Former Bosnian Serb commander wanted for war crimes, including Srebrenica massacre, to be extradited to UN tribunal • Follow live updates here Police in Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader wanted by the United Nations for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre. The detention of Mladic – who had let it be known that he would rather kill himself than be arrested – was confirmed by the Serbian president, Boris Tadic. “On behalf of the Republic of Serbia I can announce the arrest of Ratko Mladic,” Tadic told reporters. Mladic, who was arrested in Serbia, would be extradited to the United Nations war crimes tribunal, Tadic said. He did not specify when, but said “an extradition process is under way”. “We ended a difficult period of our history and removed the stain from the face of the members of our nation wherever they live,” Tadic said. Mladic has already been indicted by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) over allegations of genocide and other war crimes during the Bosnian war. Mladic, now 68, is wanted as the commander of the 44-month-long siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, which killed more than 10,000 people, and for the massacre in July 1995 of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. “Today we closed one chapter of our recent history that will help us one step closer to reconciliation in the region,” Tadic said. The president said he believed the arrest would facilitate his country’s entry into the European Union. Mladic’s extradition to Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague has been a condition of Serbia’s bid to join the EU. “I believe that the doors for Serbia to join the EU are open,” Tadic said. Serbia had been under intense pressure over Mladic. The chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, complained this month that authorities were not doing enough to capture him. Brammertz was scheduled to report in June to the UN security council about Serbian efforts to detain Mladic and other war crimes fugitives. The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, welcomed the arrest and said Mladic should be sent to the tribunal without delay. “This is an important step forward for Serbia and for international justice,” Ashton said in a statement. “We expect Ratko Mladic to be transferred to the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia without delay. Full co-operation with the ICTY remains essential on Serbia’s path towards EU membership.” An official from the Serbian interior ministry said Mladic was arrested after authorities received an anonymous tip. His identity was confirmed by DNA tests, the official said. US and Serbian authorities had offered rewards of up to $19m (£11m) for information leading to Mladic’s arrest. According to Croatia’s Zagreb newspaper Jutarnji List, Mladic was living under the pseudonym of Milorad Komadic. The paper reported that the secret operation to arrest him came after a tipoff that Komadic “possessed some identification marks of Ratko Mladic and was physically very similar to him”. Mladic had lived openly in Belgrade for a number of years but dropped out of sight after 2000. Before then there had been credible reports of Mladic dining in fashionable restaurants and attending football matches. Radovan Karadzic, the wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, was arrested in 2008 . Recent years have seen the surrender of a number of Mladic’s former allies to the war crimes court as Belgrade has come under increasing pressure to co-operate with it. Those detained have included Radivoje Miletic and Milan Gvero, both accused of involvement in so-called ethnic cleansing. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, congratulated the Serbian government for the arrest, which he called a “historic moment”. “Ratko Mladic stands accused of terrible crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and it is right that he will now be brought to face international justice. Today our thoughts are with the relatives of those killed during the siege of Sarajevo and genocide in Srebrenica,” Hague said. “Today should mark the beginning of a new chapter for the countries of the western Balkans.” Ratko Mladic Serbia War crimes International criminal justice Europe Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Roger Ailes has made huge profits by manufacturing fear, but he has a few fears of his own, Rolling Stone finds in a detailed—and deeply unflattering—profile of the Fox News chairman. Ailes, whose resumé includes repackaging Richard Nixon for TV in 1968 and helping derail health care reform…
Continue reading …Casey Anthony’s former boyfriend testified that the young mom seemed to be having the time of her life during the period prosecutors say she killed her toddler daughter. Tony Lazarra said he and Anthony “hit it off” after meeting on Facebook and the couple spent hot nights in his bedroom…
Continue reading …A one-legged homeless man in Portland was left to drag himself out of jail over the weekend because his wheelchair had been moved to an off-site storage facility after he was picked up on a drinking citation. “Scottie” Hamilton, a 37-year-old Iraq veteran who lost his leg in a motorbike…
Continue reading …It’s official . Sarah Palin has purchased a home in Arizona, the Wall Street Journal reports. And that’s boosting expectations that she’s inching closer to announcing a race for the presidency, notes AP . The conservative state—where daughter Bristol also just bought a house —could serve as a strong base for…
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Regulator Ofqual’s chief executive backs plans and admits there is ‘a public perception that things aren’t what they used to be’ Exam boards could be fined for offering second-rate qualifications, the government’s exam standards regulator for England has warned. Glenys Stacey, the Ofqual chief executive, said it was “unusual” that the regulator did not have the right to impose financial penalties and spoke of the need for penalties as well as incentives for boards. The education bill going through parliament gives Ofqual greater powers to hold exam boards to account, but new legislation would be needed before it could fine them. The regulator is currently able to de-register an exam board and prevent it from offering qualifications, but the bill would gives it an extra responsibility to ensure that England’s examinations and qualifications keep pace with its international competitors. Stacey told the Guardian that Ofqual may “find that our range of powers needs augmenting in some way”. “All regulators want the greatest range of tools and you’d expect us to be seeking those. We are intent on working the tools we have in earnest, it’s whether a fining option has a particular place,” she said. “There may be a place for fining … we will be exploring this with government.” However, Stacey added that Ofqual was working with exam boards, rather than “plotting against” them. In March, a government-commissioned report into vocational courses- said thousands of students were gaining qualifications did not lead to jobs or further training. Professor Alison Wolf, an expert in public policy, found that while there were some worthwhile apprenticeships in building and manufacturing, and hairdressers’ training was of a good standard, there was a raft of courses “that do not do people any good”. Stacey said Ofqual, which was established as an independent non-ministerial government department a year ago, was developing a “harder-wired” stance so that exam boards were at “the level we prescribe and we have real certainty about what they prescribe”. She spoke of the need for “carrot and stick incentives” so that qualifications were “at the line or above it”. “Regulators have to earn their stripes. They don’t seek to be liked, but they seek to be respected,” Stacey said. “The regulator is planning to hold discussions over whether standards have fallen, risen or been maintained with exam boards and others “close to the issue”. The regulator’s chief executive said it faced a challenge in changing the view that exams were getting easier. “There is a public perception that things aren’t what they used to be. As a regulator we need to get under the skin of that,” she said. “What we hope to get is a better understanding as to what the perception is and what the reality is.” Stacey said the regulator would be looking closely at qualifications offered in Singapore, South Korea and Finland, among others. Last July, Ofqual said a science GCSE that almost 500,000 pupils took was too easy. In some cases, pupils had to gain fewer than half the available marks to be awarded an A grade, and only six out of 30 marks for a C. Students were not given the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of scientific concepts. Earlier this week, a report by Ofqual showed that the number of A-level and GCSE qualifications taken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland fell by almost 6% last year, while Diplomas, BTECs and City & Guilds courses shot up by 11%. Schools GCSEs Regulators Vocational education Further education Students Higher education Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Conservative peer will be sentenced in six weeks after denying six counts of false accounting The Tory peer Lord Hanningfield has been found guilty of six counts of expenses fraud. Hanningfield – tried at Chelmsford crown court under his name, Paul White, on Thursday – had denied six counts of false accounting relating to his parliamentary expenses. The prosecution said he had claimed for overnight stays in London, between March 2006 and April 2009, when he had actually returned home to Essex. White told the court he had seen it as a “living out of London allowance” rather than overnight subsistence. The jury found the 70-year-old peer guilty on all six counts and he will be sentenced in six weeks. White, who was an Essex councillor for 40 years and led the council from 2001 until he was charged in 2010, was made a life peer in 1998. He was a frontbench spokesman on business while the Conservatives were in opposition, but was suspended from the parliamentary party after being charged. During the trial, he said he “quite honestly assumed” he could claim the maximum amount after learning that this was what 85% of peers did. Asked by his defence counsel why he thought he was entitled to the full sum, he said: “The £30-£40 a day that was then available on the daily allowance was very little.” The peer, from West Hanningfield, near Chelmsford, told the court he spent “a minute a month” completing the Lords expenses claim form in exactly the same way each time, not even including rises in train fares. “If I had known how important some people saw those forms [as being], I would have done much more. I didn’t see it as self-certifying, I saw it as means of getting expenses,” he said. “No one ever told me those forms were so important. I am horrified to be where I am now because of those forms.” He said he had been told nothing about expenses when he was given an induction into the House