Looks like Judge Jed Rakoff, didn’t feel like being adventurous after all, in disgraced Wall Street titan Rajat Gupta’s trial for insider trading. Instead of listening to the defense lawyers advice and sending Gupta to Rwanda to pay for his sins there, he will be punished the conventional way. Gupta was sentenced to two years in federal prison for leaking corporate secrets about the bank to a hedge fund at the height of the financial crisis. The judge also ordered Gupta, to pay a $5 million fine. There is no parole, but usually defendants serve only 85% of their sentences, so Gupta could be out in less than 21 months. I still feel like helping people in Rwanda battle AIDS would have been a more useful contribution to society. But oh well.prison it is then, fair enough.
And talking about unconventional ways of punishment. The US embassy in Moscow is very concerned about Russian President Putin’s latest stunt in battling his political opposition. Russian opposition activist, Leonid Razvozzhayev was apparently kidnapped on the streets of Kiev, Ukraine last Friday, as he was the UN for political asylum. In Russia, he is accused of plotting mass disorder in Russia, whatever that means. While the Russian authorities insist, Leonid turned himself in (yeah right!), Leonid maintain that he was kidnapped, tortured and brought back to Russia. As former Russian president Medvedev is slowly sidelined by Putin, who is reversing all of Medvedev reforms, it’s definitely getting serious now in Russia.
A previously unheard Beethoven score has been discovered by an academic in Manchester. The piece is thought to have been composed almost 200 years ago. It was found at the University of Manchester by Professor Barry Cooper, who spotted it in a notebook alongside some original sketches of the famous Mass in D, known as the Missa Solemnis. Very exciting stuff!
Looks like Judge Jed Rakoff, didn’t feel like being adventurous after all, in disgraced Wall Street titan Rajat Gupta’s trial for insider trading. Instead of listening to the defense lawyers advice and sending Gupta to Rwanda to pay for his sins there, he will be punished the conventional way. Gupta was sentenced to two years in federal prison for leaking corporate secrets about the bank to a hedge fund at the height of the financial crisis. The judge also ordered Gupta, to pay a $5 million fine. There is no parole, but usually defendants serve only 85% of their sentences, so Gupta could be out in less than 21 months. I still feel like helping people in Rwanda battle AIDS would have been a more useful contribution to society. But oh well.prison it is then, fair enough.
And talking about unconventional ways of punishment. The US embassy in Moscow is very concerned about Russian President Putin’s latest stunt in battling his political opposition. Russian opposition activist, Leonid Razvozzhayev was apparently kidnapped on the streets of Kiev, Ukraine last Friday, as he was the UN for political asylum. In Russia, he is accused of plotting mass disorder in Russia, whatever that means. While the Russian authorities insist, Leonid turned himself in (yeah right!), Leonid maintain that he was kidnapped, tortured and brought back to Russia. As former Russian president Medvedev is slowly sidelined by Putin, who is reversing all of Medvedev reforms, it’s definitely getting serious now in Russia.
A previously unheard Beethoven score has been discovered by an academic in Manchester. The piece is thought to have been composed almost 200 years ago. It was found at the University of Manchester by Professor Barry Cooper, who spotted it in a notebook alongside some original sketches of the famous Mass in D, known as the Missa Solemnis. Very exciting stuff!