New Political Earthquake in Brazil

Is it Now Time for Media Outlets to Call this a “Coup”?

by Glenn Greenwald – Andrew Fishman – David Miranda

Courtesy: The Intercept

( May 24, 2016, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian)  Brazil today awoke to stunning news of secret, genuinely shocking conversations involving a key minister in Brazil’s newly installed government, which shine a bright light on the actual motives and participants driving the impeachment of the country’s democratically elected president, Dilma Rousseff. The transcripts were published by the country’s largest newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, and reveal secret conversations that took place in March, just weeks before the impeachment vote in the lower House took place. They show explicit plotting between the new Planning Minister (then-Senator) Romero Jucá and former oil executive Sergio Machado – both of whom are formal targets of the “Car Wash” corruption investigation – as they agree that removing Dilma is the only means for endingthe corruption investigation. The conversations also include discussions of the important role played in Dilma’s removal by the most powerful national institutions, including – most importantly – Brazil’s military leaders.

The transcripts are filled with profoundly incriminating statements about the real goals of impeachment and who was behind it. The crux of this plot is what Jucá calls “a national pact” – involving all of Brazil’s most powerful institutions – to leave Michel Temer in place as President (notwithstanding his multiple corruption scandals) and to kill the corruption investigation once Dilma is removed. In the words of Folha, Jucá made clear that impeachment will “end the pressure from the media and other sectors to continue the Car Wash investigation.” It is unclear who is responsible for recording and leaking the 75-minute conversation, but Folha reports that the files are currently in the hand of the Prosecutor General. The next few hours and days will likely see new revelations that will shed additional light on the implications and meaning of these transcripts.

The transcripts contain two extraordinary revelations that should lead all media outlets to seriously consider whether they should call what took place in Brazil a “coup”: a term Dilma and her supporters have used for months. When discussing the plot to remove Dilma as a means of ending the Car Wash investigation, Jucá said the Brazilian military is supporting the plot: “I am talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it.” He also said the military is “monitoring the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)),” the social movement of rural workers who support PT’s efforts of land reform and inequality reduction and have led the protests against impeachment.

The second blockbuster revelation – perhaps even more significant – is Jucá’s statement that he spoke with and secured the involvement of numerous justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court, the institution that impeachment defenders have repeatedly pointed to as vesting the process with legitimacy and to deny that Dilma’s removal is a coup. Jucá claimed “there are only a small number” of Court justices to which he had not obtained access (the only justice he said he ultimately could not get to is Teori Zavascki, who was appointed by Dilma and who – notably – Jucá viewed as uncorruptable in obtaining his help to kill the investigation (a central irony of impeachment is that Dilma has protected the Car War investigation from interference by those who want to impeach her)). The transcripts also show him saying that “the press wants to take her [Dilma] out,” so “this shit will never stop” – meaning the corruption investigations – until she’s gone.

The transcripts provide proof for virtually every suspicion and accusation impeachment opponents have long expressed about those plotting to remove Dilma from office. For months, supporters of Brazil’s democracy have made two arguments about the attempt to remove the country’s democratically elected president: (1) the core purpose of Dilma’s impeachment is not to stop corruption or punish lawbreaking, but rather the exact opposite: to protect the actual thieves byempowering them with Dilma’s exit, thus enabling them to kill the “Car Wash” investigation; and (2) the impeachment advocates (led by the country’s oligarchical media) have zero interest in clean government, but only in seizing power that they could never obtain democratically, in order to impose a right-wing, oligarch-serving agenda that the Brazilian population would never accept.

The first two weeks of Temer’s newly installed government provided abundant evidence for both of these claims. He appointed multiple ministers directly implicated in corruption scandals. A key ally in the lower House who will lead his government’s coalition there – André Moura – is one of the most corrupt politicians in the country, the target of multiple, active criminal probes not only for corruption but also attempted homicide. Temer himself is deeply enmeshed in corruption (he faces an 8-year ban on running for any office), and isrushing to implement a series of radical right-wing changes that Brazilians would never democratically allow, including measures, as the Guardian detailed, “to soften the definition of slavery, roll back the demarcation of indigenous land, trim housebuilding programs and sell off state assets in airports, utilities and the post office.”

But, unlike the events of the last two weeks, these transcripts are not merely clues or signs. They are proof: proof that the prime forces behind the removal of the president understood that taking her out was the only way to save themselves and shield their own extreme corruption from accountability; proof that Brazil’s military, its dominant media outlets, and its Supreme Court were colluding in secret to ensure the removal of the democratically elected president; proof that the perpetrators of impeachment viewed Dilma’s continued presence in Brasilia as the guarantor that the Car Wash investigations would continue; proof that this had nothing to do with preserving Brazilian democracy and everything to do with destroying it.

