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| Cambodia Tribunal Charges Former Khmer Rouge Head of State With Genocide Cambodia's U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal has charged the Khmer Rouge's former head of state with genocide, the third such charge this week against a former leader of the brutal regime. www1.voanews.com |
Detroit terror attack: second Nigerian arrested on Amsterdam flight A second Nigerian man has been arrested on a Northwest Airlines jet in Detroit 48 hours after a man tried to blow up an airliner. telegraph.co.uk |
Hugh Muir's diary Welcome y'all to Tory heaven. Lots of luck and lots of friends and loads of cash• Oh, what it is to be a Tory today, as the Labour snowstorm plotters face the ignominy of failure and Gordon increasingly looks like a general deserted by his army. The prospect of David Cameron in No 10 draws closer. What would that be like? Well, we know he would have the support of the monied types. City firms gave the Conservatives almost £6m in just the first nine months of last year, almost half of the £13.5m raised by the Tory leader. Ex-hedge fund "godfather" Stanley Fink has given a million of his own, and the fundraiser threatens to blow Gordon "out of the water". Yes it's good to have friends. No shortage of them, it seems, and another generous adherent to the cause we see is David Burnside, the PR man and former Ulster Unionist politician. According to the latest returns from the Electoral Commission, his firm New Century Media coughed up £13,500 to the Conservatives. And where did that come from? Good honest business. One recent high-profile client, it is said, has been Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, who apparently hired New Century Media to buff up his troubled reputation. All good friends, pulling together.• So with the failure of the plot comes the now traditional defenestration of the plotters. Abuse, cold shouldering, character assassination. That will be the least of it. Some suggest that Geoff Hoon, having been passed over by Gordon for the nomination he sought at the European commission, was motivated by malice and thoughts of revenge. Others say that is just not like him. Janey Buchan, now 83, served alongside Hoon as an MEP in 1984 and she well remembers the man of the moment. "His reputation was that of a smart arse know-all," recalls Janey. "He would use other people's faces as a stepladder to get what he wanted." We tried to get her to say whether she was for or against him. To no avail.• Of course we know that the Euro nomination went instead to Cathy Ashton, who has since been promoted to high representative for foreign affairs, and thus next week will be a painful one for Hoon as she takes the limelight on Monday afternoon for the all-important confirmatory hearing. It is understood that the opposition parties in Brussels – Tories, Lib Dems and especially the wild ones in Ukip – have been busy this week plotting what lines of attack they can use to discomfort Gordon's sidekick. There will be more about her time at CND and probably fiery accusations – already denied – about shadowy donations from the Soviets. But no one will lay a glove. She is, as she told an earlier hearing, "very intelligent". Geoff, meanwhile, will be holed up here, making calls and finding that few of them are answered. It's an existence but it's no kind of life.And what of the other snowstorm plotter. How can Patricia Hewitt escape retribution in the wild and crazy days to come? Well, she should have a care because among her other duties (MP for Leicester West, plotter, adviser to Alliance Boots and Cinven which owns Bupa), she is an independent non-executive director of BT's group board. Did she consider her duty to a major UK FTSE company before seeking to destabilise the UK's elected government?, mutter some Labour MPs between the dark threats and foul oaths. Perhaps she did. Maybe that's why she did it.• Finally, is there anything to suggest that Silvio Berlusconi (pictured), fresh from being whacked in the face with a statuette and much troubled by claims of sexual misdemeanour, has learned any kind of valuable lesson? During a trip to Saint Paul de Vence in the French Riveria this week, Silvio picked up a lithograph of President Obama as Superman but also a few keepsakes, most notably four bronzed figurines. "These are saucy nudes. You could call them sensual," said Loic Deltour of the gallery of Vladimir Rustinoff and Joel Guyot, revealing all to the Parisien. Bloodied but unbowed. Fearless, steadfast, self-knowing. That's Silvio.Hugh Muirguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Martin Rowson: Class war and social mobility - not a zero sum game Gordon Brown's drive for 'an expanded middle class' needn't be a zero-sum game but it will require luck, judgment and prosperity to keep everyone happy and hopefulMartin Rowson guardian.co.uk |
