SO KIND OF BANKERS TO DELAY THE BONUSES WE’RE PAYING
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
In the UK the beleagured Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS, above) and Lloyds have both agreed to defer senior staff bonuses in return for an additional £40 billion of taxpayers’ money as part of a deal with the Government that will break up 2 of Britain’s biggest lenders – or should I say alleged lenders, judging by the amount of businesses and individuals they’re currently pulling the plug on. In return for receiving billions of pounds more of taxpayers’ money, both banks say they will not pay cash bonuses for 2009 to any staff earning more than £39,000 a year while the board of each lender will defer bonuses due for this year until 2012. Stephen Hester, the chief executive of RBS, who took over the role from his disgraced predecessor, Sir Fred Goodwin, said yesterday : “That does mean we will be making extensive use of deferred payments and payments in shares.” Well of course, we wouldn’t expect these arrogant, greedy, self-obsessed banking failures to forego bonuses completely – that only happens to ordinary people. But all this doesn’t arrive at the best solution – it would be a lot easier if the government just said : if you want taxpayer support, NO BONUSES.
An Iraqi man who tried to flee to Britain from the United States after allegedly running down his daughter for being “too Westernised” faces a possible murder charge after she died from her injuries. Arizona police said that Faleh Hassan Almaleki ran down Noor Faleh Almaleki (pictured above) and her boyfriend’s mother with his Jeep as the women crossed a car park in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria on October 20, allegedly an “honour” attack. Noor died on Monday, having failed to recover consciousness after the attack. The other woman, Amal Khalaf, was also seriously injured but is expected to survive.
Police said that Mr Almaleki the fled the US and took a flight to London. Interviewed on arrival, Mr Almaleki told UK Border Agency officers that he was planning to spend a week visiting cousins in Glasgow – where presumably he thought people get run over regularly - but he was denied entry. Officers then discovered that he was wanted for assault over the attack on his daughter. Miraculously, considering how many wastrels are normally allowed to stay in the UK as a result of our political correctness, he was finally deported last Thursday and was taken to jail in Maricopa County, Arizona, to be held on charges of aggravated assault – charges that will now be upgraded. Now what’s the betting that some cretinous human rights lawyer in the UK comes out of the woodwork any time now, bleating that we shouldn’t have deported him, because he might face the death penalty ?
The convicted British mercenary Simon Mann (pictured above) was freed from jail in Equatorial Guinea yesterday. The Old Etonian mercenary, who was serving a 34 year sentence for his involvement in a 2004 coup attempt, was reportedly met by his brother and sister outside the notorious Black Beach prison in the capital of the west African country, Malabo. A government spokesman, Federico Abaga, said that a committee representing several ministries had gone to the prison yesterday to arrange the release. “Once he has left prison he will have 24 hours to leave the country. I don’t know where he will go. He is British, so I suppose he will go there,” Abaga said. Mann spent his first night of freedom at the 5-star Hotel El Paraiso, outside Malabo. A receptionist at the hotel confirmed that Mann’s brother Edward and sister Sarah had arrived yesterday morning. Surprised his mate Mark Thatcher never turned up to greet him.
Bare-footed, drunk and humiliated, the girl pictured above is the latest victim of a new zero tolerance approach to binge drinking and anti-social behaviour. In an bid to reclaim the streets, revellers in Newcastle’s city centre are now being forced to clean up their own mess. Those who are caught urinating by police officers, throwing up in the street or dropping litter are immediately stopped under the new scheme. They are then issued with a fixed penalty notice before being handed a disinfectant spray to clean the pavement – in front of other partygoers. Another job for our human rights lawyers, I suspect. If they can’t stop alleged murderers being deported I’m sure they’ll make up for it by trying to prove that drunks who vomit should have their “rights” defended by having someone else clean up their vile mess.
And another one going on about his “rights”. This time it’s Radovan Karadzic (pictured above), who appeared before the Hague war crimes tribunal yesterday after initially boycotting his trial since it began last week – but only to argue for more time to prepare. The former Bosnian Serb leader insisted his rights had been violated by not having enough time to prepare for the trial. He said he would be a “criminal” if he accepted the conditions of the trial, and refused to attend it until he was prepared to do so. He also promised to let the court know a few weeks in advance when that might be. Imagine if the likes of Hermann Goering, Albert Speer and Rudolf Hess had acted like that at Nuremburg – do you think they would have got away with it ? So what makes Karadzic different ? Time he was ordered to toe the line and frogmarched into court, big time.
-
Entries (RSS)