The Times - UK (2022-05-25)

34 2GM Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times

Wo r l d

Germany will

return jewels

to Namibia

A museum in Berlin has agreed to send
23 ancient items of jewellery, tools and
other artefacts back to Namibia on in-
definite loan in an attempt to foster re-
conciliation more than a century after
Germany committed genocide in its
former colony.
“The collections reflect colonial, and
in some cases extremely violent, pro-
cesses of appropriation,” the Berlin
Ethnological Museum said. “They also
show the creativity and ingenuity of the
Namibian people.” The artefacts will be
handed back and made available to
local artists and academics for re-
search. Esther Moombolah, the direct-
or of the National Museum of Namibia,
said Namibians should not “have to get
on a plane to see our cultural treasures”.
About 75,000 people were killed in
what was then the German colony of
Deutsch-Südwestafrika between 1904
and 1907 when German forces crushed
the Herero and Nama peoples and
drove the survivors into the desert,
where thousands died.

Germany
David Crossland Berlin

Awfully wetted wife A white wedding for Murat Zhurayev and his bride Kamilla descended into a mucky farce, captured on camera by Askar Bumaga in Kazakhstan

ASKAR BUMAGA/NEWSFLASH

The wealthy founder of one of France’s

biggest insurance brokers has been

charged with human trafficking and

raping a minor after a 22-year-old

woman told police that he had held her

as a slave for five years.

Jacques Bouthier, 75, who is said to be

worth about €160 million, was head of

Assu 2000. He was arrested and held

along with his wife and four other

people. Police suspect he may have kept

Donald Trump’s endorsed Republican

candidate for governor of Georgia,

David Perdue, ended his underwhelm-

ing primary campaign with an attack

on his Democratic rival Stacey Abrams,

accusing her of “demeaning her own

race” and telling her to “go back where

she came from”.

Trailing in the polls to the

Republican governor Brian

Kemp, despite strong support

from the former president,

Perdue used his final rally of

an ugly primary race to issue a

racist dog whistle to his sup-

porters targeting Abrams, the

black woman leading the race

for the Democratic nomination.

Responding to comments

made by Abrams at the weekend

reflecting upon Georgia’s poor rank-

ing among US states on several

issues, including mental health and

incarceration rates, Perdue asked his

largely white audience if they had

seen “what Stacey said”.

“She said that Georgia is the worst

place in the country to live,” Perdue

said. “Hey, she ain’t from here. Let her

go back where she came from if she

Trump candidate tells black rival

to ‘go back where she came from’

doesn’t like it here.” Appearing at a

“tele-rally” for Perdue on Monday,

Trump also attacked Abrams, claiming

she would “radicalise your children and

plunder your wealth”.

Perdue went on to discuss comments

she made in 2018 that residents

“shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or

hospitality to make a living in Georgia”.

He added: “When she told black farm-

ers, ‘You don’t need to be on the farm,’

and she told black workers in hospi-

tality and all this, ‘You don’t need

to be,’ she is demeaning her own.”

Abrams, 48, was born in

Wisconsin and lived in Missis-

sippi before moving to Georgia

as a teenager. She served in

Georgia’s house of representa-

tives for a decade. On Monday

she declined to comment on

Perdue’s remarks.

“Regardless of which Republican

it is, I have yet to hear them articulate

a plan for the future of Georgia,” she

told MSNBC.

Trump’s endorsement and a strate-

gy based on repeating the former

president’s claims that the 2020 presi-

dential election was stolen have been

unable to revive Perdue’s floundering

campaign. He trailed Kemp by more

than ten points before voting yester-

day, seemingly handing Trump his big-

gest defeat of the primary season so far.

Kemp, denounced by Trump as “a

turncoat” and “a loser” for refusing to

help overturn the 2020 election result

in Georgia, will go forward to face

Abrams in the race for governor at

midterm elections in November. The

contest offers a rematch of their bitter

2018 race, when Kemp defeated

Abrams amid allegations of systematic

voter suppression by Republicans,

targeting black and other minorities

likely to lean Democratic.

Trump issued a last-ditch statement

yesterday, again lambasting Kemp for

refusing to intervene in the 2020 elect-

ion and claiming that his supporters

would not turn out for him, handing the

midterm election to Abrams.

Perdue’s struggles have exposed limi-

tations to Trump’s hold over the Repub-

lican Party and its core voters, opening

the door to rivals eyeing a challenge for

the presidential nomination in 2024.

Trump is still obsessed by his narrow

2020 defeat in Georgia, where he was

recorded pressuring Georgia’s secre-

tary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find

11,780 votes” to overturn Joe Biden’s vic-

tory. Seeking retribution for Kemp and

Raffensperger’s disloyalty, Trump has

backed rival challengers to both men.

United States

Hugh Tomlinson Washington

David Perdue ended

his campaign by

latching on to Stacey

Abrams’s remark

that “Georgia is the

worst place in the

country to live”

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Tycoon accused of keeping teenage girls as sex slaves

up to seven teenagers successively in a

flat in the Paris area over several years.

Bouthier has denied the charges and

says he is the victim of blackmail,

according to France Info radio. He re-

signed from his company, which

changed its name to Vilavi this year and

which employs 1,800 people. It said the

case had no impact on its activities,

which include loans and car insurance.

The investigation opened when the

woman went to a police station in Paris

in March and said she had been the

captive of a very rich man for five years,

starting when she was 15. She had been

forced to provide sex in return for food

and lodging. She had been free to come

and go but was under strict control.

She said she had been ordered to find a

younger replacement after Bouthier told

her she had grown too old for his needs,

investigators told media. She recruited a

14-year-old girl and took video footage of

the younger girl in bed with Bouthier,

which she gave to the police.

Bouthier was listed by Challenges

business magazine in 2020 as No 487 in

France’s 500 richest people.

France

Charles Bremner Paris

Jacques Bouthier is

worth €160 million