Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan appears in court, fearing arrest

Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan appears in court, fearing arrest
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Updated 18 March 2023
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Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan appears in court, fearing arrest

Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan appears in court, fearing arrest
  • Khan says his life more at threat than before
  • Khan appeared in court on Saturday as police were entering his home and after he expressed fear of arrest

LAHORE: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan appeared in court on Saturday as police were entering his home and after he expressed fear of arrest in a standoff with the government that has led to intense clashes with his supporters.
Facing a spate of legal challenges, including one that prompted a failed attempt to arrest him on Tuesday, Khan was addressing charges in the court in the capital Islamabad of unlawfully selling state gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries while in office.
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan has formed a committee to lead his party if he is arrested, he said in an interview.
The former cricket legend has led country-wide protests after his ouster from power last year and has had a spate of cases registered against him. The police unsuccessfully tried to arrest him on Tuesday, leading to intense clashes with his party workers.
“I have made a committee which will obviously take decisions once — if — I’m inside” jail, the 70-year-old said in an interview in his Lahore home before heading to Islamabad early on Saturday. He said there were 94 cases against him.
Khan, who was shot and wounded while campaigning in November, says the threat to his life is greater than before and asserted — without providing evidence — that his political opponents and the military want to block him from standing in elections later this year.
The military and government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government has denied being behind the cases. The military — which has an outsized role in Pakistan, having ruled the country for nearly half of its 75-year history — has said it remains neutral toward politics.
Khan said there is no reason he should be arrested now, because he had bail on all his cases. If convicted in a case, Khan could face disqualification from contesting the elections scheduled for November.
“The establishment right now somehow feels threatened by me. And that is the issue,” he said.
The police attempt to arrest Khan led to clashes in which dozens of people were injured.
“My life is even more at threat than it was then,” he said, adding that he was worried about the reaction to his arrest or any attempt to assassinate him. “I feel that there would be a very strong reaction, and it would be a reaction all over Pakistan.”
The former prime minister has generated popular support among Pakistanis amid decades-high inflation and a crippling economic slowdown as the country implements painful fiscal reforms to avert default. Thousands have rallied behind him every time he has called for demonstrations.
“I just think that those who are trying to do this just cannot comprehend the situation. Unfortunately, the mind that is thinking of either killing me or putting me in jail, I don’t think they comprehend where Pakistan is situated right now.”
Khan said the military had had a role in pushing him out of power after relations soured with the previous army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who retired in November. He said the new chief, General Asim Munir, was following the same policy.
The military has previously denied his claims.
“Throughout our 70-75 year history, you know, (the military) have a role. But that role has to be balanced now. You have to have that equilibrium now, because that previous balance is not workable anymore,” he said.


UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia

UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia
Updated 21 September 2023
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UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia

UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia
  • The charges relate to alleged offenses that took place between August 2020 and February 2023, the CPS added

LONDON: Five Bulgarian nationals suspected of spying for Russia will be charged with conspiracy to conduct espionage, UK prosecutors said Thursday.
Three men and two women “will be charged with conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state,” the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.
The charges relate to alleged offenses that took place between August 2020 and February 2023, the CPS added.
Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 31, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, will appear at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday.
Three of them — Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova — were charged in February with “possession of false identity documents with improper intention,” the CPS said.


Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine

Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine
Updated 21 September 2023
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Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine

Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine
  • Zelensky will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House
  • National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the Ukrainian president “our best messenger” in persuading US lawmakers to keep vital US money and weapons coming

WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Washington on Thursday for a whirlwind one-day visit, this time to face the Republicans now questioning the flow of American dollars that for 19 months has kept his troops in the fight against Russian forces.
Zelensky will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House, speak with US military leaders at the Pentagon and stop at Capitol Hill to talk privately with Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate as the world is watching Western support for Kyiv.
It is Zelensky’s second visit to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and comes as Biden’s request to Congress for an additional $24 billion for Ukraine’s military and humanitarian needs is hanging in the balance.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the Ukrainian president “our best messenger” in persuading US lawmakers to keep vital US money and weapons coming.
“It’s really important for members of Congress to be able to hear directly from the president about what he’s facing in this counteroffensive,” Kirby told reporters Wednesday, “and how he’s achieving his goals, and what he needs to continue to achieve those goals.”
Biden has called on world leaders to stand strong with Ukraine, even as he faces domestic political divisions at home. A hard-right flank of Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 race for the White House, is increasingly opposed to sending more money overseas.
As the White House worked to shore up support for Ukraine before Zelensky’s visit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top intelligence officials briefed senior lawmakers behind closed doors Wednesday to argue the case.
But some Senate Republicans walked out of the briefing no more convinced than before about the necessity of spending more on Ukraine. “It’s not close to the end,” Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said. “What we’re basically told is, ‘Buckle up and get out your checkbook.”’
Since the start of the war, most members of Congress supported approving four rounds of aid to Ukraine, totaling about $113 billion, viewing defense of the country and its democracy as an imperative, especially when it comes to containing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some of that money went toward replenishing US military equipment sent to the frontlines.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who traveled to Kyiv this week, said cutting off US aid during the Ukrainians’ counteroffensive would be “catastrophic” to their efforts.
“That would clearly be the opening that Putin is looking for,” Kelly said Wednesday. “They cannot be successful without our support.”
The political environment has shifted markedly since Zelensky addressed Congress last December on his first trip out of Ukraine since the war began. He was met with rapturous applause for his country’s bravery and surprisingly strong showing in the war.
His meeting with senators on Thursday will take place behind closed doors in the Old Senate Chamber, a historical and intimate place of importance at the US Capitol, signifying the respect the Senate is showing the foreign leader.
But on the other side of the Capitol, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who faces more opposition within his Trump-aligned ranks to supporting Ukraine, is planning a separate meeting with Zelensky, with a smaller bipartisan group of lawmakers and committee chairmen.
“I will have questions for President Zelensky,” McCarthy told reporters before the visit.
The House speaker said he wanted more accountability for the money the US has already approved for Ukraine before moving ahead with more.
And, McCarthy said, he wants to know, “What is the plan for victory?”
In the Senate, however, Ukraine has a strong ally in Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who is out front in pushing his party, and the president, to continue robust support for Kyiv.
McConnell urged Biden before Wednesday’s closed-door briefing to senators to make sure the administration’s top brass puts forward a more forceful case in support of Ukraine so Congress can send Zelensky what’s needed to win the war.
“I sometimes get the sense that I speak more about Ukraine matters than the president does,” McConnell said in a speech Wednesday.


First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul

First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul
Updated 21 September 2023
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First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul

First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul
  • The Palau-flagged Resilient Africa vessel was carrying 3,000 tons of wheat

ISTANBUL: The first grain ship to sail from Ukraine since Russia reimposed its Black Sea blockade in July reached Istanbul on Thursday, marine traffic monitors said.
Ukrainian officials said the Palau-flagged Resilient Africa vessel was carrying 3,000 tons of wheat when it left Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port on Tuesday.


ICC war crimes tribunal hobbled by hacking incident -sources

ICC war crimes tribunal hobbled by hacking incident -sources
Updated 21 September 2023
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ICC war crimes tribunal hobbled by hacking incident -sources

ICC war crimes tribunal hobbled by hacking incident -sources
  • Two lawyers at the court said it had disconnected most of its systems that can access the Internet

THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court is operating under strong limitations on its digital systems after a hacking incident, sources and lawyers who work at the war crimes court said on Thursday.
Two lawyers at the court, and a source close to it who asked not to be identified, said it had disconnected most of its systems that can access the Internet, that employees cannot access email and that employees who are not working on site cannot access documents.
The ICC, based in The Hague, first disclosed a “cybersecurity incident” on Tuesday.


India suspends visas for Canadians as tensions escalate

India suspends visas for Canadians as tensions escalate
Updated 21 September 2023
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India suspends visas for Canadians as tensions escalate

India suspends visas for Canadians as tensions escalate
  • Tensions flared after Canada said it was investigating Indian links to the murder of a Sikh separatist activist on its soil
  • Canadian high commission in New Delhi has decided to ‘temporarily adjust’ staff presence in India

New Delhi: India has suspended visa services for Canadian citizens from Thursday, days after Ottawa accused New Delhi of potentially being behind the assassination of a Sikh separatist activist on its soil.

Tensions flared this week after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Parliament that Canadian intelligence agencies were investigating “credible allegations” of a potential link between “agents of the government of India” and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh Canadian citizen who was gunned down by masked men in June.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs rejected the allegation as “absurd” and both India and Canada have since expelled their senior diplomats in reciprocal moves.

The suspension of visa services for Canadian citizens was first announced in a message on the website of BLS International, outsourcing service provider for the Indian government and diplomatic missions worldwide, which said it was “due to operational reasons” and with effect from Sept. 21.

Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, blamed the move on “security threats” faced by India’s high commissioner in Ottawa.

“This has hampered and disrupted his normal functioning. That’s why our high commissioner and consulates are not able to provide visa services,” he told reporters.

“We will keep on reviewing the situation at a regular basis. We will keep on assessing, but for the time being, due to the security situation in Canada and the security situation arising out of the Canadian government’s inaction, the visa process is getting obstructed temporarily, and we have stopped the visa process for the time being.”

The move comes a day after India issued an advisory urging its citizens traveling to or living in Canada to “exercise utmost caution” in view of the “growing anti-India activities and politically condoned hate crimes and criminal violence in Canada.”

Nijjar was an outspoken supporter of the Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in parts of India’s Punjab state.

The movement is outlawed in India, considered a national security threat by the government, and Nijjar’s name appears on the Indian Home Ministry’s list of terrorists.

He was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, which has a significant number of Sikh residents.

Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside Punjab — about 770,000 or 2 percent of its entire population.

The Canadian High Commission in New Delhi issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of its diplomats had “received threats on various social media platforms” and it was assessing its staff presence in India.

“In light of the current environment where tensions have heightened, we are taking action to ensure the safety of our diplomats,” the mission said.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to temporarily adjust staff presence in India.”