Arthur C. Clarke (1956-2008) Remembered

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008 was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, a collaboration with famed director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Born in Minehead, Somerset, England, Arthur attended Huish Grammar School, Taunton after his secondary education, but was unable to afford a university education and got a job as an auditor in the pensions section of the Board of Education. He served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early warning radar defense system, which contributed to the RAF’s success during the Battle of Britain. Clarke spent most of his service time working on Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) radar as documented in his semi-autobiographical novel Glide Path. Although GCA did not see much practical use in the war, after several years of development it was vital to the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949. After the war he earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at King’s College London.

 

In the postwar years Clarke became involved with the British Interplanetary Society and served for a time as its chairman. Although he was not the originator of the concept of geostationary satellites, one of his most important contributions may be his idea that they would form ideal telecommunications relays, an idea he advanced in a paper privately circulated among the core technical members of the BIS in 1945. The concept was published in Wireless World in October of that year. Clarke also wrote a number of non-fiction books describing the technical details and societal implications of rocketry and space flight, the most notable being, ‘The Exploration of Space (1951)’ and ‘The Promise of Space (1968)’. In recognition of these contributions the geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the equator is officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union as a “Clarke Orbit”.

 

On a literary front, his first professional sales appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1946 – ‘Loophole’ was published in April, while ‘Rescue Party’, his first sale, was published in May. Along with his writing Clarke briefly worked as Assistant Editor of Science Abstracts (1949) before devoting himself to writing full-time from 1951 onward. Clarke also contributed to the Dan Dare series published in Eagle, and his first three published novels were written for children. Clarke struck up a friendship with author C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s and they once met in an Oxford pub, ‘The Eastgate’, to discuss science fiction and space travel.

 

In 1948 he wrote ‘The Sentinel’ for a BBC competition. Though the story was rejected it changed the course of Clarke’s career. Not only was it the basis for ‘A Space Odyssey’, but it marked a more mystical and cosmic turning point to his work. Many of Clarke’s later works feature a technologically advanced but prejudiced mankind being confronted by a superior alien intelligence. Some of his works, such as, ‘Cases of The City and the Stars’; ‘Childhood’s End’; and ‘This Encounter (2001)’ (2001) series, feature a breakthrough from such encounters with superior alien culture that accelerates humanity into the next stage of its evolution.

 

In 1953 Arthur met and quickly married Marilyn Mayfield, a 22-year-old American divorcee, and mother of one (a son). They separated permanently after six months, although the divorce was not finalized until 1964.

 

In the early 1970s Clarke signed a three-book publishing deal, a record for a science-fiction writer at the time. The first of the three was Rendezvous with Rama in 1973, which won him all the main genre awards and has spawned sequels that, along with the 2001 series, formed the backbone of his later career. In 1975 Clarke’s short story “The Star” was not included in a new high school English textbook in Sri Lanka because of concerns that it might offend Roman Catholics even though it had already been selected. The same textbook also caused controversy because it replaced Shakespeare’s work with that of Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Isaac Asimov.

 

Early in his career Clarke had a fascination with the paranormal and stated that it was part of the inspiration for his novel Childhood’s End. He also said that he was one of several who were fooled by a Uri Geller demonstration at Birkbeck College. Although he eventually dismissed and distanced himself from nearly all pseudoscience he continued to advocate research into purported instances of psycho kinesis and similar phenomena.

  

In the 1980s Clarke became well known to many for his television programmes Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World and Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers. In 1986 he was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

 

In 1988 he was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, having originally contracted polio in 1959, and needed to use a wheelchair most of the time thereafter. On 10 September 2007, while commenting on the Cassini probe’s flyby of Iapetus (which plays an important role in 2001: A Space Odyssey) Clarke mentioned that he was completely wheelchair-bound by polio and did not plan to leave Sri Lanka again. In 1989 Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). The same year he became the first Chancellor of the International Space University, serving from 1989 to 2004 and he also served as Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002.

 

On 26 May 2000 he was made a Knight Bachelor for his Services to Literature at a ceremony in Colombo. The investiture of the award had been delayed, at Clarke’s request, since 1998 because of an accusation, by the British tabloid The Sunday Mirror, of pedophilia, which was, however, found to be baseless by Sri Lankan police and retracted by the paper soon after. The award of knight bachelor carries the title of “Sir” and no post-nominal letters meaning that the previous postfix of “CBE” stood. In December 2007 on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Clarke recorded a video message to his friends and fans bidding them good-bye.

   

The author chose to live in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) from 1956 until his death in 2008, having emigrated first in Unawatuna on the south coast, and then in the capital, Colombo. Clarke, though, held citizenship of both the UK and Sri Lanka. An avid scuba diver and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club, living in Sri Lanka afforded him the opportunity to visit the ocean year-round. It also inspired the locale for his novel ‘The Fountains of Paradise, in which he first described a space elevator. He believed that this would be his legacy, much more than geostationary satellites, as he believed that space elevators would make space shuttles obsolete. His many predictions culminated in 1958 when he began a series of essays in various magazines that eventually became ‘Profiles of the Future,’ published in book form in 1962. He developed a timetable that describes inventions and ideas including a “global library”, a timeline that goes till the year 2100.

 

Clarke died in Sri Lanka at 1:30am on 19 March 2008 local time (UTC+5:30), after suffering from breathing problems according to Rohan de Silva, one of his aides.

Gaining The World But Losing Football’s Soul

Olympique Lyon’s 1-2 aggregate loss to Man U aptly sums up the future of club football around the world. The club’s demise from Europe is blamed, in some quarters on their policy of selling off key performers every season. Such stars as Malouda, Essien and (soon) Benzima, are just some of the club’s alumni playing elsewhere at present. Even clubs as illustrious as Sao Paolo (Brazil) and River Plate (Argentina) have become suppliers of major talent to the moneyed counterparts, mostly in Europe. Of course, European football is always in the spotlight limelight courtesy of UEFA’s clout among FIFA member associations. However, Lyon’s plight mirrors that of clubs from as far away as Angola – e.g. Petro Atletico’s Manucho (currently of the Greek side Panathanaikos).

It is clear that even after the G-14′s demise on 15th February 2008, there are three distinct castes of football clubs. The bluebloods are the who’s who of European football, including Liverpool, Man U, Inter, Juve, Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Category II has the lesser nobles, which is sides with genuine pedigree but which have fallen off the top rungs of football, the likes of Bayern Munich, Ajax, PSV and Porto, all of whom are former European Cup winners. The last category has pretenders to the throne, which in a nutshell is the rest.

The Premiership is dominated by the so-called ‘big four’ who play musical chairs when it comes to league positions 1-4. In the CL they constantly make the final knockout stages – it is now two years in a row with all four having made (at least) the last eight. Last season featured three of these clubs in the semis of the said tourney. For three years in a row it has been at least one English club in the final – Liverpool (2005), Arsenal (2006) and Liverpool again (2007). The four clubs keep improving each year but do the rest benefit? Everton’s sole season in Europe in recent years is 2004/05 season, which saw them get eliminated before the CL’s knockout stage. According to former US defender, Greg Lalas, Arsenal, the big English four play ‘continental football’ while the rest play in the typical English way.

This is the same kind of league dominance that sees top clubs in Germany, Bayern in particular, and the old firms in Scotland – Celtic and Rangers – buy up all good players coming through their rival club ranks, effectively killing their leagues.

In the long run, while acknowledging this phenomenon as a modern-day reality, what direction is football heading? It is almost impossible to imitate Milan’s Paolo Maldini and play till the age of 40 (not forgetting eight European finals!) The current crop of players’ rate of burnout is astounding. This might be due to playing too many matches, related fatigue and resultant injuries. No wonder exorbitant wage demands are commonplace today.

All the enumerated reasons actually boil down to money. Where do clubs obtain the funds needed to purchase quality players? Sale of tickets, merchandising, TV rights, targeting of rich buyers of clubs, playing in high population markets like Asia, liability (debt), etc, provide the start of such answers. Why are more games – which ultimately cause injuries – being played? Money. Is this quest for the almighty dollar spiraling out of control?

As a fan, I cannot ask players to tone down on their demands, or ask clubs to stop seeking bigger profits. However, the madness has got to stop sometime. We can indeed gain the whole world but lose our souls, which I think has already occurred.

There needs to be a return to the values that made clubs what they are. While impossible to go back to the glory years, in whatever era, how about recapturing that old spirit that distinguishes one set of fans from another. Clubs should be more than mere money-minters. They unite communities and provide a sense of identity and nationalism, a case in point being Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona, symbols of Spain’s regions of Catalonia and that of the Basque respectively. How about fair play, passionate competition (not xenophobic behavior by Ultra-like groups), and even fantasy in play? Ronaldinho, a relentless competitor, has a style that is more in the realm of the aesthetic than mere competitiveness.

These points, while scratching the surface of the what-the-football-wo rld-can-do iceberg, do provide a starting point for any debate on such an important topic.

Humans & Genocide

How on earth can a human being think of exterminating the life of another? As if that weren’t bad enough, how does a government actively seek to snuff out the life of its citizenry; the sole reason why it exists in the first place? The latter, also called genocide, can be defined as: any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. This definition comes from the While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in Article 2 the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.  

A look around the world is instructive. Hassan al-Majid, a.k.a. Chemical Ali, cousin to the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, was condemned on Friday (29th March 2008) by his country’s presidency, for his role in the gassing of Iraq‘s citizens in 1988. The event, called the Anfal campaign, led to the deaths of an estimated 180,000 members of the Kurd community, in the northern part of the country. Al-Majid was convicted on genocide charges and initially sentenced to death in June 2007.   

In Africa, former Liberian president and warlord, Charles Taylor, is facing charges of rape, murder, mutilation and recruitment of child soldiers. Taylor‘s trial, before the UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone, had to be postponed till Monday (3rd March 2008) due to the former president’s ill health.   

On the dawn of Wednesday (27th February 2008), unidentified gunmen attacked a village in Darfur (Western Sudan), killing about 20 civilians. It remains unclear who exactly committed the killings as a rebel coalition, the New Sudan Brigade, blames pro-government militia for the dawn raid on the village of al-Sunta in southern Darfur. The casualties number the village mayor and a prayer leader. Since the conflict began in 2003, about 200,000 fatalities have been recorded with about 2.5 m displaced people.   

Back to my opening questions, why would any government want to exterminate human life? What would make some in rulership hate others so much that killing them would not touch any part of their conscience, assuming they have any? It is indeed tragic when those tasked to protect end up killing their wards. It is sad when any government, whether Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia – for those who only think such happenings are found in Africa – attempts to wipe out people, whatever the pretext used.

Unfortunately for all concerned, humanity does not seem to be improving morally, despite great learning and exposure to other cultures. It also ties in with the Bible’s observation of ‘nothing really new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  Unfortunately, mankind has been full of such acts, starting with colonizers everywhere and those who moved into territories previously occupied by others, e.g. settlers of European descent on finding Native Americans. Why not take the moral high ground and tolerate each other.   

Shame on all of us. The world is big enough for all of us; we are not even optimumly utilizing mother earth as we should! We ought to have more respect for cultures, even those we don’t understand. There are of course certain practices to be shunned altogether in a civilized society, but killing our fellow humans is surely unacceptable. We have more in common than differences. Sample the following seeming simplicities:

1. All of us share the same DNA structure
2. All humans have capability of mating and producing viable offspring
3. Each of us is unique, from the fingerprints we have, to our individual scents, to our hairs, etc.
4. What we call skin color is simply the pigment melanin! Dark people only have more than lighter ones!
5. In truth, the area of belief and religion is personal. Why should anyone die for tenets they hold dear to themselves? To me the rider should be as long as it doesn’t cause harm to the greater society.
6. All the above and others, ad infinitum.

  

It doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually much more than I see around me. Mankind is too full of hatred to be of use to each other. It’s a lesson all of us need to learn; none is exempt. 

When Bullets Start To Flower

China’s Special Envoy on Darfur, Liu Guijin, has defended his state’s sale of weapons to Sudan, amidst blame for non-action over the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, a region the size of France! Guijin added that his country ‘only’ accounted for 8% Sudan’s total arms imports. Unfortunately, the countries that should keep the Eastern giant on toes are not clean either. Despite some harsh words to Khartoum, it is reported that the leading suppliers of arms to the country are the USA, Russia and the UK. About 200,000 people have died in the five years of conflict between rebels, the army and pro-Khartoum militias. Which way forward Africa? Is there no single African government that would prefer peace to conflict and the needless killing of citizenry? The countries that supply arms to the world’s second-largest continent are just conducting profit-making business. Human life is irrelevant to their interests.

I am tempted to agree with noted scholar, Prof. Ali Mazrui, that the biggest institutional problem the colonizers left the continent is a standing army. It is this military that either places people in power or blackmails governments into making them happy, lest the soldiers mutiny. This, coupled with weak governance institutions just compounds the problems of rulership in Africa. We can surely do better than this, dear continent. Surely, once we know what our problem is, why not take proactive measures to rectify the same? When will my beloved continent’s bullets start to flower?

Coverups Contd.

There are reports that South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has called for the sacking of a senior council official who blew the whistle on alleged graft in a R 1b stadium project. According to the reports, Jimmy Mohlala, the Council speaker blew the whistle on Jacob Dladla, a close associate of the ruling party.  If graft is institutionalized in a nation, and no one in government speaks out about it, then how will the war be won? If those who report the same are the ones that get victimized instead, is there a chance that the vice will ever be eradicated? This is sad, not just for Africa, but for all governments worldwide. Shame on the Rainbow Nation!

Liverpool Vs. Inter Milan – Soccer Sans Frontieres?

Italian giants, Inter Milan, yesterday fielded a squad with only one Italian, Marco Materazzi, alongside seven South Americans! This is arguably one of their strongest possible squads for a game as important as that UEFA Champions League (CL) match. This revives the debate about the handling of foreign players in domestic leagues. Granted, not many clubs follow the route of Barcelona, who must somehow feature a native Catalan in their squad. This is also an active policy the club pursues in their famed football academy. This notwithstanding, as of November last year, Inter had 23 foreigners to five full-blooded Italians. The Spanish big two, Barcelona and Real Madrid, had 34 foreign players to 21 native ones between them. This year’s Africa Cup of Nations alone saw the participation of a staggering 143 of the 368 players (approx. 39%), who ply their trade in Europe! What does this mean in world football? It is hard to generalize the long-term effects of all this. Italy and Spain, both of whose leagues are ranked with the English Premier League (EPL), provide a case in point, with the Azurri having won two World Cups since 1982, and Spain, a perennial underachiever on the football map, despite boasting great talent in any of its lineups. In Africa, you have Egypt, a country boasting a vibrant local league, winning back-to-back Cup of Nations, while fielding virtually homegrown players only. There might be no simplistic explanation for such phenomena.

As the World football magazine demonstrated in its recent survey (‘Big Issue 10’, 28th November 2007), the EPL practice of its rich clubs buying ready-made stars from around the world, has contributed to more overseas players than in any other league. At times this season, barely 30 English players have been in action for the 20 Premier League clubs. The reasons (or excuses, whichever is applicable) vary from arguing that the English players are not good enough, strange, when the clubs themselves coach them; to criticizing the clubs for not giving their own graduates opportunities to gain experience. Barcelona’s Academy boasts among its graduates the following: Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Cesc Fabregas, Pepe Reina, Gerard Pique, Mikel Arteta, Bojan Krkic, Albert Joquera and Oleguer (all from Spain); Lionel Messi (Argentina), and Giovani dos Santos Ramirez (Mexico). It might however prove beneficial in the long run. The Premiership has produced three CL finalists in four years. It is easy to blame Arsenal FC coach, Arsene Wenger’s  policy of playing non-Englishmen in his squad, while conveniently forgetting that Liverpool’s own double winning side of 1986 was comprised almost completely of non-English players. Is a country like Britain (pop. 50 m) capable of mass producing football players like Brazil (pop. 185 m)? It seems to me that the British Isles have a much smaller pool of potential players to draw from. It could be time for this whole debate to come to an end and countries concentrate more on learning from those different from them. A case in point is Celtic FC visiting the Barcelona Academy to learn more, so that they in turn can start a similar venture in their native Scotland.

The irony is not lost on the writer that yesterday’s last 16 clash, featured two ‘foreign’ coaches, Rafael Benitez (Liverpool and Spain) and Fabio Capello (England’s Italian national team Manager), in attendance. While generally supporting the Barcelona way of grooming homegrown players (which true patriot wouldn’t want that?), it does not mean that countries, such as England (in this case), cannot learn some soccer-related basics as ball possession, ball hoarding, short passing, shielding of the ball and defending tight with less than 11 men, etc. from their opponents, Inter Milan. Despite enjoying 30% possession yesterday, the Italians still showed how comfortable they are on the ball during the few times they’d stroke it amongst themselves.

To Monopolize or Not? That Is The Question

How about this for a purchase? Just about two weeks ago, Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc., in a deal valued at $ 44.6 billion, and a price of $ 33 per share (versus Yahoo’s price of $ 40 per share). However, since then, Microsoft’s share price has tumbled 12.8 %, pushing the value of the cash-and-stock offer closer to $ 41 billion. Yahoo spurned the offer saying it “substantially undervalues” the company’s assets. The Web portal business was said to be in talks late last week with News Corp. about a complex deal to push its market value toward $ 50 billion.It is easy to miss the forest for the trees by concentrating on the impressive array of figures thrown at us by the media. I however remain saddened to see the end user robbed of choice when conglomerates like Microsoft seem hell-bent on acquiring anything that’s purchasable. I can understand the Richmond-based company’s frustration at lagging behind search giant, Google in market share, but is gobbling up every little company the right way to go? Is acquiring Yahoo and other companies meant to increase the quality of their products or simply to consolidate the buying company’s market share? Hasn’t Microsoft learnt anything from the anti-trust suit no. United States v. Microsoft, 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000), filed by the US Department of Justice and 20 US states? The consumer of products must be exposed to as much variety as is possible, for them to fully exercise their choice and go for what they consider best suited to their needs. Capitalist democracy in the marketplace must show that the bourse remains free for all and sundry to participate regardless of their wealth, ideology, or societal standing. The haves must never be allowed to ride roughshod over the have nots.

Hasta la Vista, Senor Castro

Eighty-one year old Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, announced, on Tuesday 18th February 2008, that he is retiring as head of state, 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution. Castro, who has not appeared in public for almost 19 months after undergoing stomach surgery, said in a message to the communist nation that he would not seek a new presidential term when the National Assembly meets on February 24. A charismatic leader famous for his long tirades, delivered in his green military fatigues, Castro draws mixed reactions, ranging from admiration, especially in the (so-called) Third World for standing up to the United States. He is however considered a tyrant by his opponents, whom they claim has consistently suppressed freedom. His retirement draws the curtain on a political career that spanned the Cold War and survived U.S. enmity, assassination plots by the CIA and the demise of Soviet bloc communism. The National Assembly or legislature is expected to nominate his brother and designated successor, Raul Castro, 76, as president. Raul Castro has been running the country since emergency surgery to stop intestinal bleeding forced Castro to delegate power on July 31, 2006. Cuba has some of the highest rates of education and literacy in the Americas. The Cuban state, through tax receipts, subsidizes education for all its citizens, including university education. Interestingly, the country has also provided state subsidized education to foreign nationals, including U.S. students, who are trained as doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine. The program provides for full scholarships, including accommodation, and its graduates are meant to return to their countries to offer low-cost healthcare.   The Cuban government operates a notable national health system and assumes full fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of its citizens. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) claim the country’s healthcare is comparable to that of the USA and the Western countries.  Despite such developments, the Cuban government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extra-judicial executions.

 

Is replacing Castro with his sibling progressive or retrogressive for this nation? Has the time come for this nation’s citizens to ask of themselves if they’re willing to try out alternative leadership? Is Raul Castro, himself a faithful student of Fidel, capable of breaking with this past and egging his country forward? Is Cuba even ready for democracy, now that its bastion of socialism is no longer in office? Will the US government succeed in influencing events in this state, a state of affairs Fidel Castro continually fought against? Either way, Cuba offers the world a fascinating study in succession politics.

Few Horse Race: Is it Worth It?

“The Premier League is certainly making a lot of money, but don’t forget it is composed of four teams playing for the title and 16 teams playing not to be relegated. This is a fact.” The quote, attributable to FIFA president, Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter, is his take on the English Premier League’s plan to play an extra 39th match abroad. In just 40 minutes, Blatter called the proposal, first mooted by Richard Scudamore, current CEO of the FA Premier League, as a blatant attempt to continue raking even more revenue at the expense of such matters as the fate of club supporters and the health of players. He also made a swipe at Rupert Murdoch’s continued dominance of the worldwide TV soccer market, saying: “The wedding between TV and football has been profitable to football. But there must somewhere be a limit (sic).” Without the world’s soccer governing body’s support, the plan will die well over three years earlier than the intended kickoff in January 2011.

While generally agreeing with the sentiments, it’s perhaps ironic that Blatter’s remarks were made at FIFA’s £ 120 m, state-of-the-art headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, itself a monument to soccer-related opulence. It all makes you wonder if this is the classic kettle calling the pot black.

The average supporter’s pocket continues to come under assault from increased commercialism. They have to keep buying unaffordable tickets, buy food sold at club grounds, buy merchandise related to their club and any other promotional stuff. Meanwhile soccer stars continue to be pampered and spoilt, creating this mind-boggling gap with the supporters. No wonder today’s fans are so edgy and restless, easily frustrated by coaches and their teams. We’re making more money but losing the true soul of competitive sport - friendship, fan culture, true support of the club, the camaraderie that comes from joining up with fellow supporters, and such like related things. To FIFA and soccer federations, let’s come to our senses soonest possible. Let soccer and other sports return to Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin’s ideal of,  ”All sports for all people.” Added de Coubertin: “This is surely a phrase that people will consider foolishly utopian. The prospect troubles me not at all. I have pondered and studied it at length, and know that it is correct and possible.”

Give the true fans a break from all this money-mindedness and just let us enjoy the joga bonito.

Tax Haven? The Quest for Financial Utopia Contd.

According to Reuters, the British govt plans, from April 2008, to force anyone who has claimed non-domicile status for seven of the past ten years to either pay $ 59,000 in annual fees, or pay taxes to the UK, for their outside earnings. British residents who’ve registered for “non-domiciled” tax status, or non-doms as they’re commonly called, call Britain their home and so don’t have to pay tax on their earnings outside the country. This policy has made London (in particular) a tax haven, attracting such businessmen as the steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal (India) and Boris Berezovski (Russia). Other developments in the British Exchequer’s pipeline include:

1. Tightening regulations for bringing non-doms’ assets into the country, and,
2. Making non-doms provide more info on non-doms’ foreign holdings, which includes Swiss banks and tax havens outside the UK like the Cayman Island.