UK bank governor warns of eurozone debt crisis ‘storm’; Eurozone ‘very close to collapse’!

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The Bank of England has cut its growth forecast for this year to 0.8% from 1.2%, saying the eurozone “storm” is still the main threat to UKrecovery.

The eurozone was “tearing itself apart” and the UK would not be “unscathed”, said its governor Sir Mervyn King.

He also confirmed that the Bank has been making contingency plans for the break-up of the euro.

The rate of inflation will remain above the government’s 2% target “for the next year or so”, the Bank said.

Sir Mervyn was presenting the Bank’s quarterly inflation report.

He told a news conference that the euro area posed the greatest threat to the UK recovery, and there was a “risk of a storm heading our way from the continent”.

“We have been through a big global financial crisis, the biggest downturn in world output since the 1930s, the biggest banking crisis in this country’s history, the biggest fiscal deficit in our peacetime history, and our biggest trading partner, the euro area, is tearing itself apart without any obvious solution.

“The idea that we could reasonably hope to sail serenely through this with growth close to the long-run average and inflation at 2% strikes me as wholly unrealistic,” Sir Mervyn said.

“Start Quote

European policymakers, I suspect, will not rush to thank him for his kind and timely advice”

Stephanie Flanders Economics editor

• Read more from Stephanie
• Flanders: Sir Mervyn, the UK and the euro
• PM: Euro to ‘make-up or break-up’
• UK unemployment falls by 45,000

A ‘mess’

Andrew Balls, the managing director in London of global investment firm Pimco, said it was reasonable for Sir Mervyn and other policymakers to plan for a Greek exit.

“Yes, maybe they should plan for an exit, but the thing is, speculating about it can make the event more likely, so the Europeans really do have a mess there,” he told the BBC.

“If Greece is to slide out of the euro and collapse, how are they going to protect Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy?“

Separately, Prime Minister David Cameron also spoke of the financial storm clouds across Europe, warning that eurozone leaders must act swiftly to solve its debt crisis or face the consequences of a potential break up.

He said during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons: “The eurozone has to make a choice. If the eurozone wants to continue as it is, then it has got to build a proper firewall, it has got to take steps to secure the weakest members of the eurozone, or it’s going to have to work out it has to go in a different direction,

“It either has to make up or it is looking at a potential break up. That is the choice they have to make, and it is a choice they cannot long put off.”

The Bank’s report said, however, that the eurozone crisis was not the only issue weighing on the UK economy, with volatile energy and commodity costs, and the squeeze on household earnings also having an impact.

Andrew Balls, of global investment firm Pimco says, “a disorderly outcome for Greece is going to be bad for the global economy”.

It all meant that the UK economy would not return to pre-financial crisis levels before 2014, Sir Mervyn said.

Nevertheless, he remained optimistic about the longer term. “We don’t know when the storm clouds will move away. But there are good reasons to believe that growth will recover and inflation will fall back,” he said.

On quantitative easing, he said that no decisions had been made whether or not to continue pumping money into the economy. The last stimulus programme was still “working its way through the system”.

‘Outlook is probably better’

Sir Mervyn’s comments came on the day that official unemployment figures showed a fall in the jobless rate, underlining recent surveys that the private sector had become more confident about hiring labour.

He said the fall in joblessness was consistent with the expected gradual recovery in the UK economy.

But Graeme Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said of the Bank’s report: “Talk about kicking an economy when it’s down.

“On top of the euro crisis and a double-dip recession, the Bank of England is now saying inflation may not fall fast enough to permit more quantitative easing.

“Actually we think the inflation outlook is probably better than the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) thinks, with the impact of the euro crisis, declining real incomes and weak money supply growth suggesting inflationary pressures may recede later this year and into 2013.

“After many years of underestimating inflationary pressure let’s hope the MPC is now making the opposite mistake by overestimating it”.

Ed Balls, Labour’s shadow chancellor, said: “The Bank of England has once again slashed its growth forecast for Britain, but despite this the government says it will just plough on regardless with policies that are hurting but not working.

“The governor is right to warn of a coming storm from Europe. That is why we warned George Osborne not to rip up the foundations of the house and choke off Britain’s recovery with spending cuts and tax rises that go too far and too fast.

“What happens in the eurozone in the coming weeks and months will have an impact on our weakened economy,” Mr Balls added..-  BBC

Eurozone was ‘very close to collapse’

Eurozone was ‘very close to collapse’

17 May 2012 Last updated

A European Central Bank board member has conceded the ECB may have “saved” the eurozone banking system and eurozone economy in Autumn 2011 by providing one trillion euros of emergency loans to hundreds of European banks at an interest rate of just 1%.

ECB Executive Board member, Benoit Coeure, told Robert Peston: “We were very close to a collapse in the banking system in the euro area, which in itself would have also led to a collapse in the economy and deflation, And this is something that the ECB could not accept.”

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UK Banking Rules Risk Bank’s Future Market Value

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Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc may lose as much as 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) from its future market value because of planned U.K. regulatory changes, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester said.

