4 ★ FTWeekend 2 November/3 November 2019
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
ST E P H A N I E F I N D L AY— NEW DELHIIndia declared a public health emer-
gency in the Delhi region after air pol-
lution levels spiked to “severe plus”
levels, blanketing the city in toxic smog
and forcing people to stay indoors for
safety reasons.The Environment Pollution (Preven-
tionand Control) Authority issued an
orderyesterday to close schools, stop
construction, and shut coal and other
fuel-basedfactoriesuntilNovember5.It
also banned the use of firecrackers dur-
ingthewinterseason.
“We have to take this as a public
healthemergencyasairpollutionisnow
hazardous and will have adverse health
impacts on all, but particularly our chil-
dren,” wrote chairman Bhure Lal in the
order.
Yesterday, the air quality index hit
pollution levels over 400, many times
abovethesafelevelof50.Industrialpro-
duction, vehicle emissions, farmersburning fields and local pollution,
including celebratory firecrackers
released during the annual Diwali festi-
val,allcontributed.
India’s air quality isfar worse hant
China’s ever was, with at least 140m
people in the country breathing air 10
times or more over the World HealthOrganization safe limit for pollution
concentration.
“Delhi has turned into a gas chamber
due to smoke from crop burning in
neighbouring states,”tweeted elhiD
chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. “It is
very important that we protect our-
selvesfromthistoxicair.”
The last time Delhi’s pollution wasthisseverewasinJanuary.“Airpollution
is a massive problem. Newborns have
chest issues,” said Danish Ali, a 29-year-
old who works at a mobile phone repair
shop in Delhi. “We try to stay indoors
andwearmasks.”
The emergency puts a renewed spot-
light on the government’s neffectivei
effortstoreducepollution.“Nothinghas
fundamentally changed in the way
industries operate,” said Karthik Gane-
san, research fellow at the Council on
Energy, Environment and Water, a
Delhi hink-tank. “Breathing in Delhi ist
dangerousfor300daysoftheyear.”
Pollution concerns have spread to
cricket, with calls o postpone the India-t
Bangladesh Twenty20 cricket match
scheduledfortomorrow.
“In the future, when we schedule,
especially in the northern part of India
during the winter, we will have to be a
little bit more practical,” said Sourav
Ganguly, president of India’s Board of
ControlforCricketsaid.Air quality
India declares emergency in smog-filled Delhi
L AU R A H U G H E S A N D S E BA ST I A N PAY N E
LONDON
Brexit party leader Nigel Farage has
threatenedto r un candidates across
Britain in thegeneral election nlessu
Prime Minister Boris Johnson drops his
dealtoleavetheEU.
In a blow to Mr Johnson’s hopes of
winning a parliamentary majority, Mr
Farage said that if the government did
not agree to “build a Leave alliance” by
November 14, “the Brexit party will be
the only party standing in these elec-
tionsthatactuallyrepresentsBrexit”.
The Conservatives have repeatedly
ruledoutenteringaformalpactwithMr
Farage’s insurgent party, which sup-
portsleavingtheEUwithoutadeal.
Speaking in London yesterday, Mr
Farage said: “We will contest every seat
in England, Scotland and Wales. Don’t
doubtthatweareready... Thereistwo
weeks to put together a Leave alliance
andithastobedone.”
Theprimeministerrespondedthathe
would not countenance Mr Farage’s
deal,sayingavoteforanyotherpolitical
party would ultimately help install
Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn in Downing
Street and might harm the chance ofBrexit being delivered. “I will be very,
very clear that voting for any other
party than this government, this Con-
servative government, this One Nation
Conservative Government is basically
tantamount to putting Jeremy Corbyn
in,”hetoldtheBBC.
Pollsters ave saidh if the Brexit party
ran a full slate of candidates in the
December 12 poll, Mr Farage could split
the Leave vote in scores of marginal
seats, undermining Mr Johnson’s pro-
Brexit Conservative party and poten-
tially handing victory to pro-Remain
candidates from Labour or the Liberal
Democrats.
