no sign of any decisive action that might stop the worsening bloodshed in Syria. More than 100 people were reported dead in Homs on Thursday during heavy bombardment by government forces, but the figure could not be independently confirmed in the absence of observers or humanitarian organisations. A local resident, Basil Abu Fouad, said it was impossible to estimate casualties accurately. "We can't count the number of the dead in the rubble. When we pull someone from the rubble, we don't know if they were killed today, yesterday or before," Abu Fouad said by phone from a basement in Baba Amr. "They are using helicopters and mortars and tanks, T-72 [former Soviet] tanks. Hundreds of homes have been demolished and they have come down on the heads of their owners. "Communications have been completely cut off between neighbourhoods. The army have blocked access to the city. Some people tried to escape but they found all the roads were closed. There is no food left in the city. We don't have milk. All the water tanks have been targeted. We don't have medicines. If you go to the shops and try to get in, the snipers up on the roofs will shoot you," he said. "The children will die here. All the people want is to escape. They can smash this place if they want. We just want to get out of there. But they won't allow us."

Barclays caps bonuses at £65,000

 

Barclays announced on Friday that it was capping cash bonuses at £65,000 as it reported a 3% fall in profits to £5.9bn. The bank also admitted it may miss the targets it had set itself for making returns to shareholders. Providing more detail about bonuses than usual, the bank said that the value of bonus per group employee was down 21% year on year to £15,200, while the average value of bonus per employee at Barclays Capital, its investment banking arm, was down 30% to £64,000 - just below the value of the cap. The bank said that annual bonuses for executives and its eight highest paid employees were down 48%. Chief executive Bob Diamond received a bonus in shares of £1.8m in 2010 so, if he is in line with the average, this might indicate that his bonus would be around £900,000. Barclays shares were down 3% at 225.9p in early trading. But the bank admitted that its return on equity was just 6.6% in 2011 - down from 8.8% the year before and well below the target of 13% set by Diamond. "Since setting the target the worse than predicted macro economic conditions, in addition to new regulatory constraints, mean that we may not be able to deliver 13% returns by 2013," the bank said. "We are not satisfied with the return on equity we delivered in 2011 and are committed to delivering steady improvement moving forwards. Our rock solid capital, liquidity and funding positions provide us with the flexibility and confidence to meet the economic and regulatory challenges ahead," Diamond added.

Canadian woman charged in Gadhafi smuggling plot

 

The Mount Forest, Ont., woman held in a Mexican jail since November in a suspected plot to smuggle Moammar Ghadafi's son and his family out of Libya has been charged with falsifying documents, organized crime and attempted human smuggling. The charges were laid the same day Cyndy Vanier's family released a letter outlining what she calls deplorable conditions endured in the Mexican jail where she is being detained. Vanier, 52, was picked up in Mexico, where she and her husband have a winter home, last Nov. 10 and held without charges until Tuesday when a judge ordered warrants against two women and two men for a suspected plot to whisk Saadi Gadhafi and his family to Mexico. Those four people were Vanier, a mediator specializing aboriginal dispute and president of Vanier Consulting, and three other arrested in the alleged plot. Vanier has been pointed to as the ring leader. The charges were outlined in a press release from Mexico's office of the attorney general, who said its investigation showed a group had attempted to smuggle Gadhafi's son and his family in July but failed. A decision was made to make a second attempt and use another aircraft company to move the Gadhafis. The charges include accusations of falsifying a passport, voter registration card and a birth certificate. A house was bought in Bahia de Banderas, Nayarit, Mexico, to hide the family. There was also an attempt to buy an apartment in St. Regis hotel in Mexico City. The allegations, unproven in court, were linked to the theft of 4,586 passports in 2009. The charges outlined in the news release are for human smuggling, organized crime and counterfeiting three official documents. Vanier and the other female suspect are being held in a federal prison in Chetumal, Quintana Roo. The men are in a facility in Veracruz. Vanier wrote in the letter released by her family that she has been abused and tortured while in custody. Until Wednesday, she had been held on a judge's order. Under Mexico's preventative arrest law, people can be held up to 90 days without charge as investigators gather enough evidence to charge them. Bail is uncommon and not available at all for people accused of serious crimes. Her Canadian lawyer, Paul Copeland, said there was no coincidence as to why the letter was released early Wednesday when Vanier was finally charged. The family had it in their possession for some time, but waited until the detention order was over "so not to prejudice the situation." A spokesman for Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy confirmed Vanier contacted the Canadian government to allege she'd been abused in Mexican custody. "Officials have received, but have not verified Ms. Vanier's allegations. Canadians officials are reviewing these allegations and will act accordingly," John Babcock said. "Ms. Vanier faces very serious allegations in Mexico including the falsification of documents, human trafficking and participating in organized crime. Canadian officials are providing her with consular assistance, but Canadians travelling abroad are subject to the laws in the countries they visit. "Canada will continue to interact with Mexican authorities on her behalf as required, and our consular officials are ensuring that her medical concerns are being addressed." In a letter to Canada's foreign affairs department obtained by the CBC, Vanier said a dozen officers took her into custody on Nov. 9 and one of them struck her en route to a detention centre as they drove past her co-accused and lawyers. "I tried to yell out the open window ... and as I did, one of the female officers struck me with her elbow on the lower right side over the kidney. I could hardly breathe it hurt so much ... I started to cry ... and they laughed at me," she alleges. Police accused her of being a terrorist and didn't allow her to call a lawyer or the Canadian Embassy, she said. Vanier said she was also denied access to the bathroom for hours and not given medical attention. Mexican authorities allege Vanier was the ringleader who tried to smuggle the slain Libyan dictator's son, Saadi Gadhafi, and his family into the country by falsifying documents, opening bank accounts and purchasing real estate. Vanier, a vacation property owner in Mexico, said she was in the country with her husband looking to buy property. Police questioned her about her real-estate hunting. Further suspicion arose because Vanier travelled to Libya in July for the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin with a former Gadhafi staffer as her bodyguard. Three other people, two from Mexico and a man from Denmark, have been detained as alleged accomplices. "I have suffered physical, mental and emotional abuse and trauma, and my rights as a Canadian citizen have been violated based on my international human rights as well as the Mexican constitution," she wrote.

Times of London Dragged Into UK's Hacking Scandal - Another Rupert Murdoch newspaper being probed, says lawmaker

 

Police are investigating alleged email interception by Rupert Murdoch's Times of London, a British lawmaker said today—dragging Britain's oldest national newspaper into the broadening scandal over press wrongdoing. Labour Party legislator Tom Watson, who helped lift the lid on tabloid phone hacking, released a letter from police confirming they were investigating alleged email hacking by the Times. The 226-year-old Times has acknowledged that a former reporter tried to intercept emails in 2009 to unmask an anonymous policeman who blogged as NightJack. Editor James Harding told Britain's media ethics inquiry last month that the reporter had acted on his own and had been reprimanded. The paper later published the blogger's name, but Harding insisted it had been obtained by legal means. In the wake of the new development, Harding will be summoned back to give further testimony to the judge-led ethics inquiry.