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Panama Papers: David Cameron admits profiting from fund

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British PM says he sold stake in his late father’s offshore investment fund four months before taking office in 2010.

Cameron has claimed to be leading efforts to clamp down on offshore havens, but the leak has led to criticism [Stefan Wermuth/Reuters]

Cameron has claimed to be leading efforts to clamp down on offshore havens, but the leak has led to criticism [Stefan Wermuth/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

British Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted he benefited from the offshore investment fund set up by his late father.

After days of pressure following the publication of the Panama Papers leak, Cameron said on Thursday he owned a stake in the Blairmore trust, which he sold in 2010 four months before taking office.

“We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000 ($42,000),” Cameron told Britain’s ITV television.

“I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become prime minister, I didn’t want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests,” the Conservative leader added.

“I paid income tax on the dividends. There was a profit on it but it was less than the capital gains tax allowance, so I didn’t pay capital gains tax.”

Refusing to comment

Cameron’s late father, Ian, was among the tens of thousands of people named in the leaked documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The revelations showed how the world’s rich and powerful are able to stash their wealth and avoid taxes.

After having at first described it as a private matter, Cameron’s office said on Tuesday that he and his family did not benefit from any such funds at present.

Cameron also said he did not own any shares or have any offshore funds.

But his failure to say whether he or his family would benefit in the future only intensified media speculation the following days, with the story splashed across many newspaper front pages on Wednesday.

“There are no offshore funds or trusts which the prime minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in future,” the spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Cameron has cast himself as a champion in the fight against tax evasion, particularly in British-linked territories such as the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands.

However, the opposition Labour Party has said the Panama Papers show the government has failed to tackle the issue.

Panama Papers

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism, a non-profit group in the US, said the cache of 11.5 million records detailed the offshore holdings of a dozen current and former world leaders, as well as businessmen, criminals, celebrities and sports stars.

On Tuesday, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stepped down hours after thousands of protesters gathered outside parliament to demand his resignation following the Panama Papers investigation.

Elsewhere among sitting world leaders named in the leak are Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko.

The documents link at least 12 current and former heads of state and 143 other politicians to illicit financial transactions.

Pakistan film producers seek Bollywood ban

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Motion filed in Lahore High Court because Indian film industry’s influence is hurting local productions, producers say.

Rocky-Handsome

by Imran Khan, Al Jazeera

A group of Pakistani film producers and distributors has filed a motion in Lahore High Court seeking a ban on Bollywood films being shown in the country.

The distributors say Bollywood films are a threat to local productions.

In Pakistan, the studios and cinema houses are often owned by the same company that uses the proceeds from ticket sales to fund new films.

In recent years, going to the cinema has become more popular across Pakistan. Four years ago, there were only 12 screens in Lahore. Now, there are 32.

“There is a need for these [Bollywood] films if you want to save the Pakistani cinema industry,” Nadir Minhas, director of PAF cinema in Lahore, told Al Jazeera.

“If these films don’t come here, it will go back to being a niche industry.”

But the group seeking a court ban said that Bollywood films were keeping the audience from watching Pakistani films, which is hurting local producers and distributors financially.

“The government says that Pakistani cinema is growing but the industry is only growing in middle-class areas and the middle-class doesn’t watch Pakistani cinema,” Choudhry Kamran, a film distributor, said.

“Because of Bollywood, we can’t make new films. That’s why we want the films to be banned.”

Defamation case: Arvind Kejriwal, 5 other AAP leaders get bail

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Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders, who were summoned as accused in a criminal defamaiton case filed against them by Union Minister Arun Jaitley, were today granted bail by a Delhi court.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sumit Dass granted the relief to Kejriwal and AAP leaders Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpai, on a personal bond of Rs 20,000 each with one surety of like amount.

Kejriwal and other accused had appeared in court in pursuance to the summons issued against them on March 9. The court has now fixed the matter for May 19 for further arguments in the case.

During the hearing which commenced at around 2.35 pm, all the accused moved their bail pleas before the court which granted the relief to them. Jaitley was also present in the court room.

During the brief hearing, the counsel appearing for the accused told the court that they have not been supplied all the documents of the case after which senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, who appeared for Jaitley, said that they would provide entire sets of documents to the defence counsel.

Initially, the court granted bail to the accused on a personal bond of Rs 25,000 each with one surety of the like amount but one of the defence counsel told the court that they have brought fixed depsit receipts (FDRs) of Rs 20,000.

Hearing this submission, the court reduced the amount from Rs 25,000 to Rs 20,000 and fixed the matter for arguments on framing of notice for May 19.

Gopal Mohan, advisor to the CM, stood surety for Kejriwal and Delhi Minister Imran Hussain stood surety for Ashutosh, while AAP MLAs Naresh Balyan, Nitin Tyagi, Naresh Yadav and AAP leader Sanjeev stood sureties for Sanjay Singh, Kumar Vishwas, Dipak Bajpai and Raghav Chadha, respectively.

Before the commencement of the hearing, supporters of BJP and AAP gathered outside gate number 2 of the Patiala House Court complex and shouted slogans against each other.

The accused AAP leaders and Jaitley came to the court amid heavy security presence and entry to the court room was restricted by the police. Only the accused, those giving sureties, Jaitley and lawyers appearing in the matter along with six journalists were allowed to enter the court room.

The court had on March 9 directed Kejriwal and the five other AAP leaders to appear before it today while noting that allegations were “derogatory” and amounted to “slander and libel”.

The court had observed that the allegations levelled by them against Jaitley were “not only insulting but jeeringly taunting and provocative” and had summoned all the six accused for alleged offences under section 500 (defamation) of the IPC read with section 34 (common intention) the IPC.

Jaitley had filed a criminal defamation complaint alleging that Kejriwal and these five AAP leaders had allegedly defamed him in Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) controversy.

The court, while summoning the accused, had referred to the statements and Facebook and Twitter posts of the accused, and said, “The statements have exposed the complainant (Jaitley) to ridicule, hatred and contempt amongst the right- thinking members of the society and lowered his reputation.”

The court had noted that Jaitley, through the testimony of witnesses, has proved on record that while he was President of DDCA, “the accounts were duly audited/approved by AGM” and were submitted with the taxation authorities.

In his complaint, Jaitley had alleged that Kejriwal and others had made defamatory statements that he and his family had made pecuniary gains by associating with M/s 21st Century Media Pvt Ltd, a sports management firm.

On January 5, Jaitley had appeared in the court and said that Kejriwal and five AAP leaders had made “false and defamatory” statements. He had rejected the charge that he had siphoned off money from DDCA for his own benefit.

During recording of his statement, Jaitley had said that their statements against him and his family members lowered his dignity in the eyes of the public at large.

Jaitley, who was the DDCA President from December 1999 to December 2013, had said Kejriwal’s statement that he received money when the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium was constructed during his tenure as the DDCA Chief, was false as Board of Directors had constituted a committee to supervise the work and he was not a member of this supervisory committee.

Jaitley had on December 21, 2015 filed the criminal defamation case against them and sought their prosecution for offences that entail a punishment of upto two years in jail.

(Agencies)

WhatsApp expands encryption to protect messages

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Only sender and receiver will be able to access messages, photos, videos and voice calls besides text messages.

Whatsapp

by Al Jazeera

WhatsApp has reinforced the default encryption settings for users so that all messages will now be accessible only to the sender and recipient.

The popular service owned by Facebook, the social-media company, began applying “end-to-end” encryption to standard messages sent on Android smartphones in 2014.

The company says it is now using a powerful form of encryption to protect the security of photos, videos, group chats and voice calls in addition to the text messages sent by more than a billion users around the globe.

After gradually expanding to other formats, WhatsApp confirmed on Tuesday that the encryption now works with all forms of communication on its app for Android phones, Apple’s iPhones and other devices.

Encryption has become a hotly debated subject, with some US authorities warning that criminals and armed groups can use it to hide their tracks.

“WhatsApp has always prioritised making your data and communication as secure as possible,” a blog post by WhatsApp co-founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton said, announcing the change.

“And today, we’re proud to announce that we’ve completed a technological development that makes WhatsApp a leader in protecting your private communication: full end-to-end encryption.”

This means that “when you send a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to,” the statement said.

“No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us.”

However, while many advocates for more privacy welcomed the move, some still maintained that the meta-data – which records who is speaking to whom, as well as the date and time of the messages – can still be accessed.

Koum, who grew up in the Soviet Union, says he believes consumers should have easy-to-use encryption as protection against hackers and identity thieves, as well as “rogue” governments that spy on their own citizens.Aleppo became a divided city in 2012 after a rebel onslaught was met with resistance by the army.

WhatsApp’s use of encryption has already caused friction in Brazil, where authorities recently arrested and then released a Facebook Inc executive after the company said it was unable to unscramble a user’s encrypted messages.

“There is a lot of controversy surrounding this, but a lot of people want encryption for legitimate reasons – such as making business deals, [and] for personal health information,” Larry Magid, a cyber security analyst and the co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit which promotes secure digital communication, told Al Jazeera.

Google, Facebook and Yahoo use less extensive encryption to protect emails and messages while they are in transit, to prevent outsiders from eavesdropping.

Apple uses end-to-end encryption for its iMessage service, but some experts say WhatsApp’s method may be more secure because it provides a security code that senders and recipients can use to verify a message came from someone they know – and not from a hacker posing as a friend.

WhatsApp is reportedly involved in a court battle similar to the one involving Apple, which fought a federal effort to provide assistance in unlocking an iPhone used by one of the shooters in last year’s San Bernardino killing spree.

International peacekeepers ‘forced Central African Republic girls into sex with dog’

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French soldiers patrol a street in Bangui [AFP]

French soldiers patrol a street in Bangui [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

The United Nations announced 108 new sexual abuse cases allegedly by international peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) with the vast majority of victims being children.

A report by a US-based advocacy group said three girls in CAR told UN staff they were tied up and forced to have sex with a dog by a French military commander in 2014.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Thursday called the allegations “shocking to the core” and promised “exemplary disciplinary action” if they’re proven true.

France’s UN Ambassador Francois Delattre called the allegations “sickening and odious”.

The accusations, dating from 2013 through last year, were first announced by the group AIDS-Free World late on Wednesday.

Dujarric told reporters the UN can’t confirm the allegations involving the dog at this point, but investigations continue.

“This issue has been out there in the public for almost a year [but] the allegations keep on coming,” said Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from the United Nations in New York.

“People who were sent to protect the civilians are in fact becoming the perpetrators.”

A report published in late January condemned the UN for failing to respond to allegations of child abuse against peacekeepers in the Central African Republic.

The independent investigation said the UN’s handling of the case was “seriously flawed”, accusing it of not taking the required action after the alleged abuse of young boys by French soldiers became known.
AIDS-Free World said 98 girls in CAR reported being sexually abused between 2013 and 2015 by perpetrators who have left the country.

It also said information on the alleged rape of a 16-year-old girl by a Congolese peacekeeper only three days ago in a hotel room has been turned over to the United Nations.

The UN has been in the spotlight for months over dozens of allegations of child rape and other sexual abuses by its peacekeepers, especially those based in CAR, which has faced sectarian violence since 2013.

Similar allegations have surfaced against the French force known as Sangaris, which operates independently in the country.

“We must face the fact that a number of troops sent to protect people instead acted with hearts of darkness,” Dujarric said.

The UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, in a statement called the allegations “sickening”.

He said all three countries whose peacekeepers are accused – Burundi, Gabon and France – have been formally notified.

Governments must do more to stop abuse and hold their troops accountable, “otherwise this awful cycle of abuse will never end”, Hussein said.

Gunman captured after shooting at US Capitol complex

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White House briefly put on lockdown after reports of gunshots in the Capitol Visitors Center.

The shooting occurred in the visitors' centre of the sprawling Capitol complex [Yuri Gripas/Reuters]

The shooting occurred in the visitors’ centre of the sprawling Capitol complex [Yuri Gripas/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

A suspected gunman was wounded in a shooting on Monday on the US Capitol grounds and taken to hospital, police and congressional sources said.

The shooting occurred in the visitors’ centre of the sprawling Capitol Complex. The White House was briefly put on lockdown, but that was soon lifted.

Police shot the suspect after he pulled a weapon at a US Capitol checkpoint and a female bystander sustained non-life-threatening injuries, the Associated Press reported.

Speaking to reporters after the incident, Capitol Chief of Police Matthew R Verderosa said the suspect was known to officers.

“We do believe this is an act of a single person who has frequented the Capitol grounds before and there is no reason to believe that this is anything more than a criminal act,” Verderosa said.

Initial reports said a police officer sustained minor injuries, but later reports from Capitol officials indicated there was no injury to any law enforcement officers.

The event unfolded with Congress on recess and politicians back in their districts.

FBI breaks into iPhone of dead San Bernadino shooter

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US investigators use technique without Apple’s help to hack into phone of dead gunman behind mass California shooting.

fbi-iphone

by Al Jazeera

The FBI says it has successfully used a technique without Apple’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California.

Monday’s announcement effectively ended a pitched court battle between the Obama administration and one of the world’s leading technology companies.

The government asked a federal judge to vacate a disputed order forcing Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying it was no longer necessary.

The court filing in US District Court for the Central District of California provided no details about how the FBI did it or who showed it how.

The FBI is reviewing the information on the iPhone, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The case drew international attention and highlighted a growing friction between government authorities and the tech industry.

Apple and other tech companies have said they feel increasing need to protect their customers’ data from hackers and unfriendly intruders. But the police and other government authorities have warned that encryption and other data-protection measures are making it more difficult for investigators to track criminals and dangerous extremists.

“From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a back door into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent,” Apple said in a statement.

“As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.”

The brief court notice left important questions unanswered: Who showed the FBI how to break into iPhones? How did the government bypass the security features that Apple has invested millions of dollars to build into its flagship product? Are newer iPhones vulnerable to the same hacking technique?

“With this vulnerability in existence, people that have a similar version of iPhone are at risk of attacks from malicious people that could use the same vulnerability,” Drew Mitnick, a Policy Counsel at Access Now, told Al Jazeera.

“[Following the hacking], there is at least a moral obligation on behalf of the FBI to close the vulnerability.”

The surprise development also punctured the temporary perception that Apple’s security might have been good enough to keep consumers’ personal information safe even from the US government – with the tremendous resources it can expend when it wants to uncover something.

The FBI used the technique to access data on an iPhone used by gunman Syed Farook, who died with his wife in a gun battle with police after they killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December.

The iPhone, a work phone issued to Farook by his employer, the county health department, was found in a vehicle the day after the shooting; two personal phones were found destroyed so completely that the FBI couldn’t recover information from them.

US magistrate Sheri Pym of California last month ordered Apple to provide the FBI with software to help it hack into Farook’s work-issued iPhone.

The order touched off a debate pitting digital privacy rights against national security concerns.

“People often have a sense that they are being surveilled by the government and it tends to limit their ability to express themselves,” Mitnick added.

“The mere possibility that the government is surveilling is a limitation on freedom of expression.”

Muslim teacher among dead in Brussels attack

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Students and teachers mourn the loss of Loubna Lafquiri, a young mother of three, after she was killed on the metro.

Loubna Lafquiri

by Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera

A popular teacher who worked at an Islamic school in Brussels was among those killed in the Brussels attacks.

