Bankrupt Banker

Lloyds owns stake in US firm accused over CIA torture flights

<p>Lloyds Banking Group has become embroiled in a row over its investment in a company accused of involvement in the rendition of terror suspects on behalf of the CIA.  Lloyds, which is just under 40% owned by the taxpayer, is one of a number of leading City institutions under fire for investing in US giant Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), which is accused of helping to organise covert US government flights of terror suspects to Guantánamo Bay and other clandestine "black sites" around the world.  Reprieve, the legal human rights charity run by the British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, alleges that during the flights, suspects – some of whom were later proved innocent – were "stripped, dressed in a diaper and tracksuit, goggles and earphones, and had their hands and feet shackled". Once delivered to the clandestine locations, they were subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation and forced into stress positions, a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross says.  CSC, which is facing a backlash for allegedly botching its handling of a £3bn contract to upgrade the NHS IT system, has refused to comment on claims it was involved in rendition. It has also refused to sign a Reprieve pledge to "never knowingly facilitate torture" in the future. The claims about its involvement in rendition flights have not been confirmed.  Reprieve has written to CSC investors to ask them to put pressure on the company to take a public stand against torture.  Some of the City's biggest institutions, including Lloyds and insurer Aviva, have demanded that CSC immediately address allegations that it played a part in arranging extraordinary rendition flights.  Aviva, which holds a small stake in CSC via US tracker funds, said it had written to CSC's executives to demand an investigation. The insurer said it would take further action if it was confirmed that CSC was linked to torture. "Aviva is of course concerned by the allegations made against CSC," said a spokesman. "We are a signatory to the United Nations global compact, and support human rights principles, as outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is not yet clear that CSC is directly complicit in the activities outlined and we have written to the company seeking clarification. We will investigate these allegations further and take action as appropriate."  Lloyds said it was taking the allegations seriously and had launched its own investigation. A spokesman said: "Our policy is clear, we will not support companies whose ongoing business activities are illegal in the UK and breach the requirements of international conventions as ratified by the UK government. We are not aware of evidence that CSC is currently committed to activities inconsistent with our policy."  Lloyds holds an £8.5m stake in CSC via its Scottish Widows funds that track the S&P 500 index of America's biggest companies.  HSBC, another investor, said that it was not aware of evidence that CSC was breaching its ethical investment code.  CSC's alleged involvement with rendition came about after it purchased DynCorp, which was involved in hundreds of prisoner transfer flights, in 2003. While CSC went on to sell DynCorp in 2005, Reprieve alleges that CSC continued to be involved in the supervision of rendition flights until the end of 2006.  None of CSC's top 10 shareholders, including fund managers Dodge & Cox, Fidelity, Blackrock and Guggenheim Capital, a fund manager founded by a grandson of philanthropist Solomon Guggenheim, responded to the allegations made in a letter from Reprieve. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is also an investor.  One of the biggest investors, which declined to be identified due to its policy of refusing to comment on investment decisions, said its executives were "extremely concerned" about CSC's alleged links to torture, and managers raised their concerns with CSC as soon as it was made aware of the allegations by the Guardian.  Reprieve's legal director, Cori Crider, said: "CSC evidently thinks it's fine to profit from kidnap and torture as long as their shareholders are happy. It is now up to those shareholders, including British banks, pension funds and UK government [via Lloyds], to show this isn't the case. These institutions must insist that CSC take their ethical concerns seriously. Alternatively, they can vote with their feet."  Crider told investors that Reprieve had obtained an invoice indicating CSC organised a flight that took Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen mistakenly imprisoned by the CIA, from a secret detention centre in Afghanistan to Albania in May 2004. The charity said in its letter: "Having belatedly concluded after months of torture and interrogation that they had imprisoned the wrong man, the CIA, acting through CSC, arranged for Richmor Aviation jet N982RK to transfer Mr al-Masri from an Afghan 'black site' to a remote roadside in Albania."  In a letter to Reprieve, Helaine Elderkin, CSC's vice-president and senior deputy general counsel, said: "CSC's board of directors … have a corporate responsibility programme that fosters CSC's growth by promoting and increasing the value of the company to its shareholders, clients, communities and employees."</p>

Lloyds owns stake in US firm accused over CIA torture flights

Lloyds Banking Group has become embroiled in a row over its investment in a company accused of involvement in the rendition of terror suspec...

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state

<p>Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state, where two Mexican drug cartels are warring over control of smuggling routes and targeting sources of independent information.  The brutal campaign is bleeding the media and threatening to turn Veracruz into the latest state in Mexico where fear snuffs out reporting on the drug war.  Three photojournalists who worked the perilous crime beat in the port city of Veracruz were found dismembered and dumped in plastic bags in a canal Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the state capital of Xalapa.  Press freedom groups said all three photographers had temporarily fled the state after receiving threats last year. The organizations called for immediate government action to halt a wave of attacks that has killed at least seven current and former reporters and photographers in Veracruz over the last 18 months.  Like most of those, the men found Thursday were among the few journalists left working on crime-related stories in the state. Threats and killings have spawned an atmosphere of terror and self-censorship, and most local media are too intimidated to report on drug-related violence. Social media and blogs are often the only outlets reporting on serious crime.  Veracruz isn't the only battleground for Mexican media. In at least three northeastern states, journalists are under siege from assailants throwing grenades inside newsrooms and gunmen firing into newspaper and TV station buildings.  In the state of Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas, local media stopped covering drug trafficking violence, mentioning drug cartels or reporting on organized crime shortly after two gangs began fighting for control of Nuevo Laredo in 2004. As part of that war, reporters were targeted to keep them silent or because they had links to gangs.  Mexico has become one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists in recent years, amid a government offensive against drug cartels and fighting among gangs that have brought tens of thousands of deaths, kidnappings and extortion cases.  Prosecutions in journalist killings are almost nonxistent, although that is widely true of all homicides and other serious crimes in Mexico.  The latest killings came in Boca del Rio, a town near the port city of Veracruz where police found the bodies. The victims bore signs of torture and had been dismembered, the state prosecutors' office said.  One victim was identified as Guillermo Luna Varela, a crime-news photographer for the website http://www.veracruznews.com.mx who was last seen by local reporters covering a car accident Wednesday afternoon. According to a fellow journalist, who insisted on speaking anonymously out of fear, Luna was in his 20s and had begun his career working for the local newspaper Notiver.  The journalist said Luna was the nephew of another of the men found dead, Gabriel Huge. Huge was in his early 30s and worked as a photojournalist for Notiver until last summer, when he fled the state soon after two of the paper's reporters were slain in still-unsolved killings. He had returned to the state to work as a reporter, but it was not immediately clear what kind of stories he was covering recently.  State officials said the third victim was Esteban Rodriguez, who was a photographer for the local newspaper AZ until last summer, when he too quit and fled the state. He later came back, but took up work as a welder. The London-based press freedom group Article 19 said he, like the other two, had been a crime photographer.  The fourth victim was Luna's girlfriend, Irasema Becerra, state prosecutors said.  Article 19 said in a report last year that Luna, Varela and Rodriguez were among 13 Veracruz journalists who had fled their homes because of crime-related threats and official unwillingness to protect them or investigate the danger. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in 2008 that Huge had been detained and beaten by federal police as he tried to cover a fatal auto accident involving officers.  Last June, Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a columnist and editorial director for Notiver, was shot to death in Veracruz along with his wife and one of his children.  Authorities that month also found the body of journalist Noel Lopez buried in a clandestine grave in the town of Chinameca. Lopez, who disappeared three months earlier, had worked for the weeklies Horizonte and Noticias de Acayucan and for the daily newspaper La Verdad.  The following month, Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, a police reporter for Notiver, was found with her throat cut in the state.  Lopez was found after a suspect in another case confessed to killing him, but the other two murders have not been resolved.  The cartel war in Veracruz reached a bloody peak in September when 35 bodies were dumped on a main highway in rush-hour traffic. Local law enforcement in the state was considered so corrupt and infiltrated by the Zetas and other gangs that Mexico's federal government fired 800 officers and 300 administrative personnel in the city of Veracruz-Boca del Rio in December and sent in about 800 marines to patrol.  Mike O'Connor, the Committee to Protect Journalists' representative for Mexico, said journalists in Veracruz were exercising an unusual degree of self-censorship even before Ordaz and Lopez were killed. He said media avoided much coverage of crime and corruption.  "Important news was not covered because it might upset the Zetas. Then these guys were killed and self-censorship cracked down even more," O'Connor said. "Almost all of the police beat reporters left town after those killings."  Regina Martinez, a correspondent for the national magazine Proceso, continued to cover crime-related stories along with a handful of other journalists, however.  On Saturday, authorities went to her home in Xalapa, the state capital, after a neighbor reported it to be suspiciously quiet. They found the reporter dead in her bathroom with signs she had been beaten and strangled.  "Self-censorship was extraordinarily strong but whoever killed these journalists wanted more," O'Connor said. "It still wasn't enough to satisfy whoever killed these journalists."  Mexico's human rights commission says 74 media workers were slain from 2000 to 2011. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 51 were killed in that time. It noted in a statement on the Mexico killings that Thursday was World Press Freedom Day.</p>

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz st...

Greek far-right parties could end up with as much as 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has intensified the xenophobic atmosphere in the country.

