The novelist selects his favourites from the vast and various output of The Time Machine author Born in 1935, David Lodge is the author of 14 novels including Nice Work, Thinks… and Deaf Sentence. He is also Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught between 1960 and 1987. As well as his fiction, he has written numerous books of criticism. His new novel, A Man of Parts, is a fictionalised account of HG Wells’s life and career. Reviewing it in the Guardian, Blake Morrison said it “bounds along terrifically and never tires” while showing “what made Wells, in his lifetime, so irresistible”. “HG Wells (1866-1946) was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century. He is probably best known today as the author of classic works of science fiction, but he published well over 100 books in his lifetime, of many different kinds: novels and short stories that were realistic, fantastic, comic, tragic, and didactic, utopias and dystopias, social criticism, reportage, travel, autobiography and biography, world history … and also found time to edit collaborative encyclopaedic works on science and economics. I have selected 10 personal favourites from this abundance.” 1.
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The death of Osama bin Laden offers a perfect opportunity to revisit the list of the World’s Most Wanted. So who still makes it? He wasn’t the World’s Most Wanted Man. Officially, at least, there’s no such thing. But when Osama bin Laden died from a shot to the head and another to the chest sometime between midnight and 1.30am local time on Monday, the man who, in the popular western imagination, held arguably the best – and certainly the best-publicised – claim to be regarded as such left behind him something of a conundrum for those who compile such lists: who could replace him? It’s not such a straightforward question. Leaving aside such niceties as one man’s evil terrorist mastermind being another man’s blessed freedom fighter, attempting to place in order of importance crimes on the kind of scale that might warrant inclusion in a Top 10 of global iniquity is a task fraught with difficulties. How do you measure a Serbian ethnic cleanser against an American serial killer, dismemberer and necrophile; a Mexican drugs baron against a Rwandan genocide-merchant? Most lists, sensibly, do not try. The first and perhaps the most famous of all, the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives – from which Bin Laden was summarily ejected on Monday, his photograph stamped with a blood-red banner and the single word “Deceased” – doesn’t rank its members, who are confined to criminals indicted by a US federal grand jury. Bin Laden, indicted in absentia in New York in 1999 for his alleged part in the US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi the previous year, was a bit of a misfit on that list. His fellow fugitives were, for the most part, fraudsters, rapists, murderers and drug traffickers, with bounties on their heads ranging from $100,000 to $2m; the reward offered for Bin Laden’s capture totalled $27m (£16m). Robert William Fisher, for example, is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April 2001; Alexis Flores for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a five-year-old girl in Philadelphia. Heinous crimes, but hardly the equivalent of masterminding 9/11. Or indeed, as assorted warrants put it, of “organising a global network committed to bringing down the United States”. That explains why the FBI created a separate list in 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks: Most Wanted Terrorists . The death of the al-Qaida figurehead leaves 29 people on that list, including his reported deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and also indicted for the US embassy bombings; Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 US sailors; Adam Yahihe Gadahn, sought for providing “material support, comfort and aid” to al-Qaida; and Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted in the 1993 bombing of the New York World Trade Centre. The FBI’s hope, it seems, was that the terrorist list would have the same mobilising effect on the US public as the original 10 Most Wanted, first launched on 14 March 1950 after the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover, spotted the potential of the publicity generated by a news agency story profiling the “toughest guys” the bureau would like to capture. The first person placed on the list was Thomas James Holden, wanted for the murder of his wife, her brother and her stepbrother. Down the years it has also featured the likes of James Earl Ray, the prime suspect in the assassination of Martin Luther King; the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy; and (briefly) civil rights activist Angela Davis. According to the FBI, 494 fugitives have figured on its 10 Most Wanted list, and 464 have been captured or at least or located, 152 of them with the help of the public. Priorities have changed over time, the agency says. In the 50s, the list was “primarily comprised of bank robbers, burglars, and car thieves”. In the radical 60s, “the list reflected the revolutionaries of the times, with destruction of government property, sabotage, and kidnapping dominating”. The 70s were overwhelmingly about organised crime, and in the 80s and 90s the 10 Most Wanted began to include suspected international terrorists as well. In more recent years, common crimes have included rape and other sexual abuse, crimes against children, white-collar crime, gang violence and drug trafficking. Maintaining such a list on a global scale has obvious pitfalls. Interpol, the international police organisation, makes no attempt to prioritise. The 321 criminals who currently feature on its website range from an Australian kidnapper to an Argentinian counterfeiter. (In Britain, rather more prosaically, Crimestoppers UK’s 10 Most Wanted includes one John Levy, wanted for “driving off from a petrol station without paying for £51 worth of diesel”.) Since 2008, the US business magazine Forbes has published a list of The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, compiled in consultation with law enforcement agencies internationally (see below) . Its criteria, the magazine says, are that fugitives have been criminally indicted or charged in national jurisdictions or by an international tribunal, stand accused of “a long history of committing serious crimes”, and are “still considered dangerous”. In addition, each is said to represent “a type of criminal problem with which legal institutions in diverse jurisdictions are grappling”. It also ranks its candidates from one to 10. Described as “armed, dangerous and very tough to catch – the world’s worst thieves and thugs who have eluded local police, armies and international organisations for years”, Forbes’s most recent list was topped by Bin Laden. It also includes Semion Mogilevich, “the face of Russian organised crime”; Joaquin Guzman, “Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker”; Dawood Ibrahim, “India’s most wanted man”; Italian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro; Rwandan businessman (and alleged genocide financier) Felicien Kabuga; Joseph Kony of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army; and James L Bulger, a Boston mobster wanted in connection with up to 19 murders. But the list is disputable. Britain, for example, would probably quite like to see Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB operative wanted for the murder by plutonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, somewhere on a list of this kind (although he hasn’t been charged). Augustin Bizimana, likewise, is the most senior of the 12 or so people wanted for genocide by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda not to have been apprehended; the former defence minister faces charges over the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Some might like to see the name of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator seen as responsible for ethnic cleansing that has left 300,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless in Darfur and the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the International Criminal Court. And what of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army chief indicted for genocide in The Hague in 1995? He’s still out there, laughing. So who will replace Bin Laden for the list-makers? It seems logical he could make way on Forbes’s list to last year’s runner-up, Guzman. The FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list will simply shrink; Bin Laden’s name will not be substituted. But on the Top 10 Most Wanted, the jury’s out. Some reckon Zawahiri is a shoo-in; other favour the Libyan, Anas al-Liby, or the Egyptian Saif al-Adel, both allegedly implicated in the east African embassy bombings. Adan el Shukrijumah, a Saudi citizen suspected of planning to attack the New York subway in 2009, and Yasin, wanted in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, are also mentioned. But, some observers say, Bin Laden’s replacement on America’s 10 Most Wanted could be an altogether less rarefied species of lowlife: a white-collar criminal, say, or a bank robber. Ultimately, such lists are always going to be subjective. The new 10 Most Wanted List 1 Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” or “Shorty” (he stands 5ft 6in tall) heads an international drug trafficking organisation, the Sinaloa Cartel, and became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel. Appears simultaneously on Forbes’s lists of the world’s most powerful, most wealthy and most wanted men. Ruthless and determined, Guzmán has succeeded in turning Ciudad Juárez, a strategic smuggling point that overlooks El Paso, Texas, into one of the murder capitals of the world through mind-numbingly brutal battles against both the Gulf and La Linea cartels, leaving thousands dead. A faction from La Linea has recently defected to Shorty’s side; a local street gang, the Mexicles, has sub-contracted its services in killing, kidnapping, drug dealing and extorting; and even elements of the police and army seem to have thrown their lot in with him. Sinaloa smuggles many tonnes of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, and is also heavily involved in Mexican methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin. 2 Dawood Ibrahim Head of Indian crime network The most wanted man in India heads up a 5,000-strong organised crime network called the D-Company that is involved in everything from drugs trafficking to contract killing in Pakistan, India and the UAE. Currently on the Interpol wanted list for organised crime and counterfeiting, besides association with al-Qaida. According to Washington, Ibrahim uses the same smuggling routes as al-Qaida and has worked with both the mother organisation and its offshoot Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. He is also suspected in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people and wounded 713. Like Bin Laden, Ibrahim may well be based in Pakistan. 3 Semion Mogilevich Russian ‘boss of bosses’ Arrested in Russia for tax evasion in 2008, Ukrainian-born Mogilevich was released in 2009. Wanted in the US in connection with a $150m share fraud; believed by both European and US law enforcement agencies to be the “boss of bosses” of most Russian mafia syndicates in the world. Nicknames include “Don Semyon” and “The Brainy Don”; often described as “the most dangerous mobster in the world”. 4 Matteo Messina Denaro Cosa Nostra kingpin Sicilian mafioso who has effectively taken control of Italy’s Cosa Nostra following the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano and other leading mobsters. Nicknamed “Diabolik”, after an Italian comic-book character. Known for his fast lifestyle, Porsches and Rolex watches, he has been on the run since 1993. 5 Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov Uzbek mobster Major Russian mobster originally from Uzbekistan and apparently known as “Taiwanchik” for his Asian appearance. Washington describes him as a “major figure in international Eurasian organised crime” engaged in “drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles.” He is even alleged to have bribed the figure skating judges in the 2002 Winter Olympics. 6 Felicien Kabuga Mastermind of genocide Accused of bankrolling the Rwandan genocide, inciting bloodshed through his radio station and even supplying the machetes and hoes used in the massacres, Kabuga is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for “serious offences under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity and genocide” in connection with the massacre of more than 800,000 Rwandan men, women and children in 100 days of terror in 1994. Allegedly hiding in Kenya. 7 Joseph Kony Ugandan guerrilla leader Head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla group engaged in a violent campaign to establish theocratic government in Uganda. Has also operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan, abducting an estimated 66,000 children and displacing more than two million people since 1986. The International Criminal Court has indicted him on 33 charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes. 8 James ‘Whitey’ Bulger Old-school US mobster The ever-so-slightly embarrassing older brother of William Michael Bulger, a former president of the Massachusetts state senate and the University of Massachusetts, Bulger was part of the Winter Hill Gang, a Boston-based Irish-American crime network that for many years ran illicit drugs and extortion rackets. Pursued by the FBI for more than a decade for racketeering, murder (his name has been linked to 19 killings from the early 70s up to the mid-80s), conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering and narcotics distribution. Bulger’s wealth is estimated at between $30m and $50m (£18m-£30m), cash he is said to be using to evade arrest with his longtime girlfriend. Last confirmed sighting was in London in 2002. There is a reward of $2m for information leading to his arrest. 9 Omid ‘Nino’ Tahvili Head of Canadian crime group Head of a Persian organised crime network in Canada linked to assorted Triads and other global criminal groups. Arrested on charges of torturing a relative of a man he suspected had stolen a chunk of his organisation’s illicit drugs money, he walked out of a Canadian maximum security prison in a janitor’s uniform in November 2007 after promising to pay a guard to let him out (he never forked up). US law enforcement wants to talk to him about a fraudulent telemarketing business that targeted people in the US, stealing some $3m from hundreds of victims, most of them elderly. 10 ? Ayman al-Zawahiri Al-Qaida number two Born in June 1951 into a prominent upper-middle class family in Cairo, Zawahiri was the final “emir” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he merged into al-Qaida in 1998. Reportedly a qualified surgeon, he speaks Arabic, English and French. According to former al-Qaida members, Zawahiri has worked with al-Qaida since the organisation’s earliest beginnings. He is often described as Bin Laden’s right-hand man, and by some as the “real brains” of al-Qaida. The friendship between the two men supposedly began in the 80s when Zawahiri is said to have given medical treatment to Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the teeth of a Soviet attack. According to terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, Bin Laden considered Zawahiri his mentor. Most experts believe 9/11 could not have happened without Zawahiri’s controlling influence. Osama bin Laden Global terrorism Organised crime Drugs trade Mafia al-Qaida Mexico Russia India Rwanda Uganda United States Jon Henley guardian.co.uk
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The death of Osama bin Laden offers a perfect opportunity to revisit the list of the World’s Most Wanted. So who still makes it? He wasn’t the World’s Most Wanted Man. Officially, at least, there’s no such thing. But when Osama bin Laden died from a shot to the head and another to the chest sometime between midnight and 1.30am local time on Monday, the man who, in the popular western imagination, held arguably the best – and certainly the best-publicised – claim to be regarded as such left behind him something of a conundrum for those who compile such lists: who could replace him? It’s not such a straightforward question. Leaving aside such niceties as one man’s evil terrorist mastermind being another man’s blessed freedom fighter, attempting to place in order of importance crimes on the kind of scale that might warrant inclusion in a Top 10 of global iniquity is a task fraught with difficulties. How do you measure a Serbian ethnic cleanser against an American serial killer, dismemberer and necrophile; a Mexican drugs baron against a Rwandan genocide-merchant? Most lists, sensibly, do not try. The first and perhaps the most famous of all, the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives – from which Bin Laden was summarily ejected on Monday, his photograph stamped with a blood-red banner and the single word “Deceased” – doesn’t rank its members, who are confined to criminals indicted by a US federal grand jury. Bin Laden, indicted in absentia in New York in 1999 for his alleged part in the US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi the previous year, was a bit of a misfit on that list. His fellow fugitives were, for the most part, fraudsters, rapists, murderers and drug traffickers, with bounties on their heads ranging from $100,000 to $2m; the reward offered for Bin Laden’s capture totalled $27m (£16m). Robert William Fisher, for example, is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April 2001; Alexis Flores for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a five-year-old girl in Philadelphia. Heinous crimes, but hardly the equivalent of masterminding 9/11. Or indeed, as assorted warrants put it, of “organising a global network committed to bringing down the United States”. That explains why the FBI created a separate list in 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks: Most Wanted Terrorists . The death of the al-Qaida figurehead leaves 29 people on that list, including his reported deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and also indicted for the US embassy bombings; Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 US sailors; Adam Yahihe Gadahn, sought for providing “material support, comfort and aid” to al-Qaida; and Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted in the 1993 bombing of the New York World Trade Centre. The FBI’s hope, it seems, was that the terrorist list would have the same mobilising effect on the US public as the original 10 Most Wanted, first launched on 14 March 1950 after the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover, spotted the potential of the publicity generated by a news agency story profiling the “toughest guys” the bureau would like to capture. The first person placed on the list was Thomas James Holden, wanted for the murder of his wife, her brother and her stepbrother. Down the years it has also featured the likes of James Earl Ray, the prime suspect in the assassination of Martin Luther King; the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy; and (briefly) civil rights activist Angela Davis. According to the FBI, 494 fugitives have figured on its 10 Most Wanted list, and 464 have been captured or at least or located, 152 of them with the help of the public. Priorities have changed over time, the agency says. In the 50s, the list was “primarily comprised of bank robbers, burglars, and car thieves”. In the radical 60s, “the list reflected the revolutionaries of the times, with destruction of government property, sabotage, and kidnapping dominating”. The 70s were overwhelmingly about organised crime, and in the 80s and 90s the 10 Most Wanted began to include suspected international terrorists as well. In more recent years, common crimes have included rape and other sexual abuse, crimes against children, white-collar crime, gang violence and drug trafficking. Maintaining such a list on a global scale has obvious pitfalls. Interpol, the international police organisation, makes no attempt to prioritise. The 321 criminals who currently feature on its website range from an Australian kidnapper to an Argentinian counterfeiter. (In Britain, rather more prosaically, Crimestoppers UK’s 10 Most Wanted includes one John Levy, wanted for “driving off from a petrol station without paying for £51 worth of diesel”.) Since 2008, the US business magazine Forbes has published a list of The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, compiled in consultation with law enforcement agencies internationally (see below) . Its criteria, the magazine says, are that fugitives have been criminally indicted or charged in national jurisdictions or by an international tribunal, stand accused of “a long history of committing serious crimes”, and are “still considered dangerous”. In addition, each is said to represent “a type of criminal problem with which legal institutions in diverse jurisdictions are grappling”. It also ranks its candidates from one to 10. Described as “armed, dangerous and very tough to catch – the world’s worst thieves and thugs who have eluded local police, armies and international organisations for years”, Forbes’s most recent list was topped by Bin Laden. It also includes Semion Mogilevich, “the face of Russian organised crime”; Joaquin Guzman, “Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker”; Dawood Ibrahim, “India’s most wanted man”; Italian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro; Rwandan businessman (and alleged genocide financier) Felicien Kabuga; Joseph Kony of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army; and James L Bulger, a Boston mobster wanted in connection with up to 19 murders. But the list is disputable. Britain, for example, would probably quite like to see Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB operative wanted for the murder by plutonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, somewhere on a list of this kind (although he hasn’t been charged). Augustin Bizimana, likewise, is the most senior of the 12 or so people wanted for genocide by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda not to have been apprehended; the former defence minister faces charges over the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Some might like to see the name of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator seen as responsible for ethnic cleansing that has left 300,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless in Darfur and the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the International Criminal Court. And what of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army chief indicted for genocide in The Hague in 1995? He’s still out there, laughing. So who will replace Bin Laden for the list-makers? It seems logical he could make way on Forbes’s list to last year’s runner-up, Guzman. The FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list will simply shrink; Bin Laden’s name will not be substituted. But on the Top 10 Most Wanted, the jury’s out. Some reckon Zawahiri is a shoo-in; other favour the Libyan, Anas al-Liby, or the Egyptian Saif al-Adel, both allegedly implicated in the east African embassy bombings. Adan el Shukrijumah, a Saudi citizen suspected of planning to attack the New York subway in 2009, and Yasin, wanted in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, are also mentioned. But, some observers say, Bin Laden’s replacement on America’s 10 Most Wanted could be an altogether less rarefied species of lowlife: a white-collar criminal, say, or a bank robber. Ultimately, such lists are always going to be subjective. The new 10 Most Wanted List 1 Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” or “Shorty” (he stands 5ft 6in tall) heads an international drug trafficking organisation, the Sinaloa Cartel, and became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel. Appears simultaneously on Forbes’s lists of the world’s most powerful, most wealthy and most wanted men. Ruthless and determined, Guzmán has succeeded in turning Ciudad Juárez, a strategic smuggling point that overlooks El Paso, Texas, into one of the murder capitals of the world through mind-numbingly brutal battles against both the Gulf and La Linea cartels, leaving thousands dead. A faction from La Linea has recently defected to Shorty’s side; a local street gang, the Mexicles, has sub-contracted its services in killing, kidnapping, drug dealing and extorting; and even elements of the police and army seem to have thrown their lot in with him. Sinaloa smuggles many tonnes of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, and is also heavily involved in Mexican methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin. 2 Dawood Ibrahim Head of Indian crime network The most wanted man in India heads up a 5,000-strong organised crime network called the D-Company that is involved in everything from drugs trafficking to contract killing in Pakistan, India and the UAE. Currently on the Interpol wanted list for organised crime and counterfeiting, besides association with al-Qaida. According to Washington, Ibrahim uses the same smuggling routes as al-Qaida and has worked with both the mother organisation and its offshoot Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. He is also suspected in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people and wounded 713. Like Bin Laden, Ibrahim may well be based in Pakistan. 3 Semion Mogilevich Russian ‘boss of bosses’ Arrested in Russia for tax evasion in 2008, Ukrainian-born Mogilevich was released in 2009. Wanted in the US in connection with a $150m share fraud; believed by both European and US law enforcement agencies to be the “boss of bosses” of most Russian mafia syndicates in the world. Nicknames include “Don Semyon” and “The Brainy Don”; often described as “the most dangerous mobster in the world”. 4 Matteo Messina Denaro Cosa Nostra kingpin Sicilian mafioso who has effectively taken control of Italy’s Cosa Nostra following the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano and other leading mobsters. Nicknamed “Diabolik”, after an Italian comic-book character. Known for his fast lifestyle, Porsches and Rolex watches, he has been on the run since 1993. 5 Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov Uzbek mobster Major Russian mobster originally from Uzbekistan and apparently known as “Taiwanchik” for his Asian appearance. Washington describes him as a “major figure in international Eurasian organised crime” engaged in “drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles.” He is even alleged to have bribed the figure skating judges in the 2002 Winter Olympics. 6 Felicien Kabuga Mastermind of genocide Accused of bankrolling the Rwandan genocide, inciting bloodshed through his radio station and even supplying the machetes and hoes used in the massacres, Kabuga is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for “serious offences under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity and genocide” in connection with the massacre of more than 800,000 Rwandan men, women and children in 100 days of terror in 1994. Allegedly hiding in Kenya. 7 Joseph Kony Ugandan guerrilla leader Head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla group engaged in a violent campaign to establish theocratic government in Uganda. Has also operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan, abducting an estimated 66,000 children and displacing more than two million people since 1986. The International Criminal Court has indicted him on 33 charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes. 8 James ‘Whitey’ Bulger Old-school US mobster The ever-so-slightly embarrassing older brother of William Michael Bulger, a former president of the Massachusetts state senate and the University of Massachusetts, Bulger was part of the Winter Hill Gang, a Boston-based Irish-American crime network that for many years ran illicit drugs and extortion rackets. Pursued by the FBI for more than a decade for racketeering, murder (his name has been linked to 19 killings from the early 70s up to the mid-80s), conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering and narcotics distribution. Bulger’s wealth is estimated at between $30m and $50m (£18m-£30m), cash he is said to be using to evade arrest with his longtime girlfriend. Last confirmed sighting was in London in 2002. There is a reward of $2m for information leading to his arrest. 9 Omid ‘Nino’ Tahvili Head of Canadian crime group Head of a Persian organised crime network in Canada linked to assorted Triads and other global criminal groups. Arrested on charges of torturing a relative of a man he suspected had stolen a chunk of his organisation’s illicit drugs money, he walked out of a Canadian maximum security prison in a janitor’s uniform in November 2007 after promising to pay a guard to let him out (he never forked up). US law enforcement wants to talk to him about a fraudulent telemarketing business that targeted people in the US, stealing some $3m from hundreds of victims, most of them elderly. 10 ? Ayman al-Zawahiri Al-Qaida number two Born in June 1951 into a prominent upper-middle class family in Cairo, Zawahiri was the final “emir” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he merged into al-Qaida in 1998. Reportedly a qualified surgeon, he speaks Arabic, English and French. According to former al-Qaida members, Zawahiri has worked with al-Qaida since the organisation’s earliest beginnings. He is often described as Bin Laden’s right-hand man, and by some as the “real brains” of al-Qaida. The friendship between the two men supposedly began in the 80s when Zawahiri is said to have given medical treatment to Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the teeth of a Soviet attack. According to terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, Bin Laden considered Zawahiri his mentor. Most experts believe 9/11 could not have happened without Zawahiri’s controlling influence. Osama bin Laden Global terrorism Organised crime Drugs trade Mafia al-Qaida Mexico Russia India Rwanda Uganda United States Jon Henley guardian.co.uk
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BP in record US civil pay-out and ordered to install system-wide pipeline safety management system as part of court settlement BP’s subsidiary in Alaska will pay a $25mfine under a settlement announced on Tuesday that comes five years after more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from company pipelines on the North Slope in 2006. The penalty is the largest per-barrel civil penalty assessed, exceeding the statutory maximum because the settlement resolves claims other than the spill, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency . The settlement also calls for BP Exploration Alaska Inc. to install a system-wide pipeline integrity management program. “This penalty should serve as a wake-up call to all pipeline operators that they will be held accountable for the safety of their operations and their compliance with the clean water act, the clean air act and the pipeline safety laws,” assistant US attorney Ignacia S Moreno said. US attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler said the penalty underlines the seriousness of BP’s conduct. She said BP Alaska admitted that itfailed to adequately maintain its pipelines. A March 2006 leak in a transit line, also called a feeder line, between a gathering center and a pump station for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in March accounted for most of the oil spilled, about 212,000 gallons. Oil from the spill reached a lake. BP four months later had begun inspecting pipelines with “smart pigs”, devices inserted to detect abnormalities, when a second leak occurred. The tiny second leak allowed about 1,000 gallons more to spill from another transit line. With data in hand indicating 16 “anomalies,” or other possible corrosive spots, BP shut down part of the massive Prudhoe Bay field . The partial shutdown brought an economic chill throughout the state and led then-Governor Frank Murkowski to temporarily freeze hiring until the effects of the interruption on the state budget would be known. Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said BP in 2007 pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the spills and was ordered to pay $20m, including $1m in criminal fines. Cynthia Quarterman, administrator for the department of transportation’s pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration, said her agency found serious safety problems relating to internal corrosion on the pipelines and ordered BP to correct those problems. BP had a year to address the problems but its willful failure to do so led to filing civil litigation against the company, she said. The settlement requires BP Alaska to develop a system-wide program to manage pipeline integrity for the company’s 1,600 miles (2,500km) of pipeline on the North Slope based on PHMSA’s integrity management programme. That cost is estimated at $60m. BP will be required to compile information on pipelines and what they carry, ranking them by highest risk. It will be required to provide a Web portal and post reports. The information will be public, Quarterman said. The independent monitor will confirm that BP is complying with requirements of the settlement, Giles said. “We are not going to just take BP at its word,” Giles said. BP completely replaced Prudhoe Bay oil transit lines and added modern leak detection and anti-corrosion systems at a cost of about $500 million by the end of 2008, a spokesman for the firm said. The agreement was negotiated with the concurrence of the other working interest owners, Rinehart said, but he declined to discuss any financial arrangements with the other owners. Oil spills Oil BP Oil Oil and gas companies Energy industry United States Pollution guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …BP in record US civil pay-out and ordered to install system-wide pipeline safety management system as part of court settlement BP’s subsidiary in Alaska will pay a $25mfine under a settlement announced on Tuesday that comes five years after more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from company pipelines on the North Slope in 2006. The penalty is the largest per-barrel civil penalty assessed, exceeding the statutory maximum because the settlement resolves claims other than the spill, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency . The settlement also calls for BP Exploration Alaska Inc. to install a system-wide pipeline integrity management program. “This penalty should serve as a wake-up call to all pipeline operators that they will be held accountable for the safety of their operations and their compliance with the clean water act, the clean air act and the pipeline safety laws,” assistant US attorney Ignacia S Moreno said. US attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler said the penalty underlines the seriousness of BP’s conduct. She said BP Alaska admitted that itfailed to adequately maintain its pipelines. A March 2006 leak in a transit line, also called a feeder line, between a gathering center and a pump station for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in March accounted for most of the oil spilled, about 212,000 gallons. Oil from the spill reached a lake. BP four months later had begun inspecting pipelines with “smart pigs”, devices inserted to detect abnormalities, when a second leak occurred. The tiny second leak allowed about 1,000 gallons more to spill from another transit line. With data in hand indicating 16 “anomalies,” or other possible corrosive spots, BP shut down part of the massive Prudhoe Bay field . The partial shutdown brought an economic chill throughout the state and led then-Governor Frank Murkowski to temporarily freeze hiring until the effects of the interruption on the state budget would be known. Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said BP in 2007 pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the spills and was ordered to pay $20m, including $1m in criminal fines. Cynthia Quarterman, administrator for the department of transportation’s pipeline and hazardous materials safety administration, said her agency found serious safety problems relating to internal corrosion on the pipelines and ordered BP to correct those problems. BP had a year to address the problems but its willful failure to do so led to filing civil litigation against the company, she said. The settlement requires BP Alaska to develop a system-wide program to manage pipeline integrity for the company’s 1,600 miles (2,500km) of pipeline on the North Slope based on PHMSA’s integrity management programme. That cost is estimated at $60m. BP will be required to compile information on pipelines and what they carry, ranking them by highest risk. It will be required to provide a Web portal and post reports. The information will be public, Quarterman said. The independent monitor will confirm that BP is complying with requirements of the settlement, Giles said. “We are not going to just take BP at its word,” Giles said. BP completely replaced Prudhoe Bay oil transit lines and added modern leak detection and anti-corrosion systems at a cost of about $500 million by the end of 2008, a spokesman for the firm said. The agreement was negotiated with the concurrence of the other working interest owners, Rinehart said, but he declined to discuss any financial arrangements with the other owners. Oil spills Oil BP Oil Oil and gas companies Energy industry United States Pollution guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The comedian has recently turned his hand to directing music videos – with spectacularly odd results. We asked him how it feels to step into a boxing ring with a robot Shaun of the Dead, Alan Partridge, the voice of Darth Maul … Peter Serafinowicz boasts an impressive CV. Still, being able to say “You worms are no match for the dark side” in a menacing voice doesn’t necessarily mean you’re qualified to direct music videos. This hasn’t deterred Serafinowicz, who took up the music video challenge when Hot Chip asked him on Twitter if he fancied directing something for them. He came up with the bonkers video for I Feel Better. Now he’s directed a second video – for Alex Metric and Steve Angello’s new single Open Your Eyes – a Rocky spoof in which Serafinowicz dons gloves to face a robotic opponent. Thrillingly, it’s just as stupid, funny and original as his darkly comic debut. Seeing as it was about time someone caught up with him to find out what on earth he was thinking when he decided to laser a boyband to death, we got in touch to ask a few questions. But be warned: Serafinowicz’s current favourite video is, in his own words, Not Safe For Anywhere. All will be explained … How did the idea come about for the Open Your Eyes video? PS: I’ve always wanted to do a feature-length comedy remake of Rocky. My agent told me this was wasn’t realistic so a music video based on Rocky was the next best thing. How long did it take to shoot, and where was it made? PS: The video was shot over two days in Philadelphia. I mean west London. Sorry, I’m eating cream cheese. Who made the robot in the video? PS: A hugely talented puppeteer/model-maker called Jonny Sabbagh. He sent me a video of
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A new scheme aims to encourage more disabled people into politics and develop a cross-party network of ambassadors If the House of Commons were truly reflective of the people it represents, at least 65 would be disabled. But, as the country prepares to vote in the local elections tomorrow, it is unlikely that many disabled people will be among those elected. While there are 10 million people registered disabled in the UK, there are no formal figures on the number of disabled election candidates; those standing for local or national office are not obliged to disclose such information. The little research that does exist includes work by the University of Plymouth’s elections centre. It conducted random surveys in 2008 and 2009 with more than 1,000 local election candidates. In 2008, when asked what best described their situation, 2.8% of candidates stated they were permanently sick or disabled. In 2009, the figure was 1.3%. Given the prejudice and stigma experienced by disabled people, it is easy to imagine how disability might be regarded as a vote loser, or activists might be put off supporting disabled candidates who need extra support. But the government hopes to encourage more disabled people into local and national politics, and to improve public attitudes to disability through a new training and development scheme. The
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Frederika Whitehead learns how to turn a pile of earth into a wood-fired cob pizza oven in a matter of hours In pictures: Building a cob pizza oven “I thought my wife had gone mad when she gave me an empty pizza box for Christmas,” Graham Shields tells me. “I opened the wrapping and there it was. An empty pizza box.” Then he saw the white slip of paper inside with the details of the pizza-oven building course his wife had bought him. “I realised what she was basically saying was, ‘You go and learn how to do it and then come back and build us one in the garden.’” He’s not alone. Of the 12 of us on the course, most say they were strongly encouraged by their families to attend. A pizza oven, it appears, is this year’s must-have. “You could buy one from Jamie Oliver at three grand a pop,” the course leader tells us, “or you can build one for nothing using materials from your garden.” The day’s lesson is led by Kate Edwards, who runs them in her large backyard in rural Norfolk. She starts by teaching us how to identify the materials we need. “This is the most important thing I’m going to teach you. All the rest is easy as long as you recognise the materials.” All 12 of us gather round to watch Edwards dig a hole. “Can you hear that noise?” she asks. “That crunching sound? When I was digging through top soil there was no real noise – it’s kind of soft.” We take it in turns to peer down the hole she has dug and, sure enough, the chocolate-brown topsoil has given way to a seam of crunchy gravel. “We dug over the whole of our garden and it was incredible how different the soil was – clay here, beach sand there,” she says. “Go home and dig a hole and see what comes out of it.” To make cob, we need 25% clay, 75% sandy gravel. Luckily Edwards doesn’t make us pepper her garden with holes, but instead gives us buckets of clay and sand she herself dug out the night before. Then she orders us to “dance” on the mixture. Basically, this involves throwing the clay and sand onto a tarpaulin and jumping up and down on it, mashing it up with out boots until it becomes a smooth, even paste. That done, we divide the batch. Keeping one quarter back, we add half a bucket of straw to the remaining three and mix it in. We leave the cob to one side while Edwards shows us the base she prepared for us earlier. It’s a round brick structure that looks a bit like a wishing well. She’s filled it with rubble and topped that with sand to make it smooth and flat – ready for us to add a layer of firebricks. This will be the cooking surface. After that, we build a dome of wet sand to act as a “former” – the support for us to build the cob around. Next to me a man called David groans audibly. “It’s so obvious when you someone tells you,” he says. “I’ve already built the base but I just couldn’t work out how to make the dome.” We get talking. He muses over whether he might be able to use the oven to smoke fish, but in the end we decide not – adding a chimney would let out too much heat and the pizzas would never cook. He tells me about his friend’s Bramley orchard and cider press – he makes 120 gallons a year, “enough for family and friends” – and of the still he is hoping to procure in order to turn some of the cider into calvados . By now the sand dome is perfect, ready for David and I to help the others lay two skins of cob over the sand. The inner skin is cob without straw – it will be in contact with the flames, so any straw would catch light. The outer skin contains straw, which gives the cob strength, acts as insulation and helps the dome to dry out quicker. And that’s it. We cut a hole for the door, pull the sand out, and the oven is built. It’s unbelievably quick. Edwards says the whole thing – the base as well – can easily be put together in a day. Although, for environmental reasons, she strongly recommends building the brick base with limecrete rather than concrete – and while concrete will dry in a couple of hours, limecrete will take a couple of weeks. Also there is the small matter of digging up enough clay and sand, which thankfully we didn’t have to do. I say thankfully not because I was keen to avoid hard labour, but because it did leave us quite a lot of time for testing the pizzas. They were terrific. • Frederika Whitehead attended Kate Edwards’s one-day cob-oven course near Acle, Norfolk, priced £80 including lunch. DIY Food & drink Gardens Craft Frederika Whitehead guardian.co.uk
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Labour leader urges people not to punish deputy PM by saying no to electoral reform because referendum is chance to change political system for better The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has urged voters not to use the AV referendum to “kick Nick Clegg”, as the latest poll showed opinion against changing the electoral system is hardening. Miliband, who supports replacing first past the post with the alternative vote – under which voters would rank candidates in order of preference – said the referendum presented a “once in a generation opportunity” to change Britain’s political system for the better. Speaking on the eve of the polls, which will see the referendum conducted alongside local elections and devolved elections in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the Labour leader appealed to voters to send a message to the coalition about their concerns over cuts, university tuition fees and the proposed shake-up of the NHS. But he urged them not to vote against AV in order to punish the deputy prime minister for breaking Liberal Democrat election promises. The referendum was the key concession Clegg gained from David Cameron in last year’s coalition negotiations. Miliband made his last-minute appeal amid polling which suggests the no campaign will romp to victory in the referendum. A ComRes poll for the Independent showed a resounding 32-point lead for the no campaign among people who have made up their minds and say they are sure to vote. It put the no vote on 66% compared with 34% for the yes campaign – a 12-point widening of the gap since last week, when the margin was 60% to 40%. Miliband