Pope Francis Overhauls Vatican Financial Watchdog

Pope Francis at the funeral of Cardinal D. Simon Lourdusamy on Thursday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Stephen: This latest move by Francis has implications and influence way beyond the Vatican. Thanks to Nils.

By Liam Moloney, WSJ – June 6, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/pnmpzej

ROME— Pope Francis took another step in his drive to clean up finances at the Holy See after years of scandals by naming international experts to the board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency, replacing an all-Italian panel.

The Vatican said the pope, the first non-European pontiff in about 1,400 years, named the four experts to the board of the Financial Information Authority, or AIF, which is the regulator overseeing the Holy See’s financial institutions. Their term lasts for five years.

The four new board members, which for the first time includes a woman, are from Italy, Singapore and the U.S., as well as Franco-German national. They replaced an all-Italian board made up of five members that had been named by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011. The old board was associated with the financial establishment tied to Pope Francis’ predecessor.

Pope Francis, who was elected pontiff just over one year ago after the historic resignation of Pope Benedict, says he is determined to bring an end to the financial scandals that have embarrassed the Catholic Church in past years.

“The key is trying to avoid that there are more of them [financial scandals],” Pope Francis told reporters on a flight to Rome from Israel at the end of May. “Economic administration calls for honesty and transparency.”

Thursday’s decision to replace the AIF board is an indication of the strong support René Brülhart, who is the director of the Vatican’s internal regulatory watchdog, has with the pope and his entourage.

Mr. Brülhart, a Swiss who was Liechtenstein’s previous anti-money-laundering regulator, was named director at AIF in 2012, two years after the watchdog was set up to bring Vatican finances in line with international standards for transparency and the prevention of laundering.

Last month, Mr. Brülhart, while presenting AIF’s work in 2013, said the Vatican had made considerable progress in putting up measures to combat financial crimes, but that more was needed.

AIF registered 202 suspicious financial transactions in 2013, a jump from the six reported the year before. Most of these were regarding the Vatican bank or, as it is formally called, the Institute for the Works of Religion, or IOR. Five of the 202 transactions were sent to the Vatican prosecutors for further investigation, up from one in 2012.

Pope Francis decided in April to keep IOR open, ending speculation about whether he would shut it down following years of scandals. Chairman Ernst von Freyberg, a German who was appointed in February 2013 by Pope Benedict, has spearheaded IOR’s efforts to bring the bank in line with international anti-money-laundering standards.

Pope Francis said onboard the papal plane last month that about 1,600 IOR accounts had been closed so far of people deemed not to have a reason for having one.

The new board gives the AIF a clearly more international profile. It includes Juan Carlos Zarate, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a former head at the U.S. Treasury combating terrorist financing and financial crimes.

The other new board members are Marc Odendall, who has French and German nationalities, and who has worked for Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Chase in the past before going into philanthropy; Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay, an adviser to the president of Singapore; and Maria Bianca Farina, an Italian specialized in insurance.

The new board “goes in the direction of an internationalizing” the board, said Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See spokesman.

The Vatican also said that jurist Tommaso Di Ruzza, who already worked there, was named interim deputy director of AIF.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis waded head-first into Mideast peace-making Sunday, welcoming the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican for an evening of peace prayers just weeks after the last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations collapsed.

Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas embraced in the foyer of the Vatican hotel where Francis lives, joked together and sat on either side of Francis for an hourlong invocation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers in the Vatican gardens.

Francis told the two men, who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, that he hoped the summit would mark "a new journey" toward peace. He said too many children had been killed by war and violence, and that their memory should instill the strength and patience to work for dialogue and coexistence.

"Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare," he said. "It calls for the courage to say yes to encounter and no to conflict."

Vatican officials have insisted that Francis had no political agenda in inviting the two leaders to pray at his home other than to rekindle a desire for peace. But the meeting could have greater symbolic significance, given that Francis was able to bring them together at all so soon after peace talks failed and at a time that Israel is trying to isolate Abbas.

"In the Middle East, symbolic gestures and incremental steps are important," noted the Rev. Thomas Reese, a veteran Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. "And who knows what conversations can occur behind closed doors in the Vatican."

The meeting has also cemented Francis' reputation as a leader unhindered by diplomatic and theological protocol who is willing to go out on a limb for the sake of peace. Francis capitalized on both his own enormous popularity and the peace-loving heritage of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, to bring the two sides together.

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Pope Francis welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, as he arrives at the Vatican, Sund …

The unusual prayer summit was a feat of diplomatic and religious protocol, organized in the two weeks since Francis issued the surprise invitation to Peres and Abbas from Manger Square in Bethlehem.

It took place in the lush Vatican gardens in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica, the most religiously neutral place in the tiny city-state. It incorporated Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers, delivered in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Italian and with musical interludes from the three faith traditions.

The prayers focused on three themes common to each of the religions: thanking God for creation, seeking forgiveness for past wrongdoing and praying to God to bring peace to the region.

At the conclusion, Francis, Peres and Abbas shook hands and planted an olive tree together in a sign of peace. Also on hand was the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, to give a united Christian front.

Vatican officials have described the prayer evening as something of a "time-out" in political negotiations, merely designed to rekindle the desire for peace through prayers common to all the main faith traditions in the Holy Land.

But even Francis' secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has said the power of prayer shouldn't be discounted for its ability to change reality.

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Pope Francis places an envelope in on of the cracks between the stones of the Western Wall, the holi …

"Prayer has a political strength that we maybe don't even realize and should be exploited to the full," he said at the end of Francis' Mideast trip. "Prayer has the ability to transform hearts and thus to transform history."

That said, no concrete results are expected: Peres has no formal role in peace negotiations, holds a largely ceremonial post and leaves office at the end of the month.

But Nadav Tamir, a political adviser to Peres, said Sunday the Israeli government authorized the trip and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in "constant contact" with Peres. Speaking on Israeli Army Radio, Tamir stressed the meeting was not political, even though he said Peres and Abbas were expected to discuss political developments when they meet in private after the prayer.

Netanyahu has urged the world to shun Abbas' new unity government which took office last week because it is backed by the Islamic militant group Hamas. His pleas have been ignored by the West, with both the U.S. and the European Union saying they will give the unity government a chance.

Peres' participation thus undermines Netanyahu's attempts to isolate the Palestinians and instead adds to the growing isolation of Netanyahu's hard-line position. Netanyahu's office has declined repeated requests for comment about the Vatican summit.

Nevertheless, Tamir stressed that the meeting had a different aspect to it.

"The government of Israel decided not to hold political negotiations, but we aren't talking about political negotiations. We are talking about a different gesture, a spiritual gesture, an act of public diplomacy," Tamir said.

Abbas, for his part, told Italian daily La Repubblica that Francis' invitation was "an act of great courage."

"Nothing should stop us in the search for solutions so that both of our people can live in their own sovereign state," he was quoted as saying in Sunday's editions.

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Josef Federman and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed.

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Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres embrace before joining Pope Francis for an evening of peace prayers.
Three themes

AURORA, Colo. (AP) — A line of severe storms packing high winds and hail swept across Colorado's Front Range and eastern plains Sunday, spawning several damaging tornadoes, including one that dropped down near a junior golf tournament southeast of Denver, weather officials said.

Seven tornadoes occurred, five in northeast Colorado and two in Park County in the center of the state, and three produced damage, the National Weather Service said on its website.

The band of storms would make its way into central Nebraska and western Kansas between 9 p.m. and midnight Sunday, Weather Service meteorologist Frank Cooper said. The storms will stick around the area Monday morning before moving into Arkansas and Missouri.

In Colorado, one tornado touched down near the Blackstone Country Club, causing one minor injury and flipping an empty trailer, Aurora Fire Department officials said.

Paul Cleveland, 16, who was playing in the golf tournament, said he and two other people were riding a golf cart when they saw a funnel cloud heading in their direction, swirling debris.

"I ducked down, protected my head and waited for the worst," he said.

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Fire Department officials talk at Blackstone Country Club where a reported tornado turned over an of …

Moments later, Cleveland said, the twister lifted the cart and threw it on top of a caddy walking nearby. The caddy, a man in his 50s, was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, said Capt. Diane Lord with the Aurora Fire Department. Damage was also reported to a construction trailer.

Several other tornadoes were reported Sunday, including one in the tiny northeastern Colorado town of Grover and two others in northern Weld County. A twister also touched down in a sparsely populated area of southeast Wyoming, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.

In Colorado, the two twisters in Park County caused damage. A funnel cloud touched down near Fairplay about 65 miles southwest of Denver at about 11 a.m., damaging the roof of a home, Park County spokeswoman Linda Balough said.

"This is amazingly unusual at 10,000 feet, very unusual for it to happen up here," she said.

Another tornado was reported a short time later, about 40 miles away near Lake George, and caused "substantial" damage at an RV park, Balough said. No one was reported injured in either tornado.

Weather Service meteorologist Kyle Fredin said a trough of low pressure created a "large extensive line" of severe weather along the Front Range from southern Colorado to the Wyoming border.

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Associated Press writer Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.

Severe storms trigger damaging twisters

A line of storms packing high winds and hail sweeps across Colorado's eastern plains.
Dropped down on golf tournament

24 students washed away in north India river surge

Shimla (India) (AFP) - Twenty-four students were missing late Sunday after being washed downstream by a sudden surge of river water in a remote Himalayan valley in northern India, a state minister said.

The students had stopped to take photographs on the edge of the Beas river in Himachal Pradesh when water released from a dam washed them downstream, transport minister G.S Bali said.

Rescue workers using torches in the dark were attempting to find the students in the picturesque Kullu Valley, some 200 kilometres (130 miles) north of the state capital Shimla, the minister said.

"Rescue teams are looking downstream for the missing in the dark," he said.

"They are 24 engineering students of the VNR college in Hyderabad," he said.

"The students had got off the bus to take photographs at the edge of the river at around 7:30pm when the sudden rise of water washed them away," he said.

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Volunteers and police personnel attempt to find drowning victims in the Beas river near Kullu, India …

The national government confirmed at least some of the students had drowned, with a rescue team sent to help search for survivors.

"I am deeply pained over the tragic incident of engineering students getting drowned in a flash flood in Himachal Pradesh," Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on his official Twitter account.

"I have instructed the authorities to despatch a rescue team for immediate action and save precious lives trapped in the floods," he said in a tweet.

A local official blamed the surge of water on a hydroelectric power plant further upstream.

"The water was released by the Larji power project dam," said senior state official Rakesh Kanwar said.

Angry locals and tourists blocked the main highway near the river in protest over the incident, saying authorities had failed to issue a warning about the release of water from the dam, according to local media.

The students, from the VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology in the southern city of Hyderabad, had been travelling to the resort town of Manali further north.

The stunning Kullu Valley is home to raging rivers, dense forests and steep gorges.

Himachal Pradesh and other Himalayan states including neighbouring Uttarakhand are home to a string of hydroelectric projects as India rushes to expand power generation to meet rising demand.

Governments are attempting to harness the power of rivers despite the risk of environmental damage to diversify away from costly and polluting coal and gas plants to meet the country's electricity shortage.

A government report in April concluded that hydropower projects in northern India were partly to blame for devastating floods last year that killed thousands.

24 students missing in India river surge

The students were swept away by strong waters in a river near a mountainous tourist resort in northern India.
Details

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Motive Sought in Las Vegas Shooting

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Two police officers were "simply having lunch" at a strip mall pizza buffet in Las Vegas when a man and a woman fatally shot them in point-blank ambush, then fled to a nearby Walmart where they killed a third person and then themselves in an apparent suicide pact, authorities said.

The attack at a CiCi's Pizza restaurant Sunday killed Officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, who are both husbands and fathers. One of the shooters yelled, "This is a revolution," but a motive remains under investigation, Las Vegas police spokesman Larry Hadfield told The Associated Press.

"It's a tragic day," Sheriff Doug Gillespie said at a news conference Sunday afternoon. "But we still have a community to police, and we still have a community to protect. We will be out there doing it with our heads held high, but with an emptiness in our hearts."

For added safety, officers who normally work alone will be paired up with another officer for a time, Gillespie said.

The deadly rampage in the aging shopping center about five miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip took place in a matter of minutes. Police were called at 11:22 a.m. to the pizzeria, where one of the officers was able to fire back at his assailants. It's unclear whether he hit them, Gillespie said.

Shots were reported five minutes later at a nearby Wal-Mart, where the shooters gunned down a person just inside the front door and exchanged gunfire with police before killing themselves, police said.

The female suspect shot the male suspect before killing herself, Gillespie said. The victim's identity hasn't been confirmed, and the suspects' names haven't been released.

Both officers were pronounced dead at University Medical Center. Beck had been with the department since 2001 and leaves behind a wife and three children. Soldo had been with the force since 2006 and is survived by a wife and baby, police said.

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Pictures of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officers Alyn Beck, left, and Igor Soldo are seen a a news …

He was described as a good father and a "great guy" by his sister-in-law, Colleen Soldo of Beatrice, Nebraska. She said he attended high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, and previously worked as a corrections officer.

Sheree Burns, 48, told the Las Vegas Sun she was eating at the restaurant, seated just behind the two officers.

A man came up to one of the officers and shot him in the head, Burns said. She said she ducked under her table but peeked up and saw the other officer being shot.

She said the man took an officer's handgun and the two attackers fled.

Pauline Pacheco was shopping at Wal-Mart when she saw the armed man and grabbed her father to escape, KLAS-TV reported.

"We saw when the man was walking, he was shouting, yelling bad words, and suddenly he had a gun," she told the station. "It was terrible, it was terrible. That man was crazy."

Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the male suspect yelled "everyone get out" before shooting at Wal-Mart. The suspects then walked to the back of the store.

Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement he was devastated by the murders of the two officers and an innocent bystander in an "act of senseless violence."

In a statement, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman called the killings a "cruel act" and praised the officers for dedicating "their lives to protecting all of us in our community."

Wal-Mart employees and shoppers were taken to a nearby women's clothing store to be interviewed by police. The restaurant and Wal-Mart remained closed as detectives processed evidence. McMahill said the investigation is "very complex" because it involves more than 1,000 witnesses.

Wal-Mart expressed its condolences in a statement and that the company is working with police on the investigation. Cici's Pizza said in a statement the company was deeply saddened by the shooting and would keep the location closed until further notice.

Sunday's killings come less than a year after the Las Vegas police department's most recent on-duty death. Officer David VanBuskirk died while rescuing a stranded hiker by helicopter on July 22, 2013.

The department has lost officers over the past decade in vehicle accidents and in an off-duty shooting, but the most recent on-duty shooting death happened Feb. 1, 2006, when Sgt. Henry Prendes was ambushed during a domestic violence call.

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Griffith reported from Reno, Nev.

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Vegas ambush: Cops were 'simply having lunch'

Two police officers and a civilian are shot dead before the suspects turn their guns on themselves, authorities say.
Apparent suicide pact