Starting in February, Malta is planning to sell EU passports to foreigners, but a European Parliament vote on Thursday (16 January) is unlikely to overturn the decision, as the country has a long track-record of handing out citizenship for a price, EurActiv Germany reports.
The lavish life of Mukhtar Ablyazov – financial fugitive, convicted fraudster, political patsy, British jailbird-in-absentia – was all but over on July 13 2013. Not that he knew it. Kazakhstan's most wanted man, on trial in London on charges of eye-watering financial fraud – charges he continues to deny – was rather enjoying life on the run. Safely ensconced in a plush villa on the outskirts of Nice, he was awaiting the arrival of a very special guest.
Over the past couple of years, many of the world's dictators have died or been deposed. Here are Asia's worst dictators as of 2013. Some are new to the scene, since the Worst Asian Dictators, 2008 list, while others have been holding on to power for more than a decade.
Kim Jong-un
Dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is accused of embezzling up to £3.64 billion from his former bank in Kazakhstan, should be extradited to Ukraine or Russia, a French court has ruled. The 50-year-old who had been in hiding since being sentenced to prison for contempt of court by an English judge 18 months ago, was arrested near the Riviera resort of Cannes last July and has been in custody since.
The former Kazakh bank chairman was once one of the world's richest men, is now the subject of the biggest UK fraud case in history. A millionaire alleged fraudster on the run, high politics, glamorous locations and beautiful women: the story of Mukhtar Ablyazov's life hardly needs turning into a John Grisham novel.
A court in France has agreed to a request from Russia to extradite Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive former Kazakh banker and political activist wanted on suspicion of fraud. Lawyers for Mr Ablyazov denounced the ruling by the court in Aix-en-Provence yesterday and said they would appeal to the Court of Cassation in Paris.
On a blustery February morning in 2011, Chris Hardman waited anxiously inside a Big Yellow Self Storage center in north London. A banner fastened to the box-shaped building's facade read "Get some space in your life." All Hardman wanted to do was see the contents of storage unit E2010.
