Month: October 2023

As Pakistan conducts a nationwide crackdown to curb smuggling of the dollar and other commodities outside the country, a senior government minister acknowledged security forces are involved in the illegal activity.  

Pakistan’s caretaker government launched a nationwide crackdown last month to curb the illegal flight of the dollar — and unlawful money exchange and transfers — in a bid to strengthen the weak rupee.   

With help from security and law enforcement agencies, authorities are also clamping down on hoarding and smuggling of wheat and sugar abroad and the influx of cheap Iranian petroleum products.

At a news conference highlighting the impact of the crackdown, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti admitted security forces are involved in smuggling.   

Responding to VOA, the minister said it was “100 percent right” to say that security officials have a role in the illegal cross-border movement of currency and commodities.  

“Smuggling hasn’t happened on camel backs. It has happened via trucks,” Bugti said. “The chief of Pakistan’s military has told his people clearly … that there won’t just be court martials but those who are involved in such practices will also be sent to jail.”  

The minister, however, said accountability of military personnel is a process not open to public scrutiny. 

The Pakistani military is the country’s most powerful institution. Despite a civilian caretaker government running the country until general elections are held next year, the head of the army, Gen. Asim Munir, is playing a prominent role in state affairs, much like his predecessors. 

Receiving a briefing with top provincial government officials recently, the army chief pledged that a crackdown on smuggling and other illegal activities would continue “to rid Pakistan from the substantial losses it continues to suffer due to pilferage,” according to a statement issued by the military’s media wing.

Rupee’s rise  

Since the crackdown began a month ago, the beleaguered rupee has seen its fortunes turn around, emerging as the best performing currency globally in September.  

According to data analyzed by Pakistani brokerage and research firm Arif Habib Ltd., the rupee gained more than 6 percent against the dollar last month. The currency rose to 287 to a dollar from a record low of 308 in September. 

Bugti told the media that nearly $2.3 million has been recovered and 168 police reports have been lodged since the crackdown commenced four weeks ago.  

In a recent report, the country’s finance ministry also said the crackdown was paying dividends.  

“The government’s stern administrative action against the unlawful foreign exchange dealers and hoarders in commodity markets is stabilizing the exchange rate,” the report said.  

As Pakistanis, however, face crippling inflation with prices of essential items up nearly 31 percent from a year ago, experts say a crackdown on illegal activities alone will not strengthen the rupee or the economy. 

“Even with the crackdown in place, the fundamental dearth of exports, [large] scale of imports, and debt repayment needs will inexorably weaken the PKR (Pakistani rupee) until the country’s leadership finds the resolve to undertake structural reforms,” said Ali Hasanain, associate professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in written comments to VOA.  

In July, Pakistan escaped default when it secured a $3 billion, nine-month deal with the International Monetary Fund. Among many conditions, the fund demanded the country allow the free market to determine the exchange rate.  

The crackdown on dollar smuggling and unlawful transfers of funds came as part of Pakistan’s efforts to quell speculation about the value of the rupee against the dollar. 

Analysts predict the rupee could further strengthen but that the economy will not be out of the danger zone any time soon as Pakistan must pay nearly $90 billion in external debt repayments over the next three years.

The foreign exchange reserves of the country’s central bank, according to its most recent figures, stand at just above $7.6 billion.

In a pirated version of “The Morning Show” Russian translators made the attackers of Mariupol the Azov Brigade – the same brigade that was actually defending the city.

The most modern generation of NASAMS has a completely updated command post and launch containers adapted to use short-range AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles and AMRAAM-ER missiles.

Slovakia’s leftist election winner Robert Fico got a two-week window to negotiate a coalition government on Monday, after steering his party to an election victory over the weekend with promises to stop military aid to Ukraine.

Fico campaigned on rhetoric that would shift Slovakia, a European Union and NATO member state, closer to Hungary in challenging the bloc’s consensual support of Ukraine against Russia.

But Fico, a three-time prime minister, will need other parties to form a coalition, which might prevent any sharp policy turn and means clinching a government is not yet guaranteed.

Fico met President Zuzana Caputova briefly on Monday to get the go-ahead to have a first try at forming a government.

“We agreed on a two-week deadline which I will have at my disposal to form a government,” Fico told reporters after the meeting.

“It will not be an easy process but we will do all we can.”

Caputova, a liberal who has a tense relationship with Fico, said she would also speak to other party leaders, suggesting she may try to take a role in the process.

The pro-Russian Fico and his SMER-SSD party won nearly 23% of the vote, ahead of liberal challenger Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia, PS) with 18%.

Fico is expected to turn to HLAS (Voice), a more pro-European party which split off from SMER in 2020, and most likely the pro-Russian Slovak National Party (SNS), which won 5.6% of the vote.

But some analysts say SNS may have trouble keeping its lawmakers united, destabilising any coalition.

HLAS, led by Fico’s former colleague and prime minister Peter Pellegrini, would exert a moderating influence in a SMER-led government and holds a kingmaker position after winning the third most seats in parliament.

It could try to force SMER to negotiate a coalition with the Christian Democrats instead of the nationalists, or even swing its support to a potential PS-led coalition if negotiations with SMER fail.

Pellegrini said on Sunday that with HLAS in a ruling coalition, voters did not need to worry about a significant change in Slovakia’s foreign policy.

Though he turned increasingly anti-Western in opposition, analysts say Fico can be pragmatic, as shown when as premier he led Slovakia into the euro zone and avoided major political clashes.

A large policy U-turn or a collapse of support for Ukraine in central Europe is unlikely, analysts say.

Fico has said he would stop military supplies to Ukraine, which has a small border with Slovakia to the west, and that sending more weapons prolonged the war touched off by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

He backed humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Ukraine, and wants peace talks – a line similar to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies, who say this would only encourage Russia.

In his campaign, Fico also called for tougher action against illegal migration and reining in a surge in living costs. He said on Sunday Slovaks had bigger problems than Ukraine.

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The death toll caused by the collapse of a church roof during a Sunday Mass in northern Mexico has risen to 10, and another 60 people were injured, officials said on Monday, as local authorities began wrapping up search and rescue efforts.

Five women, two men and three children were among those killed at the church in the Gulf Coast city of Ciudad Madero in Tamaulipas state, state governor Americo Villarreal said.

Footage posted on social media showed the moment the church roof caved in, puffs of gray smoke billowing into the air, followed by the toppling of yellow brick outer walls.

Mexican media reported that several children were baptized during the Sunday Mass at the church.

All of the people attending the service are now believed accounted for, governor Villarreal said, as military personnel and emergency services used rescue dogs and heavy machinery to sift through the ruins.

The governor added that 23 people remained hospitalized, with two in a serious condition.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered his condolences to the families of the victims during his regular morning press conference.

Bishop Jose Armando Alvarez from the Roman Catholic Diocese of nearby Tampico said the church roof crumbled as worshippers were receiving communion and asked others to pray for survivors.

“We still don’t know what caused (the collapse),” diocese spokesman Nestor Javier Lopez told newspaper Reforma. “We hope that authorities do their job and let us know what happened.”

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Donald Trump gained more than $1 billion by lying about the value of his assets to banks and insurers, lawyers for the New York state attorney general told a judge on Monday in a civil fraud case that could deal a major blow to the former president’s real estate empire.

Kevin Wallace, a lawyer in state Attorney General Letitia James’ office, said in his opening statement in a downtown Manhattan courtroom that Trump described his finances to banks and insurers in a “materially inaccurate way” for a decade.

Wallace said Trump did this to get better loan terms and lower insurance premiums, illegally generating more than $1 billion of financial benefits.

“This isn’t business as usual, and this isn’t how sophisticated parties deal with each other,” Wallace said. “These are not victimless crimes.”

Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, countered in his opening statement that the financials for Trump and the Trump organization were entirely legal.

“It is one of the most highly successful brands in the world, and he has made a fortune literally being right about real estate investments,” Kise said. “There was no intent to defraud, there was no illegality, there was no default, there was no breach, there was no reliance from the banks, there were no unjust profits, and there were no victims.”

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is accused by James of inflating his assets and his own net worth from 2011 to 2021.

James is seeking at least $250 million in fines, a permanent ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

Before entering the courtroom, Trump called the case “a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time.

“We have a great company. I built a great company. It’s tremendous,” he continued. “It’s got some of the greatest real estate assets in the world. And now I have to go in before a rogue judge.”

Trump wore a dark blue suit, a brighter blue tie and an American flag pin on his lapel.

He again called James, who is Black, “racist,” and said the Democrat had a vendetta against him.

James said her office was ready to prove its case.

“The law is both powerful and fragile,” she said before entering the courtroom. “No matter how much money you think you may have, no one is above the law.”

Trump’s trial is overseen by Justice Arthur Engoron, who will hear evidence without a jury.

It largely concerns penalties that Trump, his adult sons and 10 of his companies must face after Engoron last week found them liable for fraud.

Before opening arguments, Engoron described himself as a generalist on the law. “One thing I know a lot about is the definition of fraud,” he said.

In his Sept. 26 decision, Engoron described in scathing terms how the defendants made up valuations.

That included Trump calculating the value of his apartment in Trump Tower as if it were three times its actual size.

Engoron canceled business certificates for companies controlling pillars of Trump’s empire, and said he would appoint receivers to oversee their dissolution.

The ruling covers some of his most valuable properties Trump Tower, his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his family estate in Westchester County, New York, and various office buildings and golf clubs.

Specifics for implementing the order have not been decided, but the loss of those prized assets would be a major blow to Trump’s finances.

James accused Trump of “grossly” inflating the values of his assets, and inflated own net worth by as much as $2.2 billion.

She said that inflated financials included listing Mar-a-Lago as being worth up to $739 million though deed restrictions capped it at $28 million.

Wallace played an excerpt from a deposition where Michael Cohen, who had been Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer but has since turned against his former boss, said the goal was “to attain the number that Mr. Trump wanted.”

The trial is scheduled to run through early December. While more than 150 people could testify, much of the trial may be a battle of experts opining on financial documents.

Trump faces several other legal headaches, and while they have been a financial drain, none has dented his commanding lead over rivals for the Republican nomination.

Trump, the first sitting or former U.S. president to be criminally charged, is under indictment in four separate cases.

He has been charged in Florida over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office, in Washington over his efforts to undo his loss in the 2020 presidential election, in Georgia over moves to reverse election results there, and in New York over hush money payments to a porn star.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in all four cases.

Rescuers searching for people unaccounted for after blaze hits row of nightclubs popular for birthday celebrations.

US president reassures allies and Kyiv after last-minute budget deal in Congress axes funding for the war-torn country.