Panel urges Fujitsu to help victims of U.K. post office scandal
The panel set up by the British government recommended financial redress measures should be taken promptly for some 10,000 eligible claimants. It called for an outline of the measures to be submitted by the end of October.
In its report released Tuesday, the panel concluded the redress measures for postmasters and other victims have been insufficient and need sizable improvement.
It also stressed the need for affording opportunities for the victims to receive legal advice and for providing financial redress to close family members who suffered serious adverse consequences.
The panel proposed setting up a permanent public body to handle the redress measures in a unified manner.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Fujitsu showed its readiness to discuss its response to the recommendations and reiterated its deep regret and apology.
In the scandal, accounting errors occurred at post offices across Britain that had introduced Fujitsu's Horizon accounting system between 1999 and 2015.
The scandal led to indictments of more than 700 people, including post office chiefs. It was later discovered that the problem was caused by a flaw in the accounting system.
In 2024, guilty sentences against falsely accused victims were reversed and a compensation law was enacted. A total of approximately £1.09 billion in compensation had been paid to more than 7,900 victims by the end of June.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NHK
2 hours ago
- NHK
International plastic pollution treaty talks stall over production cap
The international community is struggling to reach a consensus on the world's first-ever treaty aimed at reducing plastic pollution. The United Nations adopted a resolution in 2022 to convene the meetings of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution. The latest session, involving ministerial-level discussions, opened in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 5, with delegates from about 180 countries and regions. The talks are scheduled to end on Thursday. The European Union and other stakeholders, such as Pacific island nations, argue that plastic production must be restricted. Oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, oppose such regulations. The US delegation, taking part in the meetings under the Trump administration for the first time, has also shown reluctance to accept restrictions. A draft of the treaty released on Saturday reflected a range of views, including the regulation of plastic production. Tuvalu issued a statement representing a group of Pacific island nations. It said the countries disagree over more than a thousand parts of the draft text. The meeting chair presented a new draft on Wednesday that failed to include any restrictions on plastic production. The proposal was rejected by several countries that are calling for stricter regulations. Some observers say it is inevitable that the meeting will have to be extended.
Japan Times
5 hours ago
- Japan Times
EU security measures cut illegal arrivals, but migrants take riskier routes
The number of people arriving illegally in Europe has fallen in 2025, but experts warn that irregular migration will persist as conflict and economic hardship intensify and migrants forge new pathways to avoid tougher security measures. Arrivals fell by 20% in the first six months of the year, continuing 2024's downward trend, according to the European Union's border agency Frontex, which credited the drop to increased cooperation with transit countries. Since 1 million people entered Europe irregularly during the so-called migrant crisis in 2015, the EU has taken an increasingly tough stance on illicit arrivals. However, experts say migrants are adapting to stricter EU measures at borders and becoming more reliant on smugglers and newer, often more dangerous routes. While overall numbers are down, arrivals have not decreased across every route to Europe, and new corridors have emerged as migrants and smugglers adapt. "As one route declines, others usually surge or reemerge," said Jennifer Vallentine, an expert at the Mixed Migration Centre, a research organization. Irregular crossings dropped to 240,000 in 2024 after surpassing 300,000 in 2022 and 2023 for the first time since 2016. Amid the downward trend, a new Mediterranean Sea corridor between Libya and Greece has emerged, with more than 7,000 people arriving in Crete this year. The Greek government has proposed a new law to criminalize illegal entry and impose a temporary ban on asylum applications. "Harsh restrictions won't stop the need and desire to migrate, and with irregular migration the only option for some, smuggler services will stay in demand," said Vallentine. Migrant survivors on the dock after a shipwreck on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, Italy, on Wednesday. | REUTERS The main irregular entry points across the Mediterranean and over the Greek-Turkish land border have remained consistent over the last decade. But activity on specific routes has fluctuated as people try to avoid increasing surveillance and border controls, according to experts. The EU has sought to shutter access at key entry points, said Helena Hahn, an expert at the European Policy Centre think tank. The bloc has struck deals with Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, key departure points for crossing the Mediterranean, bolstering the countries' border forces with speed boats and surveillance and offering cash in exchange for preventing illegal migration. "Cooperation with North African countries has certainly played a role in reducing arrivals," said Hahn. Arrivals across the Central Mediterranean route from North Africa to Italy and Malta decreased by 58% from 2023 to 2024, which the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) attributed to more boats being stopped at sea and migrants returned to Libya and Algeria. But the IOM also said the EU-North Africa partnerships contribute to increased activity on the Atlantic Ocean route from West Africa to the Canary Islands. The Central Mediterranean route emerged as the sea's busiest after the EU struck a deal with Turkey in 2016, paying Ankara €6 billion ($6.95 billion) to care for Syrians who had fled their country's civil war. Turkey also agreed to "take any necessary measures" to block new illegal routes into the EU. Over the last decade, Europe has spent billions on surveillance systems and detection equipment, and has posted Frontex staff at its external and internal borders. The Western Balkan Route that connects arrivals in Greece with Western Europe via an arduous journey through the Balkan states has been a target of these efforts, and last year Frontex reported that detections of irregular crossings on the route had dropped by 78% from 2023. But the IRC only recorded a 16% drop over the same time period, which the organization said suggests people are traveling more covertly to avoid detection. "There's a lot of deterrence, but it just makes people take more dangerous routes," said Martha Roussou, a senior advocacy advisor at the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian charity. Migrants are paying smugglers higher fees and traveling more quickly by night, stopping less often to seek help, according to the IRC. The EU is set to triple its spending on borders in the 2028-34 Multiannual Financial Framework to €81 billion. "(Europe's) reactive approach fails to acknowledge migration as both inevitable and beneficial," said Vallentine. "Until regular and accessible pathways are established, we will continue to see irregular migration — and smuggling networks will continue to adapt to facilitate it.'
