To return to Mr Silaev: after escaping from Russia he made his way to Spain,
where he was seized by counter-terrorism police, acting on instructions from
Moscow which had been circulated thanks to Interpol. Let’s be clear: Mr
Silaev is guiltless of any crime except offending the FSB. He was
nevertheless held in a high-security jail for eight days, and cannot move
outside Spain without the risk of being arrested again. The human rights
charity Fair Trials International (which is preparing a report on the abuse
of the Interpol system to threaten human rights activists, journalists and
businessmen) has taken up his case and formally requested that his name be
removed from Interpol databases; so far without success.

As the Silaev case shows, Interpol is relaxed about collaborating with
repressive regimes. There are numerous examples, the most disturbing of
which concern the abuse of Interpol “Red Notices”, a high-priority system of
alerts often used as a means of detecting suspected terrorists. In theory,
these Red Notices should be welcomed by everyone, because they hasten the
identification and arrest of desperate men and women who are a danger to us
all. In practice, they have been perverted again and again to assist
unpleasant regimes in persecuting domestic opposition.

Here are just a few examples. Chandima Withanaarachchi is a Sri Lankan blogger
who delights in exposing government corruption and human rights abuses.
Since there is no shortage of either in his native land, his website was
banned, he lives in exile, and he is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.

Napoleon Gomez is a Mexican trade union official who campaigned for the truth
after a terrible mining disaster, which he labelled an “industrial
homicide”. The Mexican authorities responded by accusing him of corruption.
Mr Gomez fled abroad, and lived under the menace of a Red Notice until March
29, even though as far as could be discovered no court had ever found him
guilty of anything. He could scarcely move without being arrested, and could
no longer do his work as an international trade union leader.

Other countries which appear to have abused the Red Notice system include
Saudi Arabia, Iran and Indonesia. I first became aware of the nature of the
problem through my friend Mohammad Ali Harrath. Mr Harrath, now a London
businessman, campaigned manfully against President Ben Ali’s brutal Tunisian
regime for many years, but was finally forced to flee the country. In his
absence he was branded with a Red Notice and accused of an array of “crimes
involving the use of weapons/explosives and terrorism”.

Harrath’s Red Notice had been in place for 20 years by the time Ben Ali
finally fell. Three months later, Interpol sheepishly removed it, telling
him that “after re‑examining all the information in the file” it had
concluded that the charges against him “were primarily political in nature”.
It is telling indeed that Interpol reached this conclusion, two decades on,
practically the moment the Ben Ali government had fallen.

Privately, senior policemen tell me they know many requests are political, and
how much they dislike handing sensitive information to certain regimes.
However, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, foolishly pretends there is
nothing amiss. Her spokesman told me yesterday that “the Home Office has no
concerns about the way Interpol runs itself”.

But when I contacted Interpol last night, the answer was even more complacent.
I was directed towards Article 3 of its constitution, which forbids it from
undertaking “any intervention or activities of a political, military,
religious or racial character”. The prohibition, the spokesman told me, “is
taken extremely seriously by Interpol”. This claim is farcical.

In truth, Interpol has never quite been the force for good that its popular
image suggests. From the late 1930s to 1945 it fell under the control of
Hitler, and for many decades thereafter it reportedly refused to help track
down Nazi war criminals on the grounds that it did not get involved in
“political” crimes. Now it’s in league with despots and torturers, as its
handling of the Silaev case shows. Last night, when I spoke to the Home
Office about today’s decision on Bill Browder, I was told that Mrs May
didn’t want to know: “It’s a matter for the Russians and Interpol.”

So it is entirely likely, on the basis of past form, that Interpol will today
find with the FSB and against Bill Browder. But in the court of
international opinion it’s not Mr Browder who’s on trial: it’s Interpol
itself, for its collaboration with some of the nastiest regimes in the world.

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2c45c0e6/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cuknews0Claw0Eand0Eorder0C10A0A734830CIs0EInterpol0Efighting0Efor0Etruth0Eand0Ejustice0Eor0Ehelping0Ethe0Evillains0Bhtml/story01.htm

It was here that many of the survivors were shepherded by their teachers and
saw out the tornado crouching in a protective position, even as the winds
peeled back the roof above them as the full force of the storm passed a few
feet overhead.

Half a mile down the road, the junction of 19th St and Santa Fe resembles the
scene from a war film. Downed power lines have turned the streets and
pavements into an obstacle course and overhead traffic signals hang
precariously from a cable.

^{The wreckage of homes litters a playground in Moore (AP)}

It looks like a bomb went off in the car park of the strip mall. One shop is
completely missing – it was the off-licence where the alcohol exploded in a
spectacular inferno.

The tornado then spiralled off through a housing development known as Plaza
Towers. In the middle of it was an elementary school where the biggest loss
of life was suffered – seven young pupils killed as the building collapsed
on them.

This swathe of destruction is “our Ground Zero”, Oklahoma’s
lieutenant governor Todd Lamb told The Daily Telegraph. It is this section
of the community where the damage is absolute – whole neighbourhoods
levelled.

Trees are stripped to the bark, twisted and torn; cars are wrapped contortedly
around walls; some homes are reduced to piles of stick; the facades of
others have peeled off, revealing the contents of inner rooms like messy
doll’s houses; kitchen sinks sit in front gardens; warped garage doors rear
out of the earth like modernist sculptures.

The area around the Plaza Towers school is still cordoned off by police. From
here the tornado, now at its most potent, continued its inexorable march
north-west towards the corner of 4th St and Telephone Road.

A new 7-Eleven convenience corner sat on one corner, although it takes a
mighty leap of imagination now to visualise that it was ever there, as all
that remains are torn-up foundation slabs.

It was here that four victims died as they sought shelter, including a young
mother and her baby daughter who, in a final desperate act, tried to ride
out the storm inside a refrigerated container.

Across the road, dozens of patients, medical staff and locals seeking shelter
were huddled in the basement of the Moore Medical Centre. The tornado left
the town’s only hospital in ruins, but no injuries among those hiding there.

The twister then jumped the I-35 highway, destroying more homes, but its most
lethal force expended. Surveying the damage on foot on Wednesday, it was
remarkable that only 24 died in its path.

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2c45ee4a/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Cnorthamerica0Cusa0C10A0A746310COklahoma0Etornado0Ethe0Etrail0Eof0Eterror0Eand0Ecarnage0Ethat0Edestroyed0Ea0Ecommunity0Bhtml/story01.htm

“The fact that Israel is treated differently, the fact that some people
can say so easily, let’s do something against Israel, let’s boycott Israel,
let’s boycott Israeli products, this is some kind of disguised
anti-Semitism. In past times people said that they are against the Jews.
Now, especially after the Holocaust, nobody says that they are against the
Jews, but people are against the Jewish state.”

Mr Steinitz – a former finance minister – said British perceptions of Israel
were more negative than those of other Western or European countries and
drew comparison with popular sentiment in the US, Canada and Australia.

“There should not be much difference between people in America, Canada,
Britain and Australia,” he said. “[They have] the same language,
very similar cultures. And still in America, Canada, in Australia in opinion
polls, most citizens support Israel with a very warm feeling. In Britain it
is much less.

“When you think that all four are Anglo-Saxon democracies, why should
people in America, Australia or Canada have different relations to or
appreciations of the minuscule Jewish state than the people of Britain? Just
recently, there was a very general poll in the United States. The support
for Israel in the United States was stronger than ever. I’m not confident
that this is the case with Britain as well.”

Asked if this difference in attitude might be reflected in the Foreign Office
or in Government policy, he replied: “This might be the case.”

Anti-Semitism existed in Britain to a “certain extent”, he added,
manifesting itself in negative attitudes to the Jewish state.

Widely believed to be Mr Netanyahu’s favoured choice as Israel’s next foreign
minister, Mr Steinitz was almost certainly reflecting his boss’s views. One
official close to the prime minister has told The Daily Telegraph
that Mr Netanyahu views British public opinion towards Israel as “very
tough”.

Mr Steinitz insisted that he was not accusing Mr Hague or other British
ministers who had criticised Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank
of anti-Semitism, saying this was a “legitimate view”.

“Not every kind of criticism is anti-Semitism,” he said. “I
didn’t say that any criticism of Israel was anti-Semitic or unfair even. If
somebody has some criticism of Israel, this is one thing. The same person
can also have some criticism of his own country.

“But if somebody is following criticism of Israel and becoming
anti-Israeli, saying ‘I’m ready to cooperate with Israel’s enemies or
boycott Israel, or Israelis or Israeli academia or Israeli institutions’,
this is something different.”

But he rejected the view – voiced by Mr Hague and other Western statesman –
that continued settlement building threatened to torpedo chances of a
two-state solution with the Palestinians.

“I think those allegations about the settlements are fundamentally wrong.
To come to Israel and say why are you doing this and this, this is totally
wrong,” Mr Steinitz said. He cited the dismantling of settlements in
Sinai in Egypt after the 1979 Camp David accords as proof that Israel would
uproot settlers in return for genuine peace.

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2c45ee49/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Cmiddleeast0Cisrael0C10A0A747750CBritish0Eguilty0Eof0Edisguised0Eanti0ESemitism0Esays0EIsraeli0Eminister0Bhtml/story01.htm

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — At a time when the mere phrase “high-frequency trading” makes some investors queasy, Brazil’s stock exchange is putting out the digital welcome mat.

In recent years, the BMF Bovespa stock exchange in São Paulo has taken steps to make its market more friendly to high-speed traders, even as many regulators around the world are casting an increasingly skeptical eye on the sector after a series of well-publicized market malfunctions in the United States.

Lawmakers in Canada, Australia and the European Union have been looking at imposing limits on such traders, whose investment time horizons are measured in milliseconds rather than months.

“Given the attention and the political discourse on the perceived dangers of H.F.T., exchanges are very reticent to be aggressive in promoting and attracting high-frequency trading,” said Andy Nybo, an analyst at the Tabb Group.

But in Brazil — as well as in other developing economies like Chile and Mexico — exchanges are actively courting high-speed traders without much resistance from their regulators. The appeal is that the traders can execute thousands of trades a second, resulting in big fees for the exchanges.

Last month, the Brazil stock exchange introduced a new lightning-fast computer system, known as Puma, that allows high-speed traders to get in and out of trades more quickly. The exchange has offered these traders discounts since October 2010.

The BMF Bovespa is “very open about what they are looking to do. They really have been aggressive in welcoming all types of strategies,” Mr. Nybo said.

The stocks on the Brazilian exchange are cumulatively worth $1.2 trillion, but the average daily trading volume on the exchange is only about $3.7 billion. In the United States, a single major stock like Apple can trade more than that each day.

The comparatively low volumes are in part a reflection of the relatively limited involvement of high-speed traders, who still only account for about 10.6 percent of all stock trades in Brazil. Although that is up from 8.5 percent in 2012, it is still a fraction of trading in other large global markets. In the United States, such firms dominate a majority of the trading, and in Europe, they are responsible for about 45 percent of the trading, according to Celent, a research and consulting firm.

The Brazilian exchange’s push seems like a risky gambit to many critics of the acceleration of American markets over the last decade. High-frequency traders have been accused of using technology to move share prices for their own advantage and to trick traditional investors. They have also taken some of the blame for market mishaps like the “flash crash” in May 2010, when stock indexes dropped nearly 10 percent in less than half an hour.

Wallace C. Turbeville, a senior fellow at Demos, a research group in New York, said most offers made by high-frequency trading firms were “illusory”: they exist not to be executed, but to measure, distort and exploit market sentiment, increasing volatility and costs for other investors.

Brazilian executives say they believe they have been able to avoid problems through strict regulation. They are also trying to keep at bay many of the other technological developments that have complicated American and European markets. Brazil has, for instance, banned dark pools, private venues where trades can be executed out of the public eye.

And unlike in the United States, which has 13 public stock exchanges, the BMF Bovespa remains the only place to trade stocks in Brazil.

Cicero Vieira, the BMF Bovespa’s chief operating officer, said a single trading environment meant computerized trading firms had fewer opportunities for arbitrage — simultaneously selling high in one place and buying low in another — which should keep high-frequency trading from growing past 20 percent or so of total volume.

“When it comes to H.F.T.’s, there is no such thing as zero risk,” Mr. Vieira said. “Our philosophy is to contain the impact of errors.”

Danielle Tierney, an analyst with the Aite Group, a financial advisory firm in Boston, said that Brazil’s tough regulations, including a prohibition on anonymous trading, and its less complicated market structure had helped prevent the problems that have drawn scrutiny in America.

“Risk controls can always fail, but compared to where we were in the U.S. in 2010, Brazil is much better prepared,” she said. She added that having a single stock exchange with low trading volume makes it easier to spot problems.

Brazil’s market regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários, has so far left regulations governing high-frequency trading to the exchange, but it says it is observing the segment closely.

For the BMF Bovespa, the push to attract high-speed traders provides a way to keep out competitors. Direct Edge, a United States exchange with close ties to electronic trading desks, has applied to operate in Brazil, but approval is not expected before 2015. In the United States and Europe, upstart exchanges won market share by being more accommodating to speedy traders.

