Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs among those questioned by attorney general Eric Schneiderman Wall Street banks are facing fresh high-level scrutiny of their role in the credit crunch as New York’s attorney general opens an investigation into the packaging of mortgage loans into securities. Eric Schneiderman has called for meetings with several major institutions including Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, according to reports in the US. The attorney general is not commenting on the investigation, which is believed to be in its very early stages. The banks and others have been blamed by politicians for worsening the financial crisis by encouraging the sale of high-risk financial instruments tied to mortgages. Schneiderman is reportedly interested in discussing the securitisation of mortgage loans and other mortgage related practices with the bankers. Schneiderman was appointed attorney general last November and follows Andrew Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer, both of whom led crackdowns on Wall Street. This month he reached a $90.8m (£55.9m) settlement with UBS over the “fraudulent and anti-competitive” sale of municipal bonds. The inquiry comes as banks continue to struggle with the legal fallout from the credit crisis. Civil suits have been filed by federal and state regulators since the financial crisis erupted in 2008 and private shareholders have also filed cases against the banks. In a sign of ongoing public anger towards the industry, eight people were arrested during protests outside JP Morgan Chase’s annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, where demonstrators, greeted by a heavy police presence, chanted “make banks pay” and wielded placards with slogans such as “Chase gets rich, we lose homes, jobs and services”. Last year the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US financial regulator, levied a $550m on Goldman Sachs over claims the investment bank misled investors in collateralised debt obligations linked to subprime mortgages. It was the largest ever fine on a Wall Street bank. Banks packaged thousands of home loans into bonds known as mortgage-backed securities during the housing boom and sold them to investors around the world. Many of these bonds were given triple-A credit ratings, a grade supposedly denoting a safe investment, even though they were backed by high risk loans. The collapse of the US property market triggered a massive collapse in the value of the bonds, often to junk status. US officials have alleged banks, including Goldman Sachs, deliberately misled investors by encouraging them to invest in mortgage-backed securities they knew to be junk. The allegations are also being investigated by the SEC and the Justice Department. Schneiderman, like his predecessors, has a powerful legal tool at his disposal: the 1921 Martin Act. The act gives the prosecutor sweeping powers of investigation, allows him to subpoena any document he wants, and makes it easier for the attorney general to bring prosecutions. It was most extensively used by Spitzer after the stock market crash at the turn of the millennium. During his election campaign Schneiderman pledged to tackle Wall Street over the credit crisis. “The mortgage fraud crisis is devastating working families in every corner of New York State – it’s upending our economic recovery upstate and downstate,” he said. The broad nature of Schneiderman’s investigative powers make it uncertain where his investigations may lead but the attorney general has said he is interested in scam lenders and foreclosure practices as well as Wall Street investments. According to the New York Times, Schneiderman recently issued subpoenas to two investment firms linked to a paperwork-processing firm. The firm, Pillar Holdings, handled nearly 40% of all foreclosure cases filed in New York. The inquiry is believed to be unrelated to efforts by attorneys-general from all 50 states to reach a multibillion-dollar settlement with banks over allegations of improper foreclosure practices. Securities and Exchange Commission Banking Financial crisis Morgan Stanley Bank of America Goldman Sachs Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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Inquest hears police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty A rogue Afghan police officer opened fire on British soldiers, killing five and injuring six, after a row over a hat he turned up in for duty, an inquest heard. The man, known only as Gulbuddin, shot soldiers who were mentoring Afghan police officers at a checkpoint in Helmand province. Earlier in the day he had turned up in a “brown Afghan hat” and went off “in a strop” after being told by a British soldier to wear his police issue headgear. The inquest heard claims that Afghan police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty. In one episode outlined during the hearing an Afghan police officer gave ammunition to the Taliban in exchange for narcotics. It also emerged that the British men were posted at the checkpoint after a “blood feud” between an Afghan police officer and a local Taliban commander. Lance Corporal Liam Culverhouse, who was shot in the eye in the attack, told the inquest at Trowbridge in Wiltshire that he was reading a magazine when the shooting began and saw a “flash of red”. “I realised I’d been shot. I heard a rifle going off in automatic bursts and Gulbuddin shouting something that was like a war cry. I felt the pain and my eye was blind.” “Gulbuddin was screaming. I decided it was time to get out of there so I crawled around the corner and I decided to play dead, close my eyes and hold my breath. All I could hear inside was gunfire, scream, gunfire, scream. From then on I fell unconscious for a period of time. What woke me up was a helicopter going past.” Gulbuddin fled and his motives remain unclear, but Culverhouse described how on one occasion the Afghan police officer had grabbed him by the head and on another had “barged” him off a platform. “It wasn’t just me. He was always trying to wind up members of the platoon and he had been warned about his behaviour,” Culverhouse said. “The police at the checkpoint were a ragged bunch.” On the morning of the shooting he turned up for a patrol not wearing his police hat. He was told to wear his uniform. “He went off with a little strop on, rifle over his shoulder,” said Culverhouse. Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford and Guardsman James Major, all of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith from the Royal Military police on 3 November 2009. The men were “relaxing in the sun” at Blue 25 checkpoint in the Nad-e-Ali district and were not wearing body armour or carrying weapons. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Walker, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, insisted the Afghan police force was full of men determined to do good for their country. But he said that Blue 25 had been beset by problems when his troops arrived in the area. A shura – meeting – was arranged with village elders and it was discovered that there was a blood feud between the local police officer in charge of Blue 25 and a Taliban commander. Walker decided to use his own security detachment – which usually helped guard him as he moved around the area – to mentor the local police at the checkpoint. Questioned by the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Ridley, Walker accepted there were problems within the Afghan police force, giving the example of a checkpoint commander who traded ammunition for drugs with the Taliban. He said some of the officers later got high on the drugs and their police station was attacked by the Taliban that day. Walker said such a series of events was “not untypical”. He said Afghan police officers were poorly paid and so were “susceptible to the influence of money”. Walker told the inquest that after the shooting he made a number of recommendations including setting up separate recreation areas for British and Afghan men and making sure rest areas were better protected. He also suggested that sidearms were carried as a deterrent against “irrational action”. The inquest continues. Afghanistan Military Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Inquest hears police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty A rogue Afghan police officer opened fire on British soldiers, killing five and injuring six, after a row over a hat he turned up in for duty, an inquest heard. The man, known only as Gulbuddin, shot soldiers who were mentoring Afghan police officers at a checkpoint in Helmand province. Earlier in the day he had turned up in a “brown Afghan hat” and went off “in a strop” after being told by a British soldier to wear his police issue headgear. The inquest heard claims that Afghan police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty. In one episode outlined during the hearing an Afghan police officer gave ammunition to the Taliban in exchange for narcotics. It also emerged that the British men were posted at the checkpoint after a “blood feud” between an Afghan police officer and a local Taliban commander. Lance Corporal Liam Culverhouse, who was shot in the eye in the attack, told the inquest at Trowbridge in Wiltshire that he was reading a magazine when the shooting began and saw a “flash of red”. “I realised I’d been shot. I heard a rifle going off in automatic bursts and Gulbuddin shouting something that was like a war cry. I felt the pain and my eye was blind.” “Gulbuddin was screaming. I decided it was time to get out of there so I crawled around the corner and I decided to play dead, close my eyes and hold my breath. All I could hear inside was gunfire, scream, gunfire, scream. From then on I fell unconscious for a period of time. What woke me up was a helicopter going past.” Gulbuddin fled and his motives remain unclear, but Culverhouse described how on one occasion the Afghan police officer had grabbed him by the head and on another had “barged” him off a platform. “It wasn’t just me. He was always trying to wind up members of the platoon and he had been warned about his behaviour,” Culverhouse said. “The police at the checkpoint were a ragged bunch.” On the morning of the shooting he turned up for a patrol not wearing his police hat. He was told to wear his uniform. “He went off with a little strop on, rifle over his shoulder,” said Culverhouse. Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford and Guardsman James Major, all of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith from the Royal Military police on 3 November 2009. The men were “relaxing in the sun” at Blue 25 checkpoint in the Nad-e-Ali district and were not wearing body armour or carrying weapons. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Walker, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, insisted the Afghan police force was full of men determined to do good for their country. But he said that Blue 25 had been beset by problems when his troops arrived in the area. A shura – meeting – was arranged with village elders and it was discovered that there was a blood feud between the local police officer in charge of Blue 25 and a Taliban commander. Walker decided to use his own security detachment – which usually helped guard him as he moved around the area – to mentor the local police at the checkpoint. Questioned by the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Ridley, Walker accepted there were problems within the Afghan police force, giving the example of a checkpoint commander who traded ammunition for drugs with the Taliban. He said some of the officers later got high on the drugs and their police station was attacked by the Taliban that day. Walker said such a series of events was “not untypical”. He said Afghan police officers were poorly paid and so were “susceptible to the influence of money”. Walker told the inquest that after the shooting he made a number of recommendations including setting up separate recreation areas for British and Afghan men and making sure rest areas were better protected. He also suggested that sidearms were carried as a deterrent against “irrational action”. The inquest continues. Afghanistan Military Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Inquest hears police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty A rogue Afghan police officer opened fire on British soldiers, killing five and injuring six, after a row over a hat he turned up in for duty, an inquest heard. The man, known only as Gulbuddin, shot soldiers who were mentoring Afghan police officers at a checkpoint in Helmand province. Earlier in the day he had turned up in a “brown Afghan hat” and went off “in a strop” after being told by a British soldier to wear his police issue headgear. The inquest heard claims that Afghan police officers were open to corruption, sometimes lacked commitment and were high on drugs while on duty. In one episode outlined during the hearing an Afghan police officer gave ammunition to the Taliban in exchange for narcotics. It also emerged that the British men were posted at the checkpoint after a “blood feud” between an Afghan police officer and a local Taliban commander. Lance Corporal Liam Culverhouse, who was shot in the eye in the attack, told the inquest at Trowbridge in Wiltshire that he was reading a magazine when the shooting began and saw a “flash of red”. “I realised I’d been shot. I heard a rifle going off in automatic bursts and Gulbuddin shouting something that was like a war cry. I felt the pain and my eye was blind.” “Gulbuddin was screaming. I decided it was time to get out of there so I crawled around the corner and I decided to play dead, close my eyes and hold my breath. All I could hear inside was gunfire, scream, gunfire, scream. From then on I fell unconscious for a period of time. What woke me up was a helicopter going past.” Gulbuddin fled and his motives remain unclear, but Culverhouse described how on one occasion the Afghan police officer had grabbed him by the head and on another had “barged” him off a platform. “It wasn’t just me. He was always trying to wind up members of the platoon and he had been warned about his behaviour,” Culverhouse said. “The police at the checkpoint were a ragged bunch.” On the morning of the shooting he turned up for a patrol not wearing his police hat. He was told to wear his uniform. “He went off with a little strop on, rifle over his shoulder,” said Culverhouse. Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford and Guardsman James Major, all of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith from the Royal Military police on 3 November 2009. The men were “relaxing in the sun” at Blue 25 checkpoint in the Nad-e-Ali district and were not wearing body armour or carrying weapons. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Walker, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, insisted the Afghan police force was full of men determined to do good for their country. But he said that Blue 25 had been beset by problems when his troops arrived in the area. A shura – meeting – was arranged with village elders and it was discovered that there was a blood feud between the local police officer in charge of Blue 25 and a Taliban commander. Walker decided to use his own security detachment – which usually helped guard him as he moved around the area – to mentor the local police at the checkpoint. Questioned by the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner, David Ridley, Walker accepted there were problems within the Afghan police force, giving the example of a checkpoint commander who traded ammunition for drugs with the Taliban. He said some of the officers later got high on the drugs and their police station was attacked by the Taliban that day. Walker said such a series of events was “not untypical”. He said Afghan police officers were poorly paid and so were “susceptible to the influence of money”. Walker told the inquest that after the shooting he made a number of recommendations including setting up separate recreation areas for British and Afghan men and making sure rest areas were better protected. He also suggested that sidearms were carried as a deterrent against “irrational action”. The inquest continues. Afghanistan Military Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It looks like China won’t get its coveted peek at the super-secret helicopter that crashed outside of Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. John Kerry got Pakistan to agree to hand over the tail section to the US during yesterday’s meeting with Pakistani officials. Kerry told reporters “we’ll take possession of…
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Barnardo’s warns government plan to tackle abuse and trafficking ‘needs to be enforced’ The sexual grooming of children in the UK is a much bigger problem than has previously been recognised, the government has said. The children’s minister, Tim Loughton, announced that an action plan will be launched to tackle child sexual exploitation, which experts say involves British children as young as 10 being trafficked for sex around the UK. “This isn’t something that has just appeared, but the extent of it hasn’t been recognised and we are underestimating the problem,” Loughton said on Tuesday. “The cleverer we are about it, the more horrified we are likely to be by what we discover.” People sometimes struggled to believe that such cruelty could exist in the UK, he said. But he added: “Exploitation is happening here and it is happening now.” The government has launched an investigation into the extent of the problem and would use its findings to devise a plan to tackle it, which is due for publication in the autumn, he said. Loughton said he could not give precise details of what it would include, but gathering data and evidence would be a “first major step” to tackling child sexual exploitation and putting it at the heart of policing. He added: “Sexual exploitation has not been fully understood by the judiciary and justice system.” The UK’s biggest children’s charity, Barnardo’s, welcomed the move but said the government had to “pick up the pace” as it examines better ways to protect children. The profile of domestic child grooming and trafficking was raised in January after the jailing of a gang of Asian men in Derby who had been grooming girls as young as 12 for sex. The same month nine men in Rochdale were arrested under suspicion of rape, inciting child prostitution, allowing a premises to be used for prostitution and sexual activity with a child. The action plan is likely to look at how police rely on evidence from children, who are often threatened with physical or sexual violence if they talk to authorities, to bring the abusers to justice. It is also likely to look at the intimidating and aggressive nature of court cases which can see children who have been abused by a number of men questioned by several barristers. “What makes this crime doubly difficult to prosecute is that even if children do get over the huge hurdle and want to bring their abuser to justice, they then have to face a judicial process which sometimes treats them as though they were somehow complicit in their abuse,” said Loughton. The government would not shy away from looking at whether certain ethnic groups in specific areas were more likely to be involved in sexual exploitation, he said. “If there has been a reluctance to [look at the problem] because of a fear of opening a can of worms, then we have to expose that. I don’t care who the perpetrators are, they have to be exposed and brought to justice.” But he stressed that sexual exploitation was not confined to one ethnic group. “Operation Retriever [in Derby] centred on one specific ethnic group but in other areas there are different abusers of different ethnic groups. They can be white, middle-class abusers online – exploitation is not a BME [black and minority ethnic] monopoly,” he said. Following the Derby case the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is to investigate “on-street” grooming, and establish whether there are patterns of offending, victimisation, or vulnerability. That report is due next month. Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo’s, welcomed the promise of a child sexual exploitation action plan but said it had to have the tools to change the situation. “It’s the first step in the right direction but it needs more pace and needs to be enforced,” she said. Barnardo’s had dealt with 417 children who had been exploited on the day of the announcement, she added. “Those 417 children can’t wait, their lives are being trashed while we are devising an action plan,” she said. Children Human trafficking Child protection Crime Social care Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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Shukri Ghanem, the regime’s second high-profile defection, is believed to have contacted officials in Tunis The Libyan government is refusing to deny claims that the oil minister has fled the country in the second high profile defection from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime since the two month old air campaign began. Shukri Ghanem, who had been oil minister since 2006 and was prime minister for three years prior, is believed to have contacted officials in Tunis after arriving there on Monday. Libyan officials said they had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Ghanem for the past 24 hours. He is believed to have crossed the land border into Tunisia and shortly afterwards made clear his intention to defect. “He is in Tunisia, but we don’t know what he is doing there,” said government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim. Another official said Ghanem was on a “diplomatic mission” to bring about a ceasefire. However, a spokesman for the interim Transitional National Council in Benghazi said he had contacted the group in recent weeks and was looking for a way to flee. Ghanem has been regarded as a trusted figure within