Japan Times
21 hours ago
- Japan Times
Putin is about to outplay Trump again in Alaska
Ukrainian and European leaders are worried Donald Trump will get played for a second time when and if he meets his Russian counterpart in a meeting tentatively scheduled to take place in Alaska on Friday, and they're right to be nervous. Indeed, if Trump wants to emerge from the talks a master negotiator rather than a pushover, his smartest move would have been to postpone the summit until it's better prepared. Trump isn't wrong to try sitting down with U.S. foes and rivals, even where more conventional leaders would avoid the risk. But hastily arranged encounters rarely result as hoped and everything about the visit by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow that produced the Alaska invitation last week screams confusion. With so much fog on the American side, it's best to understand what Friday's scheduled meeting is really about from the point of view of Vladimir Putin. To him, this is a windfall he can use both to defuse Trump's threat of sanctions and further his war effort. That's what happened earlier this year, when the former KGB handler made good use of Trump's obvious desperation to secure a peace deal in Ukraine and an economic reset with Moscow. No matter how much Trump was willing to give away, including sanctions relief, Putin saw just one thing: a strategic opportunity. With the U.S. no longer willing to help arm Ukraine's defense, except — as eventually persuaded — when paid, Putin did the only logical thing: He upped the pace of his war effort, both on land and in the air, to take advantage of Kyiv's weakening position. Eventually, even Trump had to acknowledge he was getting strung along. Faced with an Aug. 8 deadline before the U.S. imposed financial consequences on Russia for its intransigence, Putin's task when Witkoff arrived in Moscow was once again to do just enough to stall any U.S. action, while making sure any concrete outcomes would strengthen Russia's position. So far, that's going swimmingly. He got something for nothing. The first priority was to keep Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the room, rather than have the three-way meeting that Trump — to his credit — was suggesting. The Ukrainian leader's presence would require actual negotiation, making Russian disinterest hard to hide. By insisting on a bilateral sit down with Trump, Putin can seek to propose terms this U.S. administration might accept, but he knows Ukraine can't. That would once again make Zelenskyy the person Trump blames for standing in the way of peace, taking the pressure off Putin. The second goal was to find a location for the meeting that would demonstrate, both to Russians and to leaders around the world, that Putin is no longer a pariah avoiding travel for fear of arrest under a war crimes warrant the International Criminal Court issued against him in 2023. Indeed, this would be Putin's first visit to the U.S. (outside trips to the United Nations in New York) since 2007, before his invasion of Georgia the following year. A summit in Alaska — a U.S. state that once belonged to the Russian Empire — would send a strong signal of Putin's rehabilitation, while also pointing to the Kremlin's long historical reach as a great power. Trump's invitation alone is a win for the Kremlin. If the summit also serves to delay U.S. sanctions or produces a "peace' plan that sows dissension between Ukraine and its allies, all the more so. But any genuine path to a lasting end to hostilities will need a lot more pressure, both financial and military, as well as preparation. If an account in Germany's Bild magazine is correct, Putin and his officials ran rings around Witkoff when they met the U.S. real estate-developer-turned-diplomat last week, leaving him confused about what was on offer. Whatever Witkoff may have misunderstood, it was enough for the U.S. president to say land swaps were on the table, when they aren't. What the Kremlin appears ready to consider is that Ukraine should hand over parts of the Donbas that Russia hasn't yet been able to conquer, in exchange for a ceasefire. So, not a land swap, but land handed over in perpetuity in exchange for a truce that's probably temporary. According to Bild, the Russian "offer' may also have required Ukraine to first withdraw its troops from much larger areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that Russia also claims to have annexed but has yet been unable to occupy. The Kremlin may also be willing to offer a truce in its air war to ward off sanctions, but that's less of a concession than it seems. Unlike two years ago, when that was a one-way fight, Ukraine's newly built long-range drones and missiles are doing increasing damage to Russian energy and military assets. On Monday, they hit a factory making guidance systems for Russia's missiles near the city of Nizhny Novgorod, about 440 kilometers (270 miles) east of Moscow. A truce might at this point be welcomed by both sides. Ukrainians know they'll to have to cede control of territory to end Putin's invasion. But they have in mind the kinds of concessions made to the Josef Stalin in Germany at the end of World War II. He secured control over the eastern half of that country for the Soviet Union, but West Germany retained its sovereign claim over the east and — eventually — got it back. Just as important is that after a brief attempt at seizing all of Berlin, the Kremlin left West Germany to prosper in peace. There's no indication Putin wants that kind of deal. It would do nothing to further his actual goals in going to war, which were to secure control over a de-militarized Ukraine as well as U.S. acceptance of a Russian sphere of influence in Europe, uncontested by NATO. Putin never hides this. It's what he means when he says he's happy to talk about a ceasefire, just as soon as the "root causes' of the war are addressed. There will be a time and place for a Trump-Putin summit. But it's unlikely to be this week in Alaska. Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
