Public warned of rising fraud - Oman Daily Observer

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12 UNITED KINGDOM WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 ‘Iron Lady’ mourned, but opponents celebrate Britain sets funeral for April 17 LONDON — Britain will hold the funeral of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday April 17 with Queen Elizabeth II leading the mourners, oficials said, as the country wrestled with deeply divided views of the "Iron Lady." As fresh tributes were paid around the world, the British government on Tuesday announced the date of the ceremonial funeral at St Paul's cathedral in central London, the second highest honour after a state funeral. But Thatcher remained as polarising in death as in life, with six police oficers injured at one of a number of parties across the country celebrating the death of a woman whose critics accuse of destroying British industry. Thatcher, Britain's irst woman prime minister and an icon internationally for her role in defeating communism and ending the Cold War, died at the Ritz Hotel in London on Monday aged 87 after suffering a stroke. "It was agreed this morning at the government coordination meeting with the Thatcher family and Buckingham Palace that the funeral service of Lady Thatcher will take place on Wednesday 17 April at St Paul's Cathedral," current prime minister David Cameron's Downing Street ofice said in a statement. Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip will attend, in an unusual move, Buckingham Palace said. The queen does not usually attend funerals or memorial services of non-royals. Lawmakers have been recalled to parliament this Wednesday to pay tribute to Thatcher, the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century. A private ambulance accompanied by police motorcycle outriders arrived in the early hours of Tuesday at the luxury Ritz hotel in central London where Thatcher spent the last days of her life, a photographer said. Undertakers erected a green screen at the back door of the hotel before removing her body at around 12:20 am. Thatcher, a Conservative, speciically did not want a full state funeral of the kind given to monarchs and to World War II premier Winston Churchill, thinking it was "not appropriate", her spokesman Lord Tim Bell said. Thatcher also requested that she not get a ly-past by military aircraft as it would be a "waste of money". His comments came after several Conservative lawmakers called for her to be given a state funeral. Ceremonial funerals have in the past been given to the Queen Mother — the mother of current monarch Queen Elizabeth II who died in 2002 — and to Princess Diana who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Taiwan, Thai TV stations sorry for photo gaffes TAIPEI — A Taiwanese cable news channel apologised yesterday for running a photo of Queen Elizabeth II when reporting the death of Margaret Thatcher, while a Thai station showed a photo of actress Meryl Streep. Taiwan's CTI TV, in footage Monday night, showed the queen dressed in a green coat and waving at the crowd with a caption reading "Former British prime minister Thatcher passed away, the Iron Lady is missed". In Thailand, army-run Channel 5 TV station also apologised after it showed a photo of Streep playing Thatcher in the 2011 semi-biographical ilm "The Iron Lady" during its report on the death of the former premier. "We apologise for the mistake over the use of the photo during the report on Margaret Thatcher which caused misunderstanding. Our team will try harder and be more careful," it wrote on its oficial Facebook page. A source at the channel said the job of inding the picture had been outsourced to another company. "The news anchor noticed the mistake and solved the problem by saying her story was made into a Hollywood movie played by Meryl Streep," he said. Thatcher, dubbed the "Iron Lady," died of a stroke on Monday in London aged 87. Meanwhile, six British police oficers were injured, one of them seriously, as they tried to break up a street party apparently celebrating the death of exprime minister Margaret Thatcher, police said Tuesday. The incident in Bristol, southwest England, happened at one of a number of impromptu events across the country held by critics of the so-called “Iron Lady”. Police said about 200 revellers in Bristol refused police requests to disperse. “Bottles and cans were thrown at oficers, six of whom suffered injuries,” Chief Inspector Mark Jackson of Avon and Somerset Constabulary said. LONDON — Admirers of Margaret Thatcher yesterday mourned the "Iron Lady" who as Britain's longest serving prime minister in over a century pitched free-market capitalism as the only medicine for her country's crippled economy and the crumbling Soviet bloc. World leaders past and present, from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to US President Barack Obama, led tributes to the grocer's daughter who sought to arrest Britain's decline and helped Ronald Reagan broker an end to the Cold War. "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend," said Obama. While world leaders praised the most powerful British prime minister since her hero Winston Churchill, the scars of bitter struggles during her rule left Britain divided over her legacy. Opponents celebrated in London, the English city of Bristol and the Scottish city of Glasgow, cheering her death and toasting to the death of "the witch" with champagne and cider. "We've waited a long time for her death," said Carl Chamberlain, 45, unemployed, sporting a grey ponytail and sipping on a can of cider in Brixton, London, the scene of riots in 1981. Loathed and loved, Thatcher crushed trade unions, privatised swathes of British industry, clashed with European allies and fought a war to recover the Falkland Islands from Argentina. Tuesday's newspapers told the story: "The Woman Who Saved Britain", declared the Daily Mail while the Daily Mirror, led on "The Woman Who Divided A Nation" in an article which questioned the grand, ceremonial funeral planned for next week. Thatcher's body was removed overnight in a transit van with police escort from the Ritz Hotel where she had died on Monday morning following a stroke. From across Europe, admirers lay lowers at Thatcher’s doorstep LONDON — Outside Margaret Thatcher's plush central London townhouse, a slow but steady stream of well-wishers laid lowers yesterday in tribute to the late British premier. The creamy-white four-storey home where a frail Thatcher spent her quiet inal years is on Chester Square, a plush oasis of calm two streets away from London's busy Victoria railway terminus. Its reinforced black door, with a brass lion knocker, is reminiscent of the famous front door of 10 Downing Street, just 2.5 kilometres away, from where Thatcher governed Britain from 1979 to 1990. Two police oficers guard the doorway as sympathisers quietly lay their tributes to the "Iron Lady", who died Monday aged 87 whilst recuperating at the Ritz Hotel. Thatcher's home is a few minutes' walk from London's main bus terminal, where countless newcomers from the new democracies of eastern Europe irst set foot on British soil. Among those who came to lay lowers were immigrants from such countries, which Thatcher steadfastly fought to liberate from communism. From Ostrava in the eastern Czech Republic, Martin Wolf, 37, works at the upmarket Mandarin Oriental hotel in London where Thatcher staged her 80th birthday party. He thought it was partly down to Thatcher's inluence that people from eastern Europe are free to live and work in Britain. "She was very friendly with our country and Thatcher's inal journey on April 17 will take her from a chapel inside the Palace of Westminster — where she deployed fearsome and forensic debating skills — to a St Paul's Cathedral where she will arrive on a gun carriage drawn by horses from Queen Elizabeth's artillery. The Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, will attend the funeral, which is likely to be the grandest funeral for a British politician since Churchill's state funeral in 1965. Though accorded full military honours, Thatcher did not want a state funeral. She will be cremated. Parliament will return from recess for a special session in her honour yesterday. The unyielding, outspoken Thatcher led her Conservative party to three election victories, governing from 1979 to 1990, the longest continuous term in ofice for a British premier in over 150 years. She struck up a close relationship with Reagan taking a hostile view of the Soviet Union, backed the irst President George Bush during the 1991 Gulf War, and was the irst major Western leader to discover that Gorbachev was a man she could "do business with". "Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast," said Tony Blair, whose term as Labour prime minister from 1997-2007 he acknowledged owed a debt to the former leader of his Conservative opponents. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a visit abroad and lags lew at half mast. "The real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn't just lead our country, she saved our country," Cameron said. Mourners laid roses, tulips and lilies on the doorstep of her house in Belgravia, one of London's most exclusive areas. One note said: "The greatest British leader" while another said to "The Iron Lady", a soubriquet bestowed by a Soviet army newspaper in the 1970s and which Thatcher loved. But, in a mark of lingering anger at a woman who explained her belief in private endeavour by declaring "there is no such thing as society", someone also left a bottle of milk. To many Britons she remained "Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" for scrapping free milk for schoolchildren when she was education minister in 1971. Having retreated into seclusion after being deposed by her party, the death of her businessman husband Denis in 2003 and creeping dementia had kept her out of the public eye for years. She had been in poor health for months. The abiding domestic images of her premiership will remain those of conlict: huge police confrontations with mass ranks of coalminers