Daily Mail - 20 more banks were rigging interest rates: British bankers now facing criminal inquiry over scandal that was kept secret for years
Hundreds of bankers across three continents are embroiled in the interest-rate fixing scandal that has left Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond fighting to save his job.
As pressure intensified on Britain’s highest paid banking boss to quit, MPs heard a string of other financial institutions across the world were under investigation.
At least 20 banks are believed to be under suspicion, with growing demands for a criminal investigation. See Article
Daily Mail - How many other banks will be drawn into the market-rigging scandal? Barclays is just the tip of the iceberg, say U.S. investigators
The manipulation of Libor by Barclays is likely to be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of fraudulent activities by banks, according to a former head of the U.S. securities regulator.
Hervey Pitt, the former chairman of the Washington-based Securities and Exchange Commission, said: ‘It is in Barclays’ interest to prove the old adage that misery loves company and I expect they’ll be implicating a lot of their colleagues in other banks.
‘This is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.’ See Article
Daily Mail - Cost of JP Morgan's bungled trade could reach £5.7bn - four times more than estimated
JP Morgan has admitted that the losses from its infamous bungled trade could rise to £5.7billion - more than four times the initial estimate.
The investment bank said that the team of traders based in London had caused far more damage than had previously been thought.
Internal predictions now state that the worst case scenario is that £5.7billion has to be written off, though it is now scrambling to avoid that happening.
The deals were made by a team led by French-born trader Bruno Iksil, nicknamed Voldemort after Harry Potter’s evil nemesis because he was such a ‘scary and powerful’ force in the City.
JP Morgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon had previously admitted that he thought the loss could rise to £1.8billion, but the latest figure is far higher. See Article
Daily Express - WE WILL REMEMBER THEM
THE heroes of Bomber Command were finally given a fitting memorial yesterday as the Queen led the nation in vowing: we will remember them.
She summed up the nation’s pride after unveiling a long-awaited £7.5million memorial to 55,573 bomber crew who died in the Second World War.
Sixty seven years after their bravery helped crush the Nazi war machine, the sovereign paid tribute to those who worked to have the sacrifice of thousands of airmen officially honoured in a monument for which the Daily Express and its readers raised £1million.
“You have all done an absolutely magnificent job,” she said after opening the memorial in Green Park, central London, watched by 6,500 veterans and their families. See Article
Daily Express - 100 TORIES DEMAND REFERENDUM ON EU
THE crusade for an EU referendum appeared unstoppable last night after more than 100 Tory MPs urged David Cameron to give the country a vote.
Scores of backbenchers signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for urgent legislation to ensure a national poll “on the nature of our relationship with the European Union” is held soon after the next general election.
At least another 50 ministers and ministerial aides are understood to be backing the move despite not adding their signatures.
It means at least half the total number of Tory MPs now want British citizens to be given a say over the country’s ties with Brussels.
The huge surge in support was last night being seen as another significant step forward in the Daily Express’s crusade to quit the EU.
Senior Tory John Baron, MP for Basildon and Billericay, organised the letter, which was delivered to 10 Downing Street on Monday.
He said: “There is a credibility gap between politicians and the public since past promises of an EU referendum have not delivered. If we had an informed debate on our membership of the European Union, I think that would lance the boil.”
The letter said: “The EU is constantly evolving and is very different to the European Economic Community we joined in 1973.
“No one in this country under the age of 55 has had the opportunity to express their view on this signally important matter.”
Mr Cameron, who was attending an EU summit on the eurozone crisis in Brussels last night, expressed sympathy for the frustrations with the EU but rejected the referendum call.
Although the full list of MPs who have signed Mr Baron’s letter was kept confidential yesterday it is understood to include backbenchers Peter Bone, Stewart Jackson, Nick de Bois, Penny Mordaunt and Chris Heaton-Harris.
Mr Bone, MP for Wellingborough, said: “Momentum is building within the party for a referendum. We need to have the legislation in place before the next election so the public recognise that if we get a Conservative Government we get an EU referendum.” Mr Jackson, MP for Peterborough, said: “I think there is a consensus that it is our right to have a say on Britain’s future with Europe.” See Article
The Guardian - Julian Assange rejects police request to surrender for breaking bail terms
WikiLeaks founder tells BBC he will stay at Ecuadorean embassy as he fears the US has secret extradition plans. Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, has said that he will ignore a request by the police to give himself up because he fears that the US has secret plans to extradite him to Washington.
He said he had been advised that he was within his rights to ignore an extradition notice that was presented to him at the Ecuadorean embassy on Thursday.
During a telephone interview on BBC2's Newsnight, he was asked if he intended to give himself up. "Our advice is that asylum law both domestically and internationally in the UK takes precedence to extradition law, so the answer is almost certainly not," he said. See Article
The Telegraph - Debt crisis: Germany caves in over bond buying, bank aid after Italy and Spain threaten to block 'everything'
Germany has today caved into demands made by Italy and Spain for immediate eurozone aid to bring down their soaring borrowing costs.
