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Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Abbas Jaffari Doulatabadi, said that Mr Karroubi would be tried by a special ecclesiastical court. No specific charges were outlined but they could run from inflatable criminal libel to the much more serious charge of “propagating against the Islamic system” which can bring long prison terms.

Similar prosecutions against other opposition leaders could be used to try to wipe out the top tier of the movement.

On Saturday, the official Iranian news agency announced that three defendants convicted for their roles in election protests had been sentenced to death for membership of banned opposition groups. Human rights groups dispute whether they were involved in the protests. Two of  the men were said to inflatable water games have been in custody before the election.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on Iran to repeal the death sentences, pointing to flaws in the secret prosecutions. Under international rules that Iran signed, the death penalty can be applied only in circumstances involving serious crimes.

“The imposition of the death penalty for crimes that do not result in loss of life is contrary to” the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Ms Pillay said.

No charges have yet been brought against members of the Iranian security forces despite vidence of their role in the brutal suppression of the protests and vows by the inflatable tent Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that any wrongdoers would be held to account.

The Iranian government put the official death toll in the protests at 35 and blamed the fatalities on other demonstrators. Human rights and opposition groups say the toll is double that, laying responsibility mostly with the Basij volunteer militia.

In a further sign of rifts within the Iranian elite, the daughter of an aide to President Ahmadinejad defected to the West yesterday. Narges Kalhor, a film-maker, applied for asylum while attending a festival in Germany. Her father, Mahdi Kalhor, advises Mr Ahmadinejad on cultural matters.

Banks are being threatened with a windfall tax on profits amid mounting
criticism from across the political spectrum of a return to huge
bonuses.

Strong financial results from American investment banks have raised the pearl jewelry sets prospect of a bumper bonus season in Britain, even at the state-controlled RBS.

Evidence that banks were returning to “business as usual” a year after
the financial system was bailed out sparked anger yesterday from all
the main parties and from President Obama’s Administration. A senior
Labour source said that a windfall tax was “plan B” if the banks failed
to take action themselves on excessive remuneration.

“The Treasury is determined to take a robust stance on wish pearl jewelry this issue,” the source said. “Exactly what that means is a different issue.
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“It is quite difficult, legally, to single out bankers or banks. There
is also a question about whether we can hit their balance sheets too
hard. Plan A is to get them to take action themselves. [A windfall tax]
has been discussed, but it is still very much plan B.”

Lord Myners, the City minister, also criticised the return of banking
bonuses. “We are simply not going to accept high levels of
remuneration, which are not justified and earned. The nation is angry
about this. I’m angry about it,” he told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC
One.

The Obama Administration reacted angrily after the akoya pearl necklace
investment bank Goldman Sachs disclosed a huge pay rise last week.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the President, branded the bonuses
as offensive yesterday.

Labour imposed a windfall tax on utility companies in 1997. A precedent
was set for a windfall tax on banks in 1981 when Geoffrey Howe, the
Chancellor at the time, imposed a £400 million tax on commercial banks.

RBS dismissed reports yesterday suggesting that it was preparing to pay
its bankers bonuses of up to £5 million each, from a total pool of £4
billion. A source close to the bank said that no decisions had been
made.

Analysts say, however, that the investment banking arms of Barclays and
RBS, which is 70 per cent government-owned, are on course to pay bigger
bonuses than last year. Both give updates on wholesale pearl jewelry their performances next month.

Goldman Sachs has disclosed that its pay and bonus pot amounts to $16.7
billion (£10.2 billion) for the first nine months of this year, up 46
per cent on last year.

Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association,
said that banks’ profits determined the dividends for shareholders. She
added: “If the Government is going to [impose a windfall tax], they
will have to be very mindful of the consequences. Many millions of
people’s pensions depend on the UK banking industry paying dividends on
their shares.”

The G20 group of countries struck an international agreement last month
that stopped short of a formal cap on bonuses, but recommended that
up-front cash bonuses should be scrapped and cultured pearl that bonuses could be “clawed back” if investments made losses in the long term.

The Financial Services Authority will bring the banks’ behaviour under
scrutiny again today when it publicises plans for tougher regulation of
the mortgage market. As reported in The Times last week, the regulator
wants to ban self-certified loans and will demand tighter checks on
borrowers’ ability to repay loans.

Workers at Goldman Sachs have racked up an average $527,192 (£324,607) in salary and bonuses so far this year after the American investment bank made a $3.1 billion profit in the third quarter.

Average pay for staff at the group, which employs around 5,500 staff in pearl jewelry wholesale London, is 46 per cent higher compared to last year. The news is likely further to enrage taxpayers who blame excessive risk-taking by banks for the global recession.

So far, over the first nine months of its financial year, Goldman Sachs has set aside $16.7 billion to compensate its 31,700-strong global workforce — a 46 per cent rise in the same period in 2008. The bank needs to top $21 billion to match the bumper year of 2007.

In the most recent quarter, covering the three months to September 25, Goldman Sachs ring-fenced $5.3 billion for salary and bonuses, which is a rise of 84 per cent in the third quarter last year.
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The sharp rise in pay has been revealed amid the freshwater pearl first criminal case of the crunch which is continuing today.

Two Bear Stearns managers, Ralph Cioffi, 53, and Matt Tannin, 48, are on accused of securities fraud after their hedge funds imploded in 2007, signalling the start of the crisis.

Global governments have pledged to stamp out risk-taking by banks and yesterday Goldman Sachs was one of a number of the world’s biggest banks which signed up to new rules on bonuses agreed at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last month.

UK banks have already pledged to support the new rules, which will allow bonuses to multi-strand necklaces be clawed back as well as the deferral of compensation for senior executives working in more risky areas over three years, with at least 50 per cent of the payment in shares or share-linked instruments.

David Viniar, chief financial officer of Goldman Sachs, said that the bank was considering whether to raise the proportion of its compensation paid in equity, as other banks are doing in response to pressure to tie bonuses to banks’ performances.

“We’ve always paid a lot of our bonuses in stock, deferred and divesting over time, but we’re looking at those programs and a decision will be made at the end of the year,” he said.

Mr Viniar insisted that Goldman Sachs, which has come under fire for freshwater pearl bracelet its generous compensation just months after paying back a $10 billion taxpayer loan, was aware of the difficulties that ordinary consumers faced in the tough economic environment.

“We’re very focused on what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in the economic environment,” he said. “But we’re also focused on our franchise and being fair to our people, who we think have performed admirably through the entire crisis. That’s something we’re weighing up.”

Profits for the third quarter rose from $845 million last year. Although earnings were not as high as the $3.4 billion made in the record last quarter, they were ahead of expectations.

Net revenues, excluding net interest income, was 105 per higher than last year at $12.3 billion. Revenue fell in investment banking by 31 per cent year-on-year to $889 million as clients held off on shell pearl jewelry making acquisitions.

Revenue from trading and principal investments, which trading done with the bank’s own money, soared by more than 260 per cent to $8.8 billion as fixed income and equities performed strongly.

The bank pulled back on the amount of risk it was taking in the market in the third quarter, cutting its daily value at risk (var) measurement. In the third quarter, the most that akoya pearl beads Goldman Sachs could have lost in a single day of trading was $208 million, compared to $245 million in the second half.

The Pakistani Army faced resistance from the Taleban on the second of an assault on the mountainous tribal region of South Waziristan yesterday, raising fears of a drawn-out battle.

The army said that it had made significant advances and pearl earrings killed at least 60 militants in the first 24 hours of the long-awaited ground offensive on a region considered to be the main Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan.

Residents and local officials from the area on the Afghan border said that the insurgents were attacking military convoys as they from three directions on the area controlled by Hakimullah Mehsud, the Taleban leader. “They have sophisticated weapons and are trying to block the troops’ advance,” a local reporter in Wana, the regional headquarters, said.

The Taleban said that it repelled the attack, inflicting heavy casualties but freshwater pearl earrings losing only one of its fighters.
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Azam Tariq, a spokesman for the Taleban, said: “The Government has put the country’s sovereignty at stake to please Obama . . . we’ll attack his well-wishers everywhere.”

About 30,000 army troops, backed by fighter jets and helicopter gunships, began the assault on Saturday. They aim to kill or capture Mr Mehsud and his followers, who have been blamed for shell jewelry attacks across Pakistan in the past fortnight.

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