refused to be drawn on the referendum result, but admitted it was unlikely that the country would be “coming back to this very quickly” if voters say no on Thursday. He defended his refusal to share a platform with Clegg throughout the campaign, despite lauding AV as a system more likely to encourage parties to “reach out to each other”. The Labour leader said he had feared throughout the campaign that the poll would become a referendum on a political individual, whether this was Clegg, Cameron or himself. He told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “I think there was always a danger that it did become that, and that was my reason [for refusing to share a platform with Clegg].” Pointing out that he had been willing to share a platform with Vince Cable, the business secretary, Miliband said the difference with Clegg was that people – including many in his own party – had been “shocked” by his willingness to “pose as somebody from the centre-left” and then go into a Tory-led coalition to pursue policies for which the government had no mandate. Many of those policies – such as raising tuition fees and the pace of spending cuts – had previously been opposed by Clegg. The Labour leader said Clegg had presented himself as “the poster child” for new politics before the last general election before entering into coalition and breaking promises in line with “old politics”. “I hope people vote Labour tomorrow on those issues [at the local and devolved elections] because I think they do need to send a message to this government without a mandate, but I hope people do not use the referendum to kick Nick Clegg,” he said. Miliband conceded that Labour should have introduced AV during its 13 years in power, but had been deterred by its heavy majority under first past the post. He also dismissed the claim, made by David Cameron on air on Tuesday, that AV would mean some votes counted more than others. “Votes count equally,” he said. The campaign for or against voting reform for Westminster elections has seen tensions mount among the coalition partners. Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, directly confronted Cameron at the weekly cabinet meeting at Downing Street over alleged “lies” by the no camp. Clegg admitted “feelings are rising high” ahead of the referendum, but dismissed the idea that the alternative vote poll would destroy the coalition. He declined to comment directly on Huhne’s intervention in cabinet, which was criticised by the yes campaign as unhelpful. The Liberal Democrat leader told BBC’s 5 live Breakfast: “This government will move on whether the vote tomorrow is yes or no.” Clegg also denied that he had given up on a yes result, saying many people would not put their minds to how to vote until polling day arrived. “I wouldn’t immediately start deciding how people are going to vote until they’ve had the chance to vote tomorrow,” he added. “It’s a very simple choice – obviously the temperature is rising, feelings are rising high as you’d expect at this stage in the referendum campaign, but at the end of the day it isn’t about what politicians think or feel or even say to each other – it’s about what people want and do people want the current system. “Gallons of ink is going to be spilled in the nation’s newspapers providing a post mortem one way or another. Actually, the choice before people is not whether this was said in the referendum campaign or that was said in the referendum campaign but what this is all about.” AV referendum Alternative vote Electoral reform Ed Miliband Nick Clegg Elections 2011 Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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In return for financial help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Portugal must slash its budget deficit from 9.1% of GDP to 5.9% this year The financial markets have welcomed the €78bn (£70bn) bailout agreed for Portugal on Tuesday night, with City experts hopeful that the deal will allow Lisbon to repair its finances without defaulting on its debts. Although the precise terms of the rescue deal announced by caretaker prime minister José Sócrates will not be agreed for another two weeks, news of the deal sent the euro rallying on Wednesday. Portuguese bond prices also recovered some ground in early trading, while shares on the Portuguese stock market moved higher in the face of a widespread selloff across Europe. In return for financial help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Portugal must slash its budget deficit from 9.1% of GDP to 5.9% this year, and then reduce it to 3% by 2013. “Portugal appears to have been given more time which is promising, but it still has a tough task ahead,” said Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income research at Evolution Securities. Jane Foley, senior currency strategist, pointed out that both targets are less onorous than the government’s previous goals. “The market will be relieved the plan has been outlined before Portugal’s June bond redemption deadline,” said Foley. “News that Finland may be closer to supporting the bailout despite the opposition of the True Finns party is also positive.” The eurosceptic True Finns party won 39 seats in Finland’s 200 strong parliament last month, and has lobbied against bailing out Europe’s weaker countries. The interest rate paid by Portugal for the rescue package is expected to be agreed at a gathering of EU ministers on 16and 17 May. Sócrates resigned in March after the Portuguese parliament rejected his austerity programme. However, like Greece and Ireland, Portugal will have to accept significant cutbacks and tax rises in return for outside help. Jenkins pointed out that: “The Prime Minister in his television address set out a few things the package did not include, so no cuts to minimum wages or public sector pay, no public sector dismissals and no change to the retirement age. But he was short on what measures the package did include, though it is expected to include further privatisations, recapitalisation of the banks as well as a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases.” Portugal is due to auction up to €1bn of three-month government bonds on Wednesday morning. The yield, or interest rate, on its 10-year debt fell on Wednesday in response to the bailout deal to around 10.06%. This level is still generally seen as unsustainable, and is also several percentage points higher than the interest rates levied on Ireland and Greece’s own rescue deals. The euro rose to around $1.4854 against the dollar, and also traded above 90p against the pound. European debt crisis European banks Portugal Europe Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk
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