Turkish Forum

Category: UK

  • Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    By Noah Barkin Reuters

    BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany blamed the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis, saying the United States would lose its financial superpower status and have to accept greater market regulation.

    In unusually stark language, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament the financial crisis would leave “deep marks” and proposed eight measures to address it, including a ban on speculative short-selling and an increase in bank capital requirements to offset credit risks.

    “The world will never be as it was before the crisis,” Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bundestag lower house.

    “The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar,” he said.

    Steinbrueck lay the blame for the crisis squarely on the United States and what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.

    “Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up,” he said. “Wall Street will never be what it was.”

    The collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and financial woes of other financial institutions like insurer AIG has prompted the U.S. government to unveil a $700 billion rescue package for the country’s financial sector.

    Steinbrueck said it was neither necessary nor wise for Germany to replicate the U.S. plan for its own institutions.

    The German Bundesbank said earlier this week that the financial market turbulence would hit the earnings of Germany’s big commercial lenders, its publicly-owned Landesbanks and its cooperative banks.

    Tighter credit in the wake of the crisis could also constrain household consumption and corporate investment, increasing the likelihood the German economy will fall into recession this year.

    But Steinbrueck said German regulator Bafin believed German banks could cope with losses and ensure the safety of private savings.

    He said the crisis showed the need for a greater state role in setting the rules for markets and called the turmoil primarily an American problem.

    “The financial crisis is above all an American problem. The other G7 financial ministers in continental Europe share this opinion,” he said.

    “This system, which is to a large degree insufficiently regulated, is now collapsing — with far-reaching consequences for the U.S. financial market and considerable contagion effects for the rest of the world,” Steinbrueck added.

    (Reporting by Noah Barkin and Kerstin Gehmlich)

    Source: uk.news.yahoo.com, 24 September 2008

  • Detective Richard de Cadenet jailed for fraud using Scotland Yard card

    Detective Richard de Cadenet jailed for fraud using Scotland Yard card

    Officer took wife and mistress on holidays

    A leading antiterrorist police officer has been jailed for ten months after admitting using his Scotland Yard credit card to take his wife and mistress on luxury holidays.

    Detective Sergeant Richard de Cadenet is the first officer to be jailed as part of an investigation that led to the cancellation of more than 1,400 Metropolitan Police credit cards.

    The officer, who worked on a number of high-profile operations including the 7/7 attacks on London, was jailed yesterday by Southwark Crown Court. He admitted illicitly spending more than £73,000 on his corporate credit card during a 15-month period.

    The court heard that the 39-year-old officer, the son of Alain de Cadenet, the former racing driver, and the brother of Amanda de Cadenet, the television presenter, used the credit card in an attempt to buy “affection”.

    David Levy, for the prosecution, said that the exact amount of illicit expenditure by de Cadenet amounted to £73,669.18.

    He spent £6,452 on a holiday in Thailand and a further £9,000 on a trip to Mexico. The card was also used to pay for a box at a Premier League football ground in which de Cadenet’s estranged father had been entertained, along with others.

    A further £5,910 was spent in supermarkets, £3,500 on clothes, £3,000 on electrical goods and cash withdrawals of more than £18,000 were made. Only 28 of the 415 payments made by the card were legitimate, the court was told.

    Mr Levy said the policy that obtained at the time in the Metropolitan force had been for the cards to allow officers to pay for legitimate expenses such as hotel bills and travelling while working outside London.

    He said that officers were supposed to submit a monthly “reconciliation” of their expenditure to the Metropolitan Police Authority but that this had not taken place in the case of de Cadenet.

    Neil Saunders, for the defence, said that de Cadenet had joined the Metropolitan Police in 1996 after serving in the RAF. At police training in Hendon, North London, he had emerged as a “class leader”, he said, and had subsequently received glowing reports for his work as a police officer.

    But he said de Cadenet, who served with the RAF in Bosnia and during the Gulf War, had begun experiencing marital difficulties, developed a drink problem and fell seriously into debt before he obtained the card.

    Mr Saunders said it appeared that de Cadenet had been attempting to “buy the affections” of those who were closest to him in the misuse of the card. “He was buying what he thought was attention and affection. He was, as I have been trying to suggest, a man who was simply unable to cope,” Mr Saunders said.

    De Cadenet admitted one count of misfeasance in public office.

    The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said de Cadenet’s actions were a serious misuse of public money. Deborah Glass, London commissioner for the IPCC, said: “The taxpayers of London will rightly be concerned. I hope [the] sentence reassures them that abuse of the system will not be tolerated.”

    Scotland Yard is completing checks on expenditure on 3,500 corporate charge cards in use since 2006. The Directorate of Professional Standards has referred 25 cases to the IPCC and the Metropolitan Police Authority has referred two cases.

    Detective Sergeant John Gallagher, 52, who worked for the Met’s child abuse investigation unit, pleaded guilty to a £9,622 expenses scam earlier this month and was warned that he could be jailed.

