(Reuters) – Businessman Asil Nadir flew back to Britain on Thursday, 17 years after he fled while awaiting trial on theft charges stemming from the collapse of his Polly Peck business empire.
Nadir, who had been living in “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” **, which has no extradition treaty with Britain, arrived at Luton airport on a flight from Turkey.
He was met by men who appeared to be immigration officials before being driven away escorted by a police car.
Nadir, who says he is innocent, told reporters on the plane he hoped the climate in Britain was now right for him to get a fair trial.
“I’m delighted … that, after making such an effort all these years, the environment now is acceptable and it’s correct for me to go back and hopefully get a closure to this sad affair,” the Cyprus-born businessman told Sky News.
Nadir, 69, who had been a major donor to the Conservative Party, cast little light on why he has chosen to return now, except to say he was innocent and wanted to right the injustices he alleges he suffered in Britain.
Nadir’s departure rocked the Conservative government of then Prime Minister John Major, leading to the resignation of a minister who had links to the businessman and questions over the conduct of the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Last month, a London court agreed to grant Nadir bail providing he returned to Britain to face 66 theft charges relating to the Polly Peck fruit-to-electronics empire, which collapsed with debts of 1.3 billion pounds.
Nadir must appear at the Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing on September 3. He must also deposit 250,000 pounds with the court as a security before returning, submit to electronic tagging and surrender his travel documents.
Nadir bought into Polly Peck in 1980, when it was an ailing textiles firm. It became a stock market darling during the 1980s, its share price rising more than 100 times, as Nadir built an empire including the Del Monte fruit business and Japan’s Sansui electronics firm.
But in 1990, administrators were called in, uncovering one of Britain’s most spectacular business failures.
Nadir was forced into personal bankruptcy in January 1992 by creditors owed more than 80 million pounds.
Nadir told BBC radio he had fled 17 years ago because the legal battle over Polly Peck had endangered his life.
After years spent “battling with immense injustice and tremendous abuses of power in Britain … my health had deteriorated and at that point I felt that to save my life, I had to come to recuperate.”
Sometimes Turkey really is a bridge between west and east
Turkish foreign policy
How can Mr Davutoglu help you?
IN JUNE 2006, days after a young Israeli private was captured by Hamas, Israel’s ambassador to Turkey paid a midnight visit to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister. Gilad Shalit was feared to be gravely ill, perhaps even dead. Could Turkey help? Phone calls were made and favours called in. Mr Shalit turned out to be alive, and his captors promised the Turks they would treat him respectfully.
Turkey’s relations with Israel, once an ally, have worsened of late, and hit a fresh low in May, when Israeli commandos raided a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, killing nine Turkish citizens. Yet Turkey continues to lobby Hamas for Mr Shalit’s release.
Turkey’s falling out with Israel has sparked a flurry of anguished commentary in the West about its supposed eastward drift under the mildly Islamist Justice and Development party, which has governed the country since 2002. Concern over its cosy relations with Iran, despite that country’s refusal to suspend suspect nuclear work, has run particularly high. Yet nobody complained in April 2007 when Turkey brokered the release of 15 British Royal Navy sailors who had been seized by Iran.Similarly, France was delighted in mid-May when a personal intervention by Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, secured the release of Clotilde Reiss, a French teacher being held in Iran on spying charges.
Turkey is the first stop for thousands of political refugees from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Central Asia. These include Mohammed Mostafei, an Iranian lawyer who took up the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, a woman facing death by stoning in Iran for alleged adultery. Mr Mostafei fled to Turkey earlier this month after receiving death threats (he has since gone to Norway). Now Turkey has discreetly taken up his client’s case (although Iran has turned down a Brazilian offer of asylum for Ms Ashtiani). It is also pressing Iran for the release of three American hikers who were arrested, on suspicion of “spying”, near the Iraq border a year ago and who have been rotting in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison ever since.
Turkey’s mediating skills have even aroused excitement in Africa. Mr Davutoglu recently revealed that Botswana had sought his help in fixing a territorial dispute with Namibia. Flattered though he was, however, Mr Davutoglu confessed that, for once, he was stumped.
http://www.economist.com/node/16847136?story_id=16847136&fsrc=rss, Aug 19th 2010
The Mavi Marmara ship, the lead boat of a flotilla headed to the Gaza Strip which was stormed by Israeli naval commandos in a predawn confrontation, sails into the port of Ashdod, Israel, 31 May 2010 (file photo)
Israeli military police have arrested a defense force officer who allegedly stole computers from the Gaza-bound aid flotilla intercepted by Israeli commandos in May.
Officials say the officer is suspected of stealing as many as six laptop computers, some of which were sold to other soldiers. News reports say some of the soldiers who allegedly purchased the computers are also under investigation.
In May, nine pro-Palestinian activists on a Turkish ship were killed after Israeli commandos boarded vessels attempting to deliver aid directly to Gaza, in violation of an Israeli blockade.
The incident increased tensions between Israel and Turkey.
Israel had commandeered several Turkish ships that were part of the flotilla. However, earlier this month it allowed the ships’ operators to sail the vessels back to Turkey.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
https://www.voanews.com/a/israeli-soldier-accused-of-gaza-flotilla-theft-101068174/172255.html, 19 August 2010
Two Israeli groups set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to ‘show the other side’ over borders and culture
Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem and Jemima Kiss
Two Israeli groups have set up 'Zionist editing' courses with aims to alter perceptions about Israel. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images
Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.
Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in “Zionist editing” for Wikipedia, the online reference site.
Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My Israel) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.
“We don’t want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm,” says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. “We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day.”
Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. “We don’t want to give this arena to the other side,” she said. “But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel’s side, with all the correct arguments and explanations.”
Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is “not doing a very good job” of explaining Israel to the world.
And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.
Take the page on Israel, for a start: “The map of Israel is portrayed without the Golan heights or Judea and Samaria,” said Bennett, referring to the annexed Syrian territory and the West Bank area occupied by Israel in 1967.
Another point of contention is the reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – a status that is constantly altered on Wikipedia.
Other pages subject to constant re-editing include one titled Goods allowed/banned for import into Gaza – which is now being considered for deletion – and a page on the Palestinian territories.
Then there is the problem of what to call certain neighbourhoods. “Is Ariel a city or a settlement?” asks Shaked of the area currently described by Wikipedia as “an Israeli settlement and a city in the central West Bank.” That question is the subject of several thousand words of heated debate on a Wikipedia discussion thread.
The idea, says Shaked and her colleauges, is not to storm in, cause havoc and get booted out – the Wikipedia editing community is sensitive, consensus-based and it takes time to build trust.
“We learned what not to do: don’t jump into deep waters immediately, don’t be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned,” says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.
Is that Shiloh in the occupied West Bank? “No,” he sighs, patiently. “That’s Shiloh in the Binyamin region across the Green Line, or in territories described as disputed.”
One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn’t want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. “Going public in the past has had a bad effect,” she says. “There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground.”
In 2008, members of the hawkish pro-Israel watchdog Camera who secretly planned to edit Wikipedia were banned from the site by administrators.
Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. “It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity,” says Bennett. “The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad.”
The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the “Best Zionist editor”, with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.
Wikipedia wars
There are frequent flare-ups between competing volunteer editors and obsessives who run Wikipedia. As well as conflicts over editing bias and “astroturfing” PR attempts, articles are occasionally edited to catch out journalists; the Independent recently erroneously published that the Big Chill had started life as the Wanky Balls festival. In 2005 the founding editorial director of USA Today, John Seigenthaler, discovered his Wikipedia entry included the claim that he was involved in the assassination of JFK.
Editors can remain anonymous when changing content, but conflicts are passed to Wikipedia’s arbitration committee. Scientology was a regular source of conflict until the committee blocked editing by the movement.
Critics cite the editing problems as proof of a flawed site that can be edited by almost anybody, but its defenders claim the issues are tiny compared with its scale. Wikipedia now has versions in 271 languages and 379 million users a month.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups, 18 August 2010
Anti-terrorism raids on homes across Melbourne this morning were part of a national effort, with properties in Sydney and Perth also targeted.
In a joint blitz, police executed a number of search warrants as part of their investigation into organisations funding overseas terrorists.
The counter-terrorism teams include the Australian Federal Police, and officers from New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
The raids are part of an investigation into the funding of terrorist organisations.
“The community can be assured that this investigation is not related to any terrorist-related threat or incident,” a police spokeswoman said.
The Melbourne raids took place in Glenroy, Coolaroo, Pascoe Vale, and Dandenong.
Police raided the offices of the Kurdish Association of Victoria on Fawkner Road, Pascoe Vale, before dawn.
They sealed off the area and entered the offices.
Police seized boxes full of documents in the raids.
They also took desktop computers, hard drives and bagged evidence to waiting police cars.
Local Kurds, however, said the raids were nothing more than a political stunt.
Sniffer dogs combed the scene and association members were barred from entering the property.
Up to seven police cars were at the scene at first light.
The raids are believed to be linked to Kurdish groups providing funding to terror organisations overseas.
The Kurdish Association of Victoria was established to help newly arrived Kurdish refugees and migrants.
Its website says it provides a range of services for the Kurdish community, including settlement, advocacy, referral, education and health issues.
It also offers cultural and recreational programs in the areas of folk dancing, traditional music and Kurdish language.
The raids are believed to be linked to a crackdown on funding for the Kurdish Workers’ Party, which is listed as a terror organisation internationally. The PKK’s goal is to establish an independent Kurdish state.
Retired Major General Giora Eiland admitted Israel made mistakes over attack on aid flotilla. (AP)
The Israeli intelligence service made mistakes during the deadly storming of ships taking aid to the Gaza strip, a former military official has acknowledged.
Nine civilians were killed after Israeli commandoes boarded the flotilla carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid en route from Cyprus in May.
Retired Major General Giora Eiland, who led the Israeli military inquiry into the storming of the Mavi Marmara, told the BBC’s Panorama programme that planning for the operation had been lacking.
He explained: “Certain mistakes were made by the Israeli forces, both by the intelligence and by the commanders of the navy … there was under estimation of the potential resistance on the ship. The resistance was huge, much above expectation. Someone had to say ‘well the right conditions do not exist let’s do something else … let’s take Plan B’. They (the activists) were committed to kill and be killed.”
The Gaza flotilla was organised by The Free Gaza Movement, and a Turkish group called the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH).
Following the incident, Israel faced widespread international condemnation.
Israel has claimed it would co-operate with a UN investigation into the deaths, although it is currently holding its own second inquiry where it has so far defended its commandos’ actions. In all, almost 700 activists from various countries were seized in the Israeli operation.
Giora Eiland told the programme that in the circumstances the number of deaths was “surprisingly low”. The incident focused international attention on the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
A month after the storming of the ships Israel announced that they were to significantly ease the blockade. Mr Eiland said: “Unfortunately they managed to achieve exactly what they wanted, a provocation, to be able to show the Israelis caused the nine deaths. So Israel is seen as using excessive force and is guilty for everything.”
Panorama: Death in the Med’ is broadcast on BBC One at 8.30pm.
