GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The groundwork is being laid in the media by the New York Times for the sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be dropped, with the newspaper reporting 30 June that the prosecuting attorney no longer believes the victim’s story. DSK, as he is widely known in France, will appear in a New York court for a bail modification hearing today, 1 July.
“The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials”, the newspaper front-page article says. The prosecutors, it adds, “now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself”, although the source appears to be a law enforcement official rather than the prosecutors. The official says bluntly that the woman has lied on several occasions, in particular about her asylum application and “possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering”.
The article then speculates about the possible implications for Strauss-Kahn being freed and charges being dropped.
ABC News in the US says it has confirmed the information published by the New York Times.
The New York paper mentions that police found DNA evidence of sexual relations between the former IMF boss and the woman, a maid in the hotel where he was staying.
The possibility that the maid had lied has been part of media coverage since the story broke in May, with Business Insider 26 May pointing to media leaks as part of the defense and prosecution games that have been played in relation to the case.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A Swiss spokesman for the new State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF), Mario Tuor, has confirmed that Switzerland and the US have been holding “informal talks” to explore solutions to the problem of undeclared assets held by Americans in Swiss bank accounts, but he told Reuters Friday 10 June that many of the details appearing in the media jump the gun and can’t be confirmed.
The rumours have been flying for the past two days, with Reuters, Bloomberg and the New York Times vying for scoops and exclusive information and ultimately giving credence to the stories. The newspaper quotes three unnamed sources; US government officials leaked the information to the newspaper that the two countries were expected to come to an agreement in July: “As part of the agreement under discussion, known as a global resolution, US government agencies would invite the banks to pay a fine, exit their undeclared offshore banking businesses for Americans, and turn over client names to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Justice Department.” In exchange, says the paper, In exchange, “the agencies would drop an ongoing investigation into the banks.”
US officials have often in the past used the New York Times to leak information and their position, in advance, on Swiss-US tax and financial discussions.
Tuor told Reuters that “the two sides had exchanged ideas but that he could not confirm the July date, whether the two sides were eyeing a multi-bank solution, or any other details mentioned” in an article published Thursday by Reuters. “‘There were several sets of talks, one of which was on the sidelines of the IMF’s spring meeting and was about the Fatca, though ideas were also exchanged about finding a solution for the past,’” Tuor told the news agency.
Fatca is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act adopted by the US at the end of 2010, which goes into effect in 2013, and which will require non-US banks to provide the US with considerable data on the accounts of Americans and foreigners with US assets. The goal is to catch people who are illegally avoiding pay US tax.
A side effect of the US adopting Fatca, however, has been a growing reluctance on the part of banks in Switzerland in particular, but also banks elsewhere, to keep US citizens or foreign residents in the US as clients. Some accounts have been closed, creating a string of financial management problems for people who are not hiding from the IRS.
The New York Times in the US and the Guardian in the UK have put on the table an extraordinary set of leaked Guantánamo bay military prison documents they say are not from Wikileaks. The publication of the files on the prisoners have prompted a stiff criticism from the US government, which appears to believe that the information was provided by Wikileaks (more on the source, Guardian). Wikileaks also published the information, including some material edited out by the NY Times and the Guardian. Media reactions have ranged from Huffington Post’s rummage through the who-posted-what-when look at media to a total eclipse on Fox News, which by midnight Sunday New York time did not even mention the published files on its home page.
Links to other sites: Guardian, New York Times, NPR, Wikileaks
Geneva, Switzerland, (GenevaLunch) - Wikileaks, the controversial whistleblowing site that has been embarrassing and annoying governments around the world, has a series of new web addresses, including wikileaks.ch and other international ones. Its earlier domain name providers withdrew its name following massive hacker attacks on their sites. The Swiss Pirate Party, which campaigns for internet freedom, said that they had registered the address. The Swiss host, Switch, has so far resisted calls to drive the site off-line. Firms such as Amazon and eBay, which owns PayPal, have reportedly ended their links.
Wikileaks has been widely criticized, especially by Hillary Clinton, following the publication of US embassy cables in newspapers, including The New York Times and The Guardian.
Links to other sites: Swissinfo, NY Times, The Guardian
“A huge cache of secret US military documents” is how the Guardian describes the “war logs” released to it, the New York Times and Der Spiegel by WikiLeaks.
The British newspaper details much of the material in the 90,000 documents obtained by the whistleblowers’ web site, six years of unpublished archives, citing previously unreported civilian deaths and generally damning the war in Afghanistan, calling it a “failing” effort.
The New York Times, however, while making it front page news, does not run it as the lead story and has a less sensational headline of “View is more bleak than official story”, writing that “Some 92,000 reports from 2004 through 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks.org, illustrate why, after nine years of war, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.”
The US newspaper states that “Over all, the documents do not contradict official accounts of the war. But in some cases the documents show that the American military made misleading public statements — attributing the downing of a helicopter to conventional weapons instead of heat-seeking missiles or giving Afghans credit for missions carried out by Special Operations commandos.”
The White House reacted strongly to the publication of the material: “We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. WikiLeaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who cooperate with us.”
The Guardian, however, says that “the reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war. Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets.”
WikiLeaks has led a cat and mouse game with authorities in various countries over its leaked materials, and it has struggled to raise funds despite winning several new media awards.
Wikipedia describes the organization behind it: “Wikileaks is an amorphous, international organization, originally based in Sweden,[1] that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.[2] The organization has stated it was founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[3] Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director.[4]
US officials have told the New York Times that Afghanistan contains huge reserves of several minerals, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and “critical industrial metals like lithium”. The US Geological Survey began carrying out studies in 2006, working with the US military and using old Russian maps and have found evidence of enough veins to make Afghanistan, which now has an annual GDP of $12 billion, a wealthy nation, potentially one of the world’s largest mining centres. The lengthy article reviews the good that could come from the economy getting a boost, but also the potential problems that could arise from the discoveries, such as worse corruption in a country already troubled by it and increased tension if “resources-hungry” China makes a bid to obtain the minerals.
The New York Times in a hard-hitting weekend article lashed out at Goldman Sachs and suggested that the bank should forget about employee bonuses and make a major donation to the US government. It points out that while the bank has repaid $10 billion, it owes taxpayers far more than that, and it calls the $16 billion the bank is planning to pay its workers to be rejigged: “A multibillion-dollar gift to the federal Bureau of the Public Debt, which accepts tax-deductible donations to reduce the national debt. The donation can come from the bonuses; that way, it would not harm shareholders, because they only get their cut after the bonuses are paid.”
Links to other sites: New York Times opinion page, Reuters
Health care debate (cartoon: © 2009 Patrick Chappatte)
New York, USA (GenevaLunch) – Economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times (registration required) 17 August says of President Barack Obama’s proposed health plan that “it most resembles the system in Switzerland.” More pointedly, he says that unlike what many, including Fox News, would like the public to believe, the plan will not turn the US into a Soviet Union or a distorted version of Britain, but rather: “the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland – which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.”
Obamacare, he says, “is a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.”
Krugman has pointed to this similarity several times recently, prompting debate over how well the US could adopt the Swiss mandatory and well-regulated but largely private system, but facts about the Swiss system are few on the ground in the US debate.
US research on the dangers of driving while using a cell phone are finally coming to light, six years after a federal agency in the US decided not to publish them, in 2003, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opted not to do further research, reports the New York Times, which is making the full report available on its web site after two consumer groups, led by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, publish it 21 July. The data was withheld, it appears, largely out of concern over angering Congress, in an American-style state versus federal power lawmaking clash.
Washington, DC (GenevaLunch) - The US Justice Department has e-mailed major US media to deny a story that appeared 23 June in the New York Times, calling the report that the government plans to drop a lawsuit again Swiss bank UBS “simply untrue.”
New York, USA (GenevaLunch) – Charges dating back to 2002 against a number of companies who are accused of helping the old South African government to maintain apartheid can go ahead, a judged in New York ruled Thursday 9 April, but charges were dropped against Swiss bank UBS and Barclays of the UK, as well as electronics company Fujitsu. The judge dismissed charges against them, saying, “Corporate defendants accused of merely doing business with the apartheid government of South Africa have been dismissed.”
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Raoul Weil, UBS head of Global Wealth Management & Business Banking who temporarily resigned from his job in November 2008 has been declared a fugitive from justice by a judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after he failed to appear in court there.
Weil’s lawyers in New York have called fraud charges and the latest move “unjustifiable,” TSR reports. The designation is not likely to have an immediate impact on Weil’s direct participation in the US investigation because Switzerland, like most European countries, does not extradite its own citizens. The Swiss Justice Department Wednesday would not say if a request for Weil’s extradition had been made by American authorities. Ed. note: countries with Anglosaxon legal systems, including the US, will extradite their own citizens under the terms of some treaties, but the process can be long and complex.
Weil resigned from his job in November for the duration of the investigation. The bank has not commented publicly on his new fugitive status.
Read more…
Updated 08:50 Zurich, Switzerland (Sonntag, Ger and TSR, Fre) – The German weekly Sonntag says unnamed sources believe UBS will show a 2008 loss of CHF20 billion when it reports final figures for the year 10 February. If confirmed – and a bank spokesperson says the figure is only “speculative,” it would be the largest annual loss by a company in Switzerland.
Government prosecutors in New York, USA, Monday asked that Bernard Madoff be sent to jail rather than remain free on $10 million bond, saying he is a flight risk after sending gifts of jewelry worth $1 million to family and friends last month. His attorneys argue that his wife tried to recover the valuables once the couple talked to attorneys and realized this could be seen as a violation of bail terms. A judge will rule on the bail case Wednesday but in the meantime Madoff’s attorney now says he never said his client was cooperating with government officials – and the New York Times story is more guarded in its language than it has been about Madoff, “who is said to have confessed to a huge Ponzi scheme.”
The NY Times and International Herald Tribune carry a story about European banks tallying their losses from the Madoff scandal, saying “the size of the scheme calls into question why other big reputable banks in Spain, Britain and especially Switzerland, the world’s premier wealth haven, failed to spot the risks.” The article details some of these losses elsewhere in Europe but for Switzerland says only that the affair is front page news in Geneva, and it points to two losses in Switzerland, one at an arm of Spanish Bank Santander, Optimal Investment Services of Geneva, and the other at Union Bancaire Privée. The last sentence of the long article is a quote from Swiss Bankers Association spokesman James Nason, “”Like the rest of the world, we are scratching our heads, wondering how on earth the SEC and top auditing companies could have had the wool pulled over their eyes for so many years.”