Paul Myners | You are right to be angry. The banks should have to pay for state backing The UK is leading global efforts to rebalance an economic model that privileges the interests of investment banksThere were plenty of Âreasons to be angry when taxpayers around the world were forced to rescue the world's financial system. It seemed that just as government funds were arriving through the doors of major banks, these banks were turning around and paying big bonuses, refusing to lend to the economy, and fighting proposals for regulatory reform.But behind these headline-friendly outrages, it is the fundamental unfairness of the rescue that should be the cause of lasting anger. When recessions hit, businesses get into trouble. And some businesses fail, taking many jobs with them. Banks, however, were for the most part protected from the rules that applied to everyone else – and Âprotected at great cost to public funds. In the wake of the financial crisis, governments have been working together to address many areas for reform. But our task will be incomplete if we cannot address this fundamental inequity at the heart of global capitalism.If a bank is judged to be too big or too important to fail, it should be the banks and their owners, not taxpayers, who pay the price for saving it.Let me be clear – it is the goal of the government to do everything it can to make sure that banks in future are much less likely to fail in the first place. Through an international process, we are forcing banks to hold more capital and of higher quality than they have in the past. We will also require them to hold a greater proportion of liquid assets, so they can access cash when they find themselves under pressure. And to implement leverage caps to ensure they are living within their means.And we will make sure that pay and bonus policies incentivise smart Âdecisions, not reckless risk-taking.We are also determined to take the "too big to fail" or "too connected to fail" problem head-on. Any institution that thinks it will always be bailed out when the going gets tough is an Âinherently dangerous institution. If you never have to face the consequences of bad decisions, you are less likely to be as careful as you should be when Âmaking important choices.This is why we are leading international efforts to make banks plan for their own failure through "living wills". They will have to build firewalls between their risky trading activities and the deposits of families and businesses. They will have to convince regulators that they are structured simply enough so that if they got into trouble, they could either Âconfront their problems or be allowed to fail in an orderly way.But no regulatory system can or should eliminate all risk. We all need banks to take risks. If banks were not willing to borrow money on short terms (from our deposits, which we can remove at any time) and lend it out on long terms (to businesses and homebuyers), our economy would not function.Making banking risk-free is not an option. And we will never be able to rule out entirely a future scenario in which taxpayer money is required to protect people's savings or to limit the damage of a crisis in global credit Âmarkets – even as we strive to make that scenario much less likely.But this is not charity. Banks are paid handsomely for the risks they take on our behalf. The profits reported by big investment banks in Ârecent days have Âreminded us all that banks don't need the rest of us in the economy to be doing well to find ways to make huge amounts of money.If banks are to enjoy even a small hint of implicit underwriting from the state, they should pay for it. None of us can get insurance for our homes or our businesses for free – we pay a premium for it. And so should banks. We need to re-examine an economic model that seems to work much better for investment banks than for businesses and workers.It is this challenge that a meeting I am chairing tomorrow is seeking to address. Together with senior officials from G7 finance ministries, the IMF, World Bank, the Financial Stability Board, and leading academics, the government will be exploring ways to shift the burden of financial sector support from the public to the private sector.There are several options – among them a global insurance levy, the use of innovative contingent capital instruments developed in the UK, and a global transactions tax. But this problem can only be dealt with through Âglobal agreement, as we know all too well that banks can use gaps in regulation to game the system. We have seen that we are all vulnerable to the failures of firms in other nations, and we all benefit from the actions of national authorities to support their financial systems.Finding a new way to keep taxpayers from shouldering the bill for future Âbailouts will be far from easy, but the UK will continue to lead the Âinternational effort to do so. A global agreement on this issue would be the most Âimportant legacy of our response to this crisis, and it is a prize all governments have a duty to pursue.BankingFinancial crisisEconomic policyPaul Mynersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |