A Pakistani court has withdrawn arrest warrants issued against a prominent journalist and ordered that travel restrictions on him be removed, as hearings in a treason case against him and two former prime ministers continue.

On Monday, a three-member bench of the Lahore High Court adjourned proceedings in the case against former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as well as journalist Cyril Almeida.

Sharif is accused of committing “treason” for implying that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services allowed attackers involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 160 people, to operate with impunity.

“Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?” Sharif said in the interview with Almeida published in Dawn newspaper in May.

Sharif was dismissed as prime minister on corruption charges last year, and subsequently jailed after being convicted by an anti-corruption court. Last month, Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Muhammad Safdar were released on bail in that case as their appeals continue to be heard.

Almeida was named in the petition as having allegedly abetted Sharif. Former PM Abbasi, who succeeded Sharif, is accused of having leaked national security secrets to Sharif.

‘A worrying precedent’
Last month, the court ordered Sharif to appear before it for the hearing, issued arrest warrants for Almeida and placed international travel restrictions on him.

On Monday, the court appeared to take a more lenient view, as Almeida appeared before the bench personally.

“The [restrictions] were only to ensure that he was present,” judge Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi told a packed courtroom, where Abbasi and Sharif were also present.

A look at Nawaz Sharif’s political career
The court ordered the government to provide a formal reply on whether or not it was prepared to move ahead with placing treason charges against the former prime ministers.

Under Pakistani law, the court cannot indict the three accused on treason charges unless the federal government has filed those charges.

“You are not being fair,” said judge Masood Jehangir, accusing the government of dawdling over framing a course of action. It ordered the attorney general to appear at the next hearing to be held on October 22.

The hearing on Monday failed to adjudicate on the maintainability of the petition.

Rights groups have criticised the court for holding hearings in the case, and particularly for summoning Almeida.

After the last hearing, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the case was setting a worrying precedent for press freedom in the country.

“The ease with which Mr Almeida’s interview with the former Prime Minister was perceived as an attempt to allegedly defame state institutions, and the pace at which this has spiraled into charges of treason, only serve to further choke press freedom in Pakistan,” HRCP said in a statement.

On Monday, former PM Abