Police kill man for refusing to pay bribes
A mechanic died violently in police custody in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, shortly after he refused to continue paying bribes. The police reportedly started extorting money from the victim after they seized the auto-rickshaw that he operated and the two men he hired to drive it. The man was delivered dead to a hospital shortly after police picked him up, bearing signs of torture. The hospital has refused to release his medical records. The case shows how Bangladeshi police are able to trade on justice, to arrest persons at will, and to kill with impunity. The wife and nephew of the dead man have been threatened repeatedly by the officers involved in the case.
http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2010/3502/
"Officials puzzle"
A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan -- often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport -- as part of a cash exodus that is confounding US officials and raising concerns about the money's origin. The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to US and Afghan officials.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022404914_pf.html
Powerful people are assholes
Scientists argue that power is corrupting because it leads to moral hypocrisy. Although we almost always know what the right thing to do is, power makes it easier to justify the wrongdoing, as we rationalize away our moral mistake. The real question, of course, is what causes this blatant hypocrisy. One possibility is that power makes us less sensitive to the needs and feelings of others -- it silences our empathy -- and so we only think about our own motivations and needs. Once we become socially isolated, we stop simulating the feelings of other people. Our sense of sympathy is squashed by selfishness. The UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner found that people with power are like patients with severe brain damage. Our most powerful people are also the most isolated. They live in gated communities with private drivers. They skip the security lines at airports, before sitting at the front of the plane. We shouldn't be surprised that they're also assholes.
Swiss pride
Switzerland's leading bank UBS could collapse if talks with the United States over a high-profile tax fraud investigation fall through, said Swiss justice minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. Speaking in an interview with Le Matin Dimanche, Ms Widmer-Schlumpf said the Swiss economy and job market would suffer on a major scale if UBS fails as a result of its licence being revoked in the United States.
Switzerland and the US have negotiated an agreement under which UBS would hand over information on some 4,500 account holders to US tax police. Many in Switzerland have, however, accused the government of failing to protect the country's banking sector. "We have nothing to blame ourselves for. I don't think anyone could prove that we acted badly," Ms Widmer-Schlumpf said. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.44ec3a3581bd2b87b081a9614648ee11.c61