the Gaddafi regime, although he has differed with colleagues on oil policy. Former chief regime henchman, Moussa Koussa was the last senior figure to defect to Britain in late-March. He has since been extensively debriefed by MI6 officials and, along with other former Gaddafi loyalists, has been instrumental in planning for Nato air operations that are increasingly destroying the power base of the Gaddafi regime. Ghanem had been seen since the start of the violent anti-government uprising in February as a likely candidate to switch allegiances. He had indicated during interviews that he believed change in Libya was necessary, however he had stopped short of calling for Gaddafi to leave. His apparent defection came hours after the international criminal court chief prosecutor called for the arrest of the veteran dictator, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi for mass murder. An escalation of the air campaign followed soon after the announcement. In the early hours, Nato bombs set fire to two buildings in Tripoli that British military officials said were secret police compounds. The submarine HMS Triumph fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and Tornado jets dropped bombs on a number of targets in Libya’s capital. Tomahawks’ electronic systems can distinguish between different buildings and are therefore suitable against urban targets, according to defence officials. Danish planes also attacked Tripoli in a series of attacks British defence officials made clear were also designed to signal that Nato was determined to extend its range of targets in a military campaign which, after almost two months, shows little sign of leading to the collapse of the regime. Major General John Lorimer, chief military spokesman at the Ministry of Defence, said the bombed targets “lay at the heart of the apparatus used by the regime to brutalise the civilian population”. He added: “One of the intelligence facilities which was hit is known to play a significant role in the collection of information by Colonel Gaddafi’s secret police, while the other was a headquarter for the external security organisation, commanded by Abdullah Senussi.” Senussi, the intelligence chief, along with the Libyan leader and his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was accused on Monday of crimes against humanity by the ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who called for their arrest for orchestrating a campaign of mass murder. British targets on Monday night included the executive protection force, which Lorimer described as “the bodyguard for the inner circle of the colonel’s regime … entrusted with other sensitive tasks”. He said vehicles at the training base were identified as having been used in the violent suppression of public demonstrations in Tripoli on 4 March. The latest Nato strikes came days after General Sir David Richards, Britain’s chief of defence staff, called on member countries to increase their range of targets to include the regime’s infrastructure, command and control centres, and communications networks. The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Commons on Monday that Nato bombing strikes would not end until Gaddafi stopped “slaughtering” his own people. There are 23 RAF aircraft and two Royal Navy warships committed to Operation Ellamy, the MoD’s codename for operations in Libya. A Libyan government diplomatic mission arrived in Moscow on Monday in a bid to broker a ceasefire. Russia has remained a staunch opponent of military action and has challenged the campaign’s effectiveness. In recent days, Transitional National Council officials, including two former Gaddafi ministers who defected to the rebels in the days following the uprising, have been touring Europe and the US in a bid to build international recognition for an alternative government which they claim now represents all Libyans. Concerns have been raised in Nato that a loyalist rump of officials who have stood by Gaddafi for most of his 42 year rule, could stymie attempts to change the regime and turn the Nato air campaign into a stalemate. Such a result is seen as likely to further dampen the so-called Arab spring, which led to the rapid toppling of decades-old dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, but has sparked deadly street violence in Libya, Yemen and Syria and fresh sectarian enmity in Bahrain. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Martin Chulov Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The US has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban, a move that predates the killing of Osama bin Laden. US representatives have attended at least three meetings with a Taliban official believed to be close to the group’s leader, the most recent of which was just “eight or nine days…
Continue reading …A rift between big business and the Tea Party movement is growing as the very real prospect of America defaulting on its debt looms, the Christian Science Monitor finds. The federal government hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling yesterday, and while Tea Party-backed lawmakers are sticking to their guns…
Continue reading …There’s one more tongue wagging about whether Carla Bruni is pregnant : father-in-law Pal Sarkozy. The octogenarian papa of French president Nicolas Sarkozy says that the pair are definitely expecting, reports the AP. “Neither wants to know the gender beforehand, but I’m certain it will be a girl, and beautiful like…
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