of Lords for new peers and paid “very little attention” to the guidelines on the back of the claim forms. Hanningfield said many other peers saw the Lords as a “club”. He alleged that another peer who had a main home in London had designated a cottage in Wales as their primary address and claimed the full allowances for overnight subsistence. The court heard that White, from a farming background, receives only the state pension and a small agricultural pension of £120 a month. He would be entitled to a local government pension for his 40 years on Essex county council, but “never got around to filling in the forms”, the jury was told. The peer said he paid off the mortgage on his bungalow 10 years ago, but recently remortgaged it to help pay for his lawyers during the trial. Prosecution over his expenses spelled the end of his long career in Essex politics; he stepped down as the county council leader the day he was charged. In 2005, he was behind a parliamentary question which revealed that Tony Blair had spent more than £1,800 of public money on cosmetics and make-up artists for media appearances since becoming prime minister. White became emotional during his trial when he was asked whether it had been appropriate to claim back the cost of paying someone to walk his dog. “As I lived alone, I wouldn’t survive without my dog – it’s someone I could talk to and walk with,” he said, adding that he had worked long hours and allowed work to “take over my life”. During his trial, he denied living an extravagant lifestyle, saying: “Most of my clothes are from Marks & Spencer. I enjoy the occasional glass of wine but that’s about it. I have no savings, no stocks and shares, nothing like that.” MPs’ expenses House of Lords Conservatives David Sharrock guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Scott McCreery won the battle of the teenage country singers last night and walked off with this year’s American Idol crown. The deep-voiced grocery store clerk from North Carolina is, at 17, the youngest singer ever to win the singing contest, reports the New York Daily News . Defeated finalist Lauren…
Continue reading …Glenn Beck’s post-Fox future is taking shape. The mouthy host plans to launch an Internet TV channel to be called “GBTV,” reveal trademark applications filed by his company, Mercury Radio Arts. The tagline “The Truth Lives Here” has been trademarked, and the company has also filed the GBTV trademark for…
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HSBC and RBS among global banks involved, according to leaked Libyan Investment Authority report obtained by Global Witness • Read the full leaked report here HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland were among major global banks which held billions of dollars of Libyan state funds, a leaked report reveals. The world’s biggest banks led by France’s Société Générale, and including Goldman Sachs and Nomura, were involved in $5bn (£3.1bn) of deals involving Libya, according to an internal report for the Libyan Investment Authority obtained by UK campaign group Global Witness. It reveals the scale of the banks’ involvement with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Many of the LIA’s assets have been frozen under international sanctions since February. The document, dated June 2010, outlines where Libya’s oil riches of $53bn were invested. HSBC held $293m in 10 cash accounts, and invested $275m in a hedge fund, while another $110m of Libyan money was invested in a private equity fund managed by RBS. Goldman Sachs had $44m in four cash accounts. The report shows that almost $4bn was held in investment funds and structured products with banks and hedge funds, with Société Générale alone holding $1bn, while JP Morgan Chase had $171m and the New York hedge fund Och-Ziff $329m. The bulk of the LIA’s deposits – $19bn – was held by Libyan and Middle Eastern banks, however, including the Central Bank of Libya, the Arab Banking Corporation and the British Arab Commercial Bank. The report shows that Libya suffered heavy losses on the investment products sold by global banks – one of the most eye-catching losses was a 98.5% fall in the value of the sovereign wealth fund’s $1.2bn equity derivatives portfolio. HSBC and RBS refused to comment, citing client confidentiality. “It is completely absurd that banks like HSBC and Goldman Sachs can hide behind customer confidentiality in a case like this. These are state accounts, so the customer is effectively the Libyan people and these banks are withholding vital information from them,” said Charmian Gooch, director of Global Witness. She called on governments to force banks and investment managers to disclose the state-owned funds they manage. The Libyan authority held $5.2bn in shares and $3.4bn in bonds. The document outlines the stakes owned by the sovereign wealth fund in global companies such as BP, General Electric, Vivendi, Citigroup and Deutsche Telekom. It has already been reported that the fund owned chunks of Italy’s UniCredit bank, industrial group Finmeccanica, UK publishing group Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, and telecoms company Vodafone. The Gaddafi family has significant personal control over the state funds invested in the LIA. According to the prosecutor of the international criminal court: “Gaddafi makes no distinction between his personal assets and the resources of the country.” Banking HSBC Royal Bank of Scotland Libya Middle East Africa Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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