For Christmas at Neiman Marcus: a $75,000 yurt
A luxury version of the tent more associated with Mongol nomads than Wall Street dealmakers is one of the fantasy gifts in the 2011 Neiman Marcus Christmas book.At 18 feet in diameter, the hand-painted yurt is “the ideal simulation of a genie’s posh bottle,” the catalog says. The portable structure includes one-of-a-kind designer down-filled pillows and a crystal chandelier.Not interested in nomadic outdoor living? How about a $125,000 custom-built library from luxury book publisher Assouline? It has custom-carpeting, objects d’art and framed prints, as well as 250 current or vintage books of the customer’s choice.For those with a bit more to spend, there is a $420,000 international flower show tour, arranged by JetWay private air. The tour, for 10 people, begins at the tulip festival in Merges, Switzerland, and makes stops at the Kifissia flower show in Athens, the Altera rose festival in Avignon, France, and the Chelsea flower show in London.Neiman Marcus will also make contributions to charities like Firstbook, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.The Christmas book, first published in 1926, has become an annual display of pricey fantasy gifts mixed in with more prosaic items such as $95 sterling silver earrings.Neiman Marcus will donate $10,000 to Water.org, an organization that helps provide safe drinking water and sanitation in developing countries, in return for the $1 million purchase of his-and-her dancing water fountains from Wet, which designed the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.This year’s edition comes as the wealthy are facing assaults from various directions, including the Occupy Wall Street protest movement and its global offshoots, an expected drop of 20 percent or more in investment banking bonus pools, and a volatile stock market.And if all that is getting bankers down, there is a less-expensive way for them to drown their sorrows — a $5,000 Johnnie Walker scotch tasting, complete with an authentic Scottish bagpiper and master of whisky telling the history and attributes of the various spirits.
U.S. says Iran sought killing of Saudi envoy
U.S. authorities said on Tuesday they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.The motive for the alleged plot was not clear. Iran has in the past assassinated its own dissidents abroad, but an attempt to kill an ambassador would be a highly unusual departure.Iran and Saudi Arabia are bitter regional and to some extent sectarian rivals, but they maintain diplomatic ties and even signed a security agreement in 2001. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Riyadh in 2007.Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliament speaker, said the “fabricated allegations” aimed to divert attention from Arab uprisings Iran says were inspired by its own Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah — even though Islam has not been the overt driving force for unrest across the Arab world.”America wants to divert attention from problems it faces in the Middle East, but the Americans cannot stop the wave of Islamic awakening by using such excuses,” Larijani saidPresident Barack Obama called the alleged conspiracy a “flagrant violation of U.S. and international law” and Saudi Arabia said it was “despicable.”The United States said Tehran must be held to account and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped countries hesitant to enforce existing sanctions on Iran would now “go the extra mile.”The State Department issued a three-month worldwide travel alert for American citizens, warning of the potential for anti-U.S. action, including within the United States.”The U.S. government assesses that this Iranian-backed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States,” it said in a statement.The United States has been putting pressure on Iran to abandon a nuclear program western powers fear is aimed at developing nuclear arms. Iran denies nuclear weapons ambitions.At a news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller said a convoluted plot involving monitored international calls, Mexican drug money and an attempt to blow up the ambassador in a Washington restaurant smacked of a Hollywood movie.Attorney-General Eric Holder tied it to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), guardian of Iran’s 1979 revolution, and the Quds Force, its covert, operational arm.”I think one has to be concerned about the chilling nature of what the Iranian government attempted to do here,” he said.Iran’s parliament speaker, Larijani, denied the charges as a “childish, amateur game” in an open session of parliament.”These claims are vulgar,” he said. “We believe that our neighbors in the region are very well aware that America is using this story to ruin our relationship with Saudi Arabia.”Saudi-Iranian tensions have increased since March, when Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the bastion of Sunni Islam, sent troops to help Bahrain’s Sunni rulers quell pro-democracy protesters led by the island’s Shi’ite majority.Bahrain accused Iran of being behind the unrest, a charge denied by Tehran and by Bahraini Shi’ite political parties.QUDS FORCE CONNECTIONThe primary evidence linking Iran to the alleged conspiracy is that the arrested suspect is said to have told U.S. law enforcement agents that he had been recruited and directed by men he understood were senior Quds Force officials.The Quds Force has not previously been known to focus on targets in the United States.A plot against targets inside the U.S. “would be a first for the Quds Force,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and National Security Council analyst who now heads the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington.”I do want to hear more about what evidence (U.S. authorities) have and why they believe” that the Quds Force was involved, Pollack said.U.S. officials said there had also been initial discussions about other plots, including attacking the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, but no charges for those were brought.There are no formal diplomatic ties between the Islamic republic and Washington, which accuses Tehran of backing terrorism and pursuing nuclear arms, charges Iran denies.Iran already faces tough U.S. economic and political sanctions and Washington slapped further sanctions on five Iranians, including four senior members of Quds.Rejecting the allegations in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations voiced outrage and complained of U.S. “warmongering.”“The U.S. allegation is, obviously, a politically motivated move and a showcase of its long-standing animosity toward the Iranian nation,” Mohammad Khazaee wrote.Last month, hopes were raised of improved ties when Iran released two U.S. hikers accused of spying when they were arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009. Holder said there was no link between the hikers’ case and the alleged plot.U.S. SAYS AMBASSADOR NEVER IN DANGERU.S. officials identified the two alleged plotters as Gholam Shakuri, said to be a member of the Quds Force, and Manssor Arbabsiar, who was arrested on September 29 when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Mexico.Arbabsiar, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen with an Iranian passport, initially cooperated with authorities after being arrested. He made calls to Shakuri after being arrested and acted as if the plot was still a go, court documents said.Arbabsiar appeared briefly in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday where he was ordered detained and assigned a public defender. He appeared in blue jeans and a dress shirt, with thinning gray hair and a scar on the left side of his face.Officials said the Saudi ambassador, who is close to King Abdullah and has been in his post since 2007, was never in danger. Obama was briefed in June about the alleged plot.Court documents say a plot began to unfold in May 2011 when Arbabsiar sought help from an individual in Mexico who was posing as an associate of an unidentified drug cartel and who was in fact a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant.The unidentified paid informant tipped off law enforcement agents, according to the criminal complaint. Arbabsiar paid $100,000 to the informant in July and August for the plot, a down-payment on the $1.5 million requested.LIKE A “HOLLYWOOD MOVIE”Shakuri approved the plan to kill the ambassador during telephone conversations with Arbabsiar, the complaint said.As part of the plot, the informant talked to Arbabsiar about trying to kill the ambassador at a Washington, D.C. restaurant he frequented, but warned him that could lead to dozens of others being killed, including U.S. lawmakers.The criminal complaint said that Arbabsiar responded “no problem” and “no big deal.”In a monitored call, Shakuri told Arbabsiar to execute the plot, saying “just do it quickly, it’s late,” court papers say.After Arbabsiar’s arrest in New York, he gave U.S. authorities more details of Tehran’s alleged involvement, Holder said.Mueller, the FBI director, said that “individuals from one country sought to conspire with a drug trafficking cartel in another country to assassinate a foreign official on United States soil.”He added: “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost.”The men face one count of conspiracy to murder a foreign official, two counts of foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire and one count each of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.Authorities said no explosives were acquired for the plot and the weapon of mass destruction charge can range from a simple improvised device to a more significant weapon. The two men face up to life in prison if convicted..
A window seat to Everest
By Tim Chong
I was covering the Singapore F1 Grand Prix over the weekend.
Sunday was race day and as usual I woke up a bit early to check the news. I saw on my twitter feed that a plane carrying tourists to see the Himalayan range and Mount Everest had crashed in Nepal.
I was on a similar flight a year ago myself and the tragedy felt especially personal because of its proximity.
Four airlines in Nepal operate these one-hour long mountain flights that allow travelers with limited time in Nepal to see a panoramic view of the Himalayan ranges and Mount Everest itself. I remember the day clearly, having arrived early at the domestic terminal of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport. The aircraft was rather new; a twin-engine turbo-prop plane and I felt instantly relieved. Like any other flight, the usual routine applied. There was a safety demonstration, and everyone was made to buckle their seat belts.
Unusually in a post 9/11 world, the cockpit was open for everyone to visit during the flight. Tourists armed with their cameras walked in freely, chatting with the pilots in a throwback to the glory days of flying of the 1960s.
Everyone leaned over to the windows with their cameras, ready to take pictures of what must surely be one of the world’s most stunning sights. On clear days, as most days tend to be in the Himalayas, the mountains stretch for as far as the eye can see. The scenes vary widely throughout the flight, from the rugged peaks of Everest to villages with yaks on an empty plateau. Nobody cared for the in-flight service, partly because there wasn’t any to begin with, but also because everyone was too busy taking pictures.
You see the Himalayan range just minutes into the flight and the world’s tallest mountain Everest appears about midway through.
This journey was the closest to heaven that I’ve ever been.