The “regulatory environment has changed even more dramatically than we bargained for,” Hester said in the text of a speech at the Manchester Business School yesterday. “U.K. regulatory reforms on their own have probably cost 10 to 20 billion pounds from our future market value.”

The government-sponsored Independent Commission on Banking recommended in September the U.K.’s biggest banks should boost capital, implement plans for an orderly bankruptcy and erect fire breaks around their consumer units to boost the stability of the financial system.

The proposals also mean that banks will no longer be allowed to use their consumer units to provide cheap funding for investment-banking units.

Greater regulation is adding to a slower-than-expected economic recovery and turbulent markets, said Hester, 51. The British economy shrank in the first quarter as Britain slid into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.

“We can cope with these extra challenges, but they use up the outperformance we have achieved and they mean that our shareholders, indeed all bank shareholders, will see value recover less well than hoped,” he said.

Two More Years

The government was forced to rescue RBS at the height of the financial crisis, injecting 45.5 billion pounds of taxpayer money into the lender, making it the costliest bailout of any bank in the world. Hester said in the speech that the cost of cleaning up the lender he inherited from former CEO Fred Goodwin totals 43 billion pounds so far.

RBS still has two more years of “heavy lifting, significant clean-up costs and vulnerability to outside events” as it restructures its business, Hester said.

RBS fell 0.3 percent to 23.2 pence at the close of London trading yesterday. The shares have rallied 15 percent this year, boosting the Edinburgh-based lender’s market value to about 26 billion pounds. The U.K., which owns 82 percent of the lender, paid an average of 50.2 pence a share for its holding.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gavin Finch in London at gfinch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

Britain universities in crisis

Universities in crisis as student numbers fall

Colleges that have offered most to poorer students will be biggest losers as impact of fees bites

London: More than 30 universities are facing a 10 per cent fall in student numbers this autumn, according to figures released today.

A breakdown of next year’s university budgets shows that middle-ranking universities and former polytechnics will suffer as a result of the new funding system, which will see tuition fees rise to up to £9,000 a year.

Worst hit, according to the Higher Education Funding Council for England, will be the University of East London and the University of Bedfordshire, which are likely to suffer falls of 12 per cent.

In all, 34 universities in England will have their student numbers cut by at least 10 per cent.

HEFCE estimates there will be 10,900 fewer student places across the country. Academics said it was universities who had done the most to open themselves up to disadvantaged groups that appeared to be suffering the worst cuts.

By contrast, most of the members of the Russell Group – which represents most of the country’s leading research institutions – are set to expand student numbers. Michael Driscoll, chairman of the million+ university think tank and vice-chancellor of Middlesex University, said the overwhelming majority of institutions were losing student places.

“These allocations show the true extent of the Coalition’s reform of fees and funding and the cutback in the overall number of university places being funded,” he said.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, added: “At a time when record numbers of people are out of work, the Government should be making it easier for people to access education.”

Although overall student numbers have been cut, under the new system universities can recruit beyond their fixed target so long as they take in students with at least two As and a B at A-level.

In addition, 20,000 places have been set aside for higher education providers charging less than £7,500 a year.

As a result, elite universities with a higher percentage of AAB students tend to benefit, as do further education colleges charging lower fees. An extra 65 such colleges are receiving funding for higher education degrees for the first time.

According to HEFCE, just over 10,000 of the 20,000 places for low charging universities have gone to further education colleges. The shake-up appears to have created a “squeezed middle” among universities, which are unlikely to recruit large numbers of AAB students but are still charging higher fees.

Sir Alan Langlands, chief executive of HEFCE, said he did not believe the changes would see universities “going into substantial financial problems”. “All of these can cope with this level of reduction,” he added. He said they were all “confident they can ride it out”. – The Independent

Related articles

• Universities in crisis as student numbers fall (independent.co.uk)
• Govt Reforms To Squeeze Uni Student Numbers (news.sky.com)
• UK News: Fall in student numbers forecast (walesonline.co.uk)
• National News: Fall in student numbers forecast (coventrytelegraph.net)
• Universities expected to be hit hardest by student number drop (itv.com)
• University Funding – A Wider View (ouseful.info)
• Drop in University student numbers (itv.com)
• Is this the “Squeezed Middle”? (telescoper.wordpress.com)
• Most universities set to have fewer places – BBC News (bbc.co.uk)

HSBC makes £13.8bn profits

HSBC’s annual profits rose 15% to £13.8bn ($21.9bn) in what it called a year of “major progress”.

The bank said that 2011 was a year of major progress for HSBC

The bank is the biggest in Europe and makes about 90% of its profits outside the UK.

HSBC’s UK profits were 17.2% higher than last year at £1.5bn.

The bank singled out its “strong performance” in faster-growing markets, with revenue up 12% in Asia and Latin America, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa.

It said these regions now accounted for 49% of group revenue. It also said 2011 was a record for commercial banking.

Profit before tax in that division was up 31% at almost £5bn.

Also helping the headline profit figure was a rise of £2.5bn in the value of its debt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf

The investment banking division fared less well. Profits there fell 24% to £15bn as a result of the eurozone crisis.

UK banking

The UK division met its Project Merlin lending targets, set by the government.

It lent £49.4bn to businesses, well above its target of £38.8bn, with £11.9bn going to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

HSBC also increased mortgage lending by 12% to £13.2bn and expects to increase that to £15bn this year, with £3bn earmarked for first-time buyers.

Like other UK banks, HSBC has faced claims over mis-sold payment protection insurance – policies which were sold to maintain loan repayments in the event of illness or redundancy.

But in many cases, the insurance was sold to those who were not appropriate customers for the product.

The bank said it was “truly sorry” to those adversely affected by “our failings”.

Lloyds Bank last week took back £2m in bonuses from senior executives, and HSBC said it, too, had exercised “clawback”.

HSBC’s total bonus pool for the year to 31 December was £2.64bn.

Top earners

The group chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, received a total pay award of £7.2m, made up of a £1.2m salary, a £2.2m bonus and long-term incentives of £3.75m, which is in shares and cannot be sold until he retires or leaves the bank.

Mr Gulliver was not the top earner this year, however. Another senior bank employee, who has not been named, will receive £8m in total.

More than 200 key employees in the UK earned a total of £53m.

The size of the remuneration was seen as inappropriate by some, partly because the bank is currently in the process of cutting 30,000 jobs worldwide as part of wide-ranging cost-cutting measures designed to save up to £2.2bn by 2013.

David Fleming, national officer at the union Unite, said: “How can Stuart Gulliver have a clear conscience over his reward package of £7.2m while thousands of staff face uncertainty about their jobs?”

The bank’s chairman, Douglas Flint, who will receive £3.4m for 2011, said he accepted that “a few people” were paid “extraordinarily well” but insisted the bank needed to attract and retain the best staff.

‘Traction’

HSBC is the currently the most profitable Western bank, with its nearest rival, JP Morgan, reporting a profit of £12bn.

It operates in 80 countries and employs 288,000 people, 50,000 in the UK.

Mr Gulliver said: “2011 was a year of major progress for HSBC. We gained traction in our strategy designed to simplify the structure and improve the management and control of the group.

“I am pleased with our progress, but there is a lot more to do and we remain focused on delivering our targets.”

Related posts:

What is a banker really worth?

RBS, biggest British stated-owned bank losses of £3.5bn !

Lloyds, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender plunges to £3.5bn loss for 2011

• Credit Agricole has 3bn-euro loss
• SocGen profits hit by Greek costs

What is a banker really worth?

Barclays made a serious error over the pay of John Varley, the bank’s former chief executive, who stepped down in 2010 with a ‘goodbye package’ of nearly £4m – it wasn’t enough!

Sir Philip Hampton, RBS chairman, warns that the vilification of Fred Goodwin, RBS’s former boss, has morphed into the persecution of his replacement, Stephen Hester. Photo: PA. By Jeff Randall – Telegraph

So says Sir Nigel Rudd, Barclays’ former deputy chairman, who led its remuneration committee.

As Britain’s state-controlled banks, RBS and Lloyds, prepare to unveil results and bonuses later this week, Sir Nigel’s comments in my television documentary (Sky News 7pm, Wednesday) will enrage critics who believe that bankers remain detached from public anger over jackpot salaries.

Sir Nigel, however, is adamant that Mr Varley made a “huge difference” to Barclays during the credit crunch, when rival banks fell apart. By raising funds privately, Barclays was able to survive without a bail-out from UK taxpayers.

“John Varley was underpaid. Because what he did [for Barclays] during the crisis was phenomenal,” Sir Nigel says. In his last year, Mr Varley received a salary of £1.1m, a bonus of £2..2m and a performance cash incentive of £550,000.

Sir Nigel, who is now chairman of BAA, the airports operator, offers advice to ministers wrestling with demands for a pay clampdown while trying to maximise value in the state’s bank shareholdings: “If I was the Prime Minister, I’d ban the use of fairness as a word, because I don’t think you can be fair.”

Sir Philip Hampton, RBS’s current chairman, warns that understandable anger about the banks’ past failings is becoming destructive. In particular, the vilification of Fred Goodwin, RBS’s former boss, has morphed into the persecution of his replacement, Stephen Hester.

“We do lynch mobs better than most, but I think the opprobrium is directed now at the wrong people – the people that are fixing the problems rather than the people that are causing the problems,” Sir Philip says.

He believes the main flaw with bank bonuses is that they were linked to profits which turned out to be “illusory”. The banks did not understand the risks they were embracing, but it took a while for profits to collapse, by which time the bankers had pocketed the cash.

Alistair Darling, who was chancellor when the financial turmoil erupted, says that many highly paid bankers were in denial and remain so. “One or two to this day still don’t realise they did anything wrong, which most people find just flabbergasting.”

In a reference to Mr Goodwin and his top team, Mr Darling says: “They didn’t know what they were doing and we, not them, to a large extent are paying the price for that.”

Mr Goodwin’s old adversary, Sir Peter Burt, who led Bank of Scotland when it was outbid by RBS in a takeover battle for National Westminster in 2000 , doesn’t hide his dislike of the disgraced banker but deplores the nationwide “witch-hunt” against him: “Perhaps Fred should count himself lucky there weren’t any lamp-posts low enough from which to hang him.”

Related posts:

RBS, biggest British stated-owned bank losses of £3.5bn !

Lloyds, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender plunges to £3.5bn loss for 2011

RBS, biggest British stated-owned bank losses of £3.5bn !

Bailed out: Royal Bank of Scotland is set to announce losses of £3.5bn on Friday. It is worth £26bn – and the Government paid £45.5bn

(Bloomberg) — Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, posted a wider full- year loss than analysts estimated after writing down Greek debt and compensating customers who were improperly sold insurance.

The net loss for 2011 was 2 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) compared with 1.1 billion pounds a year earlier, the U.K.’s second-largest bank by assets said in a statement today. That was worse than the 1.1 billion-pound median estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The government was forced to rescue RBS at the height of the financial crisis, injecting 45.5 billion pounds of taxpayer money into the lender, making it the costliest bailout of any bank. Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester, 51, has shrunk the bank’s assets by more than 600 billion pounds to 1.66 billion pounds and cut more than 35,000 jobs since he took over from Fred Goodwin in 2007. Hester said earlier this month that restructuring RBS was equivalent to defusing “the biggest time bomb in history.”

The company took a sovereign-debt impairment of 1.1 billion pounds, writing off Greek government debt as part of a European Union agreement.

RBS’s loss would have been narrower if it hadn’t had to set aside 950 million pounds to compensate U.K. customers who were improperly sold personal-loan insurance.

RBS’s results were also affected by rising borrowing costs as the bank weans itself off low-interest government loans and takes on costlier funding in wholesale markets. The bank opted in December to go the European Central Bank for an emergency 5 billion euro loan as its own costs of borrowing reached an unsustainable level, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The government was forced to rescue RBS at the height of the financial crisis, injecting 45.5 billion pounds of taxpayer money into the lender, making it the costliest bailout of any bank in the world.

–Editors: Keith Campbell, Francis Harris.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105218/RBS-banks-posts-losses-2bn-casino-bankers-enjoy-390m-bonus-pot.html#ixzz1nGtFy7DQ

Bush and Blair found guilty of ‘crimes against peace’ !

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Bush and Blair found guilty

By EUNICE AU KUALA LUMPUR euniceau@nst.com.my

Committed international crime by invading Iraq

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Chief judge Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman (centre) presiding over the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal against former United States president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair yesterday. Pic by Sharul Hafiz Zam

 THE Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCC) returned a guilty verdict against former United States president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair on a charge of crimes against peace on its final day of hearing yesterday.

Chief judge Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, in announcing the verdict, said both the accused had acted with deceit, selectively manipulated international law and committed an unlawful act of aggression and an international crime by invading Iraq in 2003.

The tribunal found that both the accused had contemplated to invade Iraq as far back as September 2001 and had defied the United Nations Resolution 1441, which clearly did not authorise the use of military action to compel Iraq’s compliance.

Kadir added that the two accused had admitted since the Iraq war that they knew or believed the intelligence reports on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to be unreliable and yet both proceeded to wage war against Iraq based on this false and contrite basis.

Memoirs of both the accused that had been tendered as evidence during the proceedings were also found to implicate both Bush and Blair, both having admitted their own intention to invade Iraq, regardless of international law.

It was suggested by the tribunal that the KLWCC file a report with the International Court of Crime against both the accused under the Nuremberg principles and include reports of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Bush and Blair.

The tribunal also recommended that the names of both accused be entered into the Register of War Criminals and publicised.

The KLWCC was tasked to publicise the tribunal’s findings to all nations who were signatories of the Rome Statue, so that the two criminals can be prosecuted if they enter the jurisdiction of these nations.

The KLWCC should also suggest to the UN General Assembly to pass resolution to end Iraq’s occupation and request that the UN Security Council pass a resolution to transfer sovereignty back to the Iraqis.

Earlier, chief defence Jason Kay Kit Leon had argued that Bush had exhausted all means of diplomacy before launching an attack after receiving intelligence briefings on Iraq for two years, suggesting that then president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and Iraq posed an imminent threat.

He quoted Bush as having said that  he would not lead his nation to war on a lie which would be easily discernable after the war.

Kay also mention that  Blair, in his memoir, had said he understood the need for the second UN resolution but knew the difficulty in getting one due to the politics within the UN Security Council permanent members.

The prosecution had made out a compelling case over the four days.

Chief prosecutor Professor Gurdial S. Nijar, in his summation, reiterated key documents of several intelligence reports that indicated there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Neither was there an attempt by Saddam Hussein to obtain uranium from Niger by former United States diplomat Joseph Wilson and weapons inspector David Kay found that Saddam’s nuclear facility had deteriorated to such a point that it was totally useless, all discovered well before the UN Resolution 1441.

The tribunal reached a unanimous guilty verdict after four hours of deliberation.

KL tribunal convicts two former leaders with ‘crimes against peace’

PETALING JAYA: The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal unanimously found former United States president George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of “crimes against peace”.

The tribunal found that the two had planned, prepared and invaded the state of Iraq on March 19, 2003, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.

“The charge is proven beyond reasonable doubt. The accused are found guilty,” read an official media statement from Perdana Global Peace Foundation, organisers of the tribunal.

“War criminals have to be dealt with, convict Bush and Blair as charged. A guilty verdict will serve as a notice to the world that war criminals may run but can never ultimately hide from truth and justice,” the statement read.

The tribunal noted that the UN Security Council Resolution 1441 did not authorise any use of force against Iraq but the US proceeded to invade Iraq under the pretext of the Sept 11 attacks and weapons of mass destruction.

“Weapons investigators had established that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was also not posing any threat to any nation at the relevant time that was immediate that would have justified any form of pre-emptive strike.”

With the findings, the tribunal has ordered that Bush and Blair’s names be included in the war register of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.

It also ordered the findings of the tribunal to be publicised to all nations who are signatories of the Rome Statute.

The tribunal, held for four days here, was initiated by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is also the Perdana Global Peace Foundation president.

The tribunal members were Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, Tunku Sofiah Jewa, Prof Salleh Buang, Alfred Lambremont Webre and Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi.

Prof Niloufer Bhagwat and Datuk Zakaria Yatim were recused as tribunal members.

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War Crimes Tribunal Tries Bush, Blair for War Crimes against humanity!

War Crimes Tribunal Tries Bush, Blair for War Crimes against humanity!

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Telegraph.co.uk 

Activists in Malaysia plan ‘war crime trial’ of George W. Bush and Tony Blair

Malaysian-led activists will hold a symbolic trial this month for former President George W. Bush and British ex-leader Tony Blair on charges of committing crimes against peace in the Iraq war, the event’s organisers said on Tuesday.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2003

Video: rightwaystan War crimes exhibition held in Kuala Lumpur : http://t.co/pjPgRlpY

Streaming Video: Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal -

The following URL will stream video of each session of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal within 1-2 hours after the specific session has ended. To access this streaming video please go to: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/war-is-a-crime-exhibition

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal
Schedule of Sessions
Saturday Nov. 19, 2011   9AM – 5 PM Kuala Lumpur time;
Sunday Nov. 20, 2011     9AM – 5 PM Kuala Lumpur time;
Monday Nov. 21, 2011    9AM – 5 PM Kuala Lumpur time;
Tuesday Nov. 22, 2011   9AM – 5 PM Kuala Lumpur time;

CONVERT TO YOUR TIME ZONE:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Sessions of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal will also be online on You Tube.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is an initiative of Malaysia’s retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who staunchly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The tribunal will convene a four-day public hearing starting Saturday to determine whether Bush and Blair committed crimes against peace and violated international law in the Iraq invasion, said Malaysian lawyer Yaacob Hussain Marican.

“For these people who have been immune from prosecution, we want to put them on trial in this forum to prove that they committed war crimes,” Yaacob told The Associated Press.

Activists sent information about the charges to Bush and Blair recently but received no response, Yaacob said.

Francis Boyle, an American international law professor based in Illinois, will be among the prosecutors at the hearing, which follows two years of investigations by a Malaysian peace foundation founded by Mahathir that looked into complaints by people affected by the Iraqi war.

The effort is modelled after a 1967 Vietnam War crimes panel convened in Sweden and Denmark by philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, Yaacob said. The Vietnam tribunal said the U.S. committed acts of aggression against Vietnam and bombarded civilian targets, but it was mostly ignored in United States.

The Kuala Lumpur tribunal will have a seven-member panel of judges including two retired judges from Malaysia’s highest court, peace activist Alfred Lambremont Webre of the United States and Mumbai-based lawyer Niloufer Bhagwat of India.

If the tribunal finds Bush and Blair guilty, it will enter their names into a symbolic “Register of War Criminals.”

The tribunal is also scheduled to hold a separate hearing next year on charges of torture linked to the Iraq war against former U.S. officials including ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Yaacob said.

Bush and Blair to be Tried for War Crimes

From: Mathaba

First time that war crimes charges will be heard against the two former heads of state.

On November 19-22, 2011, the trial of George W. Bush (former U.S. President) and Anthony L. Blair (former British Prime Minister) will be held in Kuala Lumpur. This is the first time that war crimes charges will be heard against the two former heads of state in compliance with proper legal process.

Charges are being brought against the accused by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) following the due process of the law. The Commission, having received complaints from war victims in Iraq in 2009, proceeded to conduct a painstaking and an in-depth investigation for close to two years and in 2011, constituted formal charges on war crimes against Bush, Blair and their associates.

The Iraq invasion in 2003 and its occupation had resulted in the death of 1.4 million Iraqis. Countless others had endured torture and untold hardship. The cries of these victims have thus far gone unheeded by the international community. The fundamental human right to be heard has been denied to them.

As a result, the KLWCC had been established in 2008 to fill this void and act as a peoples’ initiative to provide an avenue for such victims to file their complaints and let them have their day in a court of law.

The first charge against George W. Bush and Anthony L. Blair is for Crimes Against Peace wherein:

The Accused persons had committed Crimes against Peace, in that the Accused persons planned, prepared and invaded the sovereign state of Iraq on 19 March 2003 in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.

The second charge is for Crime of Torture and War Crimes against eight citizens of the United States and they are namely George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, wherein:

The Accused persons had committed the Crime of Torture and War Crimes, in that: The Accused persons had wilfully participated in the formulation of executive orders and directives to exclude the applicability of all international conventions and laws, namely the Convention against Torture 1984, Geneva Convention III 1949, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter in relation to the war launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan (in 2001) and in Iraq (in March 2003); Additionally, and/or on the basis and in furtherance thereof, the Accused persons authorised, or connived in, the commission of acts of torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment against victims in violation of international law, treaties and conventions including the Convention against Torture 1984 and the Geneva Conventions, including Geneva Convention III 1949.

The trial will be held before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which is constituted of eminent persons with legal qualifications.

The judges of the Tribunal, which is headed by retired Malaysian Federal Court judge Dato’ Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, also include other notable names such as Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre, a Yale graduate, who authored several books on politics, Dato’ Zakaria Yatim, retired Malaysian Federal Court judge, Tunku Sofiah Jewa, practising lawyer and author of numerous publications on International Law, Prof Salleh Buang, former Federal Counsel in the Attorney-General Chambers and prominent author, Prof Niloufer Bhagwat, an expert in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and International Law, and Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, prominent academic and professor of law.

The Tribunal will adjudicate and evaluate the evidence presented as in any court of law. The judges of the Tribunal must be satisfied that the charges are proven beyond reasonable doubt and deliver a reasoned judgement.

In the event the tribunal convicts any of the accused, the only sanction is that the name of the guilty person will be entered in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and publicised worldwide. The tribunal is a tribunal of conscience and a peoples’ initiative.

The prosecution for the trial will be lead by Prof Gurdial S Nijar, prominent law professor and author of several law publications and Prof Francis Boyle, leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, and assisted by a team of lawyers.

The trial will be held in an open court on November 19-22, 2011 at the headquarters of the Al-Bukhary Foundation at Jalan Perdana, Kuala Lumpur.

Bush and Blair to be ‘charged’

KUALA LUMPUR: Former US president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair will be “charged” at a mock tribunal here for their war crimes today.

Perdana Global Peace Foundation president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who initiated the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, said the two former leaders would be charged for crimes against peace for planning, preparing and invading the sovereign state of Iraq on March 19, 2003, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.

The tribunal would hold the proceedings for four days at No. 88, Jalan Perdana here.

Crime against humanity: (Right) Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, Tan Sri Norian Mai and Dr Mahathir at the “War is Crime” exhibition in Kuala Lumpur Friday.

It would be open to the public.

Dr Mahathir said although the two could not be jailed if they were found guilty, society could reject them by not inviting them to talks or events.

“Don’t entertain these people or invite them to give talks,” he said after launching the “War is Crime” exhibition held in conjunction with the tribunal’s efforts to criminalise war.

Dr Mahathir alleged that Blair had lied to the British parliament and the British people.

“What do you want to learn from him? To learn how to lie?” he added.

Dr Mahathir said that voters of countries at risk of going to war should also hold politicians accountable by making them reject war as a way to resolve problems.

Tribunal counsel Avtaran Singh said the “charge” have been served on the two leaders.

“If they are found guilty of the charges, the tribunal would continue with the second charge of torture and war crimes,” he added.

Avtaran said the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court had failed to take action against Bush and Blair.

“Internationally, the system has failed,” he added.

- The Star

KL tribunal to try Bush, Blair for Iraq war crimes

By R. SITTAMPARAM KUALA LUMPUR  news@nst.com.my

Trial to go on despite absence of response from both leaders

Professor Gurdial S. Nijar will head the prosecution during the trial

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal  on Saturday will  try former United States president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony  Blair on a charge of committing crimes against peace during the Iraq War.

Bush and seven  top US officials who served under him  will also face a separate charge of crimes of torture and war crimes at the tribunal.

The three-day hearing, conducted by  seven senior judges headed by retired  Federal Court judge Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman,  will go on although the two accused leaders and other defendants have yet to respond to the tribunal’s notice.

Datuk Dr Yaacob Hussain Marican, the secretary-general of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War,  which is holding the tribunal, said the tribunal was being convened for the third time since 2007.

Yaacob said the tribunal of conscience was modelled on  the one convened by philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1966 to try the perpetrators of the Vietnam War.

Yaacob said although the tribunal  lacked enforcement powers, it would publish the verdict to get the world community to treat the accused as guilty persons.

“The charges are being brought against the accused by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission,  which comes under our foundation, following in-depth investigations into complaints received from war victims in 2009.

“The commission  acts as a peoples’ initiative to provide an avenue for  victims to file their complaints and let them have their day in a court of law.”

Professor  Gurdial S. Nijar, a  law professor and author of  law publications, and Professor Francis Boyle,  an American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, will head the prosecution during the trial.

The trial, to be held in an open court at the headquarters of the Al- Bukhary Foundation in  Jalan Perdana here, is open to the public.

In conjunction with the tribunal, Perdana Global Peace Foundation will organise an exhibition, ” War is a Crime”,  with a conference on  Friday.

Its chairman, Tan Sri Norian Mai, said the conference’s theme, “The Arab Uprising”, to be opened by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, would see  speakers such as former US presidential candidate and congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and former United Nations assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday.

The decline of the West

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Ceritalah by KARIM RASLAN

These worries are further fuelled by the ongoing global financial crisis and political paralysis that’s slowly undermining both the European Union and the United States.

HISTORY is written by the victors. Losers rarely get much coverage let alone a mention.

In Malaysia, unlike in Indonesia, the forces of political conservatism ultimately won power from our former colonial masters.

As such, the “left” – as PAS deputy president Mat Sabu discovered – has been forgotten, if not vilified outright.

However, interpretations of history change from decade to decade. Indeed, there is no one “history”.

Instead, there are many and generally, it’s the powerful that get to determine whose version of events should dominate.

What happens though when a once all-powerful nation begins to falter? How does it write or rewrite its history?

Such a shift can be seen in the recent explosion of writing on the supposed decline of Western – particularly American – power.

Historian Niall Ferguson has charted the process in Civilisation: The West and the Rest. Ferguson argues that the “West” (particularly Britain and America) was able to surpass others (such as the Chinese and Ottoman Empires) due to six “killer applications”: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society and work ethic.

Ferguson argues that the West perfected all six simultaneously, whereas “the Rest” developed only a handful or else let their comparative advantages in these fields stagnate.

His main thrust, however, is that the West’s current weakness stems from a loss of faith in its own civilisational values. In short, the West has failed to renew its commitment to its “killer apps”.

The West, therefore, ought to “recognise the superiority” of its own civilisation because it offers societies “the best available set of economic, social and political institutions”.

One may of course disagree with Ferguson’s thesis but his arguments are compelling.

His contention that the Islamic world declined because it closed its minds and borders is certainly persuasive, if unoriginal.

At the same time, Ferguson’s tome is a clear sign that there’s a growing trend amongst writers discussing (if not agonising) over the West’s “decline”.

These worries are further fuelled by the ongoing global financial crisis and political paralysis that’s slowly undermining both the European Union and the United States.

Indeed, the latest issue of the literary journal New Yorker includes a superb essay by Adam Gopnick, which claims that “declinism” has now morphed into a veritable literary genre – a pet topic for academics and pundits alike.

But is this really something new? “Cassandras” (named after the Trojan princess who foresaw her own city’s destruction at the hands of the Greeks) – the harbingers of doom and decline – have long been with us, even in times of great prosperity.

Indeed, according to Gopnick, the phrase “decline of the West” was used as early as 1918 by the German historian Oswald Spengler.

Nor were such fears of decay exclusively Western: writers and historians such as Ibn Khaldun, Tun Sri Lanang and Sima Qian have dwelt on similar themes as they charted the rise and fall of civilisations.

Moreover, the mere fact that these books are available across the globe suggests the depth and breadth of such concerns.

At the same time they also reveal a passionate commitment to the idea of renewal and reform. Ferguson is clearly a believer in the West’s capacity to re-invent and re-energise itself.

For us in Malaysia, these books – and there are countless others in airport bookshops – reinforce the sense of a world shifting on its axis, of a power alignment that prioritises China and India over Europe and the United States.

We are faced with the challenge of adapting to these newly (re-)emerging powers whilst not forgetting the strengths (or “killer apps”) that made the Western nations great such as the emancipation of women, democracy and religious tolerance.

And it is in this realm that we need writers and historians such as Ferguson and Gopnik – figures who’ll both commend and condemn with equal weight, stepping aside from mere politics.

The new geo-political landscape will demand prodigious powers of concentration and leadership. Mere rhetoric will be useless.

Malay ultras and/or an obsession with bangsawan politics won’t help us in coping with either China and/or India.

History requires candour and honesty. It also demands a degree of openness.

We need to be willing to accept the idea that there are many versions of the truth.

Our narrow-minded views on history hamper us as we chart our way forward.

You need to know yourself in order to plan for the future. Self-knowledge is critical.

