View previous stories
	US to Sue Bank of America for $1bn over Brazen Mortgage Fraud by NYT & gencies   October 2012   US Federal prosecutors are suing Bank of America for $1 billion over mortgage fraud.   The civil mortgage fraud lawsuit centers around the bank"s program known as "Hustle," a program it absorbed from Countrywide Financial when it bought the company in 2008.   Ben Protess reports in the New York Times:   Prosecutors say the effort, created in 2007 but kept alive through 2009 by Bank of America, was designed to churn out mortgages at a rapid pace without proper checks on wrongdoing. The bank then sold the “defective” loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled housing giants, which were stuck with hefty losses and foreclosed properties.   The case marks the U.S. Department of Justice"s first civil fraud lawsuit over mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.   Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement:   "For the sixth time in less than 18 months, this Office has been compelled to sue a major U.S. bank for reckless mortgage practices in the lead-up to the financial crisis. The fraudulent conduct alleged in today’s complaint was spectacularly brazen in scope. As alleged, through a program aptly named ‘the Hustle,’ Countrywide and Bank of America made disastrously bad loans and stuck taxpayers with the bill. As described, Countrywide and Bank of America systematically removed every check in favor of its own balance – they cast aside underwriters, eliminated quality controls, incentivized unqualified personnel to cut corners, and concealed the resulting defects. These toxic products were then sold to the government sponsored enterprises as good loans. This lawsuit should send a message that reckless lending practices will not be tolerated."
	UN failed in its mandate to protect civilians in Sri Lanka conflict by UN News, OHCHR & agencies   13 November 2012   The United Nations failed in its mandate to protect civilians in the last months of Sri Lanka"s bloody civil war, a leaked draft of a highly critical internal UN report says. "Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN," it concludes.   The government and Tamil rebels are accused of war crimes in the brutal conflict which ended in May 2009.   The UN does not comment on leaked reports and says it will publish the final version.   The 26-year war left at least 100,000 people dead. There are still no confirmed figures for tens of thousands of civilian deaths in the last months of battle. An earlier UN investigation said up to 40,000 people had been killed in the final five months alone. Others suggest the number of deaths could be even higher.   Senior UN sources say Ban Ki-moon is determined to act on its wide-ranging recommendations in order to "learn lessons" and respond more effectively to major new crises, such as Syria, now confronting the international community.   The final months of the war saw hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians - 330,000, according to the UN Panel of Experts (PoE) report of 2011 - trapped in the territory held by the Tamil Tigers (LTTE).   As the LTTE retreated from the government advance, they forced the civilians to come with them. According to the PoE most, though by no means all, of the civilian deaths were caused by government shelling. The Tigers shot people trying to escape and continued forcible conscription. The government rejected the report.   The only international organisation left in the shrinking rebel zone was the International Committee of the Red Cross. Four days before the war ended the ICRC spoke of an "unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe".   Most of the media were completely excluded from the north. Five doctors in the rebel area who reported the casualty situation to the media were imprisoned by the government and in July 2009 paraded before the media and mysteriously recanted, saying fewer than 700 civilians died from January to May - a figure much lower than that the government this year admitted to.   The UN"s investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict says the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".   The report does highlight the positive role played by some UN staff on the ground, but it points to a "systemic failure".   The panel questions decisions such as the withdrawal of UN staff from the war zone in September 2008 after the Sri Lankan government warned it could no longer guarantee their safety.   Benjamin Dix, who was part of the UN team that left, says he disagreed with the pullout.   "I believe we should have gone further north, not evacuate south, and basically abandon the civilian population with no protection or witness," Mr Dix told the BBC.   "As a humanitarian worker, questions were running through my mind "what is this all about? Isn"t this what we signed up to do?"   Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians remained in the war zone, exploited by both sides: forcibly recruited by Tamil Tigers; or under indiscriminate government fire.   "We begged them, we pleaded with them not to leave the area. They did not listen to us," said a Tamil school teacher now seeking asylum in Britain, who did not want to be named. "If they had stayed there, and listened to us, many more people would be alive today."   Despite a "catastrophic" situation on the ground, this report bluntly points out that in the capital Colombo "many senior UN staff did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility - and agency and department heads at UNHQ were not instructing them otherwise".   It says there was "a sustained and institutionalised reluctance" among UN personnel in Sri Lanka "to stand up for the rights of people they were mandated to assist".   Citing detailed records of meetings and reports, the review highlights how the UN did not publish mounting civilian casualty figures even though a detailed annex makes clear there was a "rigorous methodology."   Under intense pressure from the Sri Lankan government, it also did not make public that "a large majority" of deaths were caused by government shelling. The government repeatedly denied it shelled civilian areas.   How did the UN failure happen? The report explores at length how senior staff in Colombo "had insufficient political expertise and experience in armed conflicts and in human rights... to deal with the challenge that Sri Lanka presented", and were not given "sufficient policy and political support" from headquarters.   It also points to the Sri Lankan government"s "stratagem of intimidation", including "control of visas to sanction staff critical of the state".   The result was a UN system dominated by "a culture of trade-offs" - UN staff chose not to speak out against the government in an effort to try to improve humanitarian access.   A general view of the abandoned conflict zone in north-east Sri Lanka where Tamil Tiger separatists made their last stand before their defeat by the army, May 23, 2009.   The UN spokesman in Colombo at the time says the organisation"s staff felt bullied by the Sri Lankan government, and that there was a "genuine fear" for their safety.   The decision to withhold casualty figures was a result of the difficulties of operating in the country, added the spokesman, Gordon Weiss.   "It was an institutional decision not to use those [casualty lists] on the basis that those could not be verified and of course they couldn"t be verified because the government of Sri Lanka wasn"t letting us get anywhere near the war zone," Mr Weiss told BBC"s Newshour programme.   Edward Mortimer, a former senior UN official who now chairs the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, says UN staff left when the population needed them more than ever.   "I fear this report will show the UN has not lived up to the standards we expect of it and has not behaved as the moral conscience of the world," Mr Mortimer said.   "There was a responsibility to protect in Sri Lanka but unfortunately it didn"t get publicity like in Libya. The north of Sri Lanka was destroyed field by field, street by street, hospital by hospital but we didn"t get that kind of reaction - Sri Lanka doesn"t have much oil and isn"t situated on the Mediterranean."   The executive summary of the draft highlights how "the UN struggled to exert influence on the government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post 9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organisation designated as terrorist".   There were no UN peacekeepers in Sri Lanka but this report says the UN should have told the world what was happening, and done more to try to stop it.   In New York, "engagement with member states regarding Sri Lanka was heavily influenced by what it perceived member states wanted to hear, rather than by what member states needed to know if they were to respond".   During the last months of war, there was not a single formal meeting of the Security Council or other top UN bodies.   Frances Harrison, author of the book Still Counting the Dead on the last months of the war, told the BBC "the only way now for Ban Ki-moon to restore the UN"s tattered credibility on Sri Lanka is to call an independent international investigation into the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in 2009".   "The UN chose to remain silent about potential war crimes," says the former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent.   A former UN official said the establishment of a panel, headed by Mr Petrie, is a sign "at least part of the UN is very serious about dealing with its failure in Sri Lanka".   UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said "Our obligation to all humanity is to overcome our setbacks, learn from our mistakes, strengthen our responses, and act meaningfully and effectively for the future," he said, adding that "events today in Syria are the latest reminder" of the importance of ensuring that civilians are protected.   http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/11/14/un-act-failings-sri-lanka http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/op-eds/keenan-sri-lanka-time-for-action-not-action-plans.aspx http://srilanka.channel4.com/index.shtml http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/a-small-matter-of-murder/120/ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AsiaRegion/Pages/LKIndex.aspx   14 November 2012   UN concerned over reports of intimidation of judges in Sri Lanka.   A United Nations independent expert today voiced serious concerns about reported intimidation and attacks against judges and judicial officers in Sri Lanka, and warned that they might form part of a pattern of attacks, threats, reprisals and interference in the independence of the justice system in the Asian country.   “I urge the Sri Lanka Government to take immediate and adequate measures to ensure the physical and mental integrity of members of the judiciary and to allow them to perform their professional duties without any restrictions, improper influences, pressures, threats or interferences, in line with the country’s international human rights obligations,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, said in a news release.   According to reports she has received, most cases of attacks and interference against the judiciary in Sri Lanka are not genuinely investigated, and perpetrators are not held to account.   “The irremovability of judges is one of the main pillars guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary and only in exceptional circumstances may this principle be transgressed,” Ms. Knaul said, while also expressing her uneasiness with the procedure of impeachment of the Chief Justice of the country’s Supreme Court, Dr. Bandaranayake, launched before the Parliament on 1 November.   “Judges may be dismissed only on serious grounds of misconduct or incompetence, after a procedure that complies with due process and fair trial guarantees and that also provides for an independent review of the decision,” she said. “The misuse of disciplinary proceedings as a reprisals mechanism against independent judges is unacceptable.”   According to media reports, on Wednesday Sri Lanka"s Parliament appointed 11 lawmakers to investigate an impeachment motion accusing Chief Justice Bandaranayake of misusing power and having unexplained wealth. She denies wrongdoing, and opposition parties and independent analysts reportedly say the impeachment attempt is aimed at stifling judiciary independence and concentrating power with Sri Lanka"s President.   In the Special Rapporteur’s view, according to the news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the procedure for the removal of judges of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court, set out in article 107 of the country’s constitution, allows the Parliament to exercise considerable control over the judiciary – and is therefore incompatible with both the principle of separation of power and article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.   “I urge the authorities to reconsider the impeachment of Chief Justice Bandaranayake and ensure that any disciplinary procedure that she might have to undergo is in full compliance with the fundamental principles of due process and fair trial,” the Special Rapporteur added.   24 October 2012   Corruption in judicial systems is threatening the protection of human rights, a United Nations independent expert said today, urging governments to implement policies to strengthen the rule of law to combat this practice.   “The pervasiveness of corruption in the judiciary and the legal profession, whether one off or endemic, is very worrying because it directly undermines the rule of law and the ability of the judiciary to guarantee the protection of human rights,” the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, told the General Assembly while presenting it with her latest annual report.   “A judiciary that is not independent can easily be corrupted or co-opted by interests other than those of applying the law in a fair and impartial manner,” she said. “Strengthening the judiciary from within, as well as providing all the safeguards for its independence vis-à-vis other public officials and private actors, is essential in combating and preventing instances of judicial corruption.”   Ms. Knaul noted that corruption in the judiciary has the potential to victimize those that do not have the means to play by the informal rules set by a corrupt system.   “Corruption in the judiciary discourages people from resorting to the formal justice system, thereby diverting dispute settlements towards informal systems that more than often do not abide by the basic principles of impartiality, fairness, non-discrimination and due process,” she said.   Mechanisms of accountability, the Special Rapporteur underlined, should be put in place to investigate acts of corruption and they should be developed with the full participation of the actors concerned.   “I strongly believe that the existing international principles and standards on human rights and corruption provide adequate guidance on how to tackle judicial corruption while respecting the independence of the justice system and human rights,” she said.   Ms. Knaul also emphasized that judges, prosecutors and lawyers are in a unique position to tackle the wider phenomenon of corruption in other instances of the public and private sectors, and that “anti-corruption bodies should be established or developed to effectively assist judicial actors to combat corruption and to implement and strengthen transparency within the public sector.”   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Judiciary/Pages/IDPIndex.aspx Visit the related web page
	View more stories