LONDON: A Canadian company that pleaded guilty to bribing late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s son to win contracts in the North African nation was granted a £1.2 million ($1.5 million) contract by the UK’s Conservative government, The Independent newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Department for Transport documents reveal that AtkinsRealis, a company formerly known as SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. that is based in Montreal, successfully bid for a contract to provide specialist technical and commercial advice to support the department’s oversight of rail fares, ticketing and retailing policy.
The business previously pleaded guilty to bribing dictator’s son Saadi Qaddafi with millions of dollars between 2001 and 2011 to win contracts in the North African nation, the Independent said.
AtkinsRealis won the contract in September 2023 and it is set to run until December 2025. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the company relating to the contract.
“The events in question occurred before 2012,” a spokesperson for AtkinsRealis’ told the Independent. “The company has transformed culturally, operationally and in its governance over the last decade, with a new leadership team and a robust and transparent integrity and compliance program recognized and independently verified by the Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in ethical business practices.”
The newspaper said that prior to the company’s rebranding, it was linked with historic allegations of bribery and corruption in several countries.
After winning a government contract in India in 1995 to refurbish a hydroelectric power station, it faced accusations of bribery and financial fraud. Several Indian officials were sacked following an official investigation.
More recently, four former employees of SNC-Lavalin who faced corruption allegations over their role in the construction the Padma Bridge in Bangladesh were acquitted by a Canadian Court.
The company pleaded guilty to paying $48 million in bribes to public officials in Libya to win contracts while Muammar Qaddafi was in power. In 2014, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged two former employees of bribing Libyan officials to secure deals over the course of a decade. In 2019, Canadian prosecutors said payments were directed to Saadi Qaddafi in return for him using his influence to secure construction contracts.
In response to questions about the awarding of the rail contract to AtkinsRealis, the Department for Transport told The Independent it is committed to delivering value for money for taxpayers and contracts are awarded through transparent and fair processes. The Conservative Party refused to comment.
AtkinsRealis said the company has been providing technical advice on rail fares and ticketing to the Department for Transport since 2020.
“This specialist advice has been used to support the development of fares strategies for the UK passenger rail network, including the expansion of ‘pay as you go’ ticketing, fares simplification and reform, and ticketing and retail strategies,” the spokesperson added.
UK government handed $1.5m rail contract to Canadian company that bribed Libyan dictator’s son
https://arab.news/p2gb4
UK government handed $1.5m rail contract to Canadian company that bribed Libyan dictator’s son
- The Conservative administration chose Montreal-based AtkinsRealis to provide technical and commercial advice to the Department of Transport
- The firm previously admitted bribing the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi with millions of dollars between 2001 and 2011 to win contracts
Blinken defends Biden, saying he restored global confidence in US leadership
With global media outlets expressing alarm at Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump, Blinken was asked at a Brookings Institute event what “friends and foes” around the world should know about US leadership under Biden.
Blinken said people around the world were looking at what Biden has done since coming into office, not just one night, and that they appreciate his policies.
“They’ve seen a president who’s reinvested America, reinvested America in the world, reinvested in these alliances, in these partnerships in ways that they seek and want,” Blinken said.
Many Americans expressed dismay at both candidates after last Thursday’s 90-minute debate on CNN. Biden, the 81-year-old Democratic incumbent, his voice hoarse from a cold, stumbled over some answers and trailed off during others. Republican Trump, 78, repeated a series of outrageous contentions that have been proven false many times, including claims that he actually won the 2020 election, but Biden did not refute them.
It was the first time since Thursday that Blinken, top US diplomat and a long-serving aide to Biden, was asked about the debate. He stressed Biden’s performance in office.
“If you look at surveys around the world, for what they’re worth, you see it again and again and again, that confidence in American leadership has gone up dramatically over the last 3-1/2 years,” he said.
“That doesn’t just happen. ... It’s the product of policies that we pursue, it’s the product of our engagement. And they see President Biden having led the way in all of those different areas, and in ways that are bringing people together and focused in the same way on the challenges that we have before us and that are common to so many other countries.”
Biden supporters had hoped the debate would dispel worries that he was too old for another term, but instead it fed concerns. Some Democrats have called for Biden to drop out of the race.
Biden’s performance raised cries of alarm in global media. France’s newspaper Le Monde compared Biden to a shipwreck. Britain’s left-leaning Daily Mirror called his performance a “gaffe-strewn nightmare.” The Sydney Morning Herald said “Trump monstered Biden. The Democrats can’t win with Joe.”
Viral campaign urges Wimbledon to sever ties with Barclays
- Graphic spoof adverts appear across London condemning tennis tournament’s links to bank
- Protesters gather outside of venue to tell spectators about Barclays’ involvement in the fossil fuel industry, Israeli military
LONDON: An insurgent advert campaign has been launched across London criticizing the Wimbledon tennis tournament’s commercial relationship with Barclays Bank.
Adverts on billboards, bus shelters and the London Underground have been replaced with messages by a group called Brandalism highlighting Barclays’ ties to the fossil fuel industry and arms companies supplying the Israeli military.
One image, featuring a tennis player bleeding on a court, is accompanied by the words: “From Gaza to global warming, we’re making a killing.”
Another of a banker and tennis player shaking hands bears the sentence: “Partners in climate crime and genocide.”
The world-renowned annual tennis event, run by the All England Tennis Club and famed for its grass courts, all-white uniforms and spectators eating strawberries with cream, begins on Monday, with organizers under pressure to sever ties with Barclays, who campaigners accuse of using the tournament to “cover up” its activities.
On Monday, protesters gathered outside the venue, with one telling people queuing for tickets through a megaphone: “We’re here because we want you to know that Barclays, a major sponsor of Wimbledon, must be ostracized.”
One of the protestors, Rafela Fitzhugh, 55, told The Guardian: “Barclays are a massive funder of companies investing in the bombing of Gaza and we are putting pressure on them to stop.
“They’re pumping money into the slaughter of women and children,” she added.
“They only got out of apartheid South Africa when there was enough pressure was put on them and that’s what we’re doing now.”
Another protester held a sign that said: “Wimbledon strawberries tainted with Palestinian blood, courtesy of Barclays.”
Kit Speedwell, a spokesperson from Brandalism, told The Guardian: “Wimbledon’s cherished strawberries and cream image has been thoroughly sullied by its decision to partner with Barclays, the most toxic bank in Europe, while the bank continues to pour millions into the arms trade and fossil fuel companies driving climate chaos.
“Wimbledon must stop providing cover for Barclays’ grotesque lack of morals and immediately end the sponsorship deal.”
Artist Matt Bonner, who worked on the Brandalism campaign, said: “Barclays continues to bankroll fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP, which is why we’re showing Wimbledon that this partnership is an endorsement of the bank’s complicity in climate breakdown. There’s no tennis on a dead planet.”
Another creative, Lindsay Grime, said: “Wimbledon needs to wake up to the fact that Barclays is a totally toxic partner, sullying their tournament by association.”
Grime’s contribution to the campaign is a spoof advert showing money stained with blood falling out of a tennis player’s pocket.
As well as being Europe’s largest financial backer of the fossil fuel industry, Barclays is estimated to hold shares worth about £2 billion ($2.53 billion) in companies supplying the Israeli military.
On Friday, a Barclays spokesperson told The Guardian: “We are proud of our partnership with Wimbledon. Like many other banks, we provide financial services to companies supplying defence products to the UK, NATO and its allies.
“We are also financing an energy sector in transition, including providing $1 trillion of sustainable and transition finance by 2030 to build a cleaner and more secure energy system.”
A spokesperson for the All England Club said: “Our ambition to have a positive impact on the environment is a core part of putting on a successful championships. We know this is one of the defining challenges of our time and we are fully committed to playing our part. Barclays is an important partner of ours and we are working closely with them in a number of areas.”
Dagestan terror attack toll hits 22
- Gunmen simultaneously attacked two churches, two synagogues and a police checkpoint in two cities in Dagestan on June 23
- On Monday, regional governor Sergei Melikov said the number of those killed had risen to 22
MOSCOW: The number of people killed in a wave of coordinated attacks in Russia’s southern Dagestan region last month has risen to 22, the regional head said Monday.
Gunmen simultaneously attacked two churches, two synagogues and a police checkpoint in two cities in Dagestan on June 23.
On Monday, regional governor Sergei Melikov said the number of those killed had risen to 22 — after a previously reported toll of 21.
“One police officer died the next day from severe wounds. In total 17 police officers and five civilians,” were killed, Russian news agencies quoted Melikov as saying.
The Kremlin has dismissed fears the attacks could mark a return to the kind of separatist violence that marred the historically restive region throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
The attacks came just three months after Daesh fighters killed more than 140 in an assault on a Moscow concert hall, the deadliest terror attack in Russia for almost two decades.
Melikov also said Monday that one of the assailants had taken part in a riot at Dagestan’s main airport in October.
Hundreds of men had stormed the runway of Makhachkala airport in an anti-Israel riot when news spread on social media that a flight from Tel Aviv was due to land in the Muslim-majority region.
That had come amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza.
In the June attack, two synagogues were targeted in Makhachkala and the city of Derbent, where a fire started by Molotov cocktails completely destroyed the interior of the building.
A Russian Orthodox priest was also killed.
Melikov also hinted Monday that the West had been involved in whipping up the “ideological state” of the assailants, without providing evidence or specifying who he was referring.
India replaces colonial-era criminal laws, including on sedition, to provide ‘justice’
- Modi government says change would make India more just, but opposition said it risked throwing criminal justice system into disarray
- Among key changes is replacement of sedition law frequently used as a tool of suppression after its enactment under British rule
NEW DELHI: India replaced colonial-era criminal laws with new legislation on Monday, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said would make the country more just, but the opposition said risked throwing the criminal justice system into disarray.