Mr Farage, whose role in the 2016 ref-
erendum was instrumental to the UKvoting to leave, further demonstrated
his campaigning strengths in the July
European elections with an unvar-
nished approach to Brexit. His Brexitparty won more than 30 per cent of the
vote, helping to push the Tories down to
only9percent.
Heurgedtheprimeministerto“drop”
the agreement he struck with Brussels
“because it is not Brexit”, adding that hewould be “more than willing to compro-
mise” if Mr Johnson’s deal was aban-
doned. “It’s a negotiation, I’ve laid out
the upper end of expectations,” Mr
Farage said. “We are reasonable, sensi-
blepeople.Wewanttogetthisdone.”
MrFaragecalledontheConservatives
to pledge to leave the EU without a deal
and pursue a trade agreement by July 1- If a deal has not been agreed by
this deadline, he said the UK should
instead adopt World Trade Organiza-
tiontradingrules.
“In terms of winning seats, no one
knows how punishing the [first past the
post electoral] system is better than me.
There are many more seats that are
three-way marginals where a score of
30-31 per cent can win. It’s going to be
much easier to win seats in constituen-
ciesthanin[recent]elections.”
He added that he had had conversa-
tions with “people who visit that build-
ing[DowningStreet]regularly”.
Attacking Mr Corbyn for a “complete
and utter betrayal on Brexit”, Mr Farage
said his party “posed a very major prob-
lem”fortheLabourleader.
Citing the “5m Labour party voters”
who voted to leave the EU in the Brexit
referendum, he warned: “So many
Labour Leave seats are represented by
Remain members of parliament. We
view those constituencies around the
countryamongourtoptargets.”
See FT Big ReadGeneral election
Brexit party threatens Johnson’s UK poll hopes
Pollsters expect the Leave
vote will split if Farage runs
full slate of candidates
A RT H U R B E E S L E Y —BALLYCONNELL
Even in an Irish border region that over
the decades has seen its share of vio-
lence and brutality, the attack on busi-
nessmanKevin Lunney hocked many,s
not least because of the shadow cast
by republican paramilitaries that oper-
atedintheareaduringtheNorthernIre-
land“Troubles”.
In September, masked men seized Mr
Lunney from his car near his home in
CountyFermanaghinNorthernIreland.
He was beaten in a horsebox and left by
a road in County Cavan, across the bor-
derintheIrishRepublic.Hehadinjuries
includingrazorslashesonhisface.
During the kidnapping, attackers
calledonMrLunneyandotherdirectors
to resign from a network of companies,
once owned by Seán Quinn, formerly
Ireland’s richest man, who went bank-
ruptafterthe2008financialcrash.
The attack hasshone a light on the
continued influence of paramilitaries in
the border area,the focus of security
and trade concerns during Brexit talks
betweentheEUandtheUK.
It has also shown how the aftershocks
of the financial crash still reverberate in
oneofthecountriesithithardest.
“I honestly believe that Kevin Lunney
was left to die,” saidlocal priest Oliver
O’Reilly in his house in Ballyconnell, the
Cavan town from whichMr Quinn uiltb
his empire. “He was found naked, prac-
tically naked, with his boxer shorts on.
His leg was broken in two places. His
nailswerepulledout.Therewasadisfig-
urement carved on his chest. To me it
wasinrealityaformofcrucifixion.”
The kidnapping was the most serious
incidentinawaveofviolenceandintim-
idation againstQuinn Industrial Hold-
ings,abuildingmaterialsandpackaging
group that employs 830 people in Fer-
managhandCavan.
hey include the dumping of a pig’sT
head at Mr Lunney’s homeand an arson
attack at the home of amanager. Online
posts have likened management to the
Shankill Butchers, a notorious group of
Northern Irish loyalist paramilitaries
duringtheTroubles.
QIH has blamed theattack on a shad-
owy“paymaster”whoitallegeshaspaid
up to 15 gangsters to target Mr Lunney,
QIH chief operating officer. The Garda,
the Irish police force, is working on an
investigation withNorthern Irish police
and has deployed a new armed unit in
named in a note that warned of a “per-
manentsolution”againstoneofthem.
This week, a letter containing adeath
threat was delivered to a Belfastpaper:
“This is your last warning to resign to
the directors of QIH, obviously you
haven’t learned your lesson after what
happenedtoKevin.”
AseniorIrishsecurityofficialsaidtwo
men with past links to the Provisional
IRAandtheINLA,themainIrishrepub-
lican paramilitary groups during the
Troubles, were under suspicion. “Their
recent activities have been more in
crime. [Such people] don’t operate in
the border in organised crime without
having those [paramilitary] connec-
tions,”theofficialsaid.
Many in Ballyconnell are reluctant to
speak openly, but from his pulpit, in
September, Fr O’Reilly blamed “hired
savage thugs” for a “depraved act”,
words widely understood to refer to a
personinhisownflock.
The priest said some of those people
had since responded to him.The com-
munity was “90 per cent supportive”.
Some were ambivalent, others “nasty”.
“Oldloyaltiesdiehard,”hesaid.JA M E S P O L I T I— WASHINGTONThe World Trade Organization has for
the first time authorised China to
impose punitive tariffs against the US,
allowing Beijing to slap $3.6bn in levies
on American goods after ruling that US
duties on steel and other products were
illegally inflated.Arbitrators at the Geneva-based body
yesterday said China could impose
the “countermeasures” against Ameri-
can imports as early as this month. If
taken, such an action could trigger
renewed tension between the world’s
largest economies as they try to finalise
atruce ntheirmuchbroadertradewar.i
The decision by the WTO was deliv-
ered as US and Chinese officials are
trying to find an alternative venue for
Donald Trump, US president, and Xi
Jinping, China’s president, to sign their
ceasefire, after thecancellation f thiso
month’s Asia-Pacific Cooperation
(Apec) meeting in Chile due to civil
unrest.
“The deal is not complete but we’ve
made enormous progress,” Larry Kud-
low, the director of the White House’s
National Economic Council, said
yesterday.
The amount of tariffs authorised by
the WTO are a small fraction of the
retaliatory levies already imposed by
China against the US as a result of their
trade war, which has lasted since early- But, if applied, they would none-
theless mark an important return to
escalationbetweenthetwocountries.
The decision is the first instance in
which China has been authorised to
impose retaliatory tariffs against the US
or another country since China joined
the WTO nearly two decades ago, a
tradeofficialinGenevasaid.
The WTO case favouring China is
highly technical and relates to the way
theUScalculatesanti-dumpingduties—
the remedies against imports of goods
that are priced at a lower level than they
areintheirdomesticmarket.
Several countries, including China,
have challenged a methodology
called “zeroing” which has been widely
used by Washington over the years to
trytoincreasedutiesonimports,partic-
ularlysteel.
The United States Trade Representa-
tive office did not respond to a request
for comment on the arbitrator’s latest
decision.
Trade war
WTO gives
China green
light for levies
on US goods
Vicious assault. aramilitary fearsP
Irish kidnapping unnerves border region
Attack on businessman
highlights fraught aftermath
of Quinn empire collapse
In the past, QIH blamed people “who
had sought the return of Seán Quinn to
the company” for threats. Mr Quinn has
condemned such actions and denied
anyinvolvement.
After Mr Lunney’s abduction, Mr
Quinnsaid on local radio: “Anybody
with any sense of any morals would of
course condemn that” and voiced con-cernhis family was “going to take flak
for this”. Citing the attack on Mr Lun-
ney,MrQuinnlatertoldChannel4heno
longer wished to return toQIH. Seán
Quinn Jr, his son, told theFinancial
Timeshisfatherhadnothingtoadd.
The abduction was not the first
assault. Mr Lunney’s nose was broken
last February by an alleged assailant
who was accused of throwing a cup of
boiling water at a colleague’s face. In
May,he was among five directorsCavan. Action should have been taken
earlier, saidLiam McCaffrey, QIH chief
executive. “Had this been happening in
Dublin with Google or Facebook or
Intel,thereactionwouldhavebeenvery
different,”hesaid.
The QIH companies were established
in the pre-crash years by Mr Quinn. His
interests spanned property, insurance,
stockbroking and the Belfry golf course.
In 2007, before theeconomiccrisis,
Forbessaidhewasworth$4.5bn.Buthis
empire imploded when his investment
inAnglo Irish Bank ost him €3.2bn.c
The defunct lender was central to
the national crisis that forced Dublin
into a 2010 international bailout.
QIH was acquired from an insolvency
process in 2014 by private equity funds
Contrarian Capital,Brigade Capital nda
Silver Point nd local managers —a
including Mr Lunney, who worked
closely with Mr Quinn before his fall.
The next year, Mr Quinn became a QIH
adviser on a €500,000 salary. But the
arrangement soured and Mr Quinn said
he was sacked when he left the business
in May 2016. Later, he spoke of his
desiretogobackintothebusiness.Sign of the times: a roadside message
in Ballyconnell reflects the feelings
of some locals. Seán Quinn, above,
has condemned the attack on Kevin
Lunney, bottom —Charles McQuillan‘His leg was broken in two
places. His nails were
pulled out. It was in reality
a form of crucifixion’
JA M E S P I C K F O R D— LONDON
Royal boomerangs, finely woven linen
gloves, silver trumpets, and a golden
bed are among 60 treasures from the
tomb f Tutankhamun seen outsideo
Egypt for the first time in an exhibition
of the pharaoh’s grave goods that opens
today in London.
Ruling for less than 10 years over 3,
years ago, the boy king Tutankhamun
became the best known of the Egyptian
pharaohs after archaeologist Howard
Carterdiscoveredhistombin1922.
Stuffedwithstunningartefactsplaced
there to assist Tutankhamun in the
afterlife, the site yielded more than
5,000 objects, many exquisitely
wrought in gold or decorated with jew-
els. It remains the only Egyptian royal
tombtobefoundintact.
The 150 objects that go on display for
six months at the Saatchi gallery are the
largest collection of the tomb goods yet
totraveloutsideEgypt.
Launched in Los Angeles, the show
went on to Paris, where it drew 1.42m
visitors,makingitthemostvisitedexhi-
bition in France, according to IMG, the
marketing company organising the
tour.
Previous Tutankhamun exhibitions
have generated enormous interest in
the UK capital, with the British
Museum’s 1972 show attracting 1.6m
visitors and queues snaking around its
Bloomsburyhome.
The exhibition has been billed as the
last chance to see Tutankhamun’s treas-
ures outside Egypt, as the artefacts will
go on permanent display at Giza’s new
GrandEgyptianMuseum,duetoopenin
late2020.
However, speaking to the Financial
Times at the Saatchi Gallery, Khaled El-
Enany, Egypt’s minister of antiquities,
declined to say that a touring exhibition
mightnothappenagain.
“It will be the last trip of Tutankha-
muntoEnglandinthenearfuture.”The gallery has attracted criticism for
the show’s admission prices: from
£24.50($32)foranoff-peakadultticket
to as high as £37.50 for a peak-time
ticket.
SharonHeal,directoroftheMuseums
Association, a professional body, said:
“It’s disappointing that the Saatchi Gal-
lery has decided to charge what must be
one of the highest ever ticket prices for
itsTutankhamunexhibition.
“Although I understand the costs
associated with putting the exhibition
together,it’sashamethatmanyfamilies
will be excluded by the exorbitant costs
oftickets.”
he Saatchi Gallery did not reply to aT
requestforcomment.
Mr Enany said Egypt’s motive for
touring shows was to promote and dis-
play itsheritage ather than to generater
income. It receives a $5m fee from each
cityhostingtheshow,withanadditional
cut of ticket revenue depending on total
visitornumbers.Boy pharaoh
Tutankhamun treasures go on show in UK
‘There is two weeks to put
together a Leave alliance
and it has to be done’
Nigel FaragePollution: a man
wears a smog
mask in New Delhi
yesterday after
a ‘severe plus’
warning