Taiwan dismayed as another Pacific nation switches to Beijing

Yahoo – AFP, Sean CHANG, September 20, 2019

Seven states have now switched allegiance from Taipei to Beijing during
President Tsai Ing-wen's tenure (AFP Photo/Daniel Shih)

Taipei (AFP) - Taiwan lashed out at China on Friday after the tiny island nation of Kiribati switched its recognition to Beijing, the second diplomatic defection in the strategically important Pacific in less than a week.

The move is another coup for Beijing just weeks before it celebrates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

It comes four days after the Solomon Islands made the same decision, and leaves Taiwan more isolated than ever with just 15 states left that recognise it.

At a hastily arranged press conference, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen said Kiribati's decision was a "mistake", adding that the country of just over 100,000 people had "given up a sincere friend and chosen to be China's chess piece".

Taiwan has been a de facto sovereign nation since the end of a civil war in 1949, but China still views the island as its territory and has vowed to seize it, by force if necessary.

Over the decades, as China's economic and military power has grown, most countries -- including the United States and most Western nations -- have switched recognition to Beijing.

In the last decade, only a handful -- largely impoverished countries in Latin America and the Pacific -- have remained loyal to Taiwan. The only European state to still recognise Taiwan is the Vatican.

Beijing stepped up its campaign to diplomatically isolate Taiwan after Tsai's 2016 election because she hails from a party that refuses to recognise the idea that the island is part of "one China".

On Friday, Tsai said more suppression from China was expected with fewer than 100 days to go until Taiwan's January elections.

"They (China) have only one goal, that is to sway the outcome of the presidential election," she said.

Earlier that day, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu announced that Taipei would immediately withdraw its diplomats and expected Kiribati to do the same.

He said Beijing had "lured Kiribati to change its diplomatic ties" with promises of investment and aid.

Map showing the countries that have direct diplomatic ties with Taiwan. (AFP Photo/)

Taiwan elections looming

Beijing praised Kiribati for cutting ties with Taiwan, saying it "highly appreciates the decision to resume diplomatic relations with China".

Seven states have now made the switch during Tsai's tenure, during which China has also ramped up military drills and squeezed the island economically.

The small African nation of Sao Tome and Principe was the first to fall in late 2016, followed by Burkina Faso and then three Latin American states: Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

Then on Monday came the Solomons, which had been deciding for months whether to make the move following the April election of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

Taiwan heads to the polls in January, with Tsai seeking a second term and relations with China dominating the campaign.

She has described the vote as a "fight for freedom and democracy", setting herself up as someone who can defend Taiwan from an increasingly assertive Beijing.

Her main challenger, Han Kuo-yu, from the opposition Kuomintang party, favours rebooting the relationship with the island's giant neighbour.

"Timing is a factor here," Alexander Huang, a professor of international relations at Taipei's Tamkang University, told AFP, saying the upcoming 70th anniversary celebrations and the looming elections had pushed Beijing to pursue fresh defections in the Pacific.

With voters heading to the polls within months, he said, "Taiwanese should think really hard about cross-strait relations with China. Do we want to continue with this hostility... or do we need to make adjustments?"

But J Michael Cole, a Taipei-based expert with the University of Nottingham, said Taiwan has largely shrugged off the loss of diplomatic allies in recent years, knowing it cannot compete in chequebook diplomacy.

"The hoped-for psychological impact on the Taiwanese population has been diminishing with every ally stolen and as Taiwanese realise that in the end, it's the large, democratic and influential countries -- like the US, Japan, Germany -- along with a number of middle powers, that truly matter to Taiwan's survival," he said.

"Taiwan has made substantial progress deepening ties with those, and this, in my opinion, has more than counterbalanced the loss of small, investment and aid-hungry states as official diplomatic allies."

Juan Manuel Santos: Colombia rebels' archfoe turned peacemaker

Yahoo – AFP, Alina Dieste, October 7, 2016

Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos came to power in 2010 (AFP

Photo/Guillermo Legaria)

Bogota (AFP) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, is a son of a powerful family who staked his legacy on troubled efforts to make peace with the communist FARC rebels.

The Nobel Committee hailed the two-term president's "resolute" bid to end Latin America's longest conflict -- despite a shock referendum defeat last weekend for the peace accord he has championed.

"I prefer an imperfect accord that saves lives to a perfect war that keeps sowing death and pain," Santos had said as he signed the historic deal last month with his erstwhile mortal enemy, the FARC guerrilla leader Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez.

Juan Manuel Santos (AFP Photo/Gustavo IZUS,

Tatiana Magarinos)

Voters rejected the deal to end five decades of conflict by a razor-thin margin in Sunday's referendum -- a move the Nobel committee warned could plunge the country into fresh civil war.

The 65-year-old Santos, a career politician, led a major offensive against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) as defense minister from 2006 to 2009.

But after becoming president in 2010, he changed tack and negotiated for a settlement with the guerrillas.

"I was never a hawk or a dove. I've always been a standard-bearer for peace," he told AFP in an interview before the September deal.

'Do the right thing'

Santos defied fierce opposition to the talks from some former allies.

"I am not looking for applause. I just want to do the right thing," he once said.

He won reelection in 2014 in a vote widely seen as a referendum on the talks. But his popularity rating has since plunged.

Santos said receiving the Nobel Prize would be "a great stimulus" for efforts to achieve peace.

"We are very, very close, we just need to push a bit further," he told the Nobel Foundation in a telephone interview.

He accepted the prize "not in my own name, but in the name of all Colombians, especially the millions of victims," he added later in a televised address.

"I will dedicate all my strength to this cause for the rest of my life."

'Political courage'

UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi hailed Santos's "political courage" and voiced hope the impasse could be overcome.

A former hostage of the FARC, Ingrid Betancourt -- a Franco-Colombian former politician who was held in the jungle for six years -- said it was a "just" reward for Santos, but added that the rebels should have shared the Nobel.

Since Santos launched peace negotiations four years ago, his predecessor, ex-president Alvaro Uribe, has become his main critic, arguing that the peace accord offered the rebels impunity for their crimes.

Both Uribe and FARC leader Timochenko congratulated Santos on the award, however.

Santos "made war as a means to achieve peace," Santos's brother-in-law and adviser, Mauricio Rodriguez, told AFP recently.

"He weakened the FARC to make them sit at the negotiating table," he added.

The peace drive "required courage, audacity, perseverance and a lot of strategy -- those are Santos's strengths."

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (left) and FARC leader Timoleon 

Jimenez, aka Timochenko, shake hands after signing a historic peace agreement 

in Cartagena, on September 26, 2016 (AFP Photo/Luis Acosta)

'Extreme center' politician

Santos was born in August 1951 in Bogota into a rich, powerful family entrenched in Colombian politics and the media.

He has described himself as politically in the "extreme center."

He was educated at a top naval academy in the Colombian city of Cartagena and later at the London School of Economics.

Santos began his career as a journalist, winning a Spanish award for his coverage of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as a young man.

The work he did along with his brother Enrique in Nicaragua "had a profound impact on us both," Santos once said.

In 1991 he switched to politics, and has served in various ministerial posts.

An admirer of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Nelson Mandela, Santos is said to be an early riser and late sleeper. He survived prostate cancer in 2012.

His source of strength, he says, is his family -- "my saints," he has called them, playing on his surname which means saints in Spanish.

He and his wife Maria Clemencia Rodriguez have three children.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize for "resolute" efforts to end over 5 decades of war https://t.co/9f5Lf5eDGU pic.twitter.com/0XB1ve9yDe

— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 7, 2016

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THE OLD SOUL 2013 TOOLKIT" – Jan 13, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)  (Text version)

"... The Change in the Way Things Work

Now I'm going to be very cautious with number five, and I'm going to change a paradigm of the way we channel. For 23 years, we have given you information in the soup of potentials that we read around you as the highest probable potential that exists. These things eventually become your reality because they are your free choice, and we know what you're thinking. We know what the potentials are because we know what the biases are, and we see all of humanity as a whole. Potentials are energy, and it gives us the ability to project your future based on how you are working these potentials. We have done this for a long time. Twenty-three years ago, we told you about many things that were potentially going to happen, and now they are your reality.

But now I'm going to depart from that scenario and I'm going to give you a potential on Earth that is not the strongest. I am going to tell you about a Human Being who has a choice. This potential is only about 50 percent. But I'm going to "read a potential" to you that you didn't expect. It's about a paradigm that is starting to shift.

Let's talk about North Korea. There's a young, new leader there. The potential is that he will never, ever hear this channel, so I can talk freely about him. He is facing a dilemma, for he is young and he knows about the differences in the energy in his land. He feels it. The lineage of his departed father lies upon him and all that is around him expects him to be a clone of this lineage. He is expected to continue the things that he has been taught and make North Korea great.

But he's starting to rethink them. Indeed, he wants to be a great leader, and to be heard and seen, and to make his mark on North Korea's history. His father showed him that this was very important. So he ponders a question: What makes a world leader great?

Let's ask that question to someone in an older earth paradigm from not that long ago. He will be an expert and a successful one. So this is a valid exercise, asking someone from the past who knows. We will ask that question to a man who you know and whose name is Napoleon. For us, this was yesterday and some of you were there. 

If you asked Napoleon, "What makes a world leader great?", he will say, "the size of the army, how much area can be efficiently conquered with a given amount of resources and men, how important the leader appears will then be based upon how many citizens call him emperor or king, the taxes he can impose, and how many fear him." Not only was that Napoleon's reality, but he was right for the energy he was part of at the time. So Napoleon went back and forth between world leader, general and prisoner. He accomplished almost everything he set out to do. His expertise was obvious, and you remember his name to this day. He was famous.

What makes a world leader great? What I am showing you is the difference in thinking between then and now. There are some choices that this evolving young Human Being has that could change everything on the planet if he wanted. His father would tell this boy that what makes a world leader great is the potential of his missile power, or how close he can get to having a nuclear weapon, or how he stands up against the power of the West, or how he continues to aggravate and stir drama as a small country - getting noticed and being feared. His father would tell him that this is his lineage and that is what he's been told all his life. His father did it well and surrounded himself with advisors who he then passed on to his son.

Now, there's a 50 percent chance of something happening here, but this is not a strong potential, dear ones. I'm bringing this forward so you can watch it work one way or the other. For if the son continues in his father's footsteps, he is doomed to failure. The energy on the earth will see it as old and he will be seen as a fool. If, however, he figures it out, he could be the most famous man on the planet... which is really what his father wanted.

If Kryon were to advise this man, here's what I would tell him. He could be the greatest known leader the current world has ever known, for what he does now will be something the world will see as a demarcation point from the old ways. Not only that, but what he does now will be in the history books forever, and because of his youth, he has the potential to outlive every other leader on the planet! So he's going to have longer fame than anyone ever has.

I would tell him this: Tell the border guards to go home. Greet the south and begin to unify North and South Korea in a way that no past prophet ever said could happen. Allow the two countries to be separate, but have them as two parts of a larger Korean family with free trade and travel. Start alliances with the West and show them that you mean it. Drop the missile programs because you will never need them!

This will bring abundance to the North Korean people that they never expected! They will have great economic sustenance, schools, hospitals and more respect than ever for their amazing leader. The result would be fame and glory for the son, which the father had never achieved, something that the world would talk about for hundreds of years. It would cause a United Nations to stand and applaud as the son walked into the Grand Assembly. I would ask him, "Wouldn't you like that?"

Doesn't this seem obvious to most of you? He could achieve instant fame and be seen as the one who made the difference and started something amazing. But watch him. He has a choice, but it's not simple. He still has his father's advisors, but one of which he's already dismissed. He may get it, or he may not. There is a 50 percent chance. But I'll tell you that if he doesn't do it, the one after him will. Because it is so obvious. 

We show you this to tell you that this is the evolvement of the Human species. It is the slow realization that putting things together is the answer to all things, instead of separating them or conquering them. Those who start promoting compromise and begin to create these energies that never were here before will be the ones you're going to remember. Dear ones, it's going to happen in leadership and politics and in business. It's a new paradigm...."

Messi sends autographed jerseys to his little Afghan fan

Yahoo – AFP, 25 February 2016

Afghan boy Murtaza Ahmadi proudly wears one of the jerseys sent by his idol

Lionel Messi (AFP Photo/Mahdy Mehraeen)

Kabul (AFP) - Argentine football star Lionel Messi has sent not one, but two jerseys to the five-year-old Afghan boy who became an Internet sensation last month when he was pictured wearing a plastic bag with "Messi" scrawled on it in marker pen.

Murtaza Ahmadi travelled with his family from eastern Ghazni province to Kabul to receive the gifts sent by Messi through UNICEF, where he is a goodwill ambassador.

Afghan boy Murtaza Ahmadi is

hoping to meet his idol Lionel

Messi (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

"Murtaza couldn't stop smiling. He kept repeating: I love Messi," UNICEF Afghanistan spokesman Denise Shepherd-Johnson told AFP.

Messi autographed the jerseys, writing "With much love" in Spanish on them, and added a football to the treasure trove, UNICEF said.

Purchasing a Messi jersey was beyond the means of Murtaza's poor family, members of the persecuted ethnic Hazara minority living in volatile Ghazni, near Kabul.

His elder brother Homayoun, 15, improvised the blue-and-white-striped plastic shirt with Messi's name scrawled in black marker, and posted the photos of Murtaza wearing it on Facebook in mid-January.

The image touched a chord with football fans around the world, and earned Murtaza the sobriquet "little Messi" on social media.

The Afghan Football Federation had said Messi was in contact with them to arrange a meeting with Murtaza as soon as possible, with the Spanish embassy in Kabul telling AFP it would do whatever possible to facilitate.

Afghan boy Murtaza Ahmadi earned the nickname "little Messi" 

after pictures went viral of him wearing an improvised shirt made out

of a plastic bag (AFP Photo)

But a source close to Messi's entourage said earlier this month they could neither confirm nor deny the speculation regarding a possible meeting.

Setting up a meeting in Afghanistan, in the grip of a fierce Taliban insurgency, is fraught with security challenges.

Football and cricket are the two most popular sports in the war-ravaged country -- but sports were rarely played under Taliban rule, and the football stadium in Kabul was a notorious venue for executions, stonings and mutilations.

Former UN General Assembly president indicted on bribery charges

Prosecutors have formally charged the ex-UN official with accepting more than a million dollars in bribes. The case has raised concerns about corruption within the international governing body.

Deutsche Welle, 21 Oct 2015

Former UN General Assembly President John Ashe was formally indicted by New York prosecutors on Wednesday for enaging in a corruption ring that also involved a billionaire Macau real estate developer.

Originally from Antigua and Barbuda, the 61-year-old Ashe presided over the General Assembly from 2013 to 2014. He is accused of accepting more than $1.3 million (1.14 million euros) from various real-estate developers between 2011 and 2014 in exchange for promoting the construction of a UN conference center in Macau.

Four other people were also charged with participating in the bribery scheme, including the Macau-based real estate developer Ng Lap Seng and a suspended UN diplomat from the Dominican Republic named Francis Lorenzo.

Ashe was arrested two weeks ago and is now free on bail.

Concerns over corruption

UN officials reacted with shock after the arrest, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman insisting Ashe's actions were not representative of the intergovernmental organization's practices.

"Corruption is not business as usual at the UN," Stephane Dujarric told following the arrest.

Prosecutors said members of the corruption ring relied heavily on Ashe, who allegedly failed to report gifts and money he had received for particpating in the scheme.

In response to the scandal, Secretary-General Ban launched an audit on two of the organizations allegedly involved in bribing Ashe.

blc/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Summit of the Americas opens with historic handshake

Barack Obama and Raul Castro shook hands at the opening of the Summit of the Americas in Panama City, marking the first time in more than 50 years that a US and Cuban leader have attended an official event together.’

Deutsche Welle, 11 April 2015

US President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro shook hands on Friday at a summit in Panama, a public gesture of mutual respect as the pair seek torestore diplomatic ties.

"At the Summit of the Americas this evening, President Obama and President Castro greeted each other and shook hands," said Bernadette Meehan, spokesperson for the National Security Council.

A White House official said, however, the pair did not have a "substantive conversation."

Castro's attendance marks the first time that Cuba has taken part in the Summit of the Americas in its 21-year history.

It also marked the first time that a US and Cuban leader had attended an official gathering together since relations between the two nations broke down in 1961.

The opening ceremony of the Summit
of the Americas in Panama City

Heads of state and government from the region, including Obama and Castro, will address the two-day event.

Feel-good factor

Before the talks opened, Castro could be seen laughing and chatting with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and his wife on his arrival.

Obama also appeared to be in good spirits when he entered shortly after the Cuban leader, smiling and waving before turning to talk to Varela.

DW Washington correspondent Richard Walker retweeted the moment the two leaders shook hands at the start of the event:

The handshake of Panama. Captured by @madeleintlSUR #CumbreDeLasAmericas #cumbrePanama #ObamaCastro pic.twitter.com/z2Mxmk5IaD
— Richard Walker (@rbsw) 11 april 2015

A formal state dinner is scheduled to follow the opening ceremony.

A historic direct meeting between the two is planned on Saturday, the second and final day of the summit.

Diplomatic roadmap

In December, Obama and Castro agreed to open the door to diplomacy and begin the process of improving relations.

However, Cuba had insisted that it be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism before things could move forward, something which the US State Department said this week was "under review."

Earlier Friday, Obama met with Cuban dissidents as part of a civil society forum.

"As the United States begins a new chapter in our relationship with Cuba, we hope it will create an environment that improves the lives of the Cuban people," he said.

"Not because it's imposed by us, the United States, but through the talent and ingenuity and aspirations, and the conversation among Cubans from all walks of life," he added.

The summit, held every three years, has a central theme this year of "Prosperity with Equity: The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas."

lw/cmk (AFP, dpa)

US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shake hands

 during their meeting at the Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama,

Saturday, April 11, 2015. The leaders of the United States and Cuba held their

 first formal meeting in more than half a century on Saturday, clearing the way

 for a normalization of relations that had seemed unthinkable to both Cubans

and Americans for generations. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa, Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

“…  I want you to watch some countries. I don't have a clock [this statement is Kryon telling us that there is no time frame on his side of the veil, only potentials]. I'll just tell you, it's imminent [in Spirit's timing, this could mean as soon as a decade]. I want you to watch some countries carefully for changes. You're going to be seeing changes that are obvious, and some that are not obvious [covert or assumptive]. But the obvious ones you will see sooner than not - Cuba, Korea [North], Iran, of course, and Venezuela. I want you to watch what happens when they start to realize that they don't have any more allies on Earth! Even their brothers who used to support them in their hatred of some are saying, "Well, perhaps not anymore. It doesn't seem to be supporting us anymore." Watch the synchronicities that are occurring. The leaders who have either died or are going to in the next year or so will take with them the old ways. Watch what happens to those who take their place, and remember these meetings where I described these potentials to you. …”

"The End of History" -  Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

" ... South America and the New Energy

South America is starting to consider the same thing. My partner was just there and I allowed him to see the energy of the potential future in that land.

I would like to paint history for you regarding South America. There was a time when every single country had a dictator. Less than 15 years ago, they had failing economies and currencies that were worthless. Trouble and strife and killings were the norm. Marauding drug lords openly killed in the streets and corruption was everywhere. Even the politicians created fear and many disappeared overnight, never to be seen again. Today it isn't that way. Today, there is an ongoing stability as one country after another brings a new, positive, stable energy to their cultures. So, without a concentrated effort by any kind of multi-national leadership or direction, how could this have changed in only 15 years?

Within the entire continent, there's only one dictator left. What's happening? If you think that's amazing, there is a move afoot that you're not going to hear about yet. But they're discussing it right now, so let me tell you what they're thinking. "What would happen if we took these countries and eliminated the borders?" Sound familiar? They're talking about it. In back rooms where nobody is reporting it, they're saying, "What about a plan of eventually having one currency from the top of Columbia to the bottom of Chile? And we would be strong and we would be unified." And dear ones, I'm here to tell you, that it's going to work, and it might not take 50 years. Soon the one dictator will be gone, and the unification can begin.

There's a shift happening on this planet ...."

Swiss account secret of HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver revealed

Leaked files covering 2005-2007 show bank chief executive sheltered £5m of his own money at Panamanian company with Swiss HSBC account

The Guardian, James Ball, Juliette Garside, David Pegg and Harry Davies, 22 February 2015

Stuart Gulliver in Hong Kong in 2012: leaked files show that the HSBC chief
 executive was a client of the bank’s Swiss subsidiary at the centre of the scandal.
Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Stuart Gulliver, the HSBC chief executive who has vowed to reform the crisis-hit bank, sheltered millions of pounds in a Swiss account through a Panamanian company and remains tax domiciled in Hong Kong.

Leaked files show that the Derby-born Gulliver, who is due to present HSBC’s annual report on Monday in the wake of the international controversy over its Geneva-based private bank, was also one of its clients, holding about £5m in a Swiss account.

The bank executive was listed as the beneficial owner of an account in the name of Worcester Equities Inc, an anonymous company registered in Panama, containing a balance in 2007 of $7.6m. It was through this entity that Gulliver’s HSBC bonuses were paid until 2003. He also held a second account in the name of Worcester Foundation, which had been closed before 2007.

Although now based in the UK, where HSBC has its headquarters, Gulliver is domiciled in Hong Kong for legal and tax purposes.

The banking details have emerged as the 55-year-old Oxford University graduate, who became chief executive in January 2011, is due to face questions from reporters and investors for the first time since the Guardian and other media outlets published the leaked HSBC files, which revealed misconduct at the bank’s Swiss subsidiary.

The documents, covering 2005-07, detailed how the private bank was complicit in tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, doled out bricks of cash in mixed currencies to clients, and provided banking services to criminals, drug smugglers, and friends and families of dictators.

Gulliver has already personally signed a “sincere apology” which appeared in three newspapers last Sunday, saying “the standards to which we operate today were not universally in place in our Swiss operations 8 years ago”.

The bank is expected to announce on Monday full-year profits for 2014 in excess of £13bn – and Gulliver’s total compensation package has been predicted to be around £7.5m, although it was reported over the weekend that he may surrender some of his remuneration because the bank agreed to pay fines to settle unrelated allegations of foreign exchange rigging last year.

In response to queries from the Guardian about his personal account as revealed in the leaked files, a representative for Gulliver said he had made use of HSBC Suisse to hold his bonus payments prior to 2003, when he moved from Hong Kong to London.

Lawyers for Gulliver said that Hong Kong tax had been paid on this income – and explained that he “followed this procedure because he wanted his taxed bonus earnings to remain private from his then colleagues in Hong Kong, which they would not have done if he had kept them in an HSBC Hong Kong account”.

The Guardian asked Gulliver why he used a Panamanian company to hold the funds, given Swiss accounts already offer secrecy. His lawyers declined to answer.

Gulliver’s legal representatives added that his Swiss accounts have “for a number of years” been voluntarily declared to UK tax authorities. They declined to specify the exact date they were first declared.

Gulliver is also among those current and former clients of HSBC Suisse to take advantage of non-dom status. Gulliver is a registered non-dom based on his long residence in Hong Kong – now a special administrative region of China – which he considers to be his home, despite his UK-based position.

A representative for Gulliver said: “Having lived there since the 1980s, our client has become a permanent Hong Kong resident with right of abode, as has his wife who is an Australian national. Hong Kong continues to be their home albeit that our client now works primarily in the UK. As a matter of law, our client is domiciled in Hong Kong.”

Non-dom status can confer several tax advantages on those who claim the status compared with those domiciled in the UK. These include advantages in how inheritance tax is applied, but can also exempt worldwide income earned from outside the UK from incurring UK taxes – a system known as the remittance basis.

Gulliver’s lawyers confirmed he was “entitled to claim the benefit of the remittance basis”, but did not say whether or not he did so. If Gulliver were on the remittance basis, he would not need to pay tax on investment income held outside the UK – which would include holdings in Swiss bank accounts.

A representative for Gulliver said that he had paid all relevant income taxes: “Full UK tax has been paid on the entirety of his worldwide earnings less a credit for tax paid additionally in Hong Kong (where he is also tax resident) on that part of the same earnings doubly taxed.”

John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network, which has campaigned for abolition of non-dom tax benefits in the UK, said the non-dom quirk was particularly attractive for anybody who had accumulated assets such as homes and bonuses offshore, because any gains on offshore assets would be sheltered from UK tax.

“For my part I think it illustrates the absurdity of the rule, which should have been abolished many years ago. It serves no useful purpose and is hugely discriminatory against ordinary UK taxpayers,” he said.

Separately, Gulliver did not become employed by HSBC’s main holding company when he took over as chief executive of the bank in 2011. Documents seen by the Guardian at the time showed that Gulliver took the job of chief executive officer as a secondment from the Dutch-headquartered HSBC Asia Holdings, rather than take a straightforward appointment to the UK parent company.

A spokesman for HSBC said around 350 of its staff were employed through the Netherlands. “About 350 of the bank’s most internationally-mobile employees are employed by HSBC BV,” he said. “This enables them to be employed/seconded to any part of the global group without the need to change contracted employer.”

Representatives for Gulliver declined to explain for what purpose he was employed through the Netherlands subsidiary.

Gulliver has repeatedly emphasised to the public and to lawmakers that the culture of the bank, as well as its safeguards, has changed – both in the wake of the HSBC Files, and previous scandals including Libor rigging, and involvement with Mexican money laundering.

Since the publication of the HSBC files, the bank has been keen to stress that it has downsized the Swiss business, reducing the number of clients by 66%, to around 10,000. However, the total value of assets in those accounts – $68bn (£44bn) – has fallen by only 42%.

Douglas Flint and Stuart Gulliver appear before the Treasury select committee. 

Photograph: Reuters TV

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