Tag: David Miliband

Ex-top banker sees “moral disaster” in market

(Reuters) – A former top banker, weighing into a protest movement in Britain against abuses and excesses of modern capitalism, said on Sunday the market economy had lost “its moral foundations with disastrous consequences.”

Ken Costa, a former chairman of UBS Europe and Lazard International, spoke out after being appointed by Bishop of London Richard Chartres to lead an initiative aimed at “reconnecting the financial with the ethical.”

Britain has become preoccupied with the ethics of elite financiers since a group of protesters, unhappy at the excesses of modern capitalism and its huge inequalities in wealth, pitched tents outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London last month.

The controversy brought to a head by the St Paul’s protest has elicited comments from Prime Minister David Cameron and the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, raising questions about regulation, including a financial transaction tax.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Costa said he would look at “how the market has managed to slip its moral moorings.

“For some time and particularly during the exuberant irrationality of the last few decades, the market economy has shifted from its moral foundations with disastrous consequences,” he said.

While still regarding financial incentives as “both valid and effective,” he said there was a need to “rebalance the equilibrium between risk, responsibility and reward.”

The St Paul’s demonstration replicates others worldwide, but has spotlighted not only banker bonuses and directors’ pay but also relations between politicians, financiers and the Church and the role they should play in society.

On Sunday, leader of the opposition David Miliband entered the fray, writing in the Observer: “You do not have to be in a tent to feel angry.

“Many of those who earn the most, exercise great power, enjoy enormous privilege — in the City and elsewhere — do so with values that are out of kilter with almost everyone else,” Miliband said.

“Only the most reckless will ignore or, still worse, dismiss the danger signals.” He said corporate bosses should have to justify their rewards to an employee who sits on a committee deciding salary packages.

The Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, wrote in a regional newspaper over the weekend: “The ill effects of very large income differences between rich and poor are that they weaken community life and make societies less cohesive.”

A new survey showed that Britain’s top company directors received a 50 percent average pay rise while the majority of Britons are having to endure a pay freeze during a period of austerity imposed by the government to reduce high debt.

Reuters

November 6, 2011
British Embassy staff arrested in Iran

Iran has detained eight local staff at the British embassy in Tehran on accusations of having a role in post-election riots, local reports said.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded their release, saying the arrests were “quite unacceptable”.

Relations between the countries are strained after Tehran accused the UK of stoking unrest, which London denies.

Some 17 people are thought to have died in street protests after the disputed 12 June presidential poll.

Tehran has expelled two British diplomats in the past week, and the UK has responded with a similar measure.

The arrests were first reported by the semi-official Fars news agency.

“Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody,” Fars said, without giving a source.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed “deep concern” over the arrest of local staff on Saturday.

“This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable,” he told reporters at an international conference in Corfu. “We want to see (them) released unharmed.”

He said the British government had made a strong protest and denied accusations that the UK was behind unrest in Iran.

Poll verdict

Meanwhile, Iran’s powerful Guardian Council was due to give its verdict on the result of the disputed presidential election, which handed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a decisive victory.

But the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in Tehran says there is much politicking taking place behind the scenes, and that the five-day deadline for the Guardian Council to return its verdict may be extended.

Our correspondent says there is an attempt to form a committee – including the disappointed presidential candidates – to oversee the recount of 10% of the votes, a move which they are resisting.

Another parliamentary committee is holding discussions with the grand ayatollahs in an attempt from pro-Ahmadinejad forces to put on a show of unity, he adds.

But opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has not backed away from his claim that the election result was fraudulent, and has refused to support the Guardian Council’s plan for a partial recount.

Mr Mousavi has been calling for a full re-run of the vote, but said on Saturday that he would accept a review by an independent body.

However the Guardian Council has already defended President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, saying on Friday that the presidential poll was the “healthiest” since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

BBC

June 28, 2009
Top British diplomat reaffirms his country’s support to Turkey’s EU bid

ISTANBUL – British Foreign Secretary David Miliband reaffirmed late Tuesday his country’s support for Turkey’s bid to join the EU, saying Ankara’s full membership would bring economic dynamism into the bloc, help solve its energy security problems and build closer ties between the West and the Muslim world.

“Britain is more convinced than it has ever been that the strategic decision to support Turkey’s accession to the European Union is the right one,” Miliband, who is currently in Ankara on an official visit, told Reuters.