The BMF Bovespa is also eager to get the benefits that electronic trading has brought to the United States. Several academic studies have suggested that the competition among the firms has led to smaller differences in the spread between the prices at which traders are willing to buy and sell stocks, making trading cheaper for slower investors.

“That will increase liquidity and reduce spreads and distortions,” Mr. Vieira said.

Brazil has been steadily making its systems more hospitable to high-frequency firms. In 2009, the exchange opened the door to more computerized traders by creating a data center that allowed firms to co-locate within a few feet of the exchange’s server, cutting down the delays associated with data traveling through fiber optic cables.

Chris Concannon, a partner at the New York-based electronic trading firm Virtu Financial, said that the exchange had worked “very hard at encouraging new participants into the market, both electronic and traditional.”

But the exchange ran into the limits of the speed of their own computer systems. The new Puma system cuts the time for order execution to around a single millisecond from 30 while increasing stability and capacity. The technology was developed together with America’s largest futures exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The BMF Bovespa and the CME own 5 percent stakes in each other. Ms. Tierney estimates that Puma cost at least $200 million and perhaps as much as $500 million.

The new technology has been available since 2011 to traders on Brazil’s derivatives markets, which BMF Bovespa also operates, and is scheduled to include the bond market by early next year.

Mr. Concannon said that they had already noticed a “substantial improvement in the exchange performance with these upgrades.”

The eagerness of high-speed firms to enter Brazil points to their search for new markets as they experience difficulties in sustaining their profits in the highly competitive United States. Most of the high-speed trading activity has so far come from non-Brazilian firms like Virtu. Brazilian brokers have been winning some of this business and consequently welcoming the developments.

Yet, there are still those who sound caution on these initiatives. Felipe Santos, responsible for electronic trading at the São Paulo fund manager Equitas Investimentos, said that although high-frequency trading might make it easier for everyone to buy and sell stock in big companies, especially the largest ones, it had its limits.

“You cannot create volume out of thin air,” he said. “You need real investors, too.”

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/despite-risks-brazil-courts-the-millisecond-investor/?partner=rss&emc=rss

That news, at a summit meeting of E.U. leaders here, upstaged a separate but related topic that has dominated European headlines this week: tax-reduction strategies by big multinational companies like Apple, which U.S. congressional investigators say slashed its tax bill by setting up companies in Ireland.

On the personal wealth front, pressure on Austria has grown more intense lately as other E.U. countries try to curb citizens’ ability to stash money in other jurisdictions, short-changing their home governments of tax revenue during a time of lean budgets and gaping deficits.

Ferreting out hidden bank accounts has become a cause célèbre in many countries, especially Greece, which has jailed hundreds of suspected tax delinquents, including former government officials. In France, Jérôme Cahuzac, a French minister responsible for fighting tax evasion, resigned after admitting, following weeks of denials, that he had held a secret bank account in Switzerland.

The 27-member Union estimates that tax avoidance within its countries, through tax fraud and evasion by companies and individuals, costs governments a total of ¤1 trillion, or $1.3 trillion, a year.

The crackdown on bank secrecy in Europe is also a result of U.S. demands for fuller cross-border sharing of information under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

‘’We will act jointly, and I believe we will manage the exchange of data by the end of the year,’’ the Austrian chancellor, Werner Faymann, said at the meeting here.

Mr. Faymann said it was a ‘’bad day for tax cheats.’’ But he stressed that Austria’s concessions were contingent on the ‘’negotiations with third countries’’ like Switzerland. Austrian officials say that without overhauls in those other jurisdictions, financial services industries in the Union would be at a competitive disadvantage.

‘’We want more than just a data exchange; we also want it with countries outside of the European Union,’’ he said. ‘’We want the fight against fraud to not stop there; there’s more to it.’’

The leaders, who met for four hours on Wednesday, also confirmed a mandate for the European Commission to negotiate tougher agreements with five countries, Switzerland, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and Liechtenstein.

The chances of them agreeing quickly are not great. And E.U. officials warned that those countries could turn the tables by asking the Union to make changes first, risking a standoff.

But Switzerland and others are all under huge pressure already from the United States, which is demanding that details of all accounts held by American taxpayers be sent to the Internal Revenue Service, so they may decide there is not much point in digging in their heels with the Union when they have little choice but to cede to American demands.

Those negotiations might also clear the pathway for Luxembourg, an E.U. member that agreed last month APRIL to share banking data by January 2015. But it is still awaiting the outcome of talks with the Swiss before deciding whether to expand the information exchange agreement to include investments like trusts and foundations, as Austria has apparently done.

Once discussions with Switzerland are completed, Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said his country ‘’would be in a position to decide the extent of the expansion’’ of the information exchange.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/business/global/european-union-leaders-meet-on-tax-avoidance.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Op-Ed: After the Tornado, a War Zone

That’s the thing with a tornado — even when you know it’s coming, you’re helpless, because you don’t know precisely where it will hit.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/22/business/ap-us-wal-mart-personnel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The vague-sounding role in fact has a wide mandate, overseeing corporate communications, government relations, sustainability and the Wal-Mart Foundation. It is in essence Wal-Mart’s chief image maker.

Mr. Bartlett replaces Leslie Dach, who announced his resignation in March. Mr. Dach, an ex-Clinton aide, helped create Wal-Mart’s sustainability push, its $4 generic drug program and its healthy food program after years in which Wal-Mart had been battered by politicians and the media. “What’s happened over the last several years, clearly here in the United States and around the world, it’s become easier to site a Walmart and we have become more accepted by the community,” Mr. Dach said last year, describing the effects of those programs on Wal-Mart’s business.

Under President Bush, Mr. Bartlett oversaw the White House press office and was an adviser on his campaigns for governor and president. More recently, Mr. Bartlett was chief executive of the United States division of HillKnowlton Strategies, a communications firm.

Today, Wal-Mart is facing several reputational issues. It was linked to garments produced at the building in Bangladesh that collapsed last month, killing more than 1,100 workers. Wal-Mart has declined to join other large retailers like HM in a pact to improve safety standards in Bangladesh, instead saying it would pursue its own safety program.

Wal-Mart is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department on potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and is also conducting an internal inquiry and compliance review. The New York Times reported last year that executives at the company’s Mexican subsidiary had bribed officials to smooth expansion, and that executives at the company’s headquarters had known about the bribes and declined to take action. In the most recent quarter, Wal-Mart spent $73 million on costs related to those reviews, much higher than the $40 million to $45 million it had expected to spend.

And Wal-Mart has faced issues in its stores, including slower-than-expected sales, problems in keeping shelves stocked and complaints from unions about how it treats workers.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/business/wal-mart-hires-a-new-chief-image-maker.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

“We beat the upper end” of company projections for the quarter, Meg Whitman, H.P.’s chief executive, said in a statement accompanying the earnings. “I feel good about the rest of the year.”

The net income was above the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who mark their revenue and earnings projections based on nonstandard accounting. By those measures, H.P. had net income of 87 cents a share.

Analysts had projected H.P. would make 81 cents a share, on revenue of $28.12 billion, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Reuters.

H.P., the world’s largest maker of personal computers and printers, has struggled for years with a declining market for PCs, less printer demand and turmoil in its executive ranks.

Ms. Whitman, who took over in September 2011, has said that fixing the company will be a five-year process and has described 2013 as a year of rebuilding before growth accelerates in 2014.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/technology/hp-earnings-are-higher-than-expected.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

A notable departure from the list was Nathan Tinkler, the young coal tycoon
and former electrician who was once Australia’s youngest billionaire. He
faces serious debt and is now worth just $AU235 million.

A surprise entrant on the list was the little-known Chinese billionaire
property developer, Hui Wing Mau, who lives in Hong Kong but has Australian
citizenship. The 62-year-old, who is chairman of the Shimao Group, debuted
on the list in seventh place, with an estimated wealth of $AU4.8 billion.

“It’s an impressive debut, it’s one of the best in the history of the
list,” said Mr Thomson.

“We often talk about Australia entering the Asian century and that’s a
little example of how the rich list is as well.”

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2c3e57ab/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Caustraliaandthepacific0Caustralia0C10A0A726560CGina0ERinehart0Estays0Eon0Etop0Eof0EAustralia0Erich0Elist0Bhtml/story01.htm

The explicit Mandarin lyrics of “Dumbass” are sung by Ai himself,
who said he has found in music a therapeutic way to break through the
memories of his ordeal.

The music was composed by Zuoxiao Zuzhou, a Beijing-based heavy-metal artist
and friend of Ai who has also experienced several run-ins with the
government.

For the video, shot in a studio in Beijing, Ai brought on board renowned
Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who has shot films for Hong
Kong director Wong
Kar-wai, among other renowned filmmakers

Source: APTN

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2c3e57a8/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Casia0Cchina0C10A0A726830CHeavy0Emetal0Ewith0Ea0Epolitical0Emessage0Efrom0EAi0EWeiwei0Bhtml/story01.htm