    Detective Constable Matthew Washington, 36, a former antiterrorism officer, has been charged with using his corporate card to spend £12,500 for personal use and is due to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court in December.

    The Times

    David Brown

    23 September 2008

  • God, Evolution and Charles Darwin

    God, Evolution and Charles Darwin

    From Times Online
    September 17, 2008

    Ten surprising things Darwin said about religious faith

    Nick Spencer

    Next year is the big Darwin anniversary. Two hundred years after his birth and 150 after the publication of On the Origin of the Species, millions will celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin, one of the most brilliant scientists in history, and a man who was thoroughly decent, honourable and likeable.

    Unfortunately, he has become caught up in the crossfire of a battle in which Darwin exhibited little personal interest. On one side of this cartoonish debate are the creationists. Their precise numbers, in the UK, are uncertain, although the major survey Theos /ComRes are conducting into the public’s beliefs about Darwinism, creationism and ID, which will be published next year, should help us find out more. Numbers aside, the point is that creationists dislike Darwin and regularly criticise him for supposedly undermining their religious beliefs.

    In the other trench lie the militant Godless who – bizarrely – wholly agree with the creationists. Darwinism, they proclaim, does indeed undermine religious belief and a good thing too. Darwin is their icon and they frantically genuflect before his image, in a way brilliantly parodied by the satirical magazine The Onion.

    The truth is, as ever, more complex. Darwin was too interesting, too careful a thinker to be caricatured in these ways. He was a Christian and yes, he did lose his faith. But he was never an atheist. He engaged in religious debate with friends but confessed to being in a hopeless “muddle”. He agonised over whether the exquisite beauty of life on earth was worth the pain of natural selection. He hated religious controversy and was deeply respectful of others’ views. He took upon himself the duties of a country parson whilst living at Downe and contributed to the South American Missionary Society. And, to top it all, he often doubted whether, his mind being evolved, he could even trust it in such matters. All in all, he was too complex, too subtle a man to be left to the polemicists.

    So, in the interests, of rescuing him from the no-man’s-land in which he has become trapped, here are 10 Darwin quotations, from his later years, which you are unlikely to hear from the mouths of either creationists or atheists in 2009.

    1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography)

    2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

    3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires… But I most wholly agree… that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878)

    4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

    5. “I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

    6. “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” (Letter to Frederick McDermott, November 24 1880)

    7. [In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?” (Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883)

    8. “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to Graham William, July 3 1881)

    9. “My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design.” (Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870)

    10. “I can never make up my mind how far an inward conviction that there must be some Creator or First Cause is really trustworthy evidence.” (Letter to Francis Abbot, September 6 1871)

    Nick Spencer is director of studies at the public theology think-tank Theos which is conducting, in partnership with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion a project on evolution, faith and Charles Darwin. Mr Spencer’s book, Darwin and God, will be published in 2009 by SPCK.

    Source: The Times, September 17, 2008

  • Creationist Adnan Oktar wins ban on Richard Dawkins site

    Creationist Adnan Oktar wins ban on Richard Dawkins site

    From The Times
    September 20, 2008

    Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

    A Muslim creationist has succeeded in having Richard Dawkins’s website banned in Turkey, after complaining that its atheist content was blasphemous.

    The country’s internet users are now subject to a court order imposed on Turk Telecom that prohibits them from accessing richarddawkins.net.

    The court in Istanbul issued its judgment after Adnan Oktar claimed that his book Atlas of Creation, which contests the arguments for evolution, had been defamed on Dawkins’s website.

    In July Professor Dawkins wrote on his site: “I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breath-taking inanity of the content.”

    Earlier this year Mr Oktar, who uses the pen name Harun Yahya, tried to have Dawkins’s book The God Delusion banned in Turkey but failed. He is also appealing against a three-year prison sentence for creating an illegal organisation for personal gain.

    Source: The Times, September 20, 2008

  • Royal Society’s Michael Reiss resigns over creationism row

    Royal Society’s Michael Reiss resigns over creationism row

    From The Times
    September 17, 2008

    Lewis Smith and Mark Henderson

    The resignation of Michael Reiss has divided scientists

    The Royal Society’s embattled director of education resigned last night, days after causing uproar among scientists by appearing to endorse the teaching of creationism.

    Michael Reiss, a biologist and ordained Church of England clergyman, agreed to step down from his position with the national academy of science after its officers decided that his comments had damaged its reputation.

    His resignation comes after a campaign by senior Royal Society Fellows who were angered by Professor Reiss’s suggestion that science teachers should treat creationist beliefs “not as a misconception but as a world view”.

    Sir Richard Roberts, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1993, described such views as outrageous, and organised a letter to the society’s president, Lord Rees of Ludlow, demanding that Professor Reiss be sacked. Phil Willis MP, the chairman of the Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, was due to meet Royal Society officers today to demand an explanation of Professor Reiss’s comments.

    The Royal Society stood by the scientist initially, insisting that he had not departed from its official policy and that his remarks had been misinterpreted. Many senior figures, however, felt that Professor Reiss had been naive, at best, to make statements that could easily be seen to back teaching creationism as if it were science, and should not have done so while speaking in his Royal Society role.

    The society said in a statement: “Some of Professor Michael Reiss’s recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society’s director of education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the society’s reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the society, he will step down immediately as director of education — a part-time post he held on secondment. He is to return, full-time, to his position as Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education.”

    The resignation has divided scientists and administrators. While some welcomed the move, others felt that Professor Reiss had raised an important point and should have been supported. Lord Winston, Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College, London, who is not a Royal Society Fellow, said: “I fear that the Royal Society may have only diminished itself. This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science — something that the Royal Society should applaud.”

    Mr Willis said: “It is appropriate for the Royal Society to have dealt with this problem swiftly and effectively, rather than provoking continued debate. I hope the society will now stop burying its head and start taking on creationism.”

    The furore came after a speech given by Professor Reiss to the British Association for the Advancement of Science last week, in which he said that teachers should accept that they were unlikely to change the minds of pupils with creationist beliefs.

    “My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science,” he said.

    “I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn’t lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from the science lesson . . . There is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have — hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching — and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion.”

    The Royal Society said that “creationism has no scientific basis and should not be part of the science curriculum. However, if a young person raises creationism in a science class, teachers should be in a position to explain why evolution is a sound scientific theory and why creationism is not, in any way, scientific.”

    Chris Higgins, Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, said: “While I have no doubt that Michael Reiss’s comments have been misinterpreted by parts of the media, I think that the fact that he has generously stood down allows the Royal Society to clarify the robust position on this issue. There should be no room for doubt that creationism is completely unsupportable as a theory.”

    Professor Reiss was not available for comment.

    Source: The Times, September 17, 2008

  • Terror inquiry proves a nice little earner

    Terror inquiry proves a nice little earner

    Police claim £5 million in overtime bonanza

    Britain’s biggest anti-terrorist investigation was a £5 million overtime bonanza seized on by police as the chance to pay for Caribbean holidays, plasma televisions and nights at The Savoy.

    The Times has seen e-mails circulated to officers across Thames Valley Police offering “premium rates” of pay to those “with a raging credit card habit”. Volunteers were told that night shifts, believed to be paid at £300 each, would give them time to “read a good book, take up botany or ornithology, study for your sergeant’s exam [or] work out the compound interest on a rest day’s pay”.

    One message, which was marked “108 shopping days to Christmas”, sought officers for Saturday shifts and said that the payments “could buy the joy and admiration of your children on Christmas morning . . . is that not priceless?”

    The internal e-mails were sent to officers across the force at the height of a big search in King’s Wood and Fennels Wood near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The work was part of Operation Overt, the inquiry into an alleged terrorist plot to blow up transatlantic airliners

    Thames Valley Police said yesterday that the e-mails were “in poor taste” and that its involvement in the operation cost the force £8 million, including £4.9 million in overtime.

    After the end of the airline plot trial last week, Andy Hayman, the former Scotland Yard officer in charge of special operations, disclosed in The Times that he had resisted pressure from Thames Valley Police Authority to stop the searches, which it said were too expensive.

    While specialist teams searched the woodland, uniformed Thames Valley officers were required to stand guard. The e-mails seeking volunteers were sent by Sergeant David Bald to colleagues in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Wolverton and Newport Pagnell.

    Mr Bald, who signed off as “Miracle Worker” in an e-mail of August 24, 2006, added: “So there you have it. Not only would you be insuring [sic] the integrity of evidence in the most important terrorist trial in the UK for 30 years (and that is reward in itself, not to mention a great PDR [personal development record] entry) but you could also afford one of the above rewards which would give you great enjoyment and satisfaction.”

    The next day he wrote: “If you’re available then please ping me an e-mail – it’ll pay off the credit card.”

    Another message was circulated on September 6 and said: “For all officers (especially those scared of the dark) I now have a significant number of day shifts available on premium rates.”

    On September 8 he said that the duties required “little effort, no paper-work and a restful time away from the stresses and strains of everyday life”.

    The disclosure comes as the police service is increasingly concerned about its image. Ian Johnston, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association, issued a warning this week that the public was losing confidence in officers.

    Home Office assessments ranked Thames Valley last year as the third-worst performing police force in Britain. A report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said that the diversion of Thames Valley’s resources to Operation Overt had “significantly depleted its operational capacity”.

    A spokesman for the force said: “The e-mails were unacceptable but do not reflect the attitude of police officers as a whole. They were misguided and written in poor taste and recalled as soon as senior officers became aware of them.”

    Hundreds of Thames Valley officers took part in Operation Overt over a six-month period. The spokesman said: “We deployed officers from their usual Thames Valley postings for 5,184 working days, at an opportunity cost of £1.4 million. This put a strain on the policing of local communities and therefore overtime at a cost of £4.9 million was used, as well as assistance from other forces at a cost of £1.9 million.”

    Sean O’Neill, Crime Editor

    The Times

    Source: