Latest news with #ClintThompson
Daily Mail
02-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Bali bomb maker sparks outrage with new business venture: 'I was known for hurting the world, but now I choose another way'
The chief explosive maker in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people - including 88 Australians - has launched a new business after his early release from prison. Convicted terrorist Umar Patek, who helped build the devastating car bomb that was positioned outside two nighspots in the tourist hub of Kuta Beach, was released from jail in 2022. Having been released after serving 11 years of a 20-year sentence, Patek uses his part in the deadly attacks as part of his marketing for a new coffee roasting business. 'I was known for hurting the world, but now I choose another way,' he said in a video posted on the company's social media. 'The bitter taste used to destroy, now the bitterness heals. 'It's not just coffee, its change, choosing a new life.' The move has angered loved ones including Sandra Thompson who lost her son Clint Thompson. The promising rugby league player was a president of the Coogee Dolphins rugby squad that was caught up in the bombings while on an end-of-season trip. Six of them never came home. 'Has this man repented? Does he still think what he did was morally right? Or has he just served a sentence then moved on?' his mother Sandra Thompson told China Today. 'Two hundred and two lives plus an unborn baby and survivors still living with the effects of their injuries. Has he paid for that? Never, if he has no remorse.' Ms Thompson says she cannot forgive the atrocities of that day. 'I thought I had forgiven, then another one is allowed to live a normal life,' she said. 'A life he took from all those families. My life has never been the same.' Once the world's most wanted men, Patek left Bali just before the attacks and spent nine years on the run across Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan. He was released despite strong objections by Australia and a plea to the Indonesian government to make him serve his full sentence. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described him as 'abhorrent' and said his release would cause further distress those Australians who endured the trauma of the bombings Indonesian authorities have said Patek was successfully reformed in prison and they will use him to influence other militants to turn away from terrorism. Australian Jan Laczynski, who lost five friends in the bombings, spoke of his anger after Pateks early release. 'This guy gets his life back again. For a lot of us we'll never get our lives back again,' he said at the time. 'It's appalling. It's dreadful. It's wrong.' 'I've seen him in jail, I've seen him close up. He didn't seem de-radicalised to me.... I don't buy that at all.' Patek claims he initially struggled to find work due to his past as 'no one wanted to hire a convicted criminal'. However, after mentioning his desire to own a business in an interview with Indonesian media the owner of Hedon Estate restaurant reached out. 'I was donated the equipment that I needed to make the coffee and they said they would stock my products in the cafe,' he said. 'I thought it was so humanitarian of them to help me, particularly as the owner of the cafe is not Muslim. I hope that my new business will be a success and I will be able to be independent again.' The launch of his new coffee beans is planned for Tuesday in a small cafe in Surabaya in East Java around 400km from Bali. Patek said his brand's name Ramu is both a reversal of his own first name and a word which also means 'to concoct' in Bahasa Indonesia. He also addressed the backlash around his supposed reformation and release. 'If I apologise, people say that I am pretending and being strategic,' he said. 'If I don't apologise people will say I am arrogant and don't care. So everything is always wrong. 'This is not just about coffee. It is about change. It is about me choosing a new life.' The Bali boming attackers targeted a busy tourist strip on a Saturday night. The first explosion at Kuta was caused by a suicide bomber in Paddy's bar and the second by a bomb in a van parked outside the Sari Club. The victims were citizens of more than 20 countries, with Australia suffering the largest loss of life. Thirty-nine Indonesians, including many who worked in the tourism industry, also died. Hundreds more people were wounded.
BBC News
10-03-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Luxury lounges: Credit card perks we are all paying for
I'm standing in what feels like a suite in a posh hotel - all soft lighting, marble counter tops, plush seating and parquet-style ornate platter of food catches the corner of my eye."That is a seafood tower as a welcome food amenity, as well as caviar, and you can also see the champagne there for guests to enjoy," says Dana Pouwels, head of airport lounge benefits at US bank is showing me around Chase's new Sapphire Lounge at New York's La Guardia is what waiting to catch a flight can look like these days – if you can afford to pay $550 (£433) a year to have the correct credit card required to gain once inside Chase's new La Guardia lounge you can then choose to pay up to $3,000 to access a private suite for a few hours. It is all part of what has been described as a global arms race among the credit card companies that you are probably entirely unaware of – they are competing to outdo each other with bigger, better, bolder airport while most of us don't have access to these lounges, experts say we are almost certainly helping pay for them. And they don't come cheap."Yes, it's an arms race, and they're getting extraordinary," says Clint Thompson, the news editor at the flight and travel website The Points Guy. "From what we do know, we're talking up to tens of millions of dollars per lounge."Like the new [American Express-owned] Centurion lounge in Atlanta, I believe they spent about $100m to make that happen." Airport lounges aren't a new concept, and credit card issuers have long teamed up with airlines to offer branded credit cards with lounge now the card issuers are building lounges themselves, as a way of directly appealing to card holders - and potential new customers Morgan Chase, American Express, Capital One, they're all now in the lounge - and lifestyle - American Express this includes opening a high-end lounge in midtown Centurion New York venue is located on the 55th floor of a skyscraper, with floor to ceiling windows offering sweeping views of New York, and fine dining and private designed for Centurion card holders – a card which will cost you $10,000 as a signing on fee, plus $5,000 a year. And it is invite-only to get one."We're more than a credit card company or a charge card company, it's more a lifestyle brand, getting you special access to concerts, getting you into restaurants," says Audrey Hendley, the head of global travel at American Express. The card issuers have even moved into a 21st Century staple, the coffee One have Capital One Cafés - now you have a barista in a branch in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington DC has all the classic signs of the hip coffee shop - exposed vents, bare brick walls, barista coffee only immediate giveaway you might be in the bank is the neon Capital One sign on the wall and their branded touch screens. Look a bit closer, and you might spot one of their casually dressed people who looks like a customer, but is actually what Capital One calls their ambassadors, here to welcome you in and help you with all your banking can use the café, but hold a Capital One card and you get money off your brew."We're creating a showroom for our products," says Shaun Rowley the director of Capital One Cafes."For customers to come in and see Capital One in action, to touch it, to smell it and even taste it with our cafes. And watching them walk out, as you know, raving fans and advocates for us is kind of the return that we're looking for." None of this sounds like the sort of language you hear normally hear from financial Bennett is the head of behavioural science the ad giant Ogilvy. He says this is all about brands tapping into how people think about themselves, and other people."Yeah, it is a piece of plastic with the chip in it that holds your money, but it is something that actually gives you a position in society," he says. "It is something that says something about who you are. It is something that can make you feel elevated."The credit card firms are not just building rooms at airports, they're building a sense of self. It's kind of amazing that financial services companies have managed to kind of look at some deep-core human drivers, and then build experiences around that."And that's why they're so successful with them, because they've managed to find the psychological levers to pull, rather than just looking at the world through a rational lens." But even if you're never going to get access to these places, you are ultimately still paying for them, according to Lulu Wang. He's assistant professor of finance at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University near Chicago, and has studied how card payment systems points out that credit cards are more expensive for merchants, be they retailers, or bars and restaurants to accept than debit cards as they incur a higher processing fee. Prof Wang says merchants are likely to put up prices to cover the additional cost of people using credit cards."We typically think that corporations, you know, they're facing higher costs, they're going to pass on a pretty substantial share of those costs onto consumers," he explains."If we impose all these costs on the merchant, it ends up being a cost that is ultimately borne by all of us as consumers. Well-off people get to use the high merchant fee, high reward cards, and then it's the rest of society that has to bear that cost."Whoever is picking up the cost, the direction of travel is clear. More lounges and lifestyle experiences are coming as card issuers compete against each arms race to get your credit card loyalty isn't slowing down.
