Tag: Heads

Ahead of potential presidential bid, DeSantis heads to New York for law enforcement event

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to guests at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting on November 19, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Scott Olson/Getty Images
NEW YORK — Florida governor and potential Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis plans to travel to New York City for a law enforcement event Monday, according to a copy of an invitation obtained by POLITICO.
DeSantis, who is expected to declare his candidacy in the spring, is listed as a “special guest for a discussion on protecting Law and Order in New York,” according to the email. The event will take place early Monday morning, coinciding with the federal Presidents Day holiday.
Doors will open at 7:30 a.m. at the Privé catering hall on the South Shore of Staten Island — one of the few Republican bastions in the otherwise Democratic stronghold of New York City. Staten Island is the only one of the city’s five boroughs to support former President Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. It is a suburban enclave in a city of mass transit, congestion and skyscrapers, and is home to many police officers and firefighters who tend to back GOP candidates.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 19, 2023
Why World Bank head’s resignation is good news for climate crisis fight

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The resignation of David Malpass, president of the World Bank, was greeted with relief and joy on Wednesday evening by climate experts and campaigners, who said it should open up a new era for financing the global shift to a low-carbon economy.
Malpass, who was appointed to the role by the then US president Donald Trump in 2019, had been facing mounting calls to step down after a series of missteps, including lacklustre plans for green investment, and appearing to deny climate science when confronted by a journalist.
In a statement, Malpass said the World Bank Group, which provides investment and finance to alleviate poverty and build services and infrastructure in developing countries, was “fundamentally strong, financially sustainable, and well-positioned to increase its development impact in the face of urgent global crises” and that he would “pursue new challenges”.
His departure, which will take place on 30 June to give time to find a successor, should herald sweeping reform of the bank and its sister institutions to focus much more on the climate crisis, experts said. Al Gore, former US vice-president, said: “Humankind needs the head of the World Bank to fully recognise and creatively respond to the civilisation-threatening danger posed by the climate crisis. I am very happy to hear that new leadership is coming. This must be the first step towards true reform that places the climate crisis at the centre of the bank’s work.”
Developing countries have grown increasingly frustrated with the paucity of World Bank funds available for their pursuit of clean energy and to help them adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. Donor nations were also grumbling and pushing for reform, impatient with the bank’s slow progress in delivering a comprehensive climate plan.
Jake Schmidt, strategic director for climate at the US Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “Malpass’s departure allows the World Bank to hit the reset button and finally commit to the leadership needed in the climate finance space. The world needs more and better climate finance to meet the scale of the climate crisis and the needs of developing countries. With new leadership, the World Bank now needs to rapidly evolve, as a growing chorus of countries and experts have been urging.”
Calls for Malpass’s resignation gathered strength after an incident last September, on the fringes of the UN general assembly, when a New York Times journalist asked him on stage to confirm his acceptance of climate science. He fumbled for words and refused to validate climate science. Although he later attempted to clarify his position and insisted he was not a climate denier, the impression had been clearly given and his leadership irrevocably damaged.
Then at the Cop27 UN climate summit last November, arriving late after the plane he was on was hit by lightning, Malpass flew into another storm. Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, spearheaded a carefully coordinated attempt to gather international backing for a new global system of climate finance, with a reformed World Bank at its centre.

The World Bank and its subsidiaries were set up under the Bretton Woods framework, developed by the allies of the second world war in 1944. Mottley told world leaders: “Institutions crafted in the mid-20th century cannot be effective in the third decade of the 21st century. They do not describe 21st-century issues. Climate justice was not an issue then [when the bank was set up].”
Some of the criticisms of the World Bank are that its climate spending is too small, too scattered, uncoordinated and badly targeted, and hard to access by the poorest countries. The bank has also continued to fund fossil fuel projects, despite claiming to phase it out. According to data published last year, the bank has provided $15bn to fossil fuel projects since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015.
Mottley, whose country is one of the many small island states at gravest risk from the climate crisis, was cheered and feted at Cop27, and country after country came forward to support her plans. World leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholtz, Rishi Sunak of the UK and the US climate envoy John Kerry discussed what reform could look like.
Malpass, when he finally arrived, could only reiterate that his leadership was delivering a record $32bn (£26bn) for climate finance – sums derided as falling far short of the hundreds of billions and even trillions needed for the green transition.
Yet reform of the World Bank need not involve vast new expenditure by developed country donors, according to its former chief economist Nicholas Stern. He estimates that because of the structure of the bank’s capitalisation, investment of about $9bn from developed countries over several years could enable it to raise about half of the $2.4tn a year he calculates will be required in total climate finance by 2030, to put the world on a low-carbon path.
“These sums are not scary,” Lord Stern told the Guardian at Cop27. “They are about 5% more than the current investment [much of which goes to fossil fuels and high-carbon infrastructure]. We could, if we wanted to, get started quickly.”
Mottley is expected to set out her proposals, known as the Bridgetown Agenda, in some detail in the coming weeks, to be discussed by world governments before the spring meetings of the World Bank Group in April. Then in late June, Macron will hold a climate finance summit in Paris, by which time – if nations can keep up their constructive spirit – the new plans may be ready to start putting into action.
By then, a new World Bank president should be ready to take over. Since the Bretton Woods institutions were set up, that appointment has always been made by the US president, while European leaders choose the head of the International Monetary Fund. Some developing countries would like to see that convention reformed, too, and have a global competition to find a new president – but that might be a step too far for Malpass’s successor.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023
Heads roll in Ukraine graft purge, but defense chief Reznikov rejects rumors he’s out

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KYIV — Heads are rolling in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s expanding purge against corruption in Ukraine, but Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov is denying rumors that he’s destined for the exit — a move that would be viewed as a considerable setback for Kyiv in the middle of its war with Russia.
Two weeks ago, Ukraine was shaken by two major corruption scandals centered on government procurement of military catering services and electrical generators. Rather than sweeping the suspect deals under the carpet, Zelenskyy launched a major crackdown, in a bid to show allies in the U.S. and EU that Ukraine is making a clean break from the past.
Tetiana Shevchuk, a lawyer with the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a watchdog, said Zelenskyy needed to draw a line in the sand: “Because even when the war is going on, people saw that officials are conducting ‘business as usual’. They saw that corrupt schemes have not disappeared, and it made people really angry. Therefore, the president had to show he is on the side of fighting against corruption.”
Since the initial revelations, the graft investigations have snowballed, with enforcers uncovering further possible profiteering in the defense ministry. Two former deputy defense ministers have been placed in pre-trial detention.
Given the focus on his ministry in the scandal, speculation by journalists and politicians has swirled that Reznikov — one of the best-known faces of Ukraine’s war against the Russian invaders — is set to be fired or at least transferred to another ministry.
But losing such a top name would be a big blow. At a press conference on Sunday, Reznikov dismissed the claims about his imminent departure as rumors and said that only Zelenskyy was in a position to remove him. Although Reznikov admits the anti-corruption department at his ministry failed and needs reform, he said he was still focused on ensuring that Ukraine’s soldiers were properly equipped.
“Our key priority now is the stable supply of Ukrainian soldiers with all they need,” Reznikov said during the press conference.
Despite his insistence that any decision on his removal could only come from Zelenskyy, Reznikov did still caution that he was ready to depart — and that no officials would serve in their posts forever.

The speculation about Reznikov’s fate picked up on Sunday when David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskyy’s affiliated Servant of the People party faction in the parliament, published a statement saying Reznikov would soon be transferred to the position of minister for strategic industries to strengthen military-industrial cooperation. Major General Kyrylo Budanov, current head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, would head the Ministry of Defense, Arakhamia said.
However, on Monday, Arakhamia seemed to row back somewhat, and claimed no reshuffle in the defense ministry was planned for this week. Mariana Bezuhla, deputy head of the national security and defense committee in the Ukrainian parliament, also said that the parliament had decided to postpone any staff decisions in the defense ministry as they consider the broader risks for national defense ahead of another meeting of defense officials at the U.S. Ramstein air base in Germany and before an expected upcoming Russian offensive.
Zelenskyy steps in
The defense ministry is not the only department to be swept up in the investigations. Over the first days of February, the Security Service of Ukraine, State Investigation Bureau, and Economic Security Bureau conducted dozens of searches at the customs service, the tax service and in local administrations. Officials of several different levels were dismissed en masse for sabotaging their service during war and hurting the state.
“Unfortunately, in some areas, the only way to guarantee legitimacy is by changing leaders along with the implementation of institutional changes,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on February 1. “I see from the reaction in society that people support the actions of law enforcement officers. So, the movement towards justice can be felt. And justice will be ensured.”
Yuriy Nikolov, founder of the Nashi Groshi (Our Money) investigative website, who broke the story about the defense ministry’s alleged profiteering on food and catering services for soldiers in January, said the dismissals and continued searches were first steps in the right direction.
“Now let’s wait for the court sentences. It all looked like a well-coordinated show,” Nikolov told POLITICO.  “At the same time, it is good that the government prefers this kind of demonstrative fight against corruption, instead of covering up corrupt officials.”
Still, even though Reznikov declared zero tolerance for corruption and admitted that defense procurement during war needs reform, he has still refused to publish army price contract data on food and non-secret equipment, Nikolov said.
During his press conference, Reznikov insisted he could not reveal sensitive military information during a period of martial law as it could be used by the enemy. “We have to maintain the balance of public control and keep certain procurement procedures secret,” he said.
Two deputies down
Alleged corruption in secret procurement deals has, however, already cost him two of his deputies.
Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who oversaw logistical support for the army, tendered his resignation in January following a scandal involving the purchase of military rations at inflated prices. In his resignation letter, Shapovalov asked to be dismissed in order “not to pose a threat to the stable supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a result of a campaign of accusations related to the purchase of food services.”
Another of Reznikov’s former deputies, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who managed defense procurement in the ministry until December, was also arrested over accusations he lobbied for a purchase of 3,000 poor-quality bulletproof vests for the army worth more than 100 million hryvnias (€2.5 million), the Security Service of Ukraine reported.  If found guilty he faces up to eight years in prison. The director of the company that supplied the bulletproof vests under the illicit contract has been identified as a suspect by the authorities and now faces up to 12 years in prison if found guilty.
Both ex-officials can be released on bail.
Another unnamed defense ministry official, a non-staff adviser to the deputy defense minister of Ukraine, was also identified as a suspect in relation to the alleged embezzlement of 1.7 billion hryvnias (€43 million) from the defense budget, the General Prosecutors Office of Ukraine reported.
When asked about corruption cases against former staffers, Reznikov stressed people had to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
Reputational risk
At the press conference on Sunday, Reznikov claimed that during his time in the defense ministry, he managed to reorganize it, introduced competition into food supplies and filled empty stocks.
However, the anti-corruption department of the ministry completely failed, he admitted. He argued the situation in the department was so unsatisfactory that the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption gave him an order to conduct an official audit of employees. And it showed the department had to be reorganized.
“At a closed meeting with the watchdogs and investigative journalists I offered them to delegate people to the reloaded anti-corruption department. We also agreed to create a public anti-corruption council within the defense ministry,” Reznikov said.
Nikolov was one of the watchdogs attending the closed meeting. He said the minister did not bring any invoices or receipts for food products for the army, or any corrected contract prices to the meeting. Moreover, the minister called the demand to reveal the price of an egg or a potato “an idiocy” and said prices should not be published at all, Nikolov said in a statement. Overpriced eggs were one of the features of the inflated catering contracts that received particular public attention.
Reznikov instead suggested creating an advisory body with the public. He would also hold meetings, and working groups, and promised to provide invoices upon request, the journalist added.
“So far, it looks like the head of state, Zelenskyy, has lost patience with the antics of his staff, but some of his staff do not want to leave their comfort zone and are trying to leave some corruption options for themselves for the future,” Nikolov said.
Reznikov was not personally accused of any wrongdoing by law enforcement agencies.
But the minister acknowledged that there was reputational damage in relation to his team and communications. “This is a loss of reputation today, it must be recognized and learned from,” he said. At the same time, he believed he had nothing to be ashamed of: “My conscience is absolutely clear,” he said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 6, 2023
Palestinian Islamic Jihad delegation heads to Egypt amid tensions

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Gaza: A delegation of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group will head to Egypt on Thursday for dialogue on defusing the escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine, an official said.
Dawood Shehab, a PIJ leader from Gaza, told reporters that the group’s secretary-general Ziad Al-Nakhala, at the invitation of Egypt, will lead the delegation to discuss the escalating violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem with Egyptian security intelligence officials.
The meeting comes after a series of deadly incidents in the region.
On January 26, Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied northern West Bank and killed nine Palestinians and wounded 16 others.
A day later, a gunman opened fire on people near a synagogue at a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, killing at least seven people.
Egypt has been mediating between Israel and the Palestinians and brokered several ceasefire agreements to end hostilities in the region.
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#Palestinian #Islamic #Jihad #delegation #heads #Egypt #tensions
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 2, 2023
J&K Govt Puts Statutory Requirement Of 15 Years’ Service Experience For SMC, JMC Heads In Abeyance

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SRINAGAR: In a move to allow incumbent commissioners of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) to continue at their current places of posting, the Jammu & Kashmir government has put in abeyance a legal provision that mandated 15 years’ service experience for officers to be posted as administrative heads of J&K’s two biggest municipal bodies.
In a notification, a copy of which is in possession of news agency KNO, the Housing & Urban Development Department has done away with the statutory requirement of 15 years of service experience for officers to be posted as commissioners in SMC and JMC.
As per sub-section (1) of section 45 of the Municipal Corporation Act, 2000, the government shall, by notification, in the government gazette, appoint a class 1 officer of the government having a service of not less than fifteen years, as the commissioner of the Corporation.
The Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2023 states that the government may appoint any suitable officer as commissioner of the Corporation, irrespective of his service experience, for the smooth functioning of the Corporations.
The legal requirement of 15 years of experience has been put on hold by invoking section 427 of the Municipal Corporation Act, which empowers the government to remove difficulties in the implementation of the Act. “If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act or by reasons of anything contained in this Act to any other enactment for the time being in force, the Government may, as occasion requires, by order direct that this Act shall during such period as may be specified in the order but not extending beyond the expiry of two years from the commencement orders have effect subject to such adaptations whether by way of modification, addition or omissions as it may deem to be necessary and expedient,” reads the provision.
According to the notification , the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2023, shall deemed to have come into force w.e.f 01.01.2023 and shall remain in force for a period of two years or till it is revoked by the Government, whichever is earlier.
The incumbent SMC commissioner Athar Aamir Khan is 2015-batch IAS officer while his Jammu counterpart Rahul Yadav is 2014 -batch officer.

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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

January 26, 2023
‘Heads in the sand’: code of silence in Sicilian town that sheltered mafia boss

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It is hard to believe that in the small Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara, where everyone knows each other and their secrets, no one thought to inquire after the identity of the man who had turned up out of the blue, with no known family or friends, over a year ago.
The street outside the apartment in Campobello where an apparent secret bunker has been found. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
Impeccably dressed in designer clothes, he could be seen drinking an espresso at the local cafe on most mornings, dining in a pizzeria, strolling the streets, shopping, and cordially greeting his neighbours.
That is until Monday, when he was arrested coming out of a clinic in Palermo and revealed to be Matteo Messina Denaro, the last godfather of the Sicilian mafia and the world’s most wanted mob boss.
Denaro being led out of the clinic in in Palermo on Monday. Photograph: Italian carabinieri press office
There is a Sicilian proverb that roughly translates as: “He who speaks little, will live a hundred years.” It refers to the code of silence, the first rule of the mafia, which for three decades protected Denaro and dozens of other mafia bosses before him.
“I cannot deny feeling great bitterness and a lot of disbelief in having learned that Matteo Messina Denaro lived right in Campobello,” said the town’s mayor, Giuseppe Castiglione. “Unfortunately, there are citizens here who have chosen to put their heads in the sand.”
According to mafia informers and prosecutors, Denaro, nicknamed Diabolik or U Siccu (the skinny one), holds the key to some of the most heinous crimes perpetrated by the Sicilian mafia, including the bomb attacks in 1992 that killed the anti-mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and the killing in 1996 of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a mobster turned state witness who was strangled and dissolved in acid. In 2002, he was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life in prison for having personally killed or ordered the murders of dozens of people.
A bartender watches news of the arrest in the mafia boss’s hometown of Castelvetrano. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
Before being arrested as he came out of a well-known private clinic in the Sicilian capital, where he was being treated for a tumour, Denaro – who once claimed “I filled a cemetery, all by myself” – had been in hiding since 1993. Year after year, Italian investigators relentlessly seized his businesses and arrested more than 100 of his confederates, including cousins, nephews and his sister, scorching the earth around him.
But every time investigators seemed to get closer to their target, Denaro would again fade away, disappearing and reappearing around the world. Former mobsters claimed to have seen him in Spain, England, Germany and South America. It is not yet known what he did in those 30 years and which countries he visited. However, it is certain that in early 2021 he decided to move to his Sicilian stronghold in the province of Trapani, hiding out in Campobello, five minutes from his home town of Castelvetrano and 11 minutes drive from his mother’s house.

Local people gather on the street in Castelvetrano. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
He bought a modest apartment not far from the town centre, about two miles from the sea on the south-western coast of Sicily, where the carabinieri police on Thursday said they found a poster of Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather, featuring the face of Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone.
The flat’s deeds were in the name of Andrea Bonafede, whose identity was taken by Denaro while he was a fugitive.
A poster of Marlon Brando in The Godfather, found in Denaro’s apartment. Photograph: Carabinieri
“I saw him at the bar, every now and then, in the morning,” said Piero Indelicato, a neighbour. “He seemed like a friendly person. But I never imagined he could be the boss, Denaro.”
Another neighbour said: “I didn’t know who he was. Why should I have suspected anything? For me, he was a gentleman who said ‘good morning and good evening.”
With police from around the world trying to track him down, Denaro was living like a free man in Campobello – a Sicilian echo of Osama bin Laden’s final years in Abbottabad, Pakistan, his home for five years before he was killed in a raid by US forces in 2011.
“I didn’t know who he was,’’ said the owner of a cosmetics shop on the corner by Denaro’s apartment. “I don’t recall seeing him here. Maybe I saw him somewhere in town.”
Maurizio De Lucia, the chief prosecutor of Palermo, has his suspicions.
“There are more than a few questions regarding the fact that someone like Denaro could have gone unnoticed in Campobello,” he said. “But we knew people weren’t going to race to give us information … ”
A newspaper story about the arrest inside a bar near Denaro’s house in Campobello. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
Investigators say Denaro was protected by politicians and entrepreneurs during his 30 years on the run. But he was also protected by omertà, the code of behaviour in communities across southern Italy that places importance on silence in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders, often reflecting a lack of trust towards institutions of the state.
Anti-mafia posters hang from a gate in Castelvetrano. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
For 14 years, Giacomo Di Girolamo, a Sicilian journalist and author of a biography on Denaro called The Invisible, started his daily radio show on Rmc 101 by asking the question: “Matteo, where are you?”
Di Girolamo, born and raised on the same land as Denaro, knows what it means to live in places under the shadow of the mafia.
“People are resigned,” he said. “The mafia in these parts has operated as a welfare state. When the bosses were arrested, the state didn’t fill that void and people lost faith in the authorities. In a place like Campobello – population 10.000 – there are around 50 people celebrating Denaro’s arrest. Dozens more people fear being arrested for protecting him. And then there are the remaining 9,000 inhabitants who are quite simply resigned to living in an area abandoned by the Italian state.”
Denaro had apparently kept up his luxurious lifestyle. Police found designer clothes, expensive shoes, perfumes and ties by Yves Saint Laurent in his house on Monday night.
Carabinieri police stand guard near Denaro’s apartment. Photograph: Alessio Mamo for the Guardian
On Wednesday, police also uncovered a possible secret bunker suspected of being used by the mobster in another apartment, not far from the first. The entrance to the bunker was concealed by a closet full of clothes. Investigators said they found emeralds, diamonds and other gemstones there.
On Tuesday, Denaro was moved to a maximum-security prison in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, where his cancer treatment will continue. Prosecutors have placed at least four people under investigation after his arrest, including two doctors.
The maximum-security prison in L’Aquila to where Denaro has been moved. Photograph: Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
During the first hours in prison, the boss was calm and smiling, some witnesses said. Denaro had 30 years to nominate his successor, hide his money and make evidence of his illicit dealings disappear. For two days, investigators have been sifting through every inch of his hideouts in Campobello in search of confidential documents.
The police hope to find the “secret archive” of the Sicilian mafia’s “boss of bosses” Totò Riina, who died in 2017. According to some mafia informers, the archive was stolen by Denaro and allegedly contains the secrets of the last 40 years of mafia killings.
The search for Denaro may be over, but the quest to uncover secrets has just begun.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 20, 2023