MONTH THAT WAS
New India pegs Japanese tsunami at Rs 350cr
Where there is will there is a way Black Money - US indicts Swiss Bank
Washington: The United States indicted Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges that it enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion hidden in offshore bank accounts, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The announcement, by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, represents the first time an overseas bank has been indicted by the United States for enabling tax fraud by U.S. taxpayers.
The indictment said the U.S. government had seized more than $16 million from Wegelin’s correspondent bank, the Swiss giant UBS AG, in Stamford, Connecticut, via a separate civil forfeiture complaint. Because Wegelin has no branches outside Switzerland, it used correspondent banking services, a standard industry practice, to handle money for U.S. –based clients.
The charges against Wegelin, of fraud and conspiracy, provide a rare glimpse into the world of Swiss private banking in the wake of a crackdown on UBS AG. In 2009, UBS paid $780 million and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department over charges it engaged in fraud and conspiracy by enabling scores of Americans to evade taxes through its private bank. The bank later turned over the names of more than 4,500 clients, a watershed in Swiss bank secrecy.
The indictment signals a ramping up of pressure on 10 other Swiss banks under investigation by the Justice Department, including Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and Basler Kantonalbank.
Six days ago, Wegelin-founded in 1741—effectively broke itself up by selling the non-U.S. portion of its business.
US, India win WTO case against China on raw material export
Washington: Led by the US, several countries, including India, Mexico and Brazil, have won their battle against China at the World Trade Organisation on export of raw material. In a ruling, the WTO Appellate Body found China’s export restraints on several industrial raw materials used as key components in the steel, aluminum, and chemicals industries to be inconsistent with China’s WTO obligations. The raw materials at issue include various forms of bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorus, and zinc.
Export restraints on these types of industrial products can skew the playing field against the US and other countries in the production and export of numerous steel, aluminum and chemical, and a wide range of other products, the USTR said. They can artificially increase world prices for these raw materials while artificially lowering prices for Chinese producers.
Guantanamo in Baluchistan!
Washington: In view of the seriousness of the law and order situation in Baluchistan, prominent human rights activists have told US lawmakers that it is the Pakistan Army and its spy agency that is running a "reign of terror" inside the restive province, informs media.
"The problem goes back to…is that in many ways Pakistan’s abuse of human rights served our interests, and so we’re kind of coming to this late in the game, that we’re trying to ask the Pakistanis to clean up their act after we have given them literally a blank check for about a decade," Christine Fair, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing. The first ever hearing on human rights violation in Baluchistan was organised by Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Ralph Peters, military analyst and author, said that Baluchistan is an occupied territory, whose people never wanted to be part of Pakistan in 1947.
"We look at this occupied territory of Baluchistan specifically, where people who simply yearn for fundamental freedoms for the right to determine that their own future, whether or not they have a battery of qualified teachers ready to go," he said. While expressing admiration for the sacrifices the province people are making against enormous odds in Pakistan, Peters charged the latter of actively supporting terrorists and insurgent movements in Afghanistan.
"What’s happening to Baluch people, it’s the kill-and-dump operation, it’s a terror mechanism that the Pakistani military and the intelligence officers used to terrorise the local population," said T. Kumar of the Amnesty International.
"It may be for a political reason, because some people, or may be a majority of Baluch may be asking for independence," he said, and clarified that Amnesty International, as a human rights organization, does not take position on whether a country is independent or not. Kumar said that the Pakistan army brutalized the population in the region with the aid of US weapons as they wanted some opening in their political aspirations, and asked the lawmakers to ensure that no weapon be used against them.
"Baluchistan presents a hydra-headed conflict situation. There are multiple actors perpetrating violence in there. But the engine of the human rights abuse no doubt is the Pakistani military, paramilitaries and intelligence agencies," Ali Dayan Hassan, Pakistan director of Asia division of Human Rights said.
Men cannot marry without a flat: China
Beijing: Marrying in China seems to have turned a Herculean task for the male fraternity with majority of the women viewing ownership of an apartment as a pre-condition to marriage, a survey has found. In a survey, conducted on the status of marriage and relationships in China, nearly 70 percent of the women interviewed regard having an apartment as a pre-requisite for men to ask for marriage, ‘China Daily’ quoted a media report as saying.
Anti-dumping duty on four items from China extended
New Delhi: In the backdrop of widening trade gap with China, India extended for five years anti-dumping duty on import of four Chinese products, including silk fabrics and a sweetener.
The duty is imposed to protect the domestic industry from cheap imports. Import of certain type of silk fabrics from China will attract anti-dumping duty of $ 1.82 to $ 7.59 per meter, a notification of the Revenue Department said. The duty was first imposed on the fabrics in December 2006 till December 2011.
India had a trade deficit of $ 16 billion against China during 2010-11. It has already crossed $ 20 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal.
The Directorate General of Anti-Dumping (DGAD) had carried a suo motu sunset review probe in December 2010 to examine whether cessation of the duty would lead to continuation of dumping and injury to the domestic players.
Following the review, the DGAD had recommended continuation and enhancement of the anti-dumping duty.
New Delhi: Public sector general insurer New India Assurance Company, the only domestic general insurer with presence in Japan, has received claims worth Rs 350 crore due to the earthquake and tsunami in March last year. "We have a liability of around Rs 350 crore due to the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami that took place in Japan last year," a company official told media. Referring to its exposure in Japan, a company official said most of the exposure is retail in nature with only a minor exposure to the risks emanating from Tokyo Electric Power Company which ran the Fukushima nuclear power plant that bore the maximum brunt of the tsunami and was shut down. The company had reported a loss for the first time in its 90-year history at Rs 421 crore in 2010-11, due to the losses incurred form its international operations.
Where there is will there is a way Black Money - US indicts Swiss Bank
Washington: The United States indicted Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges that it enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion hidden in offshore bank accounts, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The announcement, by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, represents the first time an overseas bank has been indicted by the United States for enabling tax fraud by U.S. taxpayers.
The indictment said the U.S. government had seized more than $16 million from Wegelin’s correspondent bank, the Swiss giant UBS AG, in Stamford, Connecticut, via a separate civil forfeiture complaint. Because Wegelin has no branches outside Switzerland, it used correspondent banking services, a standard industry practice, to handle money for U.S. –based clients.
The charges against Wegelin, of fraud and conspiracy, provide a rare glimpse into the world of Swiss private banking in the wake of a crackdown on UBS AG. In 2009, UBS paid $780 million and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department over charges it engaged in fraud and conspiracy by enabling scores of Americans to evade taxes through its private bank. The bank later turned over the names of more than 4,500 clients, a watershed in Swiss bank secrecy.
The indictment signals a ramping up of pressure on 10 other Swiss banks under investigation by the Justice Department, including Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and Basler Kantonalbank.
Six days ago, Wegelin-founded in 1741—effectively broke itself up by selling the non-U.S. portion of its business.
US, India win WTO case against China on raw material export
Washington: Led by the US, several countries, including India, Mexico and Brazil, have won their battle against China at the World Trade Organisation on export of raw material. In a ruling, the WTO Appellate Body found China’s export restraints on several industrial raw materials used as key components in the steel, aluminum, and chemicals industries to be inconsistent with China’s WTO obligations. The raw materials at issue include various forms of bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorus, and zinc.
Export restraints on these types of industrial products can skew the playing field against the US and other countries in the production and export of numerous steel, aluminum and chemical, and a wide range of other products, the USTR said. They can artificially increase world prices for these raw materials while artificially lowering prices for Chinese producers.
Guantanamo in Baluchistan!
Washington: In view of the seriousness of the law and order situation in Baluchistan, prominent human rights activists have told US lawmakers that it is the Pakistan Army and its spy agency that is running a "reign of terror" inside the restive province, informs media.
"The problem goes back to…is that in many ways Pakistan’s abuse of human rights served our interests, and so we’re kind of coming to this late in the game, that we’re trying to ask the Pakistanis to clean up their act after we have given them literally a blank check for about a decade," Christine Fair, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing. The first ever hearing on human rights violation in Baluchistan was organised by Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Ralph Peters, military analyst and author, said that Baluchistan is an occupied territory, whose people never wanted to be part of Pakistan in 1947.
"We look at this occupied territory of Baluchistan specifically, where people who simply yearn for fundamental freedoms for the right to determine that their own future, whether or not they have a battery of qualified teachers ready to go," he said. While expressing admiration for the sacrifices the province people are making against enormous odds in Pakistan, Peters charged the latter of actively supporting terrorists and insurgent movements in Afghanistan.
"What’s happening to Baluch people, it’s the kill-and-dump operation, it’s a terror mechanism that the Pakistani military and the intelligence officers used to terrorise the local population," said T. Kumar of the Amnesty International.
"It may be for a political reason, because some people, or may be a majority of Baluch may be asking for independence," he said, and clarified that Amnesty International, as a human rights organization, does not take position on whether a country is independent or not. Kumar said that the Pakistan army brutalized the population in the region with the aid of US weapons as they wanted some opening in their political aspirations, and asked the lawmakers to ensure that no weapon be used against them.
"Baluchistan presents a hydra-headed conflict situation. There are multiple actors perpetrating violence in there. But the engine of the human rights abuse no doubt is the Pakistani military, paramilitaries and intelligence agencies," Ali Dayan Hassan, Pakistan director of Asia division of Human Rights said.
Men cannot marry without a flat: China
Beijing: Marrying in China seems to have turned a Herculean task for the male fraternity with majority of the women viewing ownership of an apartment as a pre-condition to marriage, a survey has found. In a survey, conducted on the status of marriage and relationships in China, nearly 70 percent of the women interviewed regard having an apartment as a pre-requisite for men to ask for marriage, ‘China Daily’ quoted a media report as saying.
Anti-dumping duty on four items from China extended
New Delhi: In the backdrop of widening trade gap with China, India extended for five years anti-dumping duty on import of four Chinese products, including silk fabrics and a sweetener.
The duty is imposed to protect the domestic industry from cheap imports. Import of certain type of silk fabrics from China will attract anti-dumping duty of $ 1.82 to $ 7.59 per meter, a notification of the Revenue Department said. The duty was first imposed on the fabrics in December 2006 till December 2011.
India had a trade deficit of $ 16 billion against China during 2010-11. It has already crossed $ 20 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal.
The Directorate General of Anti-Dumping (DGAD) had carried a suo motu sunset review probe in December 2010 to examine whether cessation of the duty would lead to continuation of dumping and injury to the domestic players.
Following the review, the DGAD had recommended continuation and enhancement of the anti-dumping duty.
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