Malaysia 1MDB scandal: Investigators say about $4bn may be missing from fund
- 30 January 2016
- Asia
About $4bn (£2.8bn) may have been stolen from a fund owned by the Malaysian state, a prosecutor says.
The 1MDB fund was set up in 2009 to pay for major new economic and social developments in Malaysia.
Last year, Swiss authorities opened an investigation into 1MDB after it amassed more than $11bn (£7bn) of debt.
Switzerland's attorney general said on Friday there were "serious indications that funds have been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies".
Some of the money, the office of Michael Lauber said, had been transferred to Swiss accounts held by Malaysian former public officials and current and former public officials from the United Arab Emirates.
"To date, however, the Malaysian companies concerned have made no comment on the losses they are believed to have incurred," the attorney general's statement said (in German).
Red Horse: Native American drawings shed new light on Battle of Little Bighorn
The myth of Custer’s glorious last stand is debunked by a new exhibition of drawings by the Native American artist and warrior made five years later
The concept of manifest destiny began to show cracks the day Lt Col George A Custer met his end at Little Bighorn, outnumbered by Lakota Sioux and other warriors by an estimated 10 to one. Like all self-deluding notions, both he and it were bound to fail, and did so on an operatic scale. Walt Whitman wrote of Custer’s tawny flowing hair in battle, despite the fact he had shorn his famous locks days earlier in preparation for what he knew would be a bloody campaign.
“Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds, (I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,) Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,” continues Whitman in his 1876 poem, From Far Dakota’s Canyons, written in faraway Brooklyn. The reality at Little Bighorn was somewhat different.
Custer planned to ride into the village and hold women and children hostage as a negotiating tactic. “Human shields might not be the best analogy,” explains Stanford professor Scott Sagan. “They were human shields in the sense of potentially protecting the soldiers, but were also a magnet that would force the warriors to stay put and defend the village.”Video: How armed inmates sow terror in Venezuela's prisons
OBSERVERS
A group of armed inmates shoot into the air from the roof of a prison while their guards are nowhere to be seen. The scene might sound improbable, but it recently took place in Venezuela, a country where prisons are almost entirely under the control of gangs.
On Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela, inmates at San Antonio prison have it good. In this detention facility, guns, swimming pools, and even nightclubs are available for those doing time.
Several videos showing their improvised shooting session have been published on Venezuelan social media networks. For the prisoners, it was their way of paying homage to their boss, El Conejo, a former inmate who died on Sunday, January 24.
Our Observer Nemesis (not his real name) lives on the island.
On Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela, inmates at San Antonio prison have it good. In this detention facility, guns, swimming pools, and even nightclubs are available for those doing time.
Several videos showing their improvised shooting session have been published on Venezuelan social media networks. For the prisoners, it was their way of paying homage to their boss, El Conejo, a former inmate who died on Sunday, January 24.
Our Observer Nemesis (not his real name) lives on the island.
"It's pure madness!"
Satellite images of Burundi show mass graves, rights group says
Josh Kron
Nairobi: Satellite imagery of the outskirts of Burundi's capital supports emerging accounts of graves holding at least 50 people who died during political violence last month, Amnesty International said on Friday.
The human rights organisation's report added to the growing evidence of organised atrocities in the country. Observers say they believe the violence was largely carried out by the Burundian government and by pro-government forces, amid immense turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April last year his intention to seek a third term in office.
Separately on Friday, France protested the detention of two journalists working for the newspaper Le Monde – a French correspondent, Jean-Philippe Remy, and a British photographer, Philip Moore – on Thursday in the capital, Bujumbura. The newspaper reported later on Friday that the two men had been released, but had not got back their seized cellphones, notebooks, cameras or audio recorders.
Black German woman learns a shocking family secret: Her grandfather was a Nazi
Updated 2144 GMT (0544 HKT)
Jennifer Teege thought she knew the hard truths of her life: that her German mother left her in the care of nuns when she was 4 weeks old, and that her biological father was Nigerian, making her the only black child in her Munich neighborhood.
But the hardest truth came to her years later on a warm August day in Hamburg when she walked into the central library and picked up a red book with a black-and-white picture of a woman on the cover. It was titled "I Have to Love My Father, Don't I?"
As Teege, then 38, flipped through the pages, she felt she'd been caught in a furious storm that had suddenly come from nowhere.
She had unearthed the ghastly family secret.
She looked at the names of people and places in the book and realized that the woman on the cover was her biological mother.
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