The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Tokyo governor resigns; PM assures no Olympic impact
- Thai protesters march in bid to oust PM, but turnout low
- U.S. prosecutor defends treatment of Indian diplomat
| Tokyo governor resigns; PM assures no Olympic impact Posted: TOKYO (Reuters) - The governor of the Japanese capital resigned on Thursday after being caught up in a financial scandal just three months after he helped his city win a bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan remained committed to offering the best games and the resignation of Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose would have no impact on that. Inose, an author turned politician who took over as boss of the capital about a year ago, was forced to resign after he received 50 million yen ($484,500) from scandal-hit hospital chain Tokushukai ahead of an election. His explanation for the nature of the money and other details flip-flopped, drawing the focus of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly despite other pressing issues such as a budget plan for next fiscal year and Olympic preparations. "I cannot get in the way of preparation for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, where national pride will be at stake," Inose told a news conference. "I decided that there is no way but my quitting as Tokyo governor to break the stalemate." "I feel very sorry for the people in Tokyo and Japan. Let me offer my sincere apologies," he said, bowing deeply. Abe, who worked with Inose to win the bid for 2020, said his resignation should have no impact on the games. "Everyone shares the intention to host the best Olympic Games. That remains unchanged. I don't see any impact," Abe told reporters. An election to select Inose's successor will likely be held in February, media said. (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka, Rodney Joyce; Editing by Robert Birsel) |
| Thai protesters march in bid to oust PM, but turnout low Posted: BANGKOK (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters marched in Bangkok on Thursday in a bid to force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office but their numbers appeared far smaller than earlier in the month, when she called a snap election to try to defuse the crisis. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban is demanding political and electoral reforms before any vote is held and wants these to be overseen by a "people's council" his movement will help nominate rather than by Yingluck, who is caretaker prime minister until the election, set for February 2. About 2,500 people marched along one of the city's main roads holding banners that read "We are anti-corruption" and "No elections before reform". Others are expected to join as they move through central business areas. One sign read: "We will not accept Square Face", a nickname given to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's brother and the figure at the centre of Thailand's eight-year, on-off political crisis. Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon, is adored by the rural poor because of cheap healthcare and other policies brought in while he was in power, but he was toppled by the military in 2006 and now lives in self-exile. Yingluck won a landslide victory in 2011 and her Puea Thai Party is well placed to win the next election because of Thaksin's enduring support in the populous north and northeast. Ranged against them are a royalist establishment that feels threatened by Thaksin's rise and a middle class that resents what it sees as its taxes being spent on wasteful populist policies that amount to vote-buying. Thaksin fled in 2008 before being sentenced to jail for abuse of power in a trial he says was politically motivated. Suthep's movement gained impetus in early November after Yingluck's government tried to push through a political amnesty bill that would have allowed Thaksin to return home a free man. RALLY ON SUNDAY After failing to get the politically influential military on his side, Suthep is trying to re-energise his supporters with marches this week and a rally on Sunday. "We are warming up our engines for Suthep ... so that he can apply more pressure, peacefully, until Yingluck decides to step down," said Pasvut Ittikul, a former strategist for Yingluck's party who resigned to join Suthep's protest. Suthep massed 160,000 protesters around Yingluck's office on December 9, when she called the snap election, and occupied several ministries and other state buildings before that, but police estimate that no more than 2,000 people are now camped out at the main protest sites in Bangkok's historic quarter. A court has issued an arrest warrant for Suthep on a charge of insurrection but police have done nothing to apprehend him, despite his appearance at a seminar with the military and other public events. However, on Wednesday, the Department of Special Investigation, Thailand's equivalent of the U.S. FBI, said it would ask banks to freeze the accounts of 18 rally leaders, including Suthep, to investigate what it called suspicious transactions. Suthep says he wants to wipe out vote-buying and electoral fraud and has also promised "forceful laws to eradicate corruption", decentralisation, the end of "superficial populist policies that enable corruption", and the reform of "certain state agencies such as the police force". Even if the vote goes ahead on February 2, its legitimacy could be undermined if the main opposition Democrat Party does not take part. At a conference this week, its members could not agree whether to run in the election or back the protests. Democrat lawmakers resigned from parliament this month to march with Suthep, who was a deputy prime minister in a Democrat-led government until 2011. Some agree with his call for reforms to be implemented before another election is held, but others believe their party, Thailand's oldest, should respect the democratic process and run for office. A decision is expected on Saturday. (Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Robert Birsel) |
| U.S. prosecutor defends treatment of Indian diplomat Posted: NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. attorney in Manhattan defended on Wednesday the treatment of an Indian diplomat who was strip-searched after her arrest last week on charges of underpaying her nanny, a case that has strained U.S.-Indian relations. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, in an unusually lengthy written statement in a pending case, said he wanted to clear up the "misinformation" surrounding the arrest of diplomat Devyani Khobragade, and he questioned why there was more sympathy for Khobragade than her alleged victim. "Ms. Khobragade was accorded courtesies well beyond what other defendants, most of whom are American citizens, are accorded," Bharara said, adding that his sole motivation was to "hold accountable anyone who breaks the law - no matter what their societal status and no matter how powerful, rich or connected they are." He said Khobragade had been "fully searched" by a female deputy marshal after her arrest. "This is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or not," said Bharara, who was born in India, raised in New Jersey and has built a reputation as "The Sheriff of Wall Street" for his prosecution of insider trading cases. India has been furious about what it considers the degrading treatment of a senior diplomat by the United States, a country it sees as a close friend, and retaliated on Tuesday by removing security barriers at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. The barriers would offer some protection against a suicide bomb attack. Bharara's statement came after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the case with Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon. Kerry called to express regret about the case and his concern it not hurt the two countries' relationship, the State Department said on Wednesday. "As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India about the events that unfolded after Ms. Khobragade's arrest," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a written statement. Khobragade was released on $250,000 bail after giving up her passport and pleading not guilty to charges of visa fraud and making false statements about how much she paid the housekeeper. She faces a maximum of 15 years in jail if convicted of both counts. The U.S. Justice Department confirmed that Khobragade was strip-searched after her arrest. A senior Indian government source has also said the interrogation included a cavity search. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service, Nikki Credic-Barrett, said Khobragade did not undergo a cavity search but did go through a strip search. Under the agency's regulations governing prisoner searches, a strip search can include a "visual inspection" of body cavities, including the nose, mouth, genitals and anus, without intrusion. Khobragade told colleagues in an email of "repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing" and being detained in a holding cell with petty criminals, despite her "incessant assertions of immunity." While common in the United States, jail strip searches have prompted legal challenges from civil liberties groups concerned that the practice is degrading and unnecessary. Ezekiel Edwards, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said that despite a Supreme Court ruling last year upholding strip searches even in the absence of any suspicion the individual has contraband or weapons, law enforcement authorities should make an effort to distinguish between prisoners who merit invasive searches and those who pose no risk. "Saying that it's not unusual is not to say that it should be acceptable," he said. NO HANDCUFFS Bharara denied media reports that Khobragade had been arrested in front of her children. "The agents arrested her in the most discreet way possible, and unlike most defendants, she was not then handcuffed or restrained," he said. Officers allowed her to make calls, including to arrange child care, and even brought her coffee, the prosecutor said. Bharara said Khobragade clearly tried to evade U.S. law designed to protect from exploitation the domestic employees of diplomats and consular officers. "One wonders why there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian national accused of perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse?" he said. The Indian housekeeper whose paycheck is at the centre of the dispute, Sangeeta Richard, is said to be upset and disappointed the focus of the affair has shifted. "The victim in this case is not a criminal defendant but the person who was denied her wages and underpaid for her work," said Dana Sussman, an attorney with the Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program who is representing Richard. Khobragade falsely stated in her nanny's visa application that she would be paid $9.75 an hour, a figure that would have been in line with the minimum rates required by U.S. law, according to a statement issued last week by Bharara. The diplomat had privately agreed with the domestic worker that she would receive just over a third of that rate, the U.S. attorney said. Harf, the State Department spokeswoman, said Kerry had used the word "regret" in his conversation with Menon, but she declined to elaborate on whether this constituted an apology or to offer greater detail on their discussion. An expression of regret, in the world of diplomacy, is generally viewed as something short of an outright apology. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration is looking into the arrest "to ensure that all standard procedures were followed and that every opportunity for courtesy was extended." The White House has told Indian officials it expects New Delhi will "fulfil all its obligations" for the safety and security of U.S. diplomats in India, Carney said. India has appointed Khobragade to its permanent mission at the United Nations and her attorney Daniel Arshack said that, in her new role, she would have diplomatic immunity from prosecution retroactively. However, the State Department would have to sign off on a request to move her from the consulate to the U.N. mission, and no such request has been received, Harf told reporters. She said the U.S. government notified India of the allegations against Khobragade in September. SMALL PROTEST India and the United States have become close trade and security partners, but they have not totally overcome a history of distrust. "It is no longer about an individual, it is about our sense of self as a nation and our place in the world," Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told parliament, whose usually fractious members showed rare unity on the issue. Khurshid said work conditions of Indians employed in U.S. consulates would be investigated to root out any violations of labour laws, adding that there would be a freeze on the duty-free import of alcohol and food for diplomatic staff. In New Delhi, supporters of a right-wing opposition party held a small protest near the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday. About 30 demonstrators, some wearing masks of President Barack Obama and sarongs made from the U.S. flag, demanded an apology. The controversy over Khobragade's experience is not the first time that overseas observers have been horrified at the treatment of a foreign criminal defendant in the United States. In 2011, when then-International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was paraded before TV cameras in handcuffs during what is known in the United States as a "perp walk," or perpetrator walk, after being arrested in New York on charges of sexual assault, French media reacted with shock. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges. In France, the presumption of innocence legally bars the media from showing defendants in handcuffs before they are convicted. The Khobragade case is the latest concerning the Indian elite's alleged exploitation of their domestic workers, both at home and abroad. Another official at India's consulate in New York was fined almost $1.5 million last year for using her maid as forced labour. Last month, the wife of a member of parliament was arrested in Delhi for allegedly beating her maid to death. India says Khobragade's former housekeeper left her employer a few months ago and demanded help to obtain permanent resident status in the United States. One Indian government minister, Shashi Tharoor, has argued that it is not reasonable to expect diplomats from developing countries to pay the U.S. minimum wage to domestic staff because the envoys themselves earn less than that. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Chris Francescani in New York and Shyamantha Asokan and Frank Jack Daniel in New Delhi; Writing by Jackie Frank and Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh) |
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