Germany parries Greek handbill over Nazi function

BERLIN Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:00am EST

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Wednesday rejected Greek accusations that Berlin had failed to properly compensate Greece for Nazi occupation in World War Two, saying it had provided billions of euros worth of aid.

World&&&&Germany

In a radio interview, Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos criticized Germany"s attitude toward the Greek debt crisis and said Athens had never received adequate compensation for the impact of Nazi Germany"s invasion of Greece in 1941.

"They took away the Greek gold that was at the Bank of Greece, they took away the Greek money and they never gave it back. This is an issue that has to be faced sometime in the future," he told the BBC World Service radio.

"I don"t say they have to give back the money necessarily but they have at least to say "thanks"," he added.

The German foreign ministry dismissed the remarks and said bringing up the past would not help Greece solve its problems.

"I must reject these accusations," ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke said.

Germany had paid compensation to Greece of some 115 million deutschemarks by 1960 and made further payments to forced laborers of the Nazi regime, he said.

"Finally, I"d like to mention that parallel to this, since 1960 Germany has paid around 33 billion deutschemarks in aid to Greece both bilaterally and in the context of the EU," he said.

Germans got roughly one euro for two deutschemarks when the single European currency was adopted in notes and coins in 2002.

"A discussion about the past is not helpful at all to solve the problems...facing us in Europe today," Peschke said.

Greece is under mounting pressure from markets and EU policymakers to slash its large debt and deficit.

It must prove to Brussels by mid-March that it can meet its ambitious targets to cut the budget shortfall by 4 percent of gross domestic product this year to 8.7 percent.

Greek politicians have been outraged by coverage of the debt crisis in German media, like a front-page picture in magazine Focus of a "Venus de Milo"-type statue making an obscene finger gesture with the headline "Swindlers in the euro zone."

Pangalos also said Italy had done more than Greece to mask the state of its finances to secure euro zone entry.

The European Union has asked Greece to explain reports that it engaged in derivatives trades with U.S. investment banks that may have allowed it to mask the size of its debt and deficit from EU authorities ahead of its entry into the euro zone.

"You simply put some amounts of money in the next year ... it is what everybody did and Greece did it to a lesser extent than Italy for example," Pangalos said.

World Germany

British directors arrested in temptation inquiry

Alex Spence, Robert Lea and Robert Lindsay & , : {}

A leading industrial executive who was at the heart of conflict with unions over foreign workers was arrested in a dawn raid yesterday on suspicion of bribing officials to win contracts abroad.

Stephen Burgin and two fellow directors of the French transport and infrastructure group Alstom were questioned after being held in raids co-ordinated by the Serious Fraud Office.

Alstom confirmed that Mr Burgin, 52, preside nt of the groups UK division, Robert Purcell, 44, UK finance director, and Altan Cledwyn-Davies, 51, its UK legal director and company secretary, were questioned at police stations before being released without charge last night.

The SFO said that the raids on nine residential and company premises were in connection with an investigation into Alstoms UK subsidiaries. It is suspected that bribes have been paid in order to win contracts overseas, and that this has involved associated money laundering and other offences, the agency said.

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The three men could not be reached for comment, but Alstom said the company was co-operating with the SFOs inquiries.

Mr Burgin, who lives in Staffordshire, is one of Britains leading power industry executives. He has been overseeing the construction of four new gas-fired power stations at Pembroke in South Wales, Langage in Devon, the Isle of Grain in north Kent and at Staythorpe in Nottinghamshire.

He has also been at the centre of a major row with unions for allegedly shipping in cheap foreign labour to build the power stations. There have been strikes, picketing, walkouts and marches at each of the four plants as the Unite union has targeted Alstom and Mr Burgin for allegedly refusing to recruit British workers.

Mr Burgin has said that he has created jobs for Britons and that two thirds of the hundreds of workers at the sites were British, although he also conceded: Alstom has no say over European Union employment law.

His standing in his native Stoke saw Mr Burgin appointed chairman of the governors of Staffordshire University, where he earned his degree in electrical engineering before joining GEC in 1975. Alstom was created by a merger between GEC and Alcatel. Mr Burgin has also been an executive for the British operations of the European engineering giants ABB and Areva.

The SFO declined to give details of the countries in which Alstoms British subsidiaries were under suspicion.

Alstom is the subject of a separate investigation in Switzerland into alleged corruption. The company has been accused of funnelling millions of dollars worth of bribes to government officials in Asia and South America to win contracts for rail and power projects between 1995 and 2003.

Stephane Farhi, a spokesman at Alstoms head office in Paris, said that its premises in Switzerland and France had been raided by authorities in 2008. Four individuals were questioned but none was facing charges, Mr Farhi said.

Yesterdays raid, codenamed Operation Ruthenium, involved 109 staff from the SFO and 44 police. They executed search warrants on company premises in five locations, including London and Rugby, and on homes in Leicestershire, London, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Richard Alderman, the SFOs director, said that the move was a sign of how seriously the agency regarded tackling corporate corruption. The agency has brought several high-profile prosecutions for overseas bribery in the past year.

Alstom is best-known for making high-speed trains but its power business is much larger. Building turbines for electricity generating stations and maintaining power plant around the world accounts for 70 per cent of its near-€19 billion of annual sales. The company is working on gas and hydro plants in Brazil and Asia, and on nuclear power stations in China.

Plea deal with BAE

A plea deal between the Serious Fraud Office and BAE Systems will go ahead after a legal challenge by anti-arms campaigners was rejected by the High Court. Corner House, a social justice group, and Campaign Against Arms Trade asked the court to block the settlement, under which BAE agreed to a single guilty plea to a minor accounting offence relating to the sale of an air traffic control system to Tanzania. BAE agreed to pay a 30 million fine, but campaigners have protested that the penalty does not reflect the seriousness of the allegations against the company. They asked for the decision to settle the case to be reviewed, but Mr Justice Collins denied the application.

Lib Dem claimant Anna Arrowsmith aims to go from porn to Parliament

Suzy Jagger, Politics & Business Correspondent & , : {}

The Liberal Democrats have comparison a racy film-maker as their parliamentary claimant for Gravesham in Kent.

Anna Arrowsmith, who is the handling executive of Easy on the Eye Productions, was comparison by subdivision members on Wednesday evening. Mrs Arrowsmith, who functions underneath the pen name of Anna Span, was the usually Lib Dem claimant presented to the subdivision for selection.

The Conservatives narrowly won the chair in the 2005 ubiquitous choosing with a infancy of 654 over Labour. The Liberal Democrats were in third place with roughly eleven per cent of the vote.

Mrs Arrowsmith, 38, proposed sharpened porn drive-in theatre after she graduated from art college in London. Films constructed by her association embody Hoxton Honey, Southwark Sugar and Hand of the Law. Her website asks viewers: Are you wearied of the same old porn?

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She pronounced that she had been spurred to run for Parliament since of the MPs losses liaison and a idea that women were under-represented in Parliament. I am not campaigning on interest of my old industry, she said. I am campaigning on interest of the people in the Gravesham area. When people get to see me, they will realize that I am used to plan handling and that I am driven to grasp shift rather than only earnest it.

A orator for Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, pronounced yesterday: Mrs Arrowsmiths pursuit isnt everybodys crater of tea, but it is not bootleg and we acquire and apply oneself people from opposite backgrounds.

A part of of the Gravesham Liberal Democrat subdivision bureau told The Times: The incident was that [our former candidate] stepped down at the last minute. We didnt have time to go by the correct process. The South East Region [of the party] asked us if we would take her and we did.

She met with the cabinet and we are all really gratified with her. She is a really pleasing person. What she does for a vital is not an barrier as far as we are concerned.

Baroness Williams of Crosby, the Liberal Democrat counterpart who as a Home Office apportion was obliged for statute on either adult magazines should be prosecuted underneath the trash law, declined to criticism on Mrs Arrowsmiths candidacy.

Ann Widdecombe, the Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald, who is station down at the subsequent election, pronounced however: It is wholly inapt that someone concerned in that sort of commercial operation should be a candidate, but it is up to the Liberal Democrats. Ultimately, it is up to the citizens to pass judgment.

On her Twitter site, Mrs Arrowsmith, who is tied together and lives nearby Tunbridge Wells, wrote: From the adult industry! From porn to Parliament, here I come!

Mrs Arrowsmith told The Times that she has built a career creation adult movies for women and for couples. She pronounced that when she was a teen she felt depressed that mens sexuality was entirely catered for but that women were neglected.