On Thursday night, Italy and Spain plunged an EU summit into disarray by threatening to block “everything” unless Germany and other eurozone countries backed their demands for help.
Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, celebrated the agreement, reached in the early hours of Friday, as a “very important deal for the future of the EU and the eurozone”.
He could not resist reminding Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that Italy had also won on the football pitch, by defeating Germany two goals to one for a place in the finals of the European Championship.
“It is a double satisfaction for Italy,” he said.
The euro spiked against the dollar after news of the deal and Asian stock markets rose sharply. Japan's Nikkei rose 1.4pc and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 2.2pc. While the markets in London, Italy and Spain markets are expected to rise, those in Germany and France look set to fall.
See Article
The Telegraph - CNN and Fox News announce wrong 'Obamacare' verdict
With what seemed like all of America awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling on "Obamacare" it was inevitable that the television news channels, who thrive on being first with the news, would perhaps jump the gun.
Slightly more unusual was that not one, but two of the US's biggest news networks announced the wrong verdict.
"Individual mandate struck down," the breaking news banner on CNN read. "Supreme Court finds measure unconstitutional."
The station's website reported a similar outcome. "Mandate struck down," its front page announced before the headline was quickly changed to "UPHELD". As did its Twitter feed.
Fox News reported the same with an on-screen banner which read: "Supreme Court finds heath care individual mandate unconstitutional," before changing it.
After CNN's reporter outside court, Kate Bolduan, had announced the incorrect news, the show's anchor Wolf Blitzer mused upon its ramifications for President Obama's administration.
See Article
Press TV - UK campaigners condemn arms trade scandal
Activists from Amnesty International and Oxfam have taken a 17-tonne armored tank to the streets of central London, calling for an international arms trade treaty preventing transfer of weapons to regions where there is a risk of fuelling serious human rights abuses.
Campaigners drove the vehicle around Parliament Square and along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, aiming to highlight the importance of the International Arms Trade Treaty talks in New York which start on July 2.
It was also driven past embassies of India, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya and the US in order to persuade their governments to sign up to a global control on the trade of guns and military equipment.
The military “Abbotts Gun Tank” stormed London on a mission to save lives worldwide and stop civilians being killed in the illegal multi-billion pound business.
“Driving a tank through central London is a dramatic way of highlighting all that is wrong with the arms trade today,” said Anna MacDonald, Oxfam’s Head of Arms Control.
“The new treaty must close all existing dangerous loopholes which allow irresponsible and immoral arms deals to take place each day.”
Moreover, Amnesty International’s Arms Programme Director Oliver Sprague said, “Armored tanks are - thankfully - not a regular sight on the streets of London. But tragically tanks and other military equipment are used on a daily basis to decimate the lives of thousands of people in places around the world." See Article
Refreshing News - Half of German teenagers unable to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship, study shows
The widespread ignorance is described in a study called, “Late Victory of the Dictatorships?” conducted by researchers at Berlin’s Free University.
“This is shocking,” said study author Klaus Schroeder. More than 7,500 school pupils aged around 15 were asked how they viewed the various governments that have ruled Germany.
Only around half were definite that the Nazi government was a dictatorship. Just over a third were certain that the former East German government was also a dictatorship.
And about half said the former West German government was a democracy, while around 60 percent were sure that the current united German government was democratic.
“The low estimation of historical knowledge is clearly having an effect.”
The students most able to tell the difference between dictatorship and democracy were in the former eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony Anhalt, while those with the least idea were from the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. See Article
The Guardian - Olympic roof missiles: residents to launch legal action
East Londoners seek injunction to stop surface-to-air missiles being stationed on their building during London 2012 Games. A group of residents are today expected to launch legal proceedings against proposals to station surface-to-air missiles on the roof of their tower block during the Olympics.
Solicitors acting for the local authority tenants said they are mounting a challenge against Ministry of Defence plans to potentially place the ground-based air defence system on top of the Fred Wigg Tower in Leytonstone, east London.
Defence officials are considering deploying the weapons across six sites in the capital if there is a security scare during the Games. The move is yet to be confirmed.
Howe & Co Solicitors said lawyers would be attending the high court on Thursday to issue proceedings on behalf of Harrow Community Support on the grounds that residents were not consulted about the plans.
Tenants also claim that no assessment was carried out under the Equality Act to comply with the MoD's public sector equality duty and say siting missiles above their heads is a breach of their human rights.
The group is seeking an injunction to stop missiles being placed on the roof of the tower, as well as a court order seeking a lawful consultation process involving the residents, Howe & Co said. See Article
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