whose year-long strike failed to save their pits and communities; Thatcher riding a tank in a white headscarf; and lames rising above London's Trafalgar Square in riots over a deeply unpopular "poll tax" which contributed to her downfall. To those who opposed her she was blunt to a degree. "The lady's not for turning," she told Conservatives in 1980 as some urged a "U-turn" on the economy in the face of rising job losses and crashing poll ratings. She stuck to her plans to pare state spending but could thank victory in the Falklands — known in Argentina as Las Malvinas — in 1982 for helping her bounce back to re-election. Argentinians were less moved to praise her than Falklanders who called her "our Winston Churchill". In South Africa, too, there was a coolness after her death as its new, democratic leaders recalled her prevarication on apartheid. — AFP Flowers and mementos left by members of the public and admirers sit outside the home of Margaret Thatcher in central London yesterday. went there after the communist time," he said. "I'm very sad. I'm interested in everything about her life. She was, for me, a great, great woman. She is a big icon. "People of course remember her in the Czech Republic." He was dismayed at how some left-wing Britons have been celebrating her death. "I'm shocked. How is this possible? Maybe she wasn't right all the time but I think this is horrible," he said. As a van delivered another impressive bouquet, Diaconu Dumitru, 33, from Craiova in southern Romania, who works as a chef in a Vietnamese restaurant, also laid lowers by the black wrought-iron fence in front of the house. "It's a sad day because she was a great lady. A good politician. She had a lot of very brilliant ideas. She put a big value on ending the Cold War. I have read a lot of things about her," he said. A media pen has been erected on the other side of the street, where a dozen camera crews, plus photographers and journalists from around the world document the scene. Several satellite trucks are parked amongst the Ferraris and Porsches lining the road. With their Mary Poppins-style chimney tops, houses around Chester Square's well-manicured private garden are on the market for more than £14 million ($21 million, 16 million euros). Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich was among Thatcher's neighbours.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 SUBCONTINENT 13 Musharraf treason hearing adjourned Ahmed Raza Kasuri (C), lawyer of Pervez Musharraf, talks to the media outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad yesterday. — AFP Remittances by non-resident Pakistanis to exceed $14 bn KARACHI — The inlow of remittances from non-resident Pakistanis in Gulf, Europe and the Americas back home is likely to exceed $14 billion for the iscal year ending June 30, 2103. However, they may witness a dip if forex spread — a rupee value difference between interbank and open markets — is widened and thereby increasing use of unoficial channels for money transfer, experts here said yesterday. Showing an eight per cent yearon-year average growth, it seems that remittances will amount to $14.256 billion at the end of current iscal year, which will also be in line with the State Bank of Pakistan’s estimate for the year. Bangla strike fuels violence DHAKA — A truck driver died in a northern Bangladesh city yesterday as clashes erupted during a nationwide strike called by the opposition to protest against the arrests of their senior leaders. The unrest is the latest to hit Bangladesh stemming from an ongoing war crimes tribunal at which opposition leaders are on trial for crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. Police said the 35-year-old driver was hit by rocks thrown by opposition activists in Bogra when he was driving a cargo-laden truck in deiance of a 36-hour strike enforced by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its 17 allies. "One of the rocks hit him in the chest and he died on the way to a hospital," constable Mehedy Hasan said, adding several opposition activists were arrested in connection with the incident. The opposition called the strike to protest against the arrest of their deputy chief and eight other senior oficials. The central bank forecast that remittances will be in the range of $14 to $15 billion in iscal 2012-13. During the last iscal year, remittances amounted to over $13 billion. The igures of remittances’ inlows for the nine months of the ongoing iscal year are to be released by today. Remittances sent by overseas Pakistani workers increased by 7.47 per cent year-on-year to $9.2 billion during July-February 2012-13 against $8.5 billion in the same period last year. “Due to substantial increase in currency rate spread of interbank and open market, most of the portion of the remitted inlows was channelised through open market US to keep pressure on Sri Lanka to allow rights violations probe Myanmar labourers unload pebbles from a ship, to be used at construction sites, in Yangon yesterday. — AFP and unoficial sources like hawala and hundi,” said Sayem Ali, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank. Hundi or Hawala is an alternative system that operates parallel to traditional banking channels. He said that currently the rupee is trading at 98.44 versus the US dollar and it stood at 98.2 till March 2013, down eight per cent year-onyear from 90.9 in March 2012. The slide in the rupee is likely to accelerate due to heightened political uncertainty ahead of the 2013 elections and large debt payments. “These factors will raise spread between the oficial and free foreign exchange markets,” he added. “If the money transfers (remittances) COLOMBO — The United States will keep the pressure on Sri Lanka to allow an independent investigation of accusations of human rights violations in the inal stages of the civil war and speed up reconciliation, its ambassador said. Michele Sison said concerns over human rights and deteriorating democratic values had prompted her country to sponsor a second resolution condemning the Indian Ocean nation at the UN Human Rights Council last month. "As we examine next steps, we will renew our consideration of all mechanisms available, both in the Human Rights Council and beyond," Sison told foreign correspondents late on Monday. She did not elaborate. Since the end of the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka has repeatedly rejected calls for an independent, international probe into accusation of rights abuses. Last month, the United Nations adopted the second USsponsored resolution calling on Sri Lanka to carry out credible investigations into killings and disappearances during the war, especially in the brutal inal stages. It also voiced concern at reports of continuing violations including killings, torture, curbs on freedom of expression and reprisals against activists and journalists. The resolution, as in the irst one adopted last year, called on Sri Lanka to implement recommendations to address rights abuses recommended by its own local inquiry panel, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. "Some form of credible investigation is in the interest of the government concerned," Sison said. "For when there are serious allegations of human rights violations, whether a government likes it or not, those allegations will persist through informal or unoficial channels, such as hundi and hawala keep on rising due to substantial spike in the currency rates’ spread, then remittances are hardly to maintain upward trend. A difference between oficial and unoficial foreign exchange rate is maintained for now. It rose to three to four rupees in March 2013,” said Muzzammil Aslam, a senior economist. Analysts believed since remittances are an important and stable source of foreign exchange inlows than direct and portfolio investments, slowdown in growth of remittances would further weaken the country”s fragile balance of payments’ position. — Internews until they are credibly addressed." An oficial spokesman said on Sunday that Sri Lanka was setting up a presidential commission to investigate a mass grave with the remains of more than 150 people. Two reports submitted to a court last week said that the human remains, in the town of Matale 142 km north of the capital, dated back to the period 1986-1989 when Sri Lanka faced a Marxist insurrection. “The president has decided to appoint a presidential commission to inquire into the mass grave. This will be apart from the ongoing police inquiry,” Mohan Samaranayake, Rajapaksa’s spokesman, said. The decision to set up commission comes ive months after the mass grave was found at a building site near a hospital. Ajith Jayasena, the judicial medical oficer at the hospital, said the excavation was still going on and there may be more remains in the grave. Myanmar economy grows more than 6 per cent BANGKOK — Myanmar's economy grew 6.3 per cent in the iscal year that ended March 31, compared with 5 per cent the previous year, the Asian Development Bank said yesterday. It said the growth "relects business optimism buoyed by the government's steps since 2011 to liberalise the economy and prospects for further reform." Investor optimism was relected by a 14-fold increase in the number of new foreign company registrations in the irst 10 months of iscal 2012. The government granted investment approvals to 62 foreign projects in the April-December period, more than the number granted during the previous three years. Revenues from tourism exceeded 500 million dollars in 2012, up more than 60 per cent compared with the previous year, ADB said. "Net foreign direct investment lows and renewed oficial development assistance supported an overall balance of payments surplus and increase in foreign exchange reserves to an estimated 5.1 billion dollars in iscal 2012, equal to about 4 months of imports of goods and services," the report said. Exports during April-December, were down 3.6 per cent, due to lower demand for agricultural products in China and Thailand, although exports of garments rose 18 per cent. Myanmar's exports of natural gas to Thailand, which account for 38 per cent of total exports, were lat. The bank forecast 6.5 per cent growth in Myanmar for the current in iscal year. ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's top court yesterday granted former ruler Pervez Musharraf a breathing space in his battle against treason allegations dating back to his time in power. Lawyers are petitioning the Supreme Court to have the 69-year-old retired general put on trial for treason for subverting the constitution during his 1999-2008 rule. Musharraf returned to Pakistan last month from four years of self-imposed exile to stand in the May 11 general election, which will mark the irst democratic transition of power in the country's troubled 66-year history. Judge Jawad Khawaja adjourned the treason hearing to April 15 to give Musharraf's lawyers time to prepare a response, rejecting their plea to put the matter off until after the election to allow him time to campaign. "The cases are very simple in nature and the matter that needs to be looked at is straightforward enough," the judge said. "We therefore consider it will be suf- icient to meet the ends of justice if the cases are adjourned to April 15." Musharraf has been approved to stand as a candidate in the remote northern area of Chitral, although a lawyer has vowed to contest that decision, but he has been rejected in three other seats. Musharraf has said he came home to "save" Pakistan, which is aflicted by an economic malaise and near-daily attacks by the Taliban and other militants. But the retired general has had a muted homecoming and in addition to the treason allegations faces a host of other legal challenges. He has been bailed over the 2007 killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a Baluch dissident leader in 2006, and for sacking and arresting judges during emergency rule in 2007. Musharraf dismissed around 60 top judges including Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was held under house arrest. — AFP Tribal clashes kill 13 Pakistani soldiers and over 100 ighters ISLAMABAD — Ongoing ighting in Pakistan's north-western tribal territory has left at least 13 soldiers and more than 100 Taliban dead, security oficials said yesterday. The ighting, which began on Friday, followed weeks of clashes between rival militias to control strategic heights in Tirah, a remote valley in the Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan, the oficials said on condition of anonymity. "Our 13 soldiers have embraced martyrdom but we have inlicted heavy casualties on the miscreants, killing more than 100 of them," one of the oficials said. The military was also using jet ighters to strafe the dissident positions, several of which overlook the neighbouring tribal districts of Kurram and Orakzai, and one of the supply routes used by the security forces deployed in the region. There was no independent conirmation of the death toll because the tribal belt is largely off limits for journalists. Taliban-linked banned group Lashkar-e-Islam had initially attacked positions held by its rival militia Ansarul-Islam, which had reportedly allied itself with pro-government tribesmen to push back the militants. Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa (C) leaves after attending the presentation of the 2012 Central Bank of Sri Lanka annual report as Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal (R) looks on, in Colombo yesterday. Parents tell of relief after French hostage freed KABUL — The parents of a Frenchman released after four months in captivity in Afghanistan said their son was in good health after using his wits to stay alive throughout his gruelling ordeal. Claire and Vincent Borghi said in an email that they had spoken by telephone to their son, Pierre, 29, who was freed on Sunday, one of two French hostages released in recent days. "His health appears to be good despite the very dificult conditions of his captivity and his tiring escape. We are very proud of Pierre, who knew what to do at the right time to stay alive," they said. "We are obviously relieved and happy to know Pierre is free. We have talked to Pierre briely Monday evening, while he was in a military hospital," they added, thanking "all those who participated in the search and supported us". Borghi worked in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 for French charity Solidarites International and returned to Kabul last year to take photographs and try to establish himself as a photographer. Shoib Sharii, director of the Afghan Public Protection Force, said guards from his company found Borghi near one of their check points in the province of Wardak on Sunday evening. French oficials have not conirmed how he was freed. The second released man, who has not been named, was taken captive in Kabul on January 27. He was working for ACTED (the Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development), a Paris-based non-governmental organisation, when he was dragged from a vehicle in Kabul. French oficials in Paris announced on Monday he had been freed.
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