The businesswoman, who has never starred in a porn movie herself, pronounced that her drive-in theatre had a good understanding of humour, a little of that resembled EastEnders with sex.

Mrs Arrowsmith is penetrating to debate on womens issues, the young, and the make use of of antidepressants. She said: I lived on a legislature estate in Bermondsey for a couple of years and you could see immature people only unresolved around. They were only so bored.

Mrs Arrowsmith has been a part of of the Liberal Democrat celebration for a year and voted for it for five years after branch her at the back of on Labour over the Iraq war.

The eh? list. Candidates with a charming past

• In 2005 Marina Pepper, a former glorious indication who once acted for Playboy, contested Brighton Kemptown for the Liberal Democrats. She was third, winning 16.5 per cent of the votes.

• In 2005 a former prostitute oneself was supposed on to the Labour shortlist for the chair of Copeland, Cumbria. But when Christine Wheatley, afterwards 53, told a internal journal of her story as a Parisian sex-worker, she was soon dropped.

• A former stone star who was once kicked off a debate by the glam rocker Alice Cooper for being as well uncanny was selected by the Scottish Nationalist Party to mount in Tayside North. Pete Wishart, who was once a part of of the rope Big Country, won the chair in the 2001 choosing and is right away the SNPs arch whip.

• A transsexual barrister stood 4 times as a claimant for the SNP, initial as a man, afterwards a woman. But Alexandra MacRae, before well known as Stephen Rae, was forced to leave her domestic aspirations at the back of when she was locked up in 2001 for embezzling scarcely 100,000 from an aged womans estate.

• A convicted cyber-stalker locked up for badgering his ex-girlfriend ran in 2005 for the Shropshire chair of Shrewsbury and Atcham. Nigel Harris stood for World, a worldwide online participatory democracy696011. He won 84 votes.

hair wig

Israelis pour out to stick on Mossad after Mahmoud al-Mabhouh killing

Sheera Frenkel, Jerusalem & , : {}

Would you be rebuilt to cross-dress? And kill a guest in an diagonally opposite road house room? If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, and you can additionally act, suffer oppulance general transport with a turn and can lift off a credible Irish or Australian accent, afterwards the pursuit could be yours.

The Israeli view group Mossad might be the aim of general scolding since it allegedly killed the Hamas personality Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai road house this month, but at home rising sum of the operation have generated Mossad mania.

It has never been some-more renouned in Israel, with stores offered out of Mossad memorabilia and the central website stating a mountainous series of visitors meddlesome in requesting to turn agents. Mossad has been easy to the excellence days, pronounced Ilan Mizrahi, a former emissary executive of the agency, that is located in the abundant beach locale of Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

Israel has conjunction reliable nor denied the impasse in Mr al-Mabhouhs genocide notwithstanding increasingly assured announcements by Dubai military that they have related Mossad to the killing. Of the twenty-eight suspects named, eleven share identities with Israelis who hold twin citizenship.

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Governments opposite the universe are lambasting Israel for what it considers a messy pursuit finished by agents who were held on CCTV and might have left at the back of DNA. In Israel, the operation is being touted as a pursuit well done. Israelis are deliberating the murdering with a wink, a nod, and honour in the agency, offically well known as the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.

Opticians have reported a climb in sales of the horn-rimmed eyeglasses in the character ragged by fourteen of the twenty-six suspects, T-shirts with Mossad logos are offered out at stores and the group has experienced a inundate of applicants.

Although no new jobs have been posted for half a year, a new matter on the Mossad website reads: You have an event to emanate a new being where you can fool around the heading role. If you retain comprehension and sophistication, you can have a disproportion and do a inhabitant mission. If you can engage, appeal and change people you might have the qualities we are seeking for.

Elad, 21, had been forgetful of fasten Mossad for years, but filed an focus this week, the headlines site Ynet reported. I ran to a computer and practical for a job, Elad told Ynet. Ive regularly had a mental condition to work for the Mossad. Its viewable because the exciting, dangerous and special. Nobody unequivocally knows what people do there, and right away I unexpected assimilate how it works. Its cool. I goal they accept me. I think I have all the compulsory skills.

The Mossad website says that possibilities contingency hold an educational grade and great authority of at slightest dual languages. Preference is since to people with experience abroad and an capability to proceed work immediately.

If the reports by Dubai military are correct, the gangland slaying and notice group of scarcely thirty agents so far unprotected would paint a sizeable series of Mossad agents who would no longer be means to rivet in growth espionage.

Photographs of the purported assassins have been published opposite the universe and complicated by a series of governments.

An exploration by Haaretz journal voiced this week that the photographs were doctored so that the agents could not be identified. Details such as eye colour or contours of the nose and lips were changed somewhat to have it formidable for facial approval program to brand the individuals, Haaretz said.

hair wig

AIG to separate Fed debt with Middle East sale

Christine Seib in New York & , : {}

American International Group (AIG) will some-more than separate the debt to the Federal Reserve with the $35.5 billion sale of American International Assurance (AIA) to Prudential.

The uneasy insurer, that survived the 2008 credit break with a $182.3 billion bailout from taxpayers, pronounced that it would have make use of of the $25 billion income member of the squeeze cost to rught away compensate off a large cube of the $48 billion borrowing from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY).

AIG plans to sell the $10.5 billion in Pru equity, equity-linked bonds and welfare shares it will get from the understanding as shortly as the lock-up duration ended, and have make use of of the income lifted to have serve repayments to the Fed. It did not mention the conditions of the lock-up.

The AIA sale dwarfs alternative disposals done by the insurer in sequence to compensate off the debt to the US Government, together with the $2.1 billion sale of Nan Shan, the Taiwanese hold up insurer, and the $1.9 billion sale of 21st Century Insurance Group, a US automobile insurer.

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If a understanding goes by to sell an additional cherished asset, American Life Insurance Company (Alico), for as most as $15 billion, AIG will be median to the aim of profitable off scarcely $100 billion of the income it borrowed from taxpayers.

AIG has drawn down about $130 billion of the $182.3 billion the Government set in reserve for the bailout, together with roughly $48 billion from the FRBNY and $47.3 billion from the Treasury.

Robert Benmosche, AIGs new arch executive, has vowed to compensate off about $97 billion of the $130 billion debt as fast as possible.

Last Jun the insurer put AIA and Alico, a Delaware-based hold up word business, in to special role vehicles (SPVs), with the goal of offered or floating the companies when the marketplace improved.

The FRBNY perceived welfare shares in the SPVs worth about $25 billion. AIG additionally has a $23.4 billion credit line superb with the FRBNY.

AIG pronounced currently that $16 billion of the $25 billion lifted from the AIA sale would compensate off the FRBNY for the worth of the interest in AIAs SPV, withdrawal only $9 billion that will be repaid when Alico is sold.

The superfluous $9 billion income from the AIA understanding will revoke the insurers credit line with the FRBNY to about $14.4 billion.

Once AIGs Pru batch land are sold, the income will be used to compensate off even some-more of the credit line, slicing it to nearby $4 billion.

Britain stairs resolutely out of retrogression as expansion is revised up to 0.3%

Francesca Steele, Gr�inne Gilmore & , : {}

Britain emerged from retrogression some-more strongly than formerly estimated in the fourth entertain of last year, total showed today, but interpretation additionally referred to that the downturn was deeper than primary forecasts suggested.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) pronounced that British GDP grew by 0.3 per cent in the last 3 months of 2009, revised up from the primary guess of 0.1 per cent.

The climb will be seen as a progress to Labour prior to the ubiquitous election.

However, downward revisions to alternative GDP interpretation in prior buliding prove that outlay plunged by 6.2 per cent since the retrogression began in Apr 2008, rather than the 6 per cent formerly estimated.

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GDP in the fourth entertain forsaken by 3.3 per cent on an annual basis, compared with the strange foresee of 3.2 per cent.

Analysts warned that the revised interpretation for the last 3 months of 2009 was not sufficient to vigilance that the UK economy was out of the woods, and that GDP expansion could lose movement in the initial entertain of this year.

Colin Ellis, European economist at Daiwa Capital Markets, said: "The interpretation could well have one big repercussion. Given the expected proxy progress to expansion in the last quarter, GDP in the initial entertain of this year could be weak, generally since the bad continue in January.

That equates to that April"s rough GDP interpretation for the initial entertain could show a weakening in mercantile growth, rather than a strengthening."

He added: "With a ubiquitous choosing due by June, now, or might be only after the Budget, might be the most appropriate time for the Government to go to the voters, at slightest in mercantile terms."

Howard Archer, arch UK and European economist of IHS Global Insight, said: "Modestly stronger GDP expansion at the finish of 2009 gives the economy a small firmer substructure for liberation in 2010.

Nevertheless, it is far as well shortly to call the mercantile all-clear as critical mercantile and monetary obstacles sojourn in the approach of sustainable, decent growth.

"Consequently, we think that liberation will be light and disposed to relapses.

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Hamid Karzai takes carry out of Afghanistan choosing watchdog World headlines

Hamid Karzai"s preference to take carry out of Afghanistan"s Electoral Complaints Commission is being seen as giving "two fingers" to horse opera sponsors. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has unilaterally taken carry out of the country"s tip electoral watchdog, inspiring snub from horse opera diplomats, the Guardian has learnt.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), that forced Karzai in to a runoff choosing after it unfit scarcely 1m fake votes in last year"s presidential election, formerly enclosed 3 unfamiliar experts declared by the UN.

However, according to a new presidential direct published today, Karzai will have the disdainful energy to designate all five row members.

His preference to "Afghanise" the ECC came whilst council was in recess.

It annoyed a repelled greeting from horse opera diplomats, who fright parliamentary elections – due to take place in 6 months – will be fatally undermined by a repeat of last year"s electoral fraud.

Such an result would not usually fall short the credit of parliament, it would additionally be a serve daze to general efforts to pull behind the Taliban and set up renouned certainty in the Afghan government.

One unfamiliar choosing consultant described the direct as a "stunning" development.

A horse opera shrewd person pronounced Karzai had since "two fingers" to the horse opera donors who had pumped millions of dollars in to substantiating approved elections in the country.

He pronounced the Afghan boss was utilizing his energy to have laws whilst council was not sitting in sequence to get absolved of the 3 UN-appointed foreigners who had dominated the five-member ECC.

The commission"s Canadian authority and his dual non-Afghan colleagues were instrumental in perfectionist an review in to drawn out rascal during the choosing last summer.

Karzai was nude of 954,526 votes and forced to accept a second turn of choosing by casting votes after the ECC"s involvement left him short of the infancy he indispensable to win outright.

Karzai has never supposed possibly the ECC"s outcome or that there was drawn out fraud, instead blaming foreigners for "defaming" the process.

Abdullah Abdullah, the runner-up in the presidential election, pronounced the participation of unfamiliar commissioners last year was the usually thing that prevented the nation descending in to "absolute turmoil".

He told the Guardian: "It is a step retrograde and it has to be challenged by council and the general community.

"If we are left with this incident as it is today, it could severely imperil the efforts being done on the troops front."The choosing direct additionally does zero to residence unfamiliar concerns about the Independent Election Commission, the Afghan organization charged with using the vote.

Western diplomats in jeopardy to repel appropriation if the commission was not overhauled and the authority – heavily criticised for being inequitable towards Karzai – replaced.

Karzai has done no tip of his enterprise to "Afghanise" the membership of the ECC, but majority diplomats thought he would be incompetent to do so since the constitution says choosing law cannot be altered inside of a year of a inhabitant vote.

However, the house argues the constitution usually prevents council from becoming different electoral law whilst presidential decrees are not so constrained.

By the same logic, Karzai"s aides disagree that council would be incompetent to make make use of of the energy to plea the direct inside of thirty days of returning to work.

Diplomatic sources contend Kai Eide, the head of the UN in Afghanistan, had struck a in isolation understanding with Karzai underneath that he will make make use of of his new powers to designate at slightest dual foreigners to the choosing watchdog.

But that will meant Karzai"s Afghan appointees would hold the change of energy in the commission and be doubtful to plea his wishes.

In an additional growth expected to exasperate the president"s horse opera backers, he has defied US vigour to pass a apart direct to assistance quarrel corruption.

The disaster to pass the direct prior to council returned to work on Saturday equates to a key oath to order new anti-graft laws legislation by the finish of February, done by Karzai at the general discussion on Afghanistan in London last month, will roughly positively not be met.

The US hoped the direct would embody measures to make firm and give autonomy to the High Office of Oversight, an anti-graft physique set up last year that has been criticised for being overshadowed by the president, and additionally settle an general monitoring body.

It is right away intensely doubtful that council will pass the legislation in time, and authorised delays could hold it up indefinitely.