A British minister on Thursday admitted failing to declare a chunk of funding for his bid to become the ruling Labour Party's deputy leader, threatening fresh embarrassment for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain said he had not disclosed £103,000 (US$202,000) given to the fighting fund for the race last year in which he came fifth out of six candidates.
In a statement, he explained the situation by saying he had given the deputy leadership bid in May and June "second priority" to his role at the time as Northern Ireland Secretary.
Labour has repeatedly found itself in hot water over political funding recently and the main opposition Conservatives said Brown "has some serious explaining to do" in the wake of the latest revelation.
Former prime minister Tony Blair's final months in office were dogged by the "cash for honors" row over allegations that party financial supporters were rewarded with seats in the House of Lords unelected upper chamber.
Two of his closest aides were arrested during a police investigation but no one was charged.
Brown denied any knowledge of the donations and said a review would be set up.
Hain said his campaign had had to raise extra cash after the end of the deputy leadership contest, triggered when John Prescott said he would step down alongside Blair, when unpaid invoices emerged.
He found out in November that these had not been declared within the required timescale and "immediately" told the Electoral Commission, he said.
"I very much regret that these reports were not made on time," Hain said. "I should have given higher personal priority to the day-to-day administration and organization of my campaign."
Hain had previously said that he had failed to register a £5,000 campaign donation in November.
His latest announcement was labeled "quite extraordinary" by Chris Grayling, the opposition Conservative work and pensions spokesman. It showed "breathtaking incompetence," he said.
"How on earth did he manage to get this so dramatically wrong?" asked Grayling. "Gordon Brown now has some serious explaining to do about all of this."
"After the events of the past two months, it looks as if he and his senior colleagues have a complete disregard for the rules," he said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS