Anbang the Insurance Giant is Now in Control of China

Beijing has cracked down on insurance and financial giant Anbang, taking control of the conglomerate and prosecuting the firm's head.

Wu Xiaohui, who was already detained by authorities last June, is to face prosecution for "economic crimes".

In an unusual move, Anbang Insurance Group will now be taken over by China's insurance regulator for one year.

The firm is known for its aggressive international acquisitions, Iincluding New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Chinese authorities have been cracking down on the financial industry to guard against excessive borrowing and risk.

A warning shot

"Clearly it is designed to be a warning shot to firms engaged in particular types of financial engineering and leveraged acquisitions (as Anbang was)," Tom Rafferty of the Economist Intelligence Unit told the BBC.

"The government has made clear reducing financial risk is one of its main policy priorities."

Anbang, which started out as a car insurance firm with state-owned backers, is recognised as one of China's richest and most opaque conglomerates.

"The motivation in Anbang's case probably is not just about delivering a warning shot, however, but probably some also real concerns that the company was heading for insolvency and the impact this would have on retail investors that purchased products from the company," Mr Rafferty said.

In addition to selling insurance products, it owns a portfolio of international properties and global brands.

Politically connected

Mr Wu, who married the grand-daughter of former leader, Deng Xiaoping, was long thought to be one of the most politically-connected men in China

After his detention last year, the company said in a statement that his duties as chairman would be managed by other senior executives.

On Friday, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission said he had been removed from his position altogether.

The government regulator said Anbang's business would continue and that its external liabilities would not be affected.

It said the company's current operations remained stable but that illegal operations may "seriously endanger" its solvency abilities.

It said its actions were aimed at keeping the firm operating as usual and to protect the rights and interests of consumers.

Last year, a company owned by the family of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, ended talks with  over a major redevelopment project in New York City.

The potential deal had raised questions about a conflict of interest, given Mr Kushner's role at the White House.

Different Attacks Hit Syria's Eastern Ghouta as world fumbles for response

Syrian regime air strikes and artillery fire hit the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta for a sixth straight day Friday killing 32 civilians, as the world struggled to reach a deal to stop the carnage.

More than 450 civilians, including over 100 children, have been killed in nearly a week of bombardment that has been one of the seven-year Syrian conflict's bloodiest episodes -- and rescuers were searching for more bodies buried in the rubble.

The leaders of France and Germany urged Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose airforce is also striking Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, to back a 30-day truce at a UN Security Council vote.

The council delayed the crunch vote by over three hours to 1930 GMT, as negotiations went into high gear to avoid a veto from Syrian regime ally Moscow, which has been calling for "guarantees" that the ceasefire would be respected by rebel fighters.

"We are still working on the language, on some of the paragraphs, but we are almost there," said Kuwait's Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi, who holds the presidency this month.

Few of Eastern Ghouta's nearly 400,000 residents -- mostly living in a scattering of towns across the semi-rural area east of the capital -- ventured out on Friday.

An AFP correspondent in Douma, the enclave's main town, saw a handful of people stealthily crossing rubble-strewn streets to assess damage to their property or look for food and water.

He said rescuers carried a young boy wounded in the eye, blood trickling down his face, to one of the town's hospitals. "Will I see again?," he asked a doctor.

Death has fallen from the sky relentlessly since government and allied forces intensified their bombardment on Sunday and rocket fire soon forced everybody to run for cover.

Exhausted and famished families cowered in cramped and damp basements, exchanging information on the latest casualties of the government's blitz.

Some of the only people braving the threat of more bombardment were medical staff in those hospitals still standing and rescuers sifting through the wreckage of levelled buildings.

- Trapped bodies -

Fresh strikes on Friday, by the Syria regime and its Russian ally, killed at least 32 civilians, including six children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes targeted different areas of Eastern Ghouta.

The latest deaths brought to 462 the number of people killed -- including 103 children -- since the regime and Russia intensified their bombardment of the besieged area on February 18.

More than 2,000 people have been wounded.

Rebels have been firing back into the capital Damascus, where on Friday a hospital was hit, the official Syrian news agency SANA said.

Diplomats at the United Nations failed to clinch Russian approval late Thursday on a resolution calling for a 30-day truce to allow for humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.

They then announced that a vote would take place on Friday, but it was delayed twice amid staunch Russian resistance.

Negotiations were continuing to avoid a Russia veto of the text that would establish a truce to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron wrote to Putin to ask him to back the ceasefire.

The latest text softens language in a key provision to say that the council "demands" a ceasefire instead of "decides".

It also specifies that the ceasefire will not apply to "individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated" with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. A previous version simply mentioned the two groups.

World leaders have expressed outrage at the plight of civilians in Eastern Ghouta, which UN chief Antonio Guterres called "hell on earth", but have so far been powerless to halt the bloodshed.

"The UN says it is concerned and calls for a ceasefire, France condemns, but they have given us nothing," said Abu Mustafa, one of the few civilians on the streets of Douma Friday morning.

"Every day we have strikes, destruction. This would draw tears from a rock," said the 50-year-old, who was escorting a wounded person to hospital.

- Toothless response -

The enclave has been controlled by Islamist and jihadist groups since 2012.

The main rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta rejected in a statement released Friday any deal that would see them or other residents relocated.

"We categorically reject any initiative providing for inhabitants to leave their homes and be transferred towards any other location," they said in a letter addressed to Guterres.

The area is completely surrounded by government-controlled territory and residents are unwilling or unable to flee the deadly siege.

The dire images of civilian victims bleeding to death in understaffed hospitals and the scope of the urban destruction have shocked the world and drawn comparisons with the devastating 2016 battle for Aleppo.

The aid community has voiced its frustration at being prevented from assisting civilians in Eastern Ghouta, which has been under government siege since 2013.

"The blocking of this resolution is another failure to end human suffering in Syria, with the UN Security Council rendered impotent as this senseless war rages on," Thomas White, Syria director at the Norwegian Refugee Council told said.

AFP

US to open Jerusalem embassy in May, arking Israel's 70th anniversary

The United States will relocate its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May, coinciding with Israel's celebration of the 70th anniversary of its independence, US officials said Friday.

The decision sparked a furious reaction from Palestinians, who object to the US recognition of the disputed city as Israel's capital and call May 14 -- which in 2018 marks 70 years since Israel's declaration of independence -- Naqba, their "day of catastrophe."

The choice of the date, a year earlier than originally forecast, is likely to further cloud efforts to restart peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, putting in greater doubt the traditional US role as an "honest broker."

"We are planning to open the new US Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May. The Embassy opening will coincide with Israel's 70th anniversary," a State Department spokesperson said.

In December, President Donald Trump broke with decades of policy to announce US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, drawing near global condemnation, deeply angering the Palestinians and sparking days of unrest in the Palestinian territories.

Until now, the US embassy has been located in Tel Aviv.

The new embassy will be located temporarily in a US consular building in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood, the US official said, while Washington seeks a permanent location.

It will initially consist of the ambassador and a "small team," the official added.

- 'Blatant violation of international law' -

The Palestine Liberation Organization decried Washington's decision as a "provocation to all Arabs."

"The American administration's decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and choose the Palestinian people's Naqba as the date for this step is a blatant violation of international law," PLO number two Saeb Erekat told AFP.

He said the result would be "the destruction of the two-state option, as well as a blatant provocation to all Arabs and Muslims."

The US move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital broke with generations of international consensus that the city's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

Trump said his defiant move -- making good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge -- marked the start of a "new approach" to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israelis and Palestinians alike interpreted Trump's move as Washington taking Israel's side in the conflict -- a view reinforced by the White House's recent decision to withhold financing for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas delivered a rare address to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, calling for an international conference to be held later this year to launch a new, wider Middle East peace process and pave the way to Palestinian statehood.

The revised schedule on the embassy move comes after US Vice President Mike Pence pledged only last month to move the embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019 in a speech to Israel's parliament that saw Arab lawmakers expelled after they shouted in protest.

Source: AFP

MPs of South Korean Want execution of North’s Olympic delegate

South Korean lawmakers protested Friday over a visit by a top North Korean general for the Pyeongchang Olympics, labelling him a war criminal over the 2010 sinking of a warship and calling for his execution.

Kim Yong Chol will head an eight-member delegation to arrive on Sunday for the Games’ closing ceremony — which will also be attended by US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, creating protocol headaches for Seoul officials. Kim is widely blamed for a spate of attacks against the South including the torpedoing nearly eight years ago of the Seoul’s Cheonan corvette, with the loss of 46 lives.

Some 70 lawmakers of the conservative Liberty Korea Party staged a protest outside the presidential Blue House, urging President Moon Jae-in to scrap the visit. “Kim Yong Chol is a diabolical war criminal who attacked the South… He deserves death by hanging in the street,” the party’s parliamentary floor leader Kim Sung-tae said in a statement.

“Even if the heavens split in two, we cannot allow such a heinous criminal — who must be sliced to death — to be invited to the Olympics closing ceremony,” he said. Unification ministry spokesman Baek Tae-hyun said the South Korean government was aware of widespread misgivings about Kim Yong Chol’s visit to the South, but accepted it as the “chances for improving inter-Korean ties and a peace settlement might be improved”.

At a Blue House dinner Friday evening with the South Korean president, Ivanka Trump — who is special advisor to her father — said she was there to “reaffirm our commitment to our maximum pressure campaign to ensure that the Korean peninsula is denuclearised”. Moon however stressed that engagement with the North had defused tensions between the neighbours.

“North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympic Games has served as an opportunity for us to engage in active discussions between the two Koreas and this has led to lowering of tensions on the peninsula and an improvement in inter-Korean relations,” Moon said. “I also believe that such developments are thanks to President Trump’s strong support for inter-Korean dialogue,” he added. The president also told Ivanka Trump in a separate meeting that the US and South Korea “must seize this hard-earned opporunity” to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, Yonhap news agency quoted Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan as saying.

– Charm offensive – The Pyeongchang Olympics have seen a charm offensive by the North, which sent leader Kim Jong Un’s sister to the opening ceremony as it seeks to loosen sanctions against it and weaken the alliance between Seoul and Washington. US Vice President Mike Pence was also present for the start of the Games, and sat only a few seats away from Kim Yo Jong, without exchanging words with her — having earlier visited a memorial to the Cheonan and condemned the North for abusing human rights.

Officials from both Seoul and Washington say there is little or no prospect of a meeting between Ivanka Trump and the North Korean representatives. But Seoul authorities are still struggling over how to manage their presence at the same event. “At the closing ceremony their lines of movement will not cross,” a senior official of Seoul’s presidential Blue House told Yonhap news agency. “Authorities are in agony over protocol and the seating plan at the closing ceremony.”

President Trump is set to announce the “largest-ever” package of sanctions on the Pyongyang regime, targeting 56 North Korea-linked shipping and trade entities, according to excerpts from a speech he will give later on Friday. – Testing the limits – Seoul blames the North for the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan — widely believed in the South to have been ordered by Kim Yong Chol — although Pyongyang denies responsibility.

At the time he was head of the North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, which is responsible for espionage and sabotage activities against the South. Kim has also been linked to the shelling of the South’s Yeonpyeong island the same year, which killed four people. Unification ministry spokesman Baek said the sinking of the Cheonan was “certainly the North’s work” but sought to play down Kim Yong Chol’s role. “There are limits to pinpointing those who were directly responsible”, he said. Kim Yong Chol’s presence is widely seen as a demonstration of how Pyongyang is using the Olympics-driven rapprochement to test the limits of multiple different sanctions imposed on it over its banned nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

The general is blacklisted under Seoul’s unilateral measures against the North — meaning he is subject to an assets freeze — although he is not named in the UN Security Council’s sanctions. In an editorial, the conservative Chosun Ilbo daily said: “By sending Kim Yong Chol, the North is in effect insulting the South and the bereaved victims of the Cheonan.”

AFP

Investors was robbed by Policemen the sum of $378,000

Senior officers from the Kampala Metropolitan South regional police command, Uganda, have been arrested for extorting more than 1.4 billion Ugandan shillings ($378,000) from two South Korean nationals.

More than five officers, including the Regional Police Commander Siraj Bakaleke, have been implicated in a scheme that led to gunpoint extortion of the two foreigners who were in the country to purchase gold.

According to a source that preferred anonymity, intelligence personnel at the Katwe-based Kampala South Regional Police Command received information that two South Koreans were looking for gold amounting to about $1.5m.

The South Koreans, identified as Park Seunghoon and Jang Shingu Un, were to meet some gold dealers at Acacia Mall where their lawyer, only identified as Wanyoto, had set up the meeting.

In a statement recorded at the Flying Squad headquarters, one of the South Koreans revealed that when they reached Acacia Mall,  instead of meeting the said dealers,  they were surrounded by security operatives, put at gunpoint and asked to hand over the money they had.

A sum of 1.4 billion Ugandan shillings was handed over to the police officers before the two South Koreans were arrested and detained at Katwe Police Station.

After detention for two days, police officers bought two air tickets for Emirates Airlines and planned to repatriate the two foreigners to South Korea using some of the extorted money.

On the day the two were supposed to fly back to South Korea, however, the plane left them behind as they were being transported from Katwe Police Station to Entebbe Airport.

It was a moment of confusion, as the Police officers now quickly bought other tickets with Rwanda Air but before the two foreigners could board the plane, Flying Squad operatives surrounded the place, arresting three police officers who had escorted the suspects.

The police officers, now detained at Nalufenya police facility, include, Isaac Munezero, the officer in charge of crime intelligence in Katwe police station; George Kayongo, Kenneth Zirintuusa and Patrick Ochen.Vincent Ssekate, the police Professional Standards Unit spokesperson, confirmed the arrests.

“Yes they are in our custody and others have recorded their statements,” he said.

Bakaleke, who is alleged to have been a key player in the extortion, made a statement on Tuesday evening at the Professional Standards Unit in Naguru.

Other senior officers at the region have also made statements at Kampala metropolitan police headquarters.

North Korea's response to US sanctions

The United states has decided to increase sanctions on the most controversial government of North Korea. The response of NK to US are stated below:

• 30 November 2016: UN sanctions targeted North Korea's valuable coal trade with China, slashing exports by about 60% under a new sales cap. Exports of copper, nickel, silver, zinc and the sale of statues were also banned
• What happened next? On 14 May 2017, North Korea tested what it said was a "newly developed ballistic rocket" capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead
• 2 June 2017: UN imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on four entities and 14 officials, including the head of North Korea's overseas spying operations
• What happened next? On 4 July, North Korea claimed it had carried out its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
• 6 August 2017: UN banned North Korean exports of coal, ore and other raw materials and limited investments in the country, costing Pyongyang an estimated $1bn - about a third of its export economy
• What happened next? On 3 September, North Korea said it had tested a hydrogen bomb that could be miniaturised and loaded on a long-range missile.