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HAVANA- The trial of a Canadian businessman who has confessed to bribing Cuban officials began on Thursday, almost two years after his arrest in a sweeping government crackdown on corruption.

Canadian ambassador to attend Cuban trial

The closed trial of 53-year-old Sarkis Yacoubian, originally from Armenia and the owner of import firm Tri-Star Caribbean, was expected to last two days. An associate of Yacoubian, Lebanese citizen Krikor Bayassalian, is a co-defendant.

Canadian businessman faces 12-year sentence

The two men were brought into the courthouse, once a large home in Havana’s 10th of October neighborhood, out of sight of the press, which was not allowed in to cover the proceedings.

Canada’s ambassador to Cuba, Matthew Levin, did not speak to reporters as he walked in the front gate.

The corruption trials of at least three other Canadian and British executives who were arrested shortly after Yacoubian was taken into custody in July 2011 are expected to follow.

The arrests were unprecedented for Cuba, where foreign businessmen suspected of corruption are usually deported, and are viewed as a measure of President Raul Castro’s determination to clean up a vice he views as a threat to Cuba’s socialist system.

They sent shockwaves through Cuba’s small foreign business community where the companies involved were among the most visible players.

Cuba’s state-run media, however, has not yet reported the Yacoubian trial, nor mentioned the arrests and crackdown on foreign trade.

After his arrest, Yacoubian quickly cooperated with prosecutors, confessing to bribery and implicating other foreign firms, which sparked an investigation into the communist-run country’s import business.

Within months, dozens of Cuban officials and state purchasers were behind bars.

“I tried to explain to them (investigators) systematically how things could be done,” Yacoubian told the Toronto Star last week in his only interview from jail.

“I gave them drawings, designs. I gave them names, people, how they do it, why, when, where, what,” he said.

Yacoubian was expected to plead guilty to bribery, tax evasion and other crimes and could face a sentence of up to 12 years behind bars, the newspaper said. Bayassalian faces the same charges.

In September 2011, two months after Tri-Star Caribbean was shuttered, Canada-based Tokmakjian Group, one of the most important Western trading firms in Cuba, was closed and its 73-year-old head, Cy Tokmakjian, also originally from Armenia and a Canadian citizen, was taken into custody.

Yacoubian had worked for Tokmakjian before founding Tri-Star to compete with his former employer in what became a bitter rivalry for Cuba’s automobile, motorized and heavy equipment market.

In October 2011, police also closed the Havana offices of the British investment and trading firm Coral Capital Group Ltd and arrested chief executive Amado Fakhre, a Lebanese-born British citizen.

Two months later police raided the offices of the powerful military-run Tecnotex trading company, taking its Cuban chief executive Fernando Noy away in handcuffs.

Coral Capital’s chief operating officer, Stephen Purvis, was arrested in March 2012. Purvis is a British citizen.

A number of other foreigners and Cubans who worked for the companies remain free but cannot leave the island because they are considered witnesses in the cases.

Cuban officials and lawyers for the defendants could not be reached for comment.

Soon after taking over for his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2008, President Castro established the comptroller general’s office with a seat on the ruling Council of State, even as he began implementing market-oriented economic reforms.

The measure marked the start of the anti-corruption campaign that uncovered high-level graft in several main areas, from the cigar, nickel and communications industries, to food processing and civil aviation.

But foreign and Cuban businessmen say the foreign trade sector, which manages billions in purchases annually and is monopolized by a handful of state firms, is perhaps the most vulnerable to corruption.

There is no open bidding in Cuba’s international trade sector and state purchasers who handle multimillion-dollar contracts earn just $50 to $100 per month.

“You have people who do not make enough money to care for their families handing huge contracts. What do you expect?” a local state administration specialist said on condition of anonymity.

“The trial, like the arrests, is aimed more at scaring Cubans then foreigners, but will prove only symbolic if the surrounding conditions do not change,” he said.

Transparency International, considered the world’s leading anti-graft watchdog, last rated Cuba 58 out of 178 countries in terms of tackling corruption, ahead of all but eight of 33 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A video, shown to high-level Communist Party cadres in early 2012, featured Yacoubian’s confession, according to sources familiar with the film.

Called “Metastasis,” it opened with footage of Raul Castro warning that corruption must be kept at one’s ankles and never be allowed to rise above one’s nose. It closed with Castro characterizing corruption as a threat to national security.

In the video, Yacoubian confessed to passing packets of money to Cuban officials visiting Canada when he worked for the Tokmakjian Group, then continuing the same practice after he founded Tri-Star Caribbean.

The video also featured the confessions of the top Cuban employees of the Canadian firms, a deputy minister of basic industry and others.

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New Zealand employers added the most workers on record in the three months through March as record-low interest rates fan business confidence.

Employment (NZLFQOQ) surged 1.7 percent, or 38,000 jobs, from the fourth quarter, Statistics New Zealand said in a report today in Wellington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 11 economists was for a 0.8 percent gain in employment. The jobless rate fell to a three-year low of 6.2 percent, less than the 6.8 percent predicted by economists.

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Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday its first quarter net profit fell 15 percent as a labor dispute slowed car production in South Korea.

The country’s largest automaker said net profit reached 2.1 trillion won ($1.9 billion) in the January-March period, matching market forecasts. A year earlier, net profit was 2.5 trillion won.

Sales rose 6 percent to 21.4 trillion won. Operating profit declined 11 percent to 1.9 trillion won.

The company blamed its lower profit on declining production at domestic plants, which outweighed increased production from new plants in China and Brazil.

Starting March, Hyundai adopted new schedules for workers to remove overnight shifts but has yet to reach an agreement with its labor union on how to compensate workers for weekend and holiday shifts. The company’s Ulsan plant has not produced any vehicles during weekends since March. Exports of locally produced vehicles during the first quarter dropped 11 percent over a year earlier.

The company said it hopes to reach an agreement with the union soon to resume weekend production Same day payday loans.

“Once we reach an agreement over the weekend shifts at the Ulsan factory, we will be able to meet our annual sales target,” Chief Financial Officer Lee Won-hee said during a conference call with investors. Hyundai is aiming for 6 percent growth in 2013 vehicle sales to 4.66 million units.

Another dent to its bottom line came from foreign exchange rates. Sales costs increased from the local currency’s weakness over a year earlier, the company said. Fears of an outbreak of violence on the Korean Peninsula, stemming from North Korea’s recent threats, eroded the value of the South Korean won.

Hyundai Motor is the flagship unit of the world’s fifth-largest automaker, Hyundai Motor Group.

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Stocks were little changed on Wall Street ahead of the release of the government’s March employment report Friday.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up six points, or 0.05 percent, to 14,557 as of 12:45 p.m. EDT Thursday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose one point, or 0.06 percent, to 1,555. The Nasdaq composite slipped seven points to 3,212.

Signs that the economy cooled in March has dampened optimism about the U.S. recovery and pushed stocks down from record levels. The Dow fell 111 points Wednesday, its biggest drop in more than a month, following weak reports on hiring and service industries. On Monday an industry group reported that U.S. manufacturing growth slowed unexpectedly last month.

There was more discouraging economic news Thursday. The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose to a four-month high of 385,000 last week, the Labor Department said. The government will issue its employment report Friday, which investors look at closely for insight into how the U.S. economy is doing.

“The trend seems to be worsening,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital. “We’re seeing a little hesitation in anticipation of tomorrow’s job report.”

The stock market got off to a great start in 2013. The Dow climbed 10 percent in the first three months of the year and closed at a record high of 14,662 Tuesday. Investors were cheered by signs that the housing market was recovering and that hiring was picking up. Rising company earnings and continuing Federal Reserve stimulus also boosted demand for stocks.

“Investors have been looking for a reason to sell, given the rally we’ve seen in the market in the past couple of months,” said Joseph Tanious at JPMorgan Funds. “Today, you’re seeing investors come back into the market and buy on the dip.”

Safer industry groups rose Thursday. Telecommunications companies and utilities led the gains for the S&P 500, rising 0.9 percent and 0 guaranteed approval cash loans.7 percent respectively.

Japanese stocks jumped and the yen sank after the country’s central bank announced aggressive measures for getting the world’s third-largest economy out of a two-decade slump. The Bank of Japan, under new Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, surprised markets by saying it would greatly increase the country’s money supply with the goal of encouraging people and businesses to borrow and spend. The yen weakened 3.5 percent against the dollar, to 96.16 yen, while Tokyo’s Nikkei stock index rose 2.2 percent to 12,634.54.

U.S.-listed shares of Japanese automakers rose sharply. A weaker yen would make Japanese vehicles less expensive in markets outside Japan, and therefore more competitive. The U.S. shares of Toyota rose $4.47, or 4.4 percent, to $105.31, Honda’s rose $1.88, or 5.1 percent, to $39.08 and the Nissan’s rose 84 cents, 4.5 percent, to $19.66. Japanese electronics makers also rose. Sony rose 47 cents, or 3 percent, to $16.90 and Panasonic rose 18 cents, also 3 percent, to $6.61.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, fell to 1.77 percent from 1.81 percent a day earlier. The yield on the note has fallen over the last month as demand for less risky assets increased following the crisis in Cyprus and signs of a slowdown in the U.S. The yield was as high as 2.06 percent on March 11.

Among stocks making big moves, electronics retailer Best Buy jumped 12 percent, or $2.42, to $24.15 after saying it would collaborate with the Korean company Samsung to open Samsung kiosks in its retail outlets.

MetroPCS rose 20 cents, or 2 percent, to $11.16 after Reuters reported that Deutsche Telekom is considering amending the terms of the proposed merger between its T-Mobile USA business and local rival Metro PCS.

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has always been a force to be feared in South Africa.

But on Tuesday, two long-buried bodies were exhumed in an unfolding drama that could land her in court facing murder charges.

The bodies, pulled from unmarked graves in the sprawling black township of Soweto, are believed to be those of anti-apartheid activists Lolo Sono and Sibuniso Tshabalala. Sono was last seen — badly beaten — being driven off by Mandela and a gang of thugs in November 1988.

Parents of both have long claimed that Winnie Mandela was responsible for their deaths. But authorities never had enough evidence to charge her: the bodies were hidden and never found.

Until now.

It is not the first time Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife, 76, has been linked to violence. During the late 1980s, South Africa’s so-called “Mother of the Nation” and her gang of thugs, known as the Mandela United Football Club, had a veritable reign of terror in township, cruising the streets in their blue minibus, handing out justice as they saw fit.

According to testimony before courts and commissions, they beat, kidnapped, tortured and, in at least one confirmed case, even murdered those they thought were “spies” for the apartheid regime.

The most famous victim of violence was “Stompie” Moeketsi — whose killing came just seven weeks after Sono, 21, and Tshabalala, 19, disappeared.

I remember first landing in South Africa during that period, keen to meet the Mother of the Nation — then the darling of the international anti-apartheid movement — and the shock that came with hearing about her tyranny.

It was difficult to believe — more difficult to prove.

But five months into a four-year posting for the Toronto Star, I received a telephone call from a township youth I knew, Gabriel Pelo Mekgwe, asking for a meeting in a stairwell in a building in downtown Johannesburg.

There, Gabriel told me that Stompie Moeketsi was dead.

I was stunned. I was aware of Stompie — sometimes known as Stompie Seipei. He was a legendary child, even at 14, the leader of a group of black youths in the Orange Free State who regularly clashed with apartheid’s cops. Gabriel insisted Stompie and I had met — that he was part of a group of youths I had once ferried to a trial in Pretoria. There had been no reports of Stompie’s murder; no reports he was even missing.

Then Gabriel laid out his incredible story. He, Stompie and two other youths had been kidnapped by Winnie Mandela’s thugs from a church rectory in Alexandra township, and brought to her house in Diepkloof, Soweto.

There, he said, they were brought into a garage — still unaware of where they were — when a door opened and “Mrs. Mandela” appeared. They were floored.

Gabriel said “Mrs. Mandela” then launched into a verbal attack on them. She was enraged that the youths had been staying at the rectory of a progressive, anti-apartheid pastor in Alexandra township by the name of Paul Verryn, accusing them of homosexual activity. Stompie denied it — and the beating began.

It was vicious. The thugs used fists, feet, shoes, whips, Coke bottles, whatever was handy, Gabriel said.

But Gabriel was clear: it was “Mrs. Mandela” who started it.

Stompie was later taken away. But Gabriel and the two others were kept against their will for nearly three weeks, he said.

I asked how he could be sure Stompie was dead.

“How do I know?” said Gabriel. “Because when I last saw him his head was soft.”

He placed two fingers on the soft part of his upturned forearm and pushed it.

“Just like this,” he said.

I went with the story and the quote. Thirteen days later, Stompie’s body was found and identified.

Jerry Richardson, chief thug of Mandela United — who even in his 40s called Madikizela-Mandela “Mummy” — testified years later that he had used garden shears to end Stompie’s agony. Richardson was sentenced to life and died behind bars in 2009.

“I killed Stompie under the instruction of Mummy,” he told a commission. “I slaughtered him like a goat.”

Madikizela-Mandela was given six years for assault and kidnapping — a judgment that was later overturned and reduced. She became an “accessory” to assault and was given a fine and suspended jail term.

Nelson Mandela stood by her in the early going. It must have been crushing when the depth of her complicity became clear. They split in 1992, divorced in 1996.

At that time of the Sono, Tshabalala and Moeketsi tragedies, the international movement against apartheid regarded Winnie Mandela as the beautiful heroine of a just cause. Everyone wanted to believe she was a paragon of virtue. Suddenly, they were shocked and confused.

I remember first hearing rumours of her recklessness shortly after landing in the country, and asking a fellow correspondent who knew the terrain well whether they were true.

“You can’t go there,” he said. The world would never believe it, he stressed. And whoever dared to tell it would be pilloried.

At the gravesite in Soweto on Tuesday, family members sang hymns as the bodies were exhumed — while officials with the African National Congress tried to prevent journalists from speaking with the surviving families.

Forensic scientists are reported to have work ahead of them — so, too, might prosecutors.

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Americans seem to be stepping up their homebuying while they can still find bargains.

July home sales rose 2.3% from June, and 10.4% from a year earlier, to an annual rate of 4.47 million, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors.

The market has been bolstered by low home prices and mortgage rates, according to Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, but the inability of some potential buyers to obtain financing has cut into sales.

“The market is constrained by tight lending standards and shrinking inventory supplies, so housing could easily be much stronger without these frictions,” he said.

Given the country’s population growth and demographics, Yun said home sales are still below what he would consider normal, which would be between 5 million and 5.5 million.

Elizabeth Ptacek, a senior real estate analyst for KeyBank, said economic factors still limit home sales.

“Mortgages are available if people have good credit and enough cash for a down payment,” she said. “But with the [slow] job growth and consumer confidence still low, even if you can get a mortgage, you have to think twice about buying cheap credit report.”

July sales came in slightly below forecasts from a panel of industry experts surveyed by Briefing.com, which had predicted an annual sales rate of 4.57 million.

Stuart Hoffman, chief economist for PNC Financial, said the psychology of the market has turned. With mortgage rates coming off of historic lows and home prices on the rise, homebuyers are more likely to think that prices will rise, making them more inclined to buy.

NAR reported a rise in the median home price of 9.6% in July, compared with a year earlier, to $187,300. Listing inventory has fallen to a 6.5 month supply, down 24% from a year earlier.

NAR President Moe Veissi stressed that pricing homes at the right level is key.

“Correctly priced homes are selling quickly these days,” he said. “Fully one-third of homes purchased in July were on the market for less than a month, and only 21% were on the market for six months or longer.”

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State media say police have arrested four senior executives at a major state-owned shipping company for alleged mismanagement.

Online VnExpress says Duong Chi Dung, former chairman of Vietnam National Shipping Lines, or Vinalines, and three other executives were detained Friday for allegedly causing losses of $80 million from 2009-2010 after purchasing old ships and making poor investments.

Dung was promoted in February to head the government’s Maritime Department no fax pay day loan.

The arrests come more than a month after nine senior executives of another major state-owned company, the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industrial Group, or Vinashin, were given lengthy jail sentences following a scandal that resulted in the lowering of Vietnam’s credit rating.

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