The new laws were approved by parliament in December in Modi’s previous term with the government saying they aim to “give justice, not punishment.” It says they were needed as colonial laws had been at the core of the criminal justice system for more than a century.
Among the key changes is replacement of the sedition law frequently used as a tool of suppression, after its enactment under British colonial rule to jail Indian freedom fighters.
Under the new laws — which replace the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure — sedition is replaced with a section on acts seen as “endangering the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India.”
“About 77 years after independence, our criminal justice system is becoming completely indigenous and will run on Indian ethos,” India’s Home (interior) Minister Amit Shah told reporters. “Instead of punishment, there will now be justice.”
Criminal cases registered under the repealed laws before Monday will continue to follow them, Shah said, adding that the first case logged under the new law was that of a motorcycle theft in the central city of Gwalior, registered 10 minutes after midnight.
“The laws were debated for three months ... It is not fair to give political color to this big improvement happening after centuries. I ask the opposition parties to support this legislation,” Shah said.
Opposition Congress party lawmaker P. Chidambaram said the previous parliament session did not hold any “worthwhile debate” before passing the laws.
He said that there was only marginal improvement in the new laws, which could have been introduced as amendments to existing laws.
“The initial impact will be to throw the administration of criminal justice into disarray,” he posted on X.
The Indian Express newspaper said in an editorial that criminal justice reform should not be “a one-time solution or one that just takes place in the books,” and called for police reform and addressing gaps in judicial infrastructure.
‘This is genocide’: Indonesian medics in shock over scale of Israeli violence on Gaza
- Indonesian doctors, nurses have been arriving to volunteer in Rafah since March
- They recall lack of basic equipment, being forced to treat wounded children without anesthesia
JAKARTA: When Ita Muswita arrived in Rafah in March to volunteer at Al-Halal Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital, she was overwhelmed by the scale of malnourishment among the newborn babies she was helping to deliver.
The hospital was one of the few that remained partly operational in Gaza and was providing medical care to thousands of pregnant women and new mothers, handling between 50 and 65 births each day with only five delivery beds.
Many of them were underweight.
“It is likely for them to become sick or die … It’s because the mothers are not meeting their (nutritional) needs,” Muswita told Arab News.
“Underweight babies are vulnerable to diseases, which means we need more hospital rooms for babies, which require equipment and medicines, and that was a problem … We often ran out of medicines … gauze, and suture instruments.”
The Indonesian midwife from Banten province was part of the first team of doctors and nurses from the Jakarta-based nongovernmental organization Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, which since March has been sending medical volunteers to the besieged enclave as part of a larger emergency medical deployment led by the World Health Organization.
While she was prepared to face the situation, knowing from UN estimates that most of the 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza had limited access to maternal healthcare, the situation she faced on the ground was worse than she imagined.
“This isn’t war, this is extermination, this is genocide, it’s true,” Muswita said.
Since October, Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives in Gaza have killed nearly 37,900 Palestinians and wounded more than 86,000 people, while thousands remain missing under the rubble.
Israel has also cut off the enclave from supplies of water, food, fuel and medical aid, as its forces destroyed most of its vital infrastructure.
Nadia Rosi, a nurse who was a member of another MER-C team that arrived in Rafah on April 21, said she was shocked when she saw the healthcare situation in Gaza.
Even the possibility of disinfecting equipment was rare.
“Where do we look for gauze, equipment? We don’t know because there wasn’t any,” she said.
“I was also scared of course, because even when we were at the hospital, we could hear the bombs exploding, the loud sounds from shooting, and this goes on as the attacks continue for 24 hours.”
When she served at the Tal Al-Sultan health center, children made up the bulk of her patients. She recalled their screams when there were no painkillers or anesthesia available.
“I was working in wound care and most of the patients were children. Maybe out of 50 patients, around 35 were kids. We didn’t have anesthetic … I would give them candy to calm them down,” she said.
“I would also invite them to recite the Qur’an, starting together with them before letting them continue on their own, and they would almost immediately settle down … These children are bravely withholding the pain, can you imagine how deep the cuts usually get? We already feel such great pain with small wounds, and these are lacerations that require stitches.”
After weeks of witnessing Israeli violence against Palestinians, Indonesian medics refused to describe the situation in Gaza as war.
“This isn’t war … It’s mass murder, mass annihilation. What kind of crazy person comes with their tanks to tents, killing children, killing babies, killing the elderly, killing women?” Asrina Sari, another nurse who arrived in Rafah in April, told Arab News.
“This is truly genocide that the whole world must know about, how ruthless Zionists are.”
Following her return to Indonesia last month, she has joined other Indonesian volunteers in raising awareness about what is happening in Palestine.
“You only need to be human to defend Palestine,” she said. “Let’s continue to pray for Palestinian independence and always use social media to update the latest situation on Palestine, to share all matters related to Palestine so that people know.”