I would argue that it’s only when we as Malaysians can start to engage about our collective history with the same vigour and honesty as our counterparts in the West then we’ll be ready to deal with the challenges outlined by these writers.

History – our many histories, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Dayak and so forth – requires objectivity and honesty. If we can’t deal with the past, how can we face the future?

Related posts:

Malaysia’s history, sovereignty violated, semantics need truly national!

British Massacre – Batang Kali Victims win UK court scrutiny 

PAS Deputy President, Mat Sabu, In the spotlight for wrong reason?

Malaysia Day: Let’s celebrate Sept 16 for its significance!

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A crisis of capitalism

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The financial problems plaguing Europe and Italy are not home-grown. They are part of a global attack on labour

Riccardo Bellofiore guardian.co.uk

Riot police during a clash with anti-austerity protesters in Rome last week. Photograph: Reuters

History repeats itself, Marx wrote, first as tragedy, then as farce. If you wonder how it might repeat itself the third time, look at Italy: a country where the most effective opposition to government are – literally – comedians, and where the prime minister himself is a joke. This has distorted most analysis of the country’s economical and political situation, as if Italy’s problem is just its PM, distracted by sex and trials.

To understand the true nature of the Italian crisis we need to look at it in a wider European context. The limits of the eurozone are well known: it has a “single currency” that isn’t backed by political sovereignty, a central bank that doesn’t act as lender of last resort or finance government borrowing, and no significant European public budget. The flaws of the ECB’s obsessive anti-inflationary stand, and its propensity to raise the interest rate whatever the cause of price rises, are also plain to see. And Germany’s tendency to profit from southern Europe’s deficit while simultaneously imposing austerity budgets on those countries pertains more to psychiatry than economics.

That said, the European crisis is not a home-grown one, the sovereign debt crisis is not truly a public debt crisis, and Italy’s crisis is not Italian-born. German neo-mercantilism induced stagnation in Europe, which survived thanks to US-driven exports. When “privatised Keynesianism” – mixing institutional funds, capital asset inflation and consumer debt (a model exported from the US and UK to Italy, Spain and Ireland among others) – exploded, European growth imploded.

Private debt crisis in disguse

The sovereign debt crisis is thus the private debt crisis in disguise. Deficits are not of the “good” kind (planned to produce use values, and self-dissolving through qualitative development), but of the “bad” kind (induced by real stagnation or saving finance).

The problem has been the unwillingness to refinance first Greece, then Ireland, then Portugal. Their share in the euro area public debt to GDP ratio is ridiculously low: cancelling the debt would have been less painful.

The crisis came because “markets” and rating agencies saw the stupidity of European leaders, who were ineffective when it came to rescuing indebted countries, and who introduced self-defeating austerity programmes. Fear produced a ballooning of the interest rate spread. The sharp decrease in the already very low Italian GDP growth rate (1.3% in 2010, 0.1% in the first quarter of 2011) and the dramatic rise in interest rates paved the way to Italy’s current nightmare.

Italy’s economy does have serious failings, but they are structural, long-standing ones. They date from the mid-1960s, and they resulted in the continuous decrease in both labour productivity and the growth rate. Capitalists answered workers’ struggles with a kind of investment strike – through the intensification of labour rather than innovation. Industrial sectors disappeared; technology was imported; public enterprises were privatised. Mid-sized Italian companies profited from international exports, but they were dependent on outside-generated growth. Public debt was a means to assist a de-industrialising economy.

 Fatal blow

The fatal blow came with the policies of flexibility (that is, casualisation) of labour, which led to a collapse of labour productivity. For a while, this led to full under-employment in the centre-north. The crisis is revealing the hidden truth, and the drama of Italian unemployment and further casualisation is only just beginning as the impact of increasing regressive taxes and savage cuts is felt.

Default plus exit from the euro will not help. In 1992, Italy left the European monetary system and witnessed a huge devaluation: the structural problems deepened, and workers’ conditions deteriorated. This time, Italy leaving the euro would mean the end of monetary union, and a dramatic broadening of the European and world crisis.

The crisis can be overcome only by dealing at once with the European crisis in order to stop the domino effect. One suggestion has come from Yanis Varoufakis and Stuart Holland: eurobonds not only as financial rescue but also as finance to a wave of investments.

However, this crisis is not just a financial crisis, but a capitalist crisis: it is part of an attack on labour. From this point of view, a New Deal should be part of a wider programme of the European left, who should push for a socialisation of investment, banks as public utilities, the intervention of the state as direct provider of employment, and capital controls.

It is not (yet) Marx. It is Hyman P Minsky. Unfortunately what’s really missing in Europe is not the money to finance debt; it is internationalism. Only European struggles can resist austerity and deliver decent reform.

Related articles

• European banks head towards another meltdown (telegraph.co.uk)
• IMF: Banks need more cash to hedge against euro crisis (telegraph.co.uk)
• Italy’s Berlusconi survives test with arrest vote (seattlepi.com)