<p>At night, the streets leading to Omonoia Square are empty. That wasn't always the case. The area was the premier multicultural neighborhood of Athens and one of the first quarters to be gentrified. Jazz bars and Indian restaurants lined the streets, separated by the occasional rooms-by-the-hour hotel. It was a quarter full of immigrants, drug addicts and African prostitutes, but also of journalists, ambitious young artists and teenagers from private schools.  Today, the immigrants stay home once night falls. They are afraid of groups belonging to the "angry citizens," a kind of militia that beats up foreigners and claims to help the elderly withdraw money from cash machines without being robbed. Such groups are the product of an initiative started by the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi -- Golden Dawn -- the party which has perpetrated pogroms in Agios Panteleimon, another Athens neighborhood with a large immigrant population. There are now three outwardly xenophobic parties in Greece. According to recent surveys, together they could garner up to 20 percent of the vote in elections on Sunday: the anti-Semitic party LAOS stands to win 4 percent; the nationalist party Independent Greeks -- a splinter group of the conservative Nea Dimokratia party -- is forecast to win 11 percent; and the right extremists of Golden Dawn could end up with between 5 and 7 percent.  My name is Xenia, the hospitable. Greece itself should really be called Xenia: Tourism, emigration and immigration are important elements of our history. But hospitality is no longer a priority in our country, a fact which the ugly presence of Golden Dawn makes clear.  A Personal Attack  Shaved heads, military uniforms, Nazi chants, Hitler greetings: How should a Greek journalist deal with such people? Should one just ignore them and leave them unmentioned? Should one denounce them and demand that they be banned? One shouldn't forget that they are violent and have perpetrated several attacks against foreigners and leftists. I thought long and hard about how to write about Golden Dawn so that my article was in no way beneficial to the party.  On April 12, the daily Kathimerini ran my story under the headline "Banality of Evil." In the piece, I carefully explained why it was impossible to carry on a dialogue with such people and why I thought the neo-Nazi party should disappear from media coverage and be banned. Five days later, an anonymous reply to my article appeared on the Golden Dawn website. It was a 2,500-word-long personal attack in which the fascists recounted my entire career, mocked my alleged foreign roots (I was born in Hamburg) and even, for no apparent reason, mentioned my 13-year-old daughter. The unnamed authors indirectly threatened me as well: "To put it in the mother tongue of foreign Xenia: 'Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat, kommt Attentat!'" In other words, watch your back.  Most Greeks believe that Golden Dawn has connections to both the police and to the country's secret service. Nevertheless, I went to the authorities to ask what I should do. I was told that I should be careful. They told me that party thugs could harass me, beat me or terrorize me over the phone. It would be better, they said, if I stopped writing about them. If I wished to react to the threats, they suggested I file a complaint against Golden Dawn's service provider. That, however, would be difficult given that the domain is based somewhere in the United States.  Like Weimar Germany  A friend told me that I should avoid wearing headphones on the street so that I can hear what is going on around me. My daughter now has nightmares about being confronted by members of Golden Dawn. Three of her classmates belong to the party. The three boys have posted pictures of party events on their Facebook pages. For their profile image, they have chosen the ancient Greek Meandros symbol, which, in the red-on-black manifestation used by Golden Dawn, resembles a swastika. The group's slogans include "Foreigners Out!" and "The Garbage Should Leave the Country!"  The fact that immigration has become such an issue in the worst year of the ongoing economic crisis in the country can be blamed on the two parties in government. The Socialist PASOK and the conservative Nea Dimokratia (New Democracy, or ND) are running xenophobic campaigns. ND has said it intends to repeal a law which grants Greek citizenship to children born in Greece to immigrant parents. And cabinet member Michalis Chrysochoidis, of PASOK, has announced "clean up operations" whereby illegal immigrants are to be rounded up in encampments and then deported. When he recently took a stroll through the center of Athens to collect accolades for his commitment to the cause, some called out to him: "Golden Dawn has cleaned up Athens!" Yet, Chrysochoidis is the best loved PASOK politician in his Athens district, in part because of his xenophobic sentiments. His party comrade, Health Minister Andreas Loverdos, is just as popular. Loverdos has warned Greek men not to sleep with foreign prostitutes for fear of contracting HIV and thus endangering the Greek family.  High unemployment of roughly 22 percent, a lack of hope, a tendency toward violence and the search for scapegoats: Analyses in the Greek press compare today's Greece with Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic. "We didn't know," said many Germans when confronted with the truth of the Holocaust after Nazi rule came to an end. After elections on May 6, no Greeks should be able to make the same claim.</p>

Greek far-right parties could end up with as much as 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has intensified the xenophobic atmosphere in the country.

At night, the streets leading to Omonoia Square are empty. That wasn't always the case. The area was the premier multicultural neighborh...

Locked Up Abroad is different.

<div><div><p>Reality TV is, at its core, about letting viewers revel in the bad decision-making of others: those who speak without thinking, who backstab, who have sex without condoms, who cheat. Frustratingly, though, reality shows—to which I am unapologetically addicted—tend to reward bad behavior, by giving its villains notoriety, spinoffs, opportunities to endorse weight-loss products, a nice sideline in paid interviews with supermarket tabloids, and other D-list rewards.</p></div></div><div><div><p>Locked Up Abroad is different. The National Geographic show, the sixth season of which premiered last week, gives its stars something they wouldn’t get on other reality shows: their comeuppance.</p></div></div><div><div><p>Having debuted in the U.K. (under the title Banged Up Abroad), Locked Up Abroad showcases one person (sometimes a couple) who ends up in prison overseas. Participants fit into one of two categories. The first group are the (largely) innocent: the married missionary couple who were kidnapped in the Philippines by the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf, for instance, or the seemingly goodhearted duo who wanted to help children in Chechnya, but ended up held hostage. These tales of the altruistic and naive can be difficult to watch.</p></div></div><div><div><p>But then there are those who rather deserve what happens to them. Typically these are drug smugglers, and their episodes follow a familiar arc. A young person—they’re almost always young—is bored or in need of cash (usually both). She is desperate or feels invincible (usually both). Someone approaches her and offers a seemingly great deal: an all-expenses-paid, luxurious overseas trip in exchange for a small favor. Sometimes the would-be employer is upfront and admits he needs a drug mule, but downplays the risk; other times, he hints at harmless-sounding illegalities, like bringing back legal goods to beat the export tax. In a few cases, the cover story is painfully thin: Come with me to check out this cool new nail polish technology only available in Thailand, for example. (That woman was in a vulnerable place: She had just been released on bail after killing her partner’s former husband—in self-defense, she claimed.)</p></div></div><div><div><p>The drug smugglers are caught, of course, usually at the airport, and brought to prison. And while a few episodes have taken place in developed countries—Spain, Japan, South Korea—the majority of our anti-heroes end up incarcerated in places with some of the dirtiest and most dangerous penitentiaries in the world.</p></div></div><div><div><p>Take last week’s episode, “From Hollywood to Hell.” (And pardon my spoilers, but this installment is too good not to describe in detail.) In 2001, actor Erik Aude was living the marginal Hollywood dream. An ür-bro, he had played bit parts in Dude, Where’s My Car?(credited as “Musclehead”) and 7<sup>th</sup> Heaven (“Boyfriend”) when a gym buddy asked him to go to Turkey to bring back “leather goods.” Aude makes the trip, and though a drug-sniffing dog alerts authorities at the Turkish airport, they find nothing—so Aude feels sure the whole thing is legit. He even recommends that one of his brothers start couriering for his friend. Then, when his brother backs out of a planned trip to Pakistan in 2002, Aude steps in, and shit gets real.</p></div></div><div><div><div><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="568" height="400" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/faC060y6v5c?autoplay=&wmode=transparent" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div><div><div><p>It is difficult to feel sorry for Aude. After his escort dumps him in an Islamabad hotel and warns him not to leave because the area is unsafe for Americans, he doesn’t head to the embassy or the airport. Instead, he goes jogging—and even tries to flirt with girls in headscarves on the street (with disastrous results). And when he is taken to the airport with just one suitcase, he is (he claims) not the least bit suspicious that he might be a drug mule. When a customs official asks him whether his trip was for business or pleasure, he cheeses, “Pleasure is my business.”</p></div></div><div><div><p>Aude’s episode is mind-bogglingly watchable, not least because he—of course!—plays himself in the re-enactment. In his telling, he was a virtual action star: On at least three occasions, he single-handedly fights back dozens of Pakistanis. After he takes out a prison bully, he is hailed a hero. He rejects a reduced sentence because it would require him to plead guilty—and his pride is more valuable than his freedom, he says.</p></div></div><div><div><p>Aside from those truly in the wrong place at the wrong time, the most sympathetic characters of Locked Up Abroad may be the embassy employees called in to assist the suspected smugglers. Inevitably, Locked Up Abroad participants are horrified that the embassies of their homelands—usually English-speaking countries like the U.S., the U.K., or Australia—can’t do more for them. I can just imagine U.S. Embassy workers calling “not it” every time they get word from local authorities about some young American knucklehead who thought he could sneak past security with a bag full of cocaine.</p></div></div><div><div><p>Tonight’s episode is called “The Juggler Smuggler,” and its “hero” is Mark Greening, a “party-loving” drug-runner who knows his latest trip is “doomed” when he doesn’t get his fortune told by “his favorite Gypsy woman.” I can’t wait.</p></div></div>

Locked Up Abroad is different.

Reality TV is, at its core, about letting viewers revel in the bad decision-making of others: those who speak without thinking, who backstab...

Low fare airline bmibaby to close

<p>Low fare carrier bmibaby is set to close later this year, threatening the loss of hundreds of jobs and the ending of its flights. The carrier transferred to International Airlines Group, the owners of British Airways, last month, but consultations have now started with unions about its closure in September. The GMB union said it was "devastating" news, especially for the East Midlands, where hundreds of jobs are now threatened with the axe. With bmi Regional, bmibaby transferred to International Airlines Group ownership on completion of the purchase from Lufthansa. IAG has consistently said that bmibaby and bmi Regional are not part of its long-term plans. A statement said: "Progress has been made with a potential buyer for bmi Regional, but so far this has not been possible for bmibaby, despite attempts over many months by both Lufthansa and IAG. Bmibaby has therefore started consultation to look at future options including, subject to that consultation, a proposal to close in September this year." Peter Simpson, bmi interim managing director, said: "We recognise that these are unsettling times for bmibaby employees, who have worked tirelessly during a long period of uncertainty. Bmibaby has delivered high levels of operational performance and customer service, but has continued to struggle financially, losing more than £100 million in the last four years. In the consultation process, we will need to be realistic about our options. "To help stem losses as quickly as possible and as a preliminary measure, we will be making reductions to bmibaby's flying programme from June. We sincerely apologise to all customers affected and will be providing full refunds and doing all we can with other airlines to mitigate the impact of these changes." Jim McAuslan, general secretary of the pilots' union Balpa, said: "This is bad news for jobs. Bmibaby pilots are disappointed and frustrated that, even though there appears to be potential buyers, we are prevented from speaking with them to explore how we can contribute to developing a successful business plan. "The frustration has now turned to anger following the news that Flybe (which is part owned by BA) has moved onto many of these bmibaby routes without any opportunity for staff to look at options and alternatives. Balpa's priority is to protect jobs; and we will use whatever means we can to do so." The changes mean that all bmibaby flights to and from Belfast will cease from June 11, although this will not affect bmi mainline's services to London Heathrow. Bmibaby services from East Midlands to Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, Nice, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newquay, and from Birmingham to Knock and Amsterdam, will end on the same date.</p>

Low fare airline bmibaby to close

Low fare carrier bmibaby is set to close later this year, threatening the loss of hundreds of jobs and the ending of its flights. The carrie...

Murdoch facing new challenge as US senator contacts Leveson over hacking

<p>Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Senate committee opened direct contact with British investigators in an attempt to find out whether News Corporation has broken American laws.  Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, has written to Lord Justice Leveson, who leads the British judicial inquiry into media ethics, asking if he has uncovered any evidence relating questionable practices in the US.  "I would like to know whether any of the evidence you are reviewing suggests that these unethical and sometimes illegal business practices occurred in the United States or involved US citizens," Rockefeller writes in a letter released on Wednesday.  The development adds to the potential dangers facing News Corp, a publicly-traded company with its headquarters in New York. Rockefeller has taken a close interest in the unfolding phone-hacking saga, but it is the first time that a Senate committee member has acted in his official capacity.  Should the committee decide to press its case, it has considerable powers at its disposal. It could convene official Senate hearings into the scandal and subpoena witnesses and documents from News Corp – though as yet there is no discussion of doing so.  The commerce committee covers all means of communications in the US – including telecommunications, free-to-air broadcasting and cable TV. It also has oversight over the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory body that has final say on the issuing of broadcast licences, including the 27 licences issued to the Fox TV network that is the jewel in Murdoch's crown.  The FCC, which has come under pressure this week from ethics watchdogs calling for action against News Corp, can revoke licences if it deems that the companies holding them are not properly run in the public interest.   John 'Jay' Rockefeller. Photograph: AP In his letter to Leveson, Rockefeller asks whether some of the more than 5,000 potential victims of phone hacking by the now-defunct News of the World may have been American. "I am concerned about the possibility that some of these undisclosed victims are US citizens, and the possibility that telephone networks under the jurisdiction of US laws were used to intercept their voicemail messages."  He adds that he wants to know whether any News Corp business had "used hacking, bribing, or other similar tactics when operating in the US".  In a scathing attack on the Murdoch company, Rockefeller writes: "In a democratic society, members of the media have the freedom to aggressively probe their government's activities and expose wrongdoing. But, like all other citizens, they also have a duty to obey the law.  "Evidence that is already in the public record clearly shows that for many years, News International had a widespread, institutional disregard for these laws."  Rockefeller also asks for details emerging from the Leveson inquiry that indicated whether any News Corp executives based in New York were aware of illegal payments made by News of the World to British police and other public officials. "I would be very concerned if evidence emerged suggesting that News Corporation officials in New York were also aware of these illegal payments and did not act to stop them."  The senator does not name individuals. Rupert Murdoch and his son James – who was until recently the chairman of News Corp's British newspaper division, News International – are based in the New York headquarters, as was Les Hinton, James Murdoch's predecessor, who was this week accused by the UK Commons culture committee of misleading parliament. Hinton resigned in July.  Rockefeller's intervention was triggered by the final report of the British parliament's culture, media and sport select committee, which concluded that Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company. It comes two weeks after Mark Lewis, a British lawyer at the forefront of the phone-hacking investigations, opened investigations into four cases of alleged phone hacking that occurred in the US.  Lewis, who won £3m for the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler from News International, said: "There are so many American aspects to this, it is difficult to know where to begin. Whether it is about American victims of hacking, or the failure of a US company in respect of the corrupt practices of a foreign subsidiary, or the fact that material information was witheld from shareholders and potential investors: I suspect it is a race to find out which scandal lands first.  "It was only a matter of time before the US authorities realised the significance of what had been happening in the UK."  He is set to launch six cases in the US with Norman Siegel, an American lawyer who has previously represented families of September 11 victims. He has not divulged who his clients are, but it is known one is actress Koo Stark, who has been told by Metropolitan police detectives that she was targeted by the hacking operation run by the News of the World.  On Wednesday, the News Corp board issued a statement backing Rupert Murdoch, saying its members had "full confidence" in his" fitness" to run the company he built from a single newspaper in Adelaide.  News Corporation said that it based its vote of confidence on "Rupert Murdoch's vision and leadership" in building the company from its modest roots, "his ongoing performance", and his "demonstrated resolve to address the mistakes of the company identified in the select committee's report."  On the same day as the Senate commerce committee made its move, a second US senator, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, renewed his call for a US government investigation into whether News Corp broke anti-bribery and corruption laws. Lautenberg called for a robust inquiry into whether the company, by allegedly bribing public officials in he UK, had breached the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids American citizens or companies from engaging in acts of bribery abroad.</p>

Murdoch facing new challenge as US senator contacts Leveson over hacking

Rupert Murdoch's global media empire is facing a challenge on a new front in the billowing phone-hacking scandal after a powerful US Sen...

Democracies can stop predatory financiers – Argentina has shown how

<p>While Europe forces yet more privatisation on Greece and Spain under the Orwellian name of "liberalisation", Latin America in 2012 is challenging the orthodox view that private always is better than public. On 1 May Bolivia seized the Spanish company that controlled its electricity grid, just after Argentina, on 14 April, effectively renationalised YPF, its main oil company, expropriating 51% owned by Spanish firm Repsol. Both critics and supporters have understood Cristina Fernández Kirchner's and Evo Morales's actions in terms of energy nationalism and populist demagoguery. But we should see both instead as responses to the failures of privatisation and its toxic connection to complex forms of financial speculation.  Bolivia and Argentina have both shown that private firms were investing less, not more, than their public predecessors were. Morales noted that only $81m had been invested in Bolivia's electricity grid since privatisation in 1997. YPF in the 1990s drilled three times as many exploratory wells in Argentina as it did in the 2000s under Repsol. Argentina's oil and gas output was falling, and new reserves were not being found to replace exploited deposits.  In both cases Spanish multinationals had prioritised the repatriation of dividends over investment. This indirect form of asset stripping was driven by the priorities of bankers in London and New York. Behind the Repsol-YPF affair, in particular, was something very close to the sick capitalism that caused the 2008 crisis: high-yield, high-risk assets, sliced and diced via complex derivatives.  Repsol, like all oil companies, has a double life. On one hand it makes money through producing, transporting, refining, and marketing oil and gas. On the other, it is a proxy for gambling on oil as a commodity and, through derivatives, for speculating on that speculation. Investment banks are similarly divided in their priorities. Sometimes they invest, though more usually they get rich by carrying money they borrow at low interest to places where they get higher yields.  While high yields almost always mean higher risks, there is a fiction of control over these risks through derivatives – in particular insurance contracts called "swaps".  In the murky world of derivatives, however, the same bank group may indirectly be guaranteeing its own risks, and the trade in risks becomes bigger than the real investment. The whole pyramid stands so long as there is some real-world thing that pays, in theory, a high and steady yield – whether it is subprime mortgages, or a high rent from an oil asset.  Spain privatised Repsol between 1989 and 1997, just at the time when "deregulation" in the US and Britain turned banks from investors into high-rolling gamblers. Repsol grew from a tiny Spanish refining and marketing "downstream" company into the world's 15th largest petroleum company, with operations on every continent. It specialised in deals where Anglo-American companies fear to tread, such as Iran, offshore gas in Venezuela under Chávez, and offshore oil in Cuba, enjoying bumps in its share price and valuation as it nominally acquired access to reserves.  In 1999, Repsol bought its most important international asset, YPF. Over the past decade the main value of YPF as far as Repsol was concerned was not the oil or gas it produced and sold, but its value as collateral on the basis of which debt could be contracted.  YPF, under Repsol, paid extraordinarily high dividends to its foreign owners – some 9% in 2011 – which it paid for by borrowing. So while YPF debts soared and Argentina's oil went undrilled, Repsol both banked profits and "invested" Argentinian capital elsewhere in its corporate structure. As the rating agency Standard & Poor's commented on 19 April: "Repsol does not guarantee any of the debt at YPF." Madrid got the juice, but the liabilities all fell on Buenos Aires.  High dividends allowed Repsol also to cash out of 25% of its YPF holding by selling it on to the Eshkenazi family, with the capital coming from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and Citibank, with banks then making money buying and selling derivative contracts on Repsol and YPF debt.  Spain has threatened Argentina with retaliation, quickly followed by the EU, Britain, and the US. The anger in Madrid and in Brussels is of an old-fashioned kind – Argentina is both refusing to hand over its present and future pocket money to Spain and reducing Europe's global assets.  But the fury on the pages of the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal is not ultimately about oil or profits, nor even about the bad precedent it might set for future expropriations elsewhere. Rather, it is provoked by Argentina having interrupted a chain of securitisation anchored in the real world by its oil at one end, but with investment banks in London and New York, the holders of swap and other derivative liabilities on Repsol and YPF debt, at the other.  In nationalising, Argentina showed that a democratic government can stop predatory financiers. And it has not scared away new investors: already Talisman, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Chinese companies are seeking access to Argentina's shale oil reserves, the third largest in the world.</p>

Democracies can stop predatory financiers – Argentina has shown how

While Europe forces yet more privatisation on Greece and Spain under the Orwellian name of "liberalisation", Latin America in 2012...

Tony Blair hires new aide to ‘re-engage’ with British politics

Tony Blair has hired a new communications chief as he prepares to “re-engage” with Britain, it emerged today. The former prime minister has...

'Vested interests' are trying to kill reforms, warns Governor of the Bank of England

<p>The Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, has demanded that the Government speed up its reform of Britain's financial sector. He also attacked bankers for resisting new financial regulation in order to protect their large bonuses.  Sir Mervyn warned last night that "vested interests" in the City of London were trying to scupper reforms meant to prevent another crisis.  The Chancellor, George Osborne, met the bosses of Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds in the days before the Vickers report on reforming the banking sector was published in September 2011. Last December, The Independent revealed that senior bank executives met or called Treasury ministers nine times in the weeks after the report's release.  "Already we see vested interests rise up to defend their bonuses and profits," the Governor said during the 2012 BBC Today Programme lecture.  The Governor's call for reforms of the banking sector to be speeded up is likely to meet a hostile reception in the Square Mile. Sir Mervyn praised the Vickers commission – which has recommended that the Government compel Britain's largest banks to ring-fence their high-street lending operations from their high-risk investment banking arms and hold significantly larger capital buffers. "It's vital that Parliament legislates to enact these proposals sooner rather than later," he said.  Some regulators have suggested the present deadline for the implementation of the ring-fence – 2019 – will provide the banking lobby with enough time to ensure it is watered down.  The Government has said it will pass legislation on the ring-fence before the end of the present parliament, but some regulators fear Vickers could still end up diluted. Last November, Bob Jenkins, a member of the incoming financial super-regulator, the Financial Policy Committee, said: "Their deadline is 2019 – a date so distant as to be irrelevant to their careers; a gap so long as to allow lobbyists to chip away until the proposal becomes both unrecognisable and ineffective. Why wait?"  The Governor said the Bank, which is to be given far-reaching regulatory powers from next year, would not be swayed by the financial sector's lobbying. "As an independent central bank with over three centuries of history, we can resist those short-term pressures and take the longer view needed to prevent another crisis" he said.  Speaking about the roots of the 2008 financial crisis, the Governor put the blame on the excesses of the banking sector. "In a nutshell, our banking and financial system over-extended itself" he said. "Banks made increasingly risky investments [and] to make matters worse they started making huge bets with each other on whether loans that had already been made would be repaid."  He also defended the Bank of England's conduct in the run-up to the crisis, saying it had warned of the dangerous build-up of risk in the financial system, but was powerless to do anything about its concerns, having been stripped of its regulatory powers after being granted independence in 1997.  But he added that the Bank of England should have been more vocal about its concerns regarding the banking sector. "With the benefit of hindsight, we should have shouted from the rooftops that a system had been built in which banks were too important to fail, that banks had grown too quickly and borrowed too much, and that so-called 'light-touch' regulation hadn't prevented any of this," Mr King said.  "And in the crisis, we tried, but should have tried harder, to persuade everyone of the need to recapitalise the banks sooner and by more."</p>

'Vested interests' are trying to kill reforms, warns Governor of the Bank of England

The Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, has demanded that the Government speed up its reform of Britain's financial sector...

Gas canister man storms office

One of the country's busiest shopping streets has been closed as a man wearing gas canisters stormed into an office and threatened to bl...

Credit card fraud websites shut down on three continents

<p>Three men have been arrested and 36 criminal websites selling credit card information and other personal data shut down as part of a two-year international anti-fraud operation, police have confirmed.  The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), working with the FBI and US Department of Justice, as well as authorities in Germany; the Netherlands; Ukraine; Australia and Romania, swooped after identifying the sites as specialising in selling card and bank details in bulk.  The move comes as a blow to what is a growing black market for stolen financial data. Detectives estimated that the card information seized could have been used to extract more than £500m in total by fraudsters. SOCA claimed it has recovered more than two and a half million items of compromised personal and financial information over the past two years.  “The authorities have shut down 36 websites but it is difficult to know how many other people had access to that data. They could spring back up somewhere else if a gang is not eradicated completely,” said Graham Cluley of internet security firm Sophos.  He added: “This is big business and, just as in any legitimate company there are people who specialise in different things, so there are those who actually get their hands on the personal data and those who sell it on; they are not often the same person.”  An investigation by The Independent last summer found that scammers were making a “comfortable living” getting their hands on sensitive information and selling it online. Card details were being offered for sale for between 4p and £60 per card – depending on the quality – according to one source in the business. Some cards would be sold with incomplete or unreliable information; others ready to use.  Some of the card details for sale on the websites shut down by SOCA were being sold for as little as £2 each. Investigators said that the alleged fraudsters were using Automated Vending Carts, which allowed them to sell large quantities of stolen data. They are said to be a driver of the growth in banking fraud over the last 18 months because of the speed with which stolen data can be sold.  Lee Miles, Head of Cyber Operations for SOCA said: “This operation is an excellent example of the level of international cooperation being focused on tackling online fraud. Our activities have saved business, online retailers and financial institutions potential fraud losses estimated at more than half a billion pounds, and at the same time protected thousands of individuals from the distress caused by being a victim of fraud or identity crime.”  An alleged operator in Macedonia was one of those arrested, while two British men accused of buying the information were also detained. Britain’s Dedicated Cheque & Plastic Crime Unit also seized computers suspected of being used to commit fraud.</p>

Credit card fraud websites shut down on three continents

Three men have been arrested and 36 criminal websites selling credit card information and other personal data shut down as part of a two-yea...

Is Your Small Business Prepared for Zero?

<p>Whenever there's an economic downturn, many small businesses go bust.  Why? Because they didn't plan for the crash.  At one point in my writing career, I wrote copy for a global insurance and business consultancy. There, I learned all about the art of risk mitigation. Big global companies engage in enterprise risk management, examining every type of risk in their planning and devising strategies for surviving the worst-case scenario.  Small business owners can learn a lot from the process. Some of the factors to look at include:  Internal company risk: Employees who embezzle or that important sales manager who leaves suddenly  Key man risk: The business revolves around a “key man's” personal relationships with clients, and this person could leave the company or die  Currency risk: The dollar weakens or strengthens in relation to other currencies, impacting an import or export business  Supply-chain risk: Vendors go bust, goods fall off a shipping barge, or the price of gas shoots up  Facilities risk: A fire or theft at your store, office or warehouse  Acts of God: Floods, earthquakes, damage from hail  Civil unrest: Everything from Occupy Wall Street Protests blocking access to your storefront to government overthrow to full-scale war  Once each risk is identified, business owners need to run what-if scenarios.  Do you have enough money saved? A disaster plan for how your business would run if your home base was destroyed or your electricity went out for weeks? Are you properly insured? Do you have safeguards in place to prevent employee theft?  Four years into this downturn, there probably isn't a small business owner around who isn't aware that things can go wrong. But do you have a plan for what you'd do if business got worse? Now's the time to start planning for the next curveball life will throw at your business.</p>

Is Your Small Business Prepared for Zero?

Whenever there's an economic downturn, many small businesses go bust. Why? Because they didn't plan for the crash. At one point in...

Mike Tyson has for the first time revealed his lowest point ever in a searingly candid interview.

<p>Once known as the ‘baddest man on the planet’, his life has taken more than a few dark twists and turns.</p><p>But now Mike Tyson has for the first time revealed his lowest point ever in a searingly candid interview.</p><p>The former heavyweight champion said that back in 2009 he was in a hotel room with seven prostitutes, a morphine drip in his arm, a pile of cocaine and a bottle of cognac when he began to feel paranoid.</p><div><div><img alt="tyson" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-127763A6000005DC-653_306x423.jpg" width="306" /></div><div><img alt="tyson" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-129A31DC000005DC-721_306x423.jpg" width="306" /></div><p>Candid: The former world champion gave his most honest interview yet - revealing the drug-fuelled night that made him turn his life around and get clean and sober</p></div><p>Convinced the women were trying to steal from him he started beating them up and threw them out - to stop them from 'taking his soul'.</p><p> </p><div> Tyson said: ‘That’s when I realised it wasn’t just demons - it was the devil himself.</div><p>‘It was the lowest point of a very low life, but it was my own knockout punch to clean up life, get whole, get well - and I haven’t done anything in three years now. </p><p>‘I’m clean. I’m sober.’</p><p>Tyson’s recently swapped the boxing ring for the cabaret stage in a six night comedy show at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas, where some of his biggest fights took place.</p><div><img alt="tyson" height="347" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-129BD3E6000005DC-119_634x347.jpg" width="634" /><p>World Champion: Mike Tyson lands the knockout punch to the jaw of challenger Larry Holmes during fourth round of the World Heavyweight Championship in Atlantic City 1988</p></div><p> </p><p>In an interview with <a href="http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/blogs/luxe-life/2012/apr/13/part-2-tysons-undisputed-truth-drugs-hookers----an/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Las Vegas Weekly</a> to promote the show, he was asked to talk about the moment he realised he had to turn his life around.</p><p>Tyson, 45 said: ‘Laying in bed in a hotel room - I try never to be alone, even if it’s a prostitute, a dog. </p><p>‘This is really dark. I am in my hotel suite, I’ve got seven women there, and I have a morphine drip, and I had my cocaine, and I had my (Viagra like pill) Cialis, I had my marijuana, I had the Hennessy, and I am at my lowest point because I got paranoid and I thought these women were trying to rob me and set me up. </p><p>‘I started beating them. I was in a dark place. There was a purpose, though, because I didn’t want to give them any more of my soul.</p><p>‘So this is my devil, this is where I am, I am locked up alone. There is nobody there telling me that I’m doing too much. </p><div><img alt="tyson" height="405" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-127C620C000005DC-817_634x405.jpg" width="634" /><p>Troubled: Tyson's first marriage to actress Robin Givens fell apart amid allegations of him being violent - he is now married for the third time</p></div><p> </p><div><img alt="tyson" height="377" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-1292B19C000005DC-965_634x377.jpg" width="634" /><p>Mug shot: In 1992 Tyson was jailed for raping Desiree Washington - a beauty pageant contestant - he was released from prison after three years</p></div><p>‘That is the devil, he won. I kicked them all out. So that was my lowest point. Oh, man. I am just very grateful to be here - my heart should have blown apart. I was sweating wide awake. No more cocaine. No more. Three years clean.’</p><p>In his turbulent life Tyson has been married three times, fathered eight children and became the youngest heavyweight champion the world has ever seen at just 20.</p><p>But fame ruined him and his troubled upbringing - his mother was a prostitute and he never knew his pimp father - came back to haunt him.</p><p>In the interview he claimed to have earned $300million in winnings but admitted that he was so bad with money he was ‘forced to live paycheck to paycheck’.</p><p>In 1992, three years after his first marriage to actress Robin Givens fell apart, he was jailed for six years for raping Desiree Washington, a contestant in the Miss Black America pageant.</p><p>Released having served three years, he fought Evander Holyfield in the fight that became one of the most notorious bouts in boxing history when he bit part of his opponent’s ear off.</p><p>Reflecting on his life Tyson told Las Vegas Weekly that he was now the happiest he has ever been, and is just trying to be a good husband to his third wife, and a good father to his children.</p><p>Tyson said: ‘In order to wear the crown, you have to have a miserable life, and that is the one that inherits the crown. </p><p>‘I don’t know, you have to go from the worst to reach the best. I’m just that extreme type of person. That is who I am, the guy that has no limits.’</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><br /><br /></span></p>

Mike Tyson has for the first time revealed his lowest point ever in a searingly candid interview.

Once known as the ‘baddest man on the planet’, his life has taken more than a few dark twists and turns. But now Mike Tyson has for the firs...

EU condemns Repsol state seizure

<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17783208"> </a>The European Parliament has passed a resolution condemning a nationalisation that has strained relations between Spain and Argentina.  Argentina has nationalised YPF, wiping out the Spanish firm Repsol's controlling-stake in the oil firm.  The resolution asks the European Commission to consider a "partial suspension" of tariffs that benefit Argentine exports into the EU.  Shares in Repsol has another decline, falling 2.3% on Friday.  Over the week, Repsol stock has lost almost a fifth of its value.  MEPs in the European Parliament said the institution "deplores" the decision taken by Argentina and describes it as an "attack on the exercise of free enterprise".  Decisions such as that taken by the Argentine authorities "can put a strain on the climate of understanding and friendship needed to reach" a trade agreement between a South American bloc and the EU, it said.  The resolution, which is non-binding, received 458 votes in favour, 71 against and 16 abstentions.  'Not valid' It also emerged that Repsol may be obliged to buy a minority shareholder's YPF stake if it ever lost majority control, which Repsol denied.  Twenty-five percent of YPF is owned by Argentina's Eskenazi family through its firm, Peterson.  Continue reading the main story Nationalising YPF  Spain's Repsol has hitherto owned 57.4% of shares with 25.5% belonging to Argentina's Petersen, 0.02% to the Argentine government and 17% traded on stock exchanges The Argentine government proposes to seize 51% of the shares, all of which will be taken from Repsol's stake, leaving the Spanish firm with 6.4% The expropriated shares will in turn be divided between the Argentine government and provincial governors Following the expropriation, Petersen will retain its 25.5% stake and 17% of the shares will continue to be traded Argentina's risky energy seizure According to regulator filings of a 2008 agreement, Repsol must "maintain directly or indirectly through controlled companies an ownership interest greater than or equal to 50.1%".  If it does not, Repsol is obliged to buy back the loans used to secure the Eskenazis' shares.  But Repsol told the BBC that the expropriation of its stake in YPF had invalidated the agreement.  "The agreement is not valid under Spanish law in these conditions," said Kristian Rix, a Repsol spokesman. "The law is unequivocal, there is no debate."  Trade war brewing? Spain has threatened retaliation against Argentina over the forced nationalisation of oil firm YPF, raising the prospects of a trade war between the nations.  Spanish Trade Secretary Jaime Garcia Legaz said the European Union would intervene over Argentina's seizure of YPF.  Argentina is taking over 51% of YPF, wiping out Repsol's 57.4% majority stake.  The move has wide support in Argentina but has provoked outrage in Spain.  Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had also offered support.  Repsol has said it wants around $10bn (£6.2bn) for its stake in YPF, but Argentina has said it does not accept that valuation.  YPF, Argentina's biggest oil company, was privatised in 1993. Last year it announced huge new finds of shale oil and gas.</p>

EU condemns Repsol state seizure

The European Parliament has passed a resolution condemning a nationalisation that has strained relations between Spain and Argentina. Arg...

Hacking scandal: the net tightens on the Murdochs

<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hacking-scandal-the-net-tightens-on-the-murdochs-7661722.html"> </a>Rupert Murdoch's grip on his media empire was dramatically challenged yesterday after his company was labelled a "toxic shadow state" which launched a dirty tricks campaign against MPs and now faces a salvo of phone-hacking claims in the United States.  On a tumultuous day for the media mogul, the lawyer who brought the first damages claims against the News of the World in Britain said he had uncovered new allegations of the use of "dark arts" by News Corp in America and was ready to file at least three phone-hacking lawsuits in the company's backyard.  The sense of a legal net tightening around Mr Murdoch and News Corp was heightened by the announcement that he and his son James will testify separately next week before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards during three days of what is likely to be uncomfortable scrutiny of alleged widespread criminality in their British tabloid newspapers.  In a separate development, the royal editor of The Sun became the latest journalist on the paper to be arrested on suspicion of making corrupt payments to public officials.  The arrest coincided with the publication of an incendiary book on the scandal which levelled new accusations that the NOTW set out on an extraordinary campaign of intimidation of MPs to try to blunt their investigations into its alleged law breaking.  Last night senior MPs called for News International (NI) to be investigated by the Commons for potential contempt of Parliament over the claims that members of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee were targeted by attempts to dig dirt on their private lives. Dial M for Murdoch, written by the Labour MP Tom Watson and The Independent's Martin Hickman, also alleges that:  l Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of NI, was bugged in her own office shortly before she resigned last summer over the phone hacking of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl.  l On his release from prison, Glenn Mulcaire, the convicted NOTW hacker, allegedly was contracted to give security advice to a private security company, Quest, whose chairman is Lord Stevens, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.  l NI intermediaries approached Mr Watson with a "deal" to "give him" former NOTW editor and Downing Street press chief Andy Coulson but that Ms Brooks was "sacred".  NI, which runs Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, said it had no comment to make on the book.  At a packed Westminster press conference, Mr Watson, who is a member of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the claim that the NOTW set out in 2009 to undermine the MPs investigating it came from Neville Thurlbeck, the NOTW's former chief reporter.  In the book, Mr Thurlbeck, who has been arrested in connection with phone hacking, says: "An edict came down... and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use." Mr Thurlbeck told The Independent last night that the order to target the MPs, which involved assigning two politicians each to a group of six reporters, had not originated from inside the paper but instead came from "elsewhere inside News International". He insisted that NOTW staff had been reluctant and there was a "degree of procrastination" before the plan was "suddenly and unexpectedly halted about 10 days later".  Mr Watson, who has received an apology from NI after he was placed under surveillance, said he believed the campaign was nonetheless successful and had contributed to a decision by the media committee not to demand that Ms Brooks give evidence to it in 2010.  He added: "Parliament was, in effect, intimidated. News International thought they could do this, that they could get away with it, that no one could touch them; and they actually did it, and it worked."  Labelling News Corp a "toxic institution", he added: "We conclude that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state."  Former Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price, who is gay and was a member of the DCMS committee, is described in the book as having been warned by a Conservative colleague that their private lives would be raked over if they called Ms Brooks to give evidence – "effectively they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish us".  Hours after publication of the book, Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has doggedly pursued hacking claims, told a press conference in New York that he was investigating allegations of impropriety at Mr Murdoch's US media companies, including Fox News. He said a high-profile trip to America to prepare claims on behalf of victims whose phones were allegedly hacked on US soil had generated a slew of new allegations about wider use of "dark arts" to obtain private information.  He said: "The investigation in the UK began with one claim by one client and look where it is now. While it starts in America with three cases, it seems likely it might end up with more."  The allegations will provide an awkward backdrop for the Murdochs to their appearances before the Leveson Inquiry. Rupert Murdoch, who is the first witness before the inquiry to be scheduled for two days of testimony, will be questioned about practices in his British newspapers and whether he had knowledge of those activities.  Chris Bryant last night confirmed that he would be asking Parliament to investigate the claims that NI carried out targeted intimidation.  Royal editor of The Sun arrested  The royal editor of The Sun was arrested yesterday after News Corp handed over information to detectives investigating alleged illegal payments to public officials.  Duncan Larcombe, 36, who had previously worked as the newspaper's defence editor, was arrested during an early morning raid at his home in Kent on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.  Officers from Scotland Yard's Operation Elveden also arrested a 42-year-old former member of the armed forces and a woman, 38, at their home in Lancashire. All three were later released on bail.  Mr Larcombe was the paper's royal correspondent from 2005 to 2009 before being appointed defence editor for 14 months. He returned to the royal beat last year and led the newspaper's coverage of the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. He was the second Sun defence editor to be arrested during the police inquiry.</p>

Hacking scandal: the net tightens on the Murdochs

Rupert Murdoch's grip on his media empire was dramatically challenged yesterday after his company was labelled a "toxic shadow st...

France and Germany want to suspend the Shengen Agreement

<p>They say they want a temporary suspension while the crisis continues. Spain will being introducing border restrictions during the European Central Bank meeting in Barcelona at the start of May.Angela Merkel and Nicolás Sarkozy - The Interior Ministers of France and Germany have written a joint letter in which they call for the reform of, and ‘temporary suspension’ of the Schengen agreement which allows for the free movement between most member states of the EU.  They say the change is necessary ‘to control the massive flow of immigrants’. The call comes just ahead of the 25th anniversary of the treaty this coming Monday, although many countries signed up in March 1995.  France and Germany consider that a ‘temporary suspension’ is needed during the crisis, and Paris and Berlin speak of ‘provisional’ closure of frontiers, and only when a country in the Schengen space cannot control the flow of immigrants. They say they will give the details to their European partners at the next conference.  Meanwhile Spain has announced the suspension of the Schengen Treaty and the re-establishing of frontier controls with France ahead of the European Central Bank meeting which is to be held in Barcelona on May 3.   It has not yet been decided how long the border restriction will remain in place, but say it will allow the authorities to act if there is ‘a serious threat to public order or interior security’.  The measure will only affect the frontiers between Spain and France from the Basque Country to Cataluña. Reports indicate that it was the Catalan Government to step up the controls in the face of possible disturbances and the arrival of anti-system protestors from other countries in Europe.</p>

France and Germany want to suspend the Shengen Agreement

They say they want a temporary suspension while the crisis continues. Spain will being introducing border restrictions during the European C...

Banks' value drops amid Spain fears

<p>Britain's biggest banks lost £2 billion from their combined market value today as fears over Spain's creaking finances saw investors dump financial stocks.  Lloyds Banking Group lost nearly 5% of its value, while Royal Bank of Scotland shed nearly 4% and Barclays fell by more than 1%. HSBC also dipped into the red.  Traders were troubled by developments in Spain, where the Government's implied cost of borrowing is creeping higher towards unsustainable levels amid fears the struggling country will require a bailout from the European Union and its partners.  Banks also fell out of favour after equity analysts at JP Morgan Cazenove downgraded the sector amid concerns over the impact rising funding costs will have on profits.  Rupert Osbourne, futures dealer at IG Index, said: "Spain remains very much front and centre for global markets, as its borrowing costs remain near what many would consider unsustainable levels.  "If there is one thing that we have learnt from the past couple of years of European debt, it is that these problems tend not to be resolved quickly and painlessly - and it does set the stage for potentially more volatility in the weeks ahead."  The yield on Spain's 10-year government bonds hit 6.1%, moving closer to the 7% which forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek financial help from the EU. The rate is at its highest level since the new conservative government took office in December.  The government has implemented a tough austerity package of spending cuts, as well as labour and financial reforms, but investors are concerned by Spain's banks, which are battling with bad loans from a collapsed property market.  The troubles in Spain were flagged by JP Morgan Cazenove as it downgraded the European banking sector from overweight to neutral.  Mislav Matejka, analyst with European equity strategy at JP Morgan Cazenove, said Spanish deposits fell by six billion euro (£4.9 billion) in February and continue to show a negative trend.  Mr Matejka said: "This is particularly worrying and shows that Spanish banks are becoming more and more vulnerable."  He said the bank started the year with a bullish stance at the start of the year, encouraged by the liquidity injection provided by the European Central Bank (ECB).  But he added: "However, most recently the costs have increased again, hurting the profitability outlook for the sector."</p>

Banks' value drops amid Spain fears

Britain's biggest banks lost £2 billion from their combined market value today as fears over Spain's creaking finances saw investors...

That bus you boarded at Trafalgar Square is run by a German company. Boots fell to the Italians in 2007. Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason and the Savoy are owned by Canadians; Harrods has been bought by a firm based in Qatar; the Dorchester by one based in Brunei

<p>Just for a moment, imagine being a tourist in search of the full British experience. Where would you start? Well, you might take a sight-seeing trip around London on a red double-decker bus.</p><p>You’d possibly visit a quintessentially British store, such as Boots the chemist, Selfridges or Harrods, before having a proper English tea at the Savoy, Fortnum & Mason or the Dorchester.</p><p>You’d almost certainly go home, via a British airport, thinking you’d seen a slice of the real Britain. But, in one sense at least, you’d be totally wrong.</p><div><img alt="British icon? Most London buses are run by a Spanish company" height="372" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-037EC6A00000044D-646_634x372.jpg" width="634" /><p>British icon? Most London buses are run by a Spanish company</p></div><p>That bus you boarded at Trafalgar Square is run by a German company. Boots fell to the Italians in 2007. Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason and the Savoy are owned by Canadians; Harrods has been bought by a firm based in Qatar; the Dorchester by one based in Brunei. As for our airports, most of them are now run by a Spanish firm. </p><p>Maybe a tourist wouldn’t care all that much, even if he knew. But should we? After all, does it make any real difference if a British company has a foreign master?</p><p>For the past three decades, the UK has had a completely relaxed attitude about selling off its assets to companies based abroad. Indeed, most of the time, the swallowing up of yet another great British institution barely makes a headline.</p><div><img alt="Sell off: Boots is owned by Italians, and headquartered in Switzerland" height="399" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-033D91DB0000044D-786_634x399.jpg" width="634" /><p>Sell off: Boots is owned by Italians, and headquartered in Switzerland</p></div><p>We may be a nation of homeowners, but we’ve lost our taste for ownership of our own economy and public services — from once-great manufacturers such as ICI to most of the companies that deliver our electricity, water and gas. </p><p>Even this week, it became clear that the Government is happy to consider letting a Russian firm, the one behind the Chernobyl accident, run some of Britain’s next generation of nuclear power stations. In fact, to date, we’ve sold off more than half our assets to foreign owners.</p><p>And the pace is escalating. In the face of political indifference, foreign companies acquired £30billion  worth of British enterprises in 2009. In 2010, that rose to a value of £54.5 billion. </p><div><img alt="Deregulation: Former Tory Chancellor Geoffrey Howe made it easier for foreigners to snap up British companies" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-00C62BE400000190-528_306x423.jpg" width="306" /><p>Deregulation: Former Tory Chancellor Geoffrey Howe made it easier for foreigners to snap up British companies</p></div><p>Foreign corporations also currently control 39 per cent of UK patents. This is far more than the percentage of foreign-owned patents in the U.S. (11.8), Japan (3.7) or even the European Union as a whole (13.7). </p><p>At this rate, it’s been said, it won’t be long before we’re all working for foreign companies. So how did we become so attractive to overseas predators? The answer is that it happened in stages, starting with the removal of regulations on overseas investment by former Tory Chancellor Geoffrey Howe in 1979.</p><p>This was followed in 1986 by what’s known as the ‘Big Bang’, when a raft of restrictive old practices in the City of London were swept aside. Soon, foreign banks flooded into the City, gobbling up venerable British minnows such as SG Warburg, Robert Fleming and Schroders.</p><p>Then came Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who were so keen to keep in with big business that they refused to block any deals — even when the Russians eyed up British Gas. </p><p>Indeed, anyone — like me — who dared question the great British sell-off was instantly labelled a xenophobe, out of touch with the reality of the modern globalised economy. </p><p>What tipped the balance towards foreign takeovers in the late Nineties and 2000s were three key factors: the cheap cost of borrowing; liberal takeover rules; and the presence of global investment banks in the City, with ready access to the world’s capital. </p><p>Throughout the boom years, these banks were allowed to write their own rules. What this meant, in essence, was that a bank which might once have considered it risky to lend ten times its share capital would now lend up to four times that amount. </p><p>The result? Foreign companies took full advantage of all this cheap and easy credit to snap up increasing numbers of great British brands. </p><p>Not only that, but our eccentric tax system actually made it more profitable for overseas owners to buy companies with borrowed money. For example, foreign firms who buy British companies using borrowed money are able to deduct the interest they have to pay on those loans from their tax bills.</p><div><img alt="Stripped: The private equity firms who bought Debenhams left the chain a shadow of its former self" height="286" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-0670E246000005DC-40_634x286.jpg" width="634" /><p>Stripped: The private equity firms who bought Debenhams left the chain a shadow of its former self</p></div><p>And this had a direct effect on jobs in the UK. Weighed down with often massive debts, new owners were far less likely to invest in the future of the firm and were instead more likely to close down factories and plants, throwing thousands of Britons out of work.</p><p>Some foreign firms even adopted the practice of making a fast buck by buying a company, stripping its assets and then selling for a quick profit. A classic case was that of the once-great department store, Debenhams, bought in 2003 by two U.S.-based private equity firms. Within three years, they’d stripped the firm of investment, loaded it with debt and sold it on at a big profit. By then, Debenhams was in such an enfeebled condition that it has taken years to recover.</p><p>Worse still was what happened to the care homes provider Southern Cross, which came crashing down last spring. The company had been pieced together by a hard-headed U.S. equity firm called Blackstone, after it started buying up care homes across the country. </p><div id="ext-gen2823"> <div><div><div>  <h3>More from Alex Brummer...</h3><ul><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2129010/ALEX-BRUMMER-The-dangers-fortress-pound.html">ALEX BRUMMER: The dangers of a fortress pound</a>12/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2128437/Meltdown-The-idea-entrusting-nuclear-future-firm-built-Chernobyl-parcel-Britains-bankrupt-energy-policy-real-danger-imploding.html">Meltdown: The idea of entrusting our nuclear future to the firm that built Chernobyl is part and parcel of Britain's bankrupt energy policy- which is now in very real danger of imploding</a>11/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2128324/ALEX-BRUMMER-Spanish-meltdown-tragedy-recovering-banking-system.html">ALEX BRUMMER: Spanish meltdown would be a tragedy for our recovering banking system</a>11/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2127817/Facebook-lavishing-1bn-Instagram-astonishing-deal.html">ALEX BRUMMER: Facebook lavishing $1bn on picture-sharing application Instagram is astonishing deal</a>10/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2125722/ALEX-BRUMMER-JP-Morgan-Cazenove-banker-Ian-Hannam-mines-friends.html">ALEX BRUMMER: JP Morgan Cazenove banker Ian Hannam mines his friends</a>05/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2125274/ALEX-BRUMMER-Firing-growth-machine.html">ALEX BRUMMER: Firing up the growth machine</a>04/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2124116/ALEX-BRUMMER-James-Murdoch-falls-earth-exiting-Sky.html">ALEX BRUMMER: James Murdoch falls to earth at Sky</a>02/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2124087/ALEX-BRUMMER-Picking-scraps-rich-table-UK.html">ALEX BRUMMER: Picking at the scraps from UK's not very rich table</a>02/04/12</li><li> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/columnist-1001421/Alex-Brummer.html">VIEW FULL ARCHIVE</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><p>Most of its income was guaranteed, as it came from local authorities. But Blackstone wasn’t prepared to be a long-term owner. Soon, it had hived off many of the freeholds of the buildings to another company, which then sold them off. </p><p>Then Blackstone made a quick profit by floating Southern Cross on the stock market, collecting £600 million for itself and its wealthy investors. </p><p>At the time, Blackstone said they believed that the care homes, with their guaranteed source of income, were capable of being self-financing. But the aftermath from the sale of Southern Cross was disastrous.</p><p>When new landlords started putting up rents, local authorities were unable to meet the extra cost. A lack of investment and poor management combined to bring Southern Cross to the brink last year, placing its 750 homes at serious risk. </p><p>Three thousand jobs had to be cut from the workforce, raising questions about the quality of care in the homes. Eventually, some of the landlords dropped their rents, some took over care homes themselves — and some have yet to come to an agreement with the company. </p><p>Shockingly, as it turned out, this high-stakes financial game had been played at the expense of 31,000 elderly and vulnerable residents. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Britain, one great company after another was being blithely auctioned off — including Jaguar Rover (to India), Asda (to the U.S.), MG Rover (to China), P&O Ports (to Dubai), the British Airports Authority (to Spain), Corus (formerly British Steel, to India), British Energy (to France), and lottery operator Camelot (to Canada). </p><p>It didn’t matter whether the buyer was a foreign company or a private-equity fund. If the price was good enough, shareholders and directors took the money and ran.</p><p>As firms fell like ninepins around them, canny chief executives demanded new clauses in their contracts that guaranteed the equivalent of lottery wins if their firms were taken over. They did this by insisting that their share options — usually paid out only after a number of years — could instantly be converted to cash.</p><div><img alt="Apathy: No-one seemed to notice - or care - when ICI was snapped up by the Dutch" height="349" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-059411100000044D-957_634x349.jpg" width="634" /><p>Apathy: No-one seemed to notice - or care - when ICI was snapped up by the Dutch</p></div><p>Ah, argued defenders of this system, but surely all these deals also brought much-needed injections of cash into the economy?</p><p>And yes, of course, they did — in the short term.</p><p>But no one was thinking any further ahead. No one had bothered to work out that if it was hard enough to collect taxes from a UK-based multinational, it might be even harder to do so from one based in Munich, Lucerne or Washington DC.</p><div><img alt="Paying the price: ICI's subsequent breakup resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-0679F3AD000005DC-854_306x423.jpg" width="306" /><p>Paying the price: ICI's subsequent breakup resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs</p></div><p>If that sounds highly theoretical, then consider what happened after Boots the chemist (Alliance Boots) was sold to the Italian pharmacy king Stefano Pessina and private-equity barons KKR in 2007 for £12 billion. </p><p>Soon after the takeover, Boots — which had been based in Nottingham for 161 years — moved its headquarters to Zug in Switzerland. Why Zug? Well, certainly not for its climate. </p><p>Before the takeover, Boots had paid £89 million in British tax in its final year as a quoted company on the London stock market. Now that it pays its tax in Zug, that figure has shrunk to just £9 million.</p><p>So the financial rewards from all these foreign takeovers rarely swell government coffers for long. Hence, as more and more British companies vanish overseas, it’s the ordinary taxpayer who has to make up the difference — through higher VAT and other taxes.</p><p>As well as tax revenue, what is even more worrying is that we’re rapidly losing the crucial skills we need to compete with the rest of the world. </p><p>The real tragedy is that no one seems to care when a company like ICI, the great chemicals giant, disappears into the jaws of a foreign power — taking with it scientific and industrial expertise built up over many decades.</p><p>The truth is that the 2008 Dutch takeover of ICI was, arguably, far more significant than the sell-off of Cadbury, which caused deep public unease. Chocolate, it seems, will always stir more sentiment than paint and chemicals.</p><p>ICI was vulnerable to foreign interest for two reasons: the lack of Government interest in its possible future and the shareholders’ greed for cashing in — to the exclusion of other considerations. So no one gave much thought to what might happen next.</p><p>The ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel was far from painless. Within days of the merger, they were jettisoning some of ICI’s assets — such as its adhesives and electronic materials activities, which were sold to a German competitor. Some 29 factories, including several in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs. </p><div><img alt="Sentimental value: Cadbury's treatment at the hands of Kraft caused public outrage" height="277" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-01DF3FF0000004B0-614_634x277.jpg" width="634" /><p>Sentimental value: Cadbury's treatment at the hands of Kraft caused public outrage</p></div><p>In early 2009, AkzoNobel revealed massive losses of £970 million, largely as a result of buying ICI. More job losses were projected, and a pay freeze was imposed on most of the company’s employees. In 2011, the group was still struggling.</p><p>How ICI itself has fared financially, within AkzoNobel,  is now impossible to discern. But the most significant and worrying loss has been that of a guaranteed skills base.</p><p>For decades, ICI’s reputation — and its profits — was founded on its ability to develop new products. But once ownership moved abroad, all bets as to the future of such research facilities was off.</p><div><img alt="'Global economy': David Cameron refuses to erect 'trade barriers'" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-11A7E7CD000005DC-40_306x423.jpg" width="306" /><p>'Global economy': David Cameron refuses to erect 'trade barriers'</p></div><p>Indeed, if AkzoNobel sells off further parts of the company, the remaining research laboratories in Slough and Newcastle could well move abroad. </p><p>After all, no foreign company owes any particular allegiance to Britain. This was vividly illustrated when Kraft Foods took over Cadbury in 2009, after promising to keep open the Somerdale factory near Bristol that made Wispa and other chocolate bars.</p><p>Despite this pledge just one month after buying the confectioner, Kraft closed the factory — leading to the direct loss of 400 jobs, and the indirect loss of others in the supply chain. </p><p>In addition, 160 skilled employees at the company’s Uxbridge headquarters were made redundant, and a further 150 posts are due to go at Cadbury’s historic Bournville factory in Birmingham this year. </p><p>Surprising? Not really. When companies need to cut capacity, they tend to chop operations far from home first. </p><p>Yet the Labour government made little effort to block this unpopular takeover. As for the Tories, David Cameron said at the time: ‘We are an open, global economy. We cannot start creating ownership barriers, trade barriers and protectionist barriers.’ </p><p>As the economy dipped, Kraft lost no time in squeezing as much income as it could out of its new acquisition in order to pay down debt and please its American shareholders. In March 2010, for instance, Cadbury staff were told that pay would be frozen for three years unless they agreed to opt out of the firm’s expensive final-salary pension scheme.</p><p>The arrogant American bosses of Kraft felt immune to criticism — even brushing off politicians’ criticism with disdain.</p><p>For example, when asked to appear before a Commons select committee to explain the company’s failure to  honour its promises, Kraft chairman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld refused. ‘Appearing before the panel was not the best use of my personal time,’ she said.</p><div><img alt="Red lines: Former French President Jacques Chirac stood up for 'strategic' companies" height="423" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-0F2F74A600000578-641_306x423.jpg" width="306" /><p>Red lines: Former French President Jacques Chirac stood up for 'strategic' companies</p></div><p>Is this the price that all nations have to pay for an increasingly globalised world? Not at all — in fact, Britain is unique in having such a supine attitude to selling off its crown jewels.</p><p>Other countries adopt what’s come to be known as ‘economic patriotism,’ which involves putting tremendous obstacles in the path of foreign bids. Take France, for example, which argues that it’s in the national interest to prevent key technologies falling into foreign hands. Key technologies that extend all the way from nuclear power to yoghurt-making. </p><p>There was uproar when the U.S. drinks giant PepsiCo was poised to bid for the French food firm Danone in 2005. In the end, the then President Jacques Chirac declared that the French yoghurt-maker was considered a ‘strategic’ company, so couldn’t be sold to a foreign firm. </p><p>Similarly, Spain has worked hard to hold on to its energy companies — for example, thwarting a bid in 2006 by German energy group E.ON for Endesa. Yet a year later, because of less patriotic values in Britain, a Spanish company was easily able to buy our own Scottish Power.</p><p>In Japan, selling a company over the heads of management is unthinkable. And while India has bought UK enterprises such as Jaguar Rover, it won’t allow British firms to take full control of its own companies.</p><p>As for the U.S., the country which portrays itself as a ‘champion’ of free trade won’t permit foreigners to buy U.S. airlines or TV companies. Oil is also jealously guarded: China’s state-owned oil company, for instance, was prevented from purchasing struggling U.S. oil firm Unocal in 2005.</p><p>No one is proposing that all foreign takeovers should be blocked. But we could easily put our own measures into place to limit further damage. There’s nothing wrong, for instance, with having a vetting process for foreign deals that would take into account matters of public and national economic interest. </p><p>Or with making it illegal for foreign companies to break their promises about keeping jobs and research facilities in the UK. Or with forcing them to declare how much of their bid is based on debt. Directors of British companies could be banned from cashing in on a shares bonanza if a deal went through. </p><div><img alt="Upper hand: Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has threatened to move the bank's headquarters to New York" height="459" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/13/article-2129507-0E8E6F9D00000578-627_306x459.jpg" width="306" /><p>Upper hand: Barclays CEO Bob Diamond has threatened to move the bank's headquarters to New York</p></div><p>In other words, a board would be judging a takeover bid on the basis of its merits, not on how rich it would make individual directors.</p><p>Why, then, isn’t the Government considering any of this? Why do we cheerfully continue to auction off everything from nuclear power generators (to the French — and now possibly the Russians) to our most popular chocolate brand? </p><p>The chief reason lies in our continuing love affair with banking and financial services, which still provide a large slice of our tax revenues. From the late Eighties onwards, governments have viewed these banks — which arrange and finance all these overseas deals — as a sort of universal economic panacea. </p><p>At all costs, it seems, the banks need to be kept happy. And since much of their money comes from buying and selling companies to the rest of the world, the British sell-off seems destined to continue unabated. </p><p>The banks know their power, too. American Bob Diamond, who took over Barclays in 2011, let it be known that he’d consider moving the bank’s highly profitable investment banking arm from Britain to New York if it became, as he saw it, over-regulated or over-taxed. And he’s by no means the only banker making veiled threats behind the scenes. </p><p>As matters stand, trying to protect UK companies is like attempting to guard chickens in a coop to which foxes have been invited.</p><p>In the real world, away from the gilded environs of the City, the tragedy is that tens of thousands of jobs have gone. Crucial skills have been lost — probably for good. And the strategic heart of British manufacturing has been ripped out, which affects our ability to climb out of recession.</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><br /><br /></span></p>

That bus you boarded at Trafalgar Square is run by a German company. Boots fell to the Italians in 2007. Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason and the Savoy are owned by Canadians; Harrods has been bought by a firm based in Qatar; the Dorchester by one based in Brunei

Just for a moment, imagine being a tourist in search of the full British experience. Where would you start? Well, you might take a sight-see...

Laser attacks on planes are surging, warn aviation officials

<p> </p><p>The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is warning of a global surge in laser attacks on planes after almost 2,000 incidents were reported in the UK last year.  There were 153 incidents at Heathrow in 2011 involving lasers being shone towards aircraft. The second most affected airport was Manchester with 148 incidents, while Birmingham had 143 and Glasgow 107. Liverpool's John Lennon airport had 90 incidents.  Throughout the UK last year, the CAA said there were a total of 1,909 incidents, whereas in 2005 there were just 20.  At John Lennon airport, a crew member was temporarily blinded as the plane landed following a laser being shone into the aircraft. In October last year, a jumbo jet whose pilot was trying to correct an error after dropping to 300 metres (1,000ft) had a laser shone at it.  Incidents in Liverpool peaked during a five-week period last summer, when there were 30 separate laser reports made by pilots who were passing over residential areas as they prepared to land.  A CAA spokesman said: "We are currently seeing a global surge in incidents of lasers being deliberately shone at aircraft on final approach to airports.  "The aviation industry and the police are doing everything possible to combat the problem and we strongly urge anyone who sees a laser being shone in the night sky near an airport to contact the police immediately."  He added: "It's a serious problem and has been getting worse over the last three years. Largely due to the availability of lasers on the internet and the relatively cheap price."  Since 2010, shining a laser or light at an aircraft in flight has been a specific criminal offence. The CAA said it needed the public's help to stop the potentially dangerous attacks and urged anyone to contact the police if they witnessed lasers being pointed at planes.  The CAA said UK aviation enjoyed an "excellent" safety record because of an open culture of reporting incidents.  A spokesman for John Lennon airport said incidents involving flights were few and far between.  He said: "JLA is extremely proud of its safety record, which for the period 2007-2011 includes almost 400,000 aircraft movements, accommodating in excess of 25 million fare-paying passengers.  "The report from the CAA relating to Liverpool John Lennon airport needs to be put into context as it will include all manner of incidents, many far less serious than others, as well as including incidents occurring away from the airport, but relating to aircraft that originated from here or heading to Liverpool."  Ryanair and easyJet flights were targeted as they came in to land at Liverpool at altitudes as low as 150 metres (500ft).  One pilot described how the laser "lit up the cockpit" and had a "significant impact" on the flight crew's night vision.  An Airbus jet was targeted twice with the first officer's vision "impaired" by the strength of the beam.  The captain of another flight needed a medical checkup after "a direct strike to the right eye".  In February 2010, a 16-year-old was fined £250 after admitting to shining a laser pen, purchased on eBay for £8, into the cockpit of an easyJet flight from Belfast to Liverpool.</p>

Laser attacks on planes are surging, warn aviation officials

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is warning of a global surge in laser attacks on planes after almost 2,000 incidents were reported in t...

Crisis-hit Greece rents police for €30 per hour

<p><br />Greece is offering a ‘cop-for-hire’ service, renting out policemen for €30 per hour, plus €10 if you want a police car too. It triggered fears that security of people who cannot afford a policeman for hire may be affected in favor of those who can. This new way for the cash-strapped Greek state to raise money will "pay for the cost of using police materials and infrastructure, and allow to modernize them", the Ministry of Citizen Protection said in a statement. The Police services on offer were previously used in "exceptional cases" – escorting the transportation of dangerous material or art works and were free of charge. Now, Police services have a price-tag. If you need something special the hourly fee for patrol boats is €200, and €1500 for helicopters, according to the Proto Thema newspaper. Even though the ministry said it would only accept such hires if they do not affect the security forces' operational capacity, only those with the cash will benefit from the initiative. The newspaper says the less wealthy will be left to deal with crime by themselves. The financial crisis left Greece with rising unemployment, a fast-growing crime rate and a surge in illegal immigration. Security has substantially deteriorated in the Greek capital in recent years, with previously safe and calm neighborhoods of the city becoming literally off limits after nightfall.</p>

Crisis-hit Greece rents police for €30 per hour

Greece is offering a ‘cop-for-hire’ service, renting out policemen for €30 per hour, plus €10 if you want a police car too. It triggered fea...

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