Teachers and students have been mourning the loss of Loubna Lafquiri, a young mother of three, after the confirmation of her death.

They had been fearing the news since Tuesday, the day of the attacks, when she did not show up to work. She had been travelling via the metro.

Coordinated attacks on the Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station in the Belgian capital left 31 people dead, and were claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

“We can’t be anything but angry and reject the beliefs of these people who claim to be Muslims,” said Mohamed Allaf, secretary-general of the Muslim Schools Association. “There is no religion in the world that advocates killing human beings.”

The gym teacher’s students have been encouraged to express themselves in drawings, poems and messages. Other teachers said they hoped this would help the children to come to terms with their loss.

In mosques across Brussels, talk of the attacks has dominated Friday prayers. Muslims have been thinking about their place in Belgian society and they are worried about the future.

Khadija Zamouri, a Muslim parliamentarian in Brussels, said her children are beginning to ask questions about their faith.

“I hear … from my own children. It’s like, ‘Can we still say that we are Muslim? Shouldn’t we be secret about it? Can we say Allahu Akhbar?’ It’s like everything to do with religion has become contaminated,” she told Al Jazeera.

The victims of the attacks came from several countries, including the US, UK, India, Morocco, Peru and China.

Explosions heard as Belgian police carry new major raid

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State broadcaster says at least one man “neutralised” during the new raid in Schaerbeek neighbourhood of Brussels.

Brussels

by Al Jazeera

Armed police have launched a major new raid in Brussels in the wake of the suicide attacks in the capital, Belgian media reported, a day after six suspects were arrestedover the carnage.

Two explosions were heard at the start of the operation in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek on Friday, and a man had been “neutralised”, according to the RTBF state broadcaster, but there was no immediate confirmation by officials.

Suicide bombers hit the Brussels airport and a metro train on Tuesday, killing 31 people and wounding at least 270 in the worst such attack in Belgian history.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which claimed responsibility for the Brussels bombings, also took credit for coordinated attacks in Paris in November which killed 130 people.

UN judges to announce Radovan Karadzic genocide verdict

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Former Bosnian Serb leader to hear verdicts on 11 charges, including over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Karadzic is accused of orchestrating the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslims [File: Michael Kooren/EPA]

Karadzic is accused of orchestrating the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslims [File: Michael Kooren/EPA]

by Al Jazeera

UN judges are set to pronounce their verdict in the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

Karadzic is the highest-ranking person to face reckoning before the UN tribunal in The Hague over a war two decades ago in which 100,000 people were killed as rival armies carved up Bosnia along ethnic lines.

He will hear verdicts on Thursday afternoon on 11 charges, including two counts of genocide.

He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Hours ahead of the reading of the verdicts, a former prosecution spokeswoman for the tribunal was detained by court police.

Florence Hartmann, who served under the Swiss former prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, was convicted of contempt of court by the tribunal in 2009 for publishing confidential material from the trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

The French national was initially fined 7,000 euros, but the fine was later converted to a seven-day prison sentence, which she is not believed to have served.

Protesting his innocence

Karadzic protested his innocence in a rare interview published by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network on Wednesday.

“I know what I wanted, what I did, even what I dreamed of, and there is no reasonable court that would convict me,” he told the website in an email interview.

Karadzic is accused of orchestrating the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims after Serb forces seized the UN’s Srebrenica “safe area” in eastern Bosnia.

“The unnecessary killing of a single man is horrifying, let alone certainly several hundred at least… Those who did it are the enemies of the Serbs first, then enemies of those families, then of the Muslim community,” Karadzic said.

 

To Bosnian Muslims and Croats, Karadzic – who also faces charges over the shooting of civilians in Sarajevo, capital of the former Yugoslavia – is synonymous with war, death and destruction.

Bosnian Serbs, however, view him as a national hero who created a Serb Republic – a state within a state, which survived under the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.

Such sentiments are widely shared across the border in Serbia.

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