“It is good for Europe as well as for Turkey,” he added.

Turkey began EU membership negotiations in 2005, but progress has since largely ground to a halt because of strong opposition in some member countries like France, Germany and Austria, and disagreements over the divided island of Cyprus.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month reiterated their opposition to Ankara joining the EU. The pair insisted that the 27-member bloc offer Turkey a “privileged partnership” instead, a move analysts described as an indicator of short-time calculations to achieve political advantage ahead of the European Parliament elections set for next month.

Miliband said the bloc should adopt a more “open outlook” and embrace the long-term benefits of Turkey’s membership provided it meets all entry criteria.

“Turkey is a particular place that would benefit Europe’s energy future. That would not have been given the priority and prominence it deserves five years ago,” he said.

Opening the doors of the EU to Turkey would be a “significant bridge to the Islamic world”, Miliband said.

“Turkey has a combination of a Muslim majority population and a proud democratic heritage. I think you can balance those things,” he added.

REFORM
Miliband, however, said Turkey needed to speed up its EU reforms. “Everyone wants to see Turkey making strides towards reforms,” he said.

“But equally we want to see a European Union that has got the right orientation and outlook, an open EU, that is something we have to work on specially at a time of economic downturn.”

“There have been significant changes if you look at the last 30 years. I think there is a new Turkey being built. I think that the direction is clear,” he said.

Miliband said another strong selling point of Turkey’s EU entry is its vibrant market economy. Economic activity is seen contracting by five percent this year due to the effects of the global economic crisis, compared to average growth of 7 percent between 2002 and 2007. The economy is expected to expand in 2010.

“Turkey will bring significant economic dynamism into the bloc. I think the debate of the Turkish economy will change in the next few years,” he said.

Miliband, who arrived Tuesday in the Turkish capital of Ankara to hold talks focused on the country’s European Union membership bid, met with Turkey’s Chief Negotiator for EU talks Egemen Bagis.

He met Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolgu on Wednesday, and is also scheduled to meet Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan later in the day.

Hurriyet

May 27, 2009
Miliband regrets ‘war on terror’

The idea of a “war on terror” is a “mistake”, putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

Mr Miliband seeks international co-operation to combat terrorism

Writing in the Guardian, Mr Miliband said the idea had unified disparate “terrorist groups” against the West.

He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights – not subordinate it.

Mr Miliband repeated the views in a speech in Mumbai, India, the scene of attacks by gunmen last year.

Mr Miliband’s warning comes five days before the end of US President George Bush’s administration, which has led the so-called “war on terror”.

The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase “war on terror” had “defined the terrain” when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, “ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken”.

The phrase was first used by President Bush in an address to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington.

Mr Miliband wrote that the phrase was all-encompassing and “gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda” when the situation was far more complex.

Calling for groups to be treated as separate entities with differing motivations, he wrote that it was not a “simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil” and treating them as such was a mistake.

“Historians will judge whether [the notion] has done more harm than good”, he said.

The phrase, informally dropped from use by the UK government several years ago, “implied a belief that the correct response to the terrorist threat was primarily a military one – to track down and kill a hardcore of extremists”, he wrote.

But the stance he now promoted was international “co-operation”.

Highlighting US President-elect Barack Obama’s commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, Mr Miliband said it was time to ensure human rights and civil liberties were upheld.

He suggested that the different organisations took advantage of the belief that they had one common enemy and a key way to tackle them was to stop this.

“Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”

Edward Davey, foreign affairs spokesman for the Lib Dems, said: “If the British foreign secretary had said this to President Bush many months, if not years ago, then it would have deserved some credit.

“Mimicking President-elect Obama’s lines days before his inauguration does not show leadership.”

The Scottish National Party leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson, accused Mr Miliband of hypocrisy: “This declaration by David Miliband and the Labour Party is rank hypocrisy. His government acted as a poodle to the Bush doctrine in Iraq and elsewhere.

“People will not be misled by this wishful re-writing of history.”

Mr Miliband repeated his views on the “war on terror” in a speech at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, in Mumbai, India. The hotel was among several sites attacked by gunmen in the city last November.

He is in the country in an attempt to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the attacks which killed at least 173 people.

Mr Miliband urged Pakistan’s government to take “urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil” and called for a resolution over the disputed region of Kashmir.

BBC

January 15, 2009