A Malaysian man is suing his former fiancee for more than $360,000 for leaving him just six hours before their wedding. Masran Abdul Rahman and his family were distressed and deeply embarrassed when Norzuliyana Mat Hassan called off the June wedding at the last minute. Masran, 32, had invited…
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Sentences follow Warren Jeffs’s conviction for polygamist marriages with girls as young as 12 Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Mormon church that practises polygamy, is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was given the maximum sentence for taking girls as young as 12 to be his brides. Jeffs, 55, who represented himself during most of his trial though he refused to attend the final stages, claimed that his prosecution was a violation of his religious rights and warned it would lead to “sickness and death” being brought on the locality. But a Texas jury took just 40 minutes to hand him the toughest sentence open to them – life in prison for aggravated sexual assault and 20 years in prison for sexual assault of a child. The sentences followed Jeffs’s conviction last week on two counts relating to polygamist marriages with girls aged 12 and 15. The sentencing of Jeffs brings to an end the most high-profile prosecution yet of a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The church, which has been based in Eldorado in west Texas since 2004, claims to be the genuine Mormon church adhering to the traditional practice of polygamy, or plural marriage as it calls it. The official Mormon church broke with the practice of polygamy in 1890 under pressure from the federal US government which made renouncing the practice a condition of granting statehood to Utah. The polygamist Mormons, under Jeffs’s leadership, refused to renounce plural marriages and now have about 10,000 followers. The jury heard that Jeffs personally had about 78 wives, including 12 who he married at 16 and 12 who he married at 15 or younger. Jurors were played audio tapes which the prosecution alleged recorded Jeffs giving sexual instructions to several underage wives. One tape was said to have captured the sounds of Jeffs having sex inside the temple at the church’s Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado. The court was also presented with DNA evidence that showed Jeffs fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl. The jury heard that Jeffs was an overweening presence within his church. When fathers resisted handing over their daughters, Jeffs would expel them – he ejected 60 church members and broke up 300 families. As the carrot to the stick, he encouraged fathers to give away their teenage daughters by offering them their own young brides. Jeffs dismissed several teams of defence lawyers and in the end represented himself in his own unorthodox style. Last Friday he gave a speech in which he accused the court of mocking his religion and read from a piece of paper which he said carried Jesus’s own words: “I will wrest your power. I shall judge you. I shall let all peoples know your unjust ways. I will send a scourge upon the counties of prosecutorial zeal to be humbled by sickness and death,” he read. In the course of his defence, Jeffs said polygamy was a “pure, natural way of life” and one of “God’s laws”. He pointed out that it was a central element of Mormonism in the early days of the church, which was founded by Joseph Smith in New York state in the 1820s. Smith himself is thought to have had at least 30 wives. Texas United States Mormonism Religion Christianity Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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Supermarkets are cutting petrol prices after oil fell steeply in the past week – putting energy suppliers under pressure to lower household fuel bills Drivers have begun to benefit from cheaper fuel after falling oil prices started feeding through to lower pump prices. Household energy bills could also come down. As Brent crude fell below $100 a barrel for the first time in six months, Asda, Tesco and Morrisons began cutting petrol prices and analysts forecast that wholesale gas prices would follow. Analysts including Eliane Tanner, of Bank Sarasin & Cie, predicted that the price of oil, which hit $126 a barrel in April, could fall as low as $80 in the coming months as concerns about US and European debts raised the prospect of a double-dip recession. Such a decline would drag down the wholesale price of gas – which is closely aligned to oil – increasing the pressure on energy providers to reduce gas and electricity prices. Omar Rahim, editor of the Energy Trader Daily, predicted that wholesale gas prices for the season ahead, already 8% down on June levels, could decline by up to a fifth in the next few months. Falling oil and gas prices came after E.ON on Friday became the fourth of the “big six” energy providers to raise gas and electricity bills, by 18.1% and 11.4% respectively, blaming a 30% rise in wholesale gas prices this year. Although wholesale energy prices have risen significantly this year, they are still down about a third from their peak in 2008, while average domestic energy bills have risen to record levels. Asda is cutting its pump price by 2p a litre to 132.7p, while Tesco will reduce prices by 1p a litre. However, at an average of 136.58p-a-litre petrol is still less than a penny cheaper than the record of 137.43p on 9 May this year. Luke Bosdet at the AA said recent falls in the oil price – down nearly 8% this month – meant that in theory, petrol prices should be coming down. He noted that wholesale prices fell particularly sharply in the first five days of August and pointed out that such moves typically take about 10 days to feed through to the pump. Adam Scorer, director of external affairs at Consumer Focus, said: “Consumers will question whether they’re getting a fair deal if prices don’t come down as quickly when costs fall as they go up when costs rise.” He said: “Decreases in oil prices should be reflected in the costs passed on to consumers at the petrol pump and any fall in gas prices should lead to cuts in the prices customers have to pay to heat their homes.” Brent crude fell by more than $5 to $98.74 a barrel on Tuesday morning, its lowest level since February, before rebounding to $104.64 by the evening as markets put the sell-off on hold. While the outlook is uncertain, the market consensus is that the price will fall in the coming months, in line with the economic forecast. “Oil and other commodity prices are going down because of rising risk aversion and the economic slowdown. The role of speculators is not fully understood, although it seems likely that they have had also some impact on oil prices,” said Tanner of Bank Sarasin. “Low oil prices are good for the economy because they make things like [petrol] cheaper and leave people with more money to spend on other things. Oil prices are correlated to other commodities, such as base metals like copper,” Tanner added. Gold hit a fresh high, breaching $1,780 an ounce as increasingly risk-averse investors continued to use the precious metal as a safe haven. In the US, the price of West Texas Intermediate oil fell to $75.71 before bouncing into positive territory on hopes that the Federal Reserve was preparing another fiscal stimulus. West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude typically trade at different prices because they are different grades and different destinations. Oil Petrol prices Energy bills Oil and gas companies Tom Bawden Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …With a new round of financial turmoil cascading from country to country and market to market, many are labeling the current chaos a repeat of 2008—just substitute “downgrade” for “Lehman collapse.” But that would be a mistake, as this crisis differs from 2008 in three major ways, writes Francesco…
Continue reading …Europeans have always treasured their long summer vacations, and that goes for their leaders as well. As the European economy teeters on the precipice, Nicolas Sarkozy is by the Mediterranean in his swimming trunks. His prime minister is vacationing in Tuscany. British Chancellor George Osborne is in California, where he…
Continue reading …It sounded like a good idea: Thousands of Coloradans have signed a petition to honor environmentalist and “Rocky Mountain High” singer John Denver by naming a peak after him, a 12,965-foot mountain in the central Rockies close to where Denver penned the song. But federal policy is to avoid…
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Chancellor intends to reassure the Commons that authorities will ensure plans are in place to cope with a new credit crunch George Osborne will insist that the government is sticking to its tough deficit-reduction programme when he updates MPs tomorrow about the turmoil in the global economy. Treasury sources said the chancellor intends to reassure the Commons that the UK authorities will be increasing their vigilance over the country’s banks and ensuring that contingency plans are in place to cope with the effects of a new credit crunch. In the aftermath of disappointing official figures for manufacturing and exports released on Tuesday, Osborne will also make it clear that the coalition intends to reform the supply side of Britain’s economy to boost growth. “The chancellor will give parliament an update on what has happened, on the discussions he has had and what we need to do domestically, internationally and in terms of contingency planning”, the source said. Osborne will step up the pressure on the 17-nation eurozone to implement in full the package agreed last month to safeguard the single currency, but will warn that European leaders need to go further to get ahead of the financial markets. He will also urge the G20 group of developed and developing nations to agree ways of rebalancing the global economy so that steps taken by debtor nations to rein in their budget deficits are matched by measures from creditor nations to boost demand. The chancellor believes that the global imbalances were a prime cause of the financial and economic crisis that began in 2007 and that progress in tackling them has been “frustratingly slow”. Thursday’s statement will follow what is expected to be a gloomy assessment of the state of the economy from the Bank of England . Threadneedle Street’s quarterly inflation report will downgrade the Bank’s forecasts for economic growth and the City will be looking for signs that Sir Mervyn King and the eight other members of the monetary policy committee are warming to the idea of a second bout of quantitative easing, or electronic money creation. Osborne believes that his tight grip on the public finances will provide scope for the Bank to use more QE in the event growth continues to be sluggish over the coming months. His approach, however, will be challenged by Labour, which this week accused the chancellor of “breathtaking complacency”. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor is flying back from his holiday in the French Pyrenees. A Labour source said: “We want Osborne to explain what he has been doing over the last year – not just the last week – to push for a long-term solution to the eurozone’s problems and lead the debate on how we get the global economy growing again “He also needs to explain why he complacently thinks Britain is a safe haven when the FTSE 100 has fallen by so much over last fortnight with billions of pounds wiped off value of British companies and when the UK economy has barely grown for nine months – well before the problems of recent weeks – choking off the recovery we were starting to see last year.” Figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed scant evidence of the rebalancing of the economy towards manufacturing and exports desired by the Treasury. Osborne believes the UK has to be less dependent on consumer and public spending and shift focus towards boosting production, but the ONS said factory output fell by 0.4% in June while the trade gap widened. Analysts had been predicting a small rise in manufacturing output following the disruption caused by bank holiday shutdowns in late April and early May and by the problems caused to the supply chains of multinational companies by the Japanese tsunami. Manufacturing production was down by 0.5% between the first and second quarters of 2011 – a better guide to the underlying trend than one month’s figures – and is almost 8% down on its level five years ago. Industrial production, which includes the energy sector and Britain’s North Sea output, was flat in June but dropped by 1.6% in the second quarter. The ONS said the data was not weak enough on its own to warrant a cut to the estimate made last month that growth between April and June was 0.2% higher than in the previous three months. City hopes were also confounded that the trade gap would be trimmed by the boost to exports from a strong pound and a lower import bill caused by weak consumer spending. The UK’s trade deficit in goods and services increased from £4bn in May to £4.5bn in June, while the deficit over the quarter rose from £8.5bn to £11.3bn. In the three months to June, Britain had a deficit of £24.6bn offset by a surplus of £13.3bn on trade in services. Economic growth (GDP) Economics Government borrowing FTSE Manufacturing data Bank of England Quantitative easing European debt crisis Banking Credit crunch Market turmoil Financial crisis Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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