For his part, Jucá admits that these transcripts are authentic but insists it was all just a misunderstanding with his comments taken out of context, calling it “banal.” “That conversation is not about a pact for Car Wash. It’s about the economy, to extricate Brazil from the crisis,” he claimed in an interview this morning UOL political blogger Fernando Rodrigues. That explanation is entirely implausible given what he actually said, as well as the explicitly conspiratorial nature of the conversations, in which Jucá insists on a series of one-on-one encounters, rather than meeting in a group, all to avoid provoking suspicions. Political leaders are already calling for his resignationfrom the government.

Ever since Temer’s installation as president, Brazil has seen intense, and growing, protests against him. Brazilian media outlets – which have been desperately trying to glorify him – have suspiciously refrained from publishing polling data for many weeks, but the last polls show him with only 2% support and 60% wanting him impeached. The only recent published polling data showed that 66% of Brazilians believe legislators voted for impeachment only out of self-interest – a belief these transcripts validate – while only 23% believe they did so for the good of the country. Last night in São Paulo, police were forced to barricade the street where Temer’s house is located due to thousands of protesters heading there; they eventually used fire houses and tear gas. An announcement to close the Ministry of Culture led to artists and others occupying offices around the country in protest, which forced Temer to reverse the decision.

Until now, The Intercept, like most international media outlets, has refrained from using the word “coup” even as it (along with most outlets) has been deeply critical of Dilma’s removal as anti-democratic. These transcripts compel a re-examination of that editorial decision, particularly if no evidence emerges calling into question either the most reasonable meaning of Jucá’s statements or his level of knowledge. This newly revealed plotting is exactly what a coup looks, sounds and smells like: securing the cooperation of the military and most powerful institutions to remove a democratically elected leader for self-interested, corrupt and lawless motives, in order to then impose an oligarch-serving agenda that the population despises.

If Dilma’s impeachment remains inevitable, as many believe, these transcripts will make it much more difficult to leave Temer in place. Recent polling data shows that 62% of Brazilians want new elections to select their president. That option – the democratic one – is the one Brazil’s elites fear most, because they are petrified (with good reason) that Lula or another candidate they dislike (Marina Silva) will win. But that’s the point: if what is being avoided and smashed in Brazil is democracy, then it’s time to start using the proper language to describe this. These transcripts make it increasingly difficult for media outlets to avoid doing so.

Don’t start a fire in Asia, China warns Obama after Vietnam arms embargo lifted

A model of a fighter jet is displayed at the Vietnam People's Air Force Museum in Hanoi. President Obama announced the United States is lifting its embargo on sales of lethal weapons to Vietnam. (Linh Pham/Getty Images)

The president met with his counterpart in Hanoi and found time to sample some traditional Vietnamese food.

By Simon Denyer May 24 

BEIJING — China warned President Obama on Tuesday not to spark a fire in Asia after he announced the lifting of a long-standing embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam.

Obama unveiled the historic step on Monday during his first visit to Vietnam, insisting the move was “not based on China” while simultaneously acknowledging that Washington and Hanoi share a common concern about China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Beijing, not surprisingly, was unimpressed. It has a complex relationship with its southern neighbor: The two governments are united in their communist ideology and distaste for Western democracy but are historical adversaries and fought their latest border war in 1979. They now fiercely contest sovereignty over many small islands in the South China Sea.

The United States and Vietnam must not spark a “regional tinderbox,” the Communist Party mouthpiece, China Daily, warned in an editorial Tuesday, noting concerns that Obama’s move was meant to “curb the rise of China.”

“This, if true, bodes ill for regional peace and stability,” it argued.

President Barack Obama says the U.S. will fully lift an embargo on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam, its former enemy. (Reuters)

The United States accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea by turning contested reefs and rocks into putative military bases.

Beijing says it is only asserting its “indisputable” sovereignty over the islands and charges that the United States is interfering by encouraging rival claimants to antagonize China.

[China assertiveness pushes Vietnam to old foe, the United States]

The nationalist Global Times tabloid called Obama’s claim that the Vietnam move was not aimed at China “a very poor lie,” adding that it would exacerbate the “strategic antagonism between Washington and Beijing.”

While not an official mouthpiece, the Global Times nevertheless often represents a strain of nationalist thinking within the ruling Communist Party.

It accused Washington of trying to knit three nets around China — in ideology, in security and in economy and trade — in an attempt to secure its dominance of the region.

While it is unlikely that Vietnam, whose weapons systems are largely Russian-made, would import significant quantities of U.S. arms for the moment, the paper said, lifting the embargo draws Hanoi into a “U.S.-dominated regional security system.”

Vietnam hopes trade deal will tip balance towards the United States

The paper also implied that there was some hypocrisy in the move to cozy up to Communist Vietnam. “When the U.S. has an urgent need to contain China in the South China Sea, the standards of its so-called human rights can be relaxed,” it wrote.

Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City after Obama arrived there Tuesday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the relaxation of the arms embargo was not about China but about promoting a “rules-based order” in the fastest-growing marketplace in the world.

“If you want to point to the possibility of tinder box and possibly igniting something, I would caution China, as President Obama and others have, to not unilaterally move to reclamation activities and the militarization of the islands and areas that are part of the claims being contested today,” he told reporters in the former South Vietnamese capital.

“We don’t take a position on those claims. China should note that. We are not saying China is wrong in the claims. We are simply saying, ‘Resolve it peacefully; resolve it in the rules-based order.’”

Relaxing an “out of the ordinary” arms embargo was neither out of order nor inflammatory, Kerry insisted. “I hope China will read this correctly.”

Experts in China said they expected that U.S. warships would sooner or later be granted access to Cam Ranh Bay, a deep-water port that served as the key U.S. naval base during the Vietnam War.

Shi Yinhong, a professor in international relations at Renmin University of China, said Beijing would not respond in a tit-for-tat way but would continue to build its military power in the South China Sea, while exerting pressure on Hanoi not to draw too close to Washington.

“China will try to cozy up to Vietnam but at the same time put pressure on it,” he said.

On social media, there were some angry reactions. “It looks like Vietnam is going to be America’s new puppet,” one user wrote. “Vietnam needs to give serious consideration to inviting the wolf into the house.”

“The U.S. is walking an arms race path,” wrote another, arguing this was good news as Beijing had deeper pockets. “China can wait until the enemy is exhausted.”

David Nakamura in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Liu Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.

Egypt forensics chief says too soon to say explosion downed plane

Recovered debris of the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea is seen in this handout image released May 21, 2016 by Egypt's military. Egyptian Military/Handout via Reuters---Workers service around an Egyptair flight at International Cairo Airport, Egypt May 21, 2016.REUTERS/AMR ABDALLAH DALSH

A life jacket among recovered debris of the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean Sea is seen in this handout image released May 21, 2016 by Egypt's military. Egyptian Military/Handout via Reuters--Relatives of the Christian victims of the crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 attend an absentee funeral mass at the main Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, May 22, 2016.REUTERS/MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY

BY AMINA ISMAIL AND LIN NOUEIHED-Tue May 24, 2016

The head of Egypt's forensics authority dismissed as premature a suggestion on Tuesday that the small size of the body parts retrieved since an EgyptAir plane crashed last week indicated there was an explosion on board.

Investigators struggling to work out why the Airbus 320 jet vanished from radar screens last Thursday, with 66 passengers and crew on board, are looking for clues in the human remains and debris recovered from the Mediterranean Sea so far.

The plane and its black box recorders, which could explain what brought down the Paris-Cairo flight as it entered Egyptian air space, have not been located.

An Egyptian forensic official said 23 bags of body parts have been collected since Sunday, the largest of them no bigger than the palm of a hand. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their size suggested there had been an explosion although no trace of explosives had been detected.

But Hisham Abdelhamid, head of Egypt's forensics authority, said this assessment was "mere assumptions" and that it was too early to draw conclusions.

At least two other sources with direct knowledge of the investigation also said it would be premature to say what caused EgyptAir flight 804 to plunge into the sea.

"All we know is it disappeared suddenly without making a distress call," one of them said, adding that only by analysing the black boxes or a large amount of debris could authorities begin to form a clearer picture of what may have gone wrong.

French investigators say the plane sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board as well as other possible computer faults shortly before it disappeared.

The signals did not indicate what may have caused the smoke, and aviation experts have said that neither deliberate sabotage nor a technical fault could be ruled out.

Investigators rely on debris, bags and clothes as well as chemical analysis to detect the imprints of an explosion, according to people involved in two previous inquiries where deliberate blasts were involved.

An Egyptian team formed by the Civil Aviation Ministry is conducting the technical investigation and three officials from France's BEA air accident investigation agency have also been in Cairo since Friday, with an expert from Airbus, to assist.

Egypt has deployed a robot submarine and France has sent a search ship to help hunt for the black boxes, but it is not clear whether either of them could detect signals emitted by the flight recorders, lying in waters possibly 3,000 metres deep.

The signal emitters have a battery life of 30 days.

Eighteen loads of debris have also been recovered, the Egyptian investigation committee said, in a search operation assisted by French and Greek aircraft. The U.S. Navy said Egypt had not formally requested American support beyond a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft which was deployed on Thursday.

LAST MOMENTS

Five days after the plane vanished off radar screens, Egyptian and Greek officials - who monitored the flight before it crossed into Egypt's air space - still gave differing accounts of its last moments.

In Greece, two officials stood by earlier statements that Greek radar picked up sharp swings in the jet's trajectory, 90 degrees left, then 360 degrees right as it plunged from a cruising altitude to 15,000 feet before vanishing.

But Ehab Mohieldin Azmi, head of Egypt's air navigation services, said Egyptian officials saw no sign of the plane swerving, and it had been visible at 37,000 feet until it disappeared.

"Of course, we tried to call it more than once and it did not respond," he told Reuters. "We asked the planes that were nearby to give it a relay and we could not reach it. That's it."

One Greek source close to the investigation said Athens will start sending information on the crash to Egyptian authorities on Wednesday, in response to a request from Egypt's public prosecutor.

Cairo is seeking transcripts of calls between the pilot and Greek air traffic control, and wants Greek officials to be questioned over whether the pilot sent a distress signal.

The prosecutor also asked France for documents, audio and visual records on the plane during its stopover at Charles de Gaulle airport and until it left French airspace.

At a hotel near Cairo airport where relatives of the victims were giving DNA samples to help identify the body parts recovered so far, grief mixed with frustration.

Amjad Haqi, an Iraqi man whose mother Najla was flying back from medical treatment in France, said the families were being kept in the dark and had not even been formally told that any body parts had been recovered.

"All they are concerned about is to find the black box and the debris of the plane. That's their problem, not mine," he said. "And then they come and talk to us about insurance and compensation. I don't care about compensation, all I care about is to find my mother and bury her."

(Additional reporting by Haitham Ahmed, Ahmed Tolba and Ahmed Aboulenein in Cairo, Lefteris Papadimas in Athens, Tim Hepher in Paris and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by Timothy Heritage and David Stamp)

Meet the Chinese Trolls Pumping Out 488 Million Fake Social Media Posts

BY DAVID WERTIME-MAY 19, 2016

They are the most hated group in Chinese cyberspace. They are, to hear their ideological opponents tell it, “fiercely ignorant,” keen to “insert themselves in everything,” and preen as if they were “spokesmen for the country.” Westerners bemoan their propensity to beat the drum of nationalism, bombard Chinese liberals with personal attacks, and pollute online dialogue with wave after wave of strident propaganda. While their ranks have been unknown and their precise inner workings uncertain, at least everyone agrees on their name: wumao, or 50-centers, slang for the 50 Chinese cents they allegedly receive for each social media post. Now, a new report suggests it’s time to re-imagine who these people are and how they operate.

A May 17 paper written by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California, San Diego provides the most detailed and ambitious description of China’s 50-centers available to date. It confirms the existence of a “massive secret operation” in China pumping out an estimated 488 million fabricated social media posts per year, part of an effort to “regularly distract the public and change the subject” from any policy-related issues that threaten to anger citizens enough to turn them out onto the streets. But the research finds no evidence these 50-centers are, in fact, paid 50 cents, nor does it find they engage in direct and angry argument with their opponents. Instead, they are mostly bureaucrats already on the public payroll, responding to government directives at a time of heightened tension to flood social media with pro-government cheerleading.

“The content of [50-center] posts was completely different than what had been assumed by academics, journalists, activists, and participants in social media,” Jennifer Pan, an assistant professor at Stanford and one of the report’s authors, told Foreign Policy. “They — and we before we did this study — turned out to be utterly wrong” about how pro-government shills actually operate.

Understanding the behavior of pro-government netizens is important, given the stakes. In the past two and a half years, the Chinese government has used a combination of muscle and guile to cow online opinion leaders into submission, muzzling social media as a political force, and leaching public dialogue of much of its independence. But beneath the peppy, pablum-filled surface that has resulted, Chinese social media remains a contested space.In countless online chat rooms, bulletin boards, and Weibo threads, Chinese social media roils with the same ideological debates that also increasingly consumeChinese academics and elites.

Broadly speaking, the clash pits so-called leftists — that is, conservatives and neo-Confucianists who marry stout Chinese nationalism, a yearning for reconstructed socialism, and the quest for a reversion to hierarchy and filial piety — against rightists, or reformists, who continue to espouse what a Westerner would recognize as universal values, such as civil and human rights, government transparency, and democracy and constitutionalism. It’s more common for the two camps to exchange barbs than ideas. The leftists label the rightists sellouts, turncoats, and “public intellectuals,” the latter delivered with an implicit sneer. The rightists often call the leftists “50-centers,” regardless of who really pays their bills.

Given the infighting, it’s not hard to picture a shadowy coterie of young, angry, and irremediably argumentative 50-centers pitted against the nation’s liberals. Actual 50-centers, it turns out, are also far less likely to trade arguments or insults with their interlocutors than they are to stream peppy drivel into major discussions at just the right time. Of the posts the researchers analyzed, 80 percent were labeled “cheerleading,” and 13 percent “non-argumentative praise or suggestions.” These include such barn-burners as, “We all have to work harder, to rely on ourselves, to take the initiative to move forward” and, “We hope the central government provides us with even more support.” There’s little to offer such blather beyond a shrug or a grunt — that, of course, is precisely the point.

Although the number of fabricated posts is impressive, it’s also small compared with the heaving corpus of approximately 80 billion posts generated on China’s hyperactive social media each year. And 50-centers spend about half their energy posting on the friendly terrain of government-run websites. That means that only one out of every 178 posts on commercial Chinese social media actually comes from a 50-center. To maximize influence, the commentary mostly emerges at times of particularly intense online discussion, when the volume of chatter spikes — and when, the report’s authors argue, the possibility of online protest emerging into the real world is highest. (Disappointingly, researchers do not attempt to estimate the total ranks of 50-centers.)

The path to unmasking the 50-cent group began with a December 2014 leak of emails emanating from the Internet Information Office of Zhanggong district in Ganzhou, a small city in the southeastern province of Jiangxi. Researchers sought to identify how many of those named in the leak were actually 50-centers. Smoking out these notorious pro-government trolls didn’t require too much derring-do; researchers simply asked them by creating pseudonymous social media accounts, then direct-messaging those named in the leaked documents with this message: “I saw your comment, it’s really inspiring. I want to ask, do you have any public opinion guidance management, or online commenting experience?”
(The anodyne term “public opinion guidance management” is widely recognized as the government’s code word for 50-centers.) Many, perhaps flattered by the approach, were happy to respond by admitting what they did. Pan said she was “not particularly surprised” the subjects were so forthcoming. “If you participate in online sentiment guidance, you might see yourself as someone who helps improve the general tenor of online discussions — this would not be something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of,” she said.

Beyond the eye-popping numbers, this report may prove most useful in outlining the limits of 50-center scope and influence. The notion that a massive, paid army of truculent pro-government netizens is largely to blame for China’s impoverished public dialogue is Orwellian, yet strangely comforting. If most of the pro-government invective calling reformists traitors to the motherland is driven by government dictat, that makes it possible a less illiberal regime could turn off the spigot of venom, allowing more recognizably Western views to thrive. But this report implies that those espousing nationalist nastiness aren’t paid shills after all. They mean precisely what they say.

Photo credit: MARK RALSTON/Getty Images

Google Paris offices raided in £1.2 billion tax probe

Members of the media stand outside the entrance of Google's Paris headquarters as French investigators conduct a raid. CREDIT: REUTERS/JACKY NAEGELEN---A police car outside the Paris offices of US Internet giant Google in Paris, as police carry out a search as part of a tax fraud investigation.  CREDIT: MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE/AFP/GETTY 

The raid is the latest regulatory headache for the American company CREDIT: REUTERS/ERIC GAILLARD/ILLUSTRATION/FILE---Members of the press outside Google's France office on Tuesday CREDIT: AFP

•  ByJames Titcomb-
24 MAY 2016

Google’s offices in Paris have been raided by police in an investigation into money laundering and “aggravated tax fraud”.

The dawn raid, which involved around 100 investigators, is part of a probe into whether the internet giant has evaded corporation tax in France by diverting profits to its European base in Ireland.

French authorities believe that Google owes some €1.6bn (£1.2bn) in corporation tax and VAT. The raid comes months after the companyagreed to pay £130m in back taxes to the UK Government and amid growing scrutiny of the tax affairs of Silicon Valley’s multinationals.

Google, like many major tech groups, bases its European operations in Ireland, where corporation taxes are lower than much of Europe, and registers sales from many other countries there.

But the company is now facing increasing scrutiny amid growing anger at multinationals’ tax affairs. French authorities are now trying to establish whether sales registered in Ireland were in fact conducted in France.

The investigation is aimed at finding out whether Google Ireland Ltd. is permanently established in France and if... it has failed to meet its fiscal obligations, in particular with regard to corporation tax and value added taxFrench prosecutor's office

“These searches are the result of a preliminary investigation opened on June 16, 2015 relative to aggravated tax fraud and organised money laundering following a complaint from French fiscal authorities," the French prosecutor's office said.

“The investigation is aimed at finding out whether Google Ireland Ltd. is permanently established in France and if, by not declaring some of its activity on French soil, it has failed to meet its fiscal obligations, in particular with regard to corporation tax and value added tax.”

A Google spokesman said: “"We comply with the tax law in France, as in every other country in which we operate. We are cooperating fully with the authorities in Paris to answer their questions, as always.”

The raid is the latest setback to Google in Europe. It has been ordered by the French data regulator to apply European right to be forgotten rules that censor search results, and is under investigation from the European Commission for abusing monopoly power both in search and its Android mobile software.

In January, after years of pressure, Google agreed to pay six years of UK back taxes to the Treasury and said it would book sales from domestic advertisers in the UK. The agreement with the Treasury was criticised by Labour for allegedly understating the true amount it should owe.

Singapore: BSI Bank to be shut down due to ‘gross misconduct’ amid 1MDB scandal

 

 24th May 2016 

THE Money Authority of Singapore (MAS) will be shutting down BSI Bank for a series of grave offences, and has referred six members of staff to the Public Prosecutor to determine if they have committed crimes.

MAS announced in a statement on Tuesday that it served BSI Bank a notice of intention to withdraw its status as a merchant bank in Singapore.

The notice contains “serious breaches of anti-money laundering requirements, poor management oversight of bank’s operations, and gross misconduct by some of the bank’s staff”.

The announcement comes as Swiss financial regulators opened criminal proceedings against the bank in connection to allegations of corruption against controversial Malaysian state fund 1MDB.

According to BBC, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said it obtained information suggesting BSI could have prevented “the offences of money laundering and bribery of foreign public officials currently under investigations in the context of 1MDB”.

BSI Bank, owned by BSI Ltd in Switzerland, said in a statement that it would cooperate with the Swiss attorney-general, describing the case as “legacy issues and removing uncertainty for clients and staff in relation to 1MDB”.

SEE ALSO: 1MDB: Swiss attorney-general expands probe to include ex-Emirati officials

The decision to shut down the bank is based on three investigations made from 2011 to 2015, in which the regulator uncovered “multiple breaches” and a “pervasive pattern of non-compliance” within BSI.

MAS has also imposed financial penalties on BSI totaling about US$9.6m (SG$13.3m) for 41 breaches of MAS Notice 1014, Prevention of Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism.

The six members referred to the Public Prosecutor include people from BSI’s senior management and staff. They are:

• Former CEO, Hans Peter Brunner
• Former deputy CEO, Raj Sriram
• Head of Wealth Management Services, Kevin Michael Swampillai, who is currently suspended
• Former senior private banker, Yak Yew Chee
• Former wealth planner, Yeo Jiawei, who has been charged for “various offences”
• Former senior private banker, Yvonne Seah Yew Foong

MAS’ managing director Ravi Menon said in the statement: “BSI Bank is the worst case of control lapses and gross misconduct that we have seen in the Singapore financial sector. It is a stark reminder to all financial institutions to take their anti-money laundering responsibilities seriously.

“Controls need to be robust, surveillance vigilant, and the management culture must emphasize professional integrity and risk consciousness.”

Greece: thousands of migrants moved from border camp

Greek riot police are evacuating thousands of migrants from a camp on the Macedonia border where they have been stranded for months.

TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

The migrants and refugees, who were hoping to continue their journey north through Macedonia, are being moved by bus to reception centres elsewhere in Greece. Most of the people evacuated today are families with children.

They have been living in tents in squalid conditions, with constant food shortages and flooding caused by harsh weather, and became stranded after Macedonia closed its border with Greece in March following Austria's decision to take take similar measures to deal with the migrant crisis.

Borders across Europe have been tightened after the arrival of more than a million migrants, most by sea, in 2015.

Fleeing war

Many of these people had been fleeing war in Syria and Iraq and headed to Germany, which had opened its borders.

Greece said it would not use force to clear the Idomeni camp, which is being evacuated over several days. Although there is a heavy police presence, no problems have been reported.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said: "It's important that organised movements are voluntary, non-discriminatory and based on well-informed choices by the individuals."

Before the operation began, an estimated 8,000 people were living in tents at the makeshift camp.

The International Rescue Committee said that on-site registration had proved a good incentive for refugees to leave Idomeni, although the asylum process was "inadequate and slow".

Trauma

Save the Children said it was concerned about a lack of basic services, such as bathrooms and shelters, in the official camps.

"Many of the children, especially lone children, have been through enough trauma already," said Amy Frost, team leader in Greece. "Now that the evacuation has started, it is paramount that authorities make it a priority to keep families together, and to ensure that children are being transferred to facilities where they can live in conditions that meet European and international standards for child welfare."

Police have also started moving migrants who have been blocking railway tracks on the border for several weeks in the hope of being allowed to travel further north.

The blockade has forced trains to switch routes through Bulgaria further to the east.

Food shortages take toll on Venezuelans' diet

Nutritionists point to long-term health risks of low-quality food as basic staples are hard to find or being sold at exorbitant prices

A resident of the Carapita neighbourhood of Caracas walks away with a bag of basic goods she bought for 300 bolivars (70 cents). Photograph: Sibylla Brodzinsky

Rafael Camacho shows off his rooftop vegetable and herb garden in Caracas. Photograph: Sibylla Brodzinsky

Sibylla Brodzinsky in Caracas-Tuesday 24 May 2016

Not so long ago, whenever Juan González would go to the butcher he’d buy a few nice steaks for himself and cow lung, known here as bofe, to chop up and feed his dog.

“Now bofe is what I eat, when I can get it,” said the 55-year-old elevator repairman on a street in the Venezuelan capital.

With prolonged shortages of basic foods, Venezuelans have been forced to shift their diets to whatever they can find. And what they can find is not necessarily healthy.

Milk, meat and beans – the main sources of protein in the Venezuelan diet – are hard to find or sold at exorbitant prices, and many are filling up on empty carbs from pasta, rice and the traditional arepa cornmeal cake.

“These fill you up and make you fat but they are not nutritious,” said nutritionist Héctor Cruces. “Viscera are high in fat and low on protein.”

A study revealed last month by Venezuela’s top three universities showed that 12% of those polled said they were eating less than three meals a day.

“And those who do have access to three meals have seen a deterioration in the quality of their diet,” said Marianella Herrera-Cuenca, of the Bengoa Foundation, an NGO dedicated to promoting nutrition.

Children and the elderly are hardest hit. Investigators from the Bengoa Foundation said a sampling of 4,000 school-aged children showed 30% were malnourished and that school absences were on the rise.

Paula Arciniegas, 19, said she worried about the development of her two-year-old daughter because when she can’t find milk – which is often – she calms her child’s hunger with a mix of water and cornstarch.

“And I try to get her to sleep through the morning so I don’t have to worry about her breakfast,” she said.

Cruces, the nutritionist, predicted that future generations of Venezuelans will be shorter and wider because of the low quality of the food they are consuming. “The lack of calcium will stunt growth and excess carbohydrates will make them fat,” he said.

Critics of the socialist government ofNicolás Maduro say food production collapsed in the oil-reliant country due to a mix of the expropriation of farmland and agro-industrial enterprises and strict price controls that made importing food cheaper than producing it locally. But a byzantine currency control system and plummeting oil prices have slashed imports of raw materials and food products.

Empresas Polar, the country’s largest food processor, warned last month it was halting beer production due to a lack of barley, and Coca-Cola said its low sugar stocks may force it to stop production of soft drinks.

Government supporters say its all part of a destabilisation plan backed by a rightwing opposition and foreign interests that want to see Maduro ousted from power.

To counter that “economic war”, Maduro has urged people to grow their own food and raise chickens in their homes and created the ministry of urban farming; more than 80% of Venezuelans live in cities.

Rafael Camacho, 56, took the idea to heart. Originally from the rural region of Barlovento where his family had a farm, Camacho says he has dredged up what he learned as a child to help feed his family of nine. On a slope behind his half-built home on the hills above Caracas, he proudly shows off the budding plants of corn, squash, bananas, melon and beans. On the rooftop of his house he planted cilantro and peppers and various herbs.

“I’m a farmer by nature, I know how to do this,” he says.

Camacho still has to stand in line for rice, cornflour, meat and other staples. “But with this we know we won’t go hungry.”

The government is also promoting direct sales from producers in the countryside to consumers.

In the poor Caracas neighbourhood of Carapita, residents lined up to buy vegetables brought directly from Trujillo state to their community centre. There, they were able to mix and match potatoes, tomatoes, onions, beets, red peppers and cabbage at 355 bolivars (82 cents at the highest official exchange rate) per kilo. At informal street market prices, they could go for as much as 1,000 bolivars ($2.33) per kilo.

Around the corner, for 300 bolivars (70 cents) they could buy a prefilled bag of small portions of cooking oil, pasta, rice, flour and sugar.

“This is how we are fighting the economic war,” says Americo Jaramillo, spokesman for the community council.

In a country hooked on processed food, the shortages have forced some to get creative. For most Venezuelans a meal isn’t a meal if there are no arepas. Since processed cornflour is hard to find newspapers offer readers recipes on how to make them from plantains, yucca or yams.

But on a steep hill in in the Petare district of Caracas, María Hidalgo, has refused to give up on traditional corn arepas.

She pulled out an old corn mill she had in a closet, rigged it up to a small motor and started making her own cornmeal dough, selling to friends and neighbours.

“It’s like going back in time,” she said.

Lariam should be drug of last resort for troops, MPs say

Lariam - 'Not a first-line drug'

By Sima Kotecha-24 May 2016

Anti-malarial drug Lariam should be the "drug of last resort" for UK troops, MPs on the defence committee have said.

The drug has been prescribed to at least 17,000 service personnel at least once between April 2007 and March 2015.

The MPs criticised the MoD over the way it issued the controversial drug, which can cause severe side-effects, including depression and anxiety.

The MoD said the "vast majority of deployed personnel already receive alternatives to Lariam".

Lariam - the brand name for mefloquine - is prescribed to civilians as well as troops.

While it is not the main anti-malarial drug used by the armed forces, critics argue its side-effects can be more detrimental to those serving in challenging and dangerous countries.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease which causes fever, headaches, vomiting and diarrhoea and can be fatal.

In 2015, it killed about 438,000 people and there were 214m cases of the disease, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, according to World Health Organization estimates.

'Mass deployment'

After a six-month inquiry, the defence select committee found the potential side-effects were clearly highlighted by manufacturers Roche, but there was "strong anecdotal evidence" that the stringent conditions laid down for prescription were often disregarded.

Committee chairman Dr Julian Lewis said: "It seems quite clear that not only is the MoD unable to follow the manufacturer's guidelines for prescribing the drug in all instances, but a number of troops discard their Lariam rather than risk its potentially dangerous side-effects.

"It is our firm conclusion that there is neither the need, nor any justification for continuing to issue this medication to service personnel unless they can be individually assessed, in accordance with the manufacturers' requirements.

"And most of the time that is simply impossible, when a sudden, mass deployment of hundreds of troops is necessary."

Lt Col Andrew Marriot: "I haven't had a full night's sleep since 2002"

'Mad Monday'

The drug's use had had " absolutely devastating psychological effects" in a small minority of cases," he told the BBC's Today Programme, and: "In a larger minority of cases there are disturbed nights, damaged sleep, psychological ideas that are unsettling and dangerous."

"In reality the whole experience has been deeply unpleasant. So much so that phrases like 'mad Monday' or 'crazy Tuesday' are used amongst the armed forces when this stuff has been doled out in the past."

The inquiry came after BBC Radio 4's Today programme revealed that a senior military medic had called on ministers to prescribe an alternative drug until it was clear that Lariam was safe.

'I kept thinking about hanging myself'

Maj Mick Wallace took Lariam during his deployment in Kenya in 1998, and he says he has been severely depressed ever since:

"When I came back my wife said I wasn't the same man. I was short-tempered, anxious at times. I just didn't feel right and it's still going on.

"I've had several courses of anti-depressants and all they do is stick a plaster over it and as soon as I stop taking them, I go downhill again.

"I've never attempted suicide but it's been at the back of my mind.

"Recently I went into my barn which I use as a workshop and I had to leave straightaway because I kept thinking about hanging myself.

"So many men and woman have already been affected. I think the government would be foolish not to take up the recommendations but this should have happened a long time ago."

Maj Mick Wallace: "I just didn't feel right and it's still going on"

According to MoD figures, a minimum of 17,368 armed forces personnel were prescribed Lariam at least once between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2015.

Over the same time period, approximately 104,000 personnel were given a different anti-malarial drug, such as Malarone and Doxycycline.

As at August 2015, mefloquine constituted only 1.2% of all anti-malaria tablets held and, in terms of doses for a six-month deployment, only 14% of the stock, the MoD said.

It is not clear how many service personnel have suffered after taking Lariam but according to retired Lt Col Andrew Marriott, who gave evidence to the inquiry, between 25% and 35% of personnel who had been prescribed Lariam on deployment experienced side-effects.

Some of those affected are contemplating legal action against the MoD.

Philippa Tuckman, from Hilary Meredith Solicitors, said more than 450 personnel had come forward since late last year, saying they had been affected.

Roche said it agreed with the defence committee's report and it would continue to work with the MoD "to ensure they have all the relevant information to ensure Lariam is prescribed appropriately".

The MoD said it would consider the report's recommendations and respond in due course.

"The vast majority of deployed personnel already receive alternatives to Lariam and, where it is used, we require it to be prescribed after an individual risk assessment," a spokeswoman said.

"We have a duty to protect our personnel from malaria and we welcome the committee's conclusion that, in some cases, Lariam will be the most effective way of doing that."

By Michelle Roberts, BBC News website health editor

Malaria is a serious illness and can be fatal. Drugs can reduce the risk of malaria by about 90%.

The MoD says Lariam is an important anti-malarial tablet within its portfolio, but it is not the only one.

The exact choice of drug offered to military personnel depends on "a number of factors", including the region the individual is deploying to, their health and any past history of side-effects.

There is no single anti-malarial that is effective against all the different possible strains of infection.

Arguably, all drugs can have unwanted effects, but soldiers have been reporting some particularly nasty ones with Lariam - depression, nightmares, hallucinations and suicidal thoughts.

The MoD says it only provides soldiers with Lariam when it is necessary and after an individual risk assessment, in line with advice given by the Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention.

It says Lariam is not a "first-line drug" and is used primarily when other drugs would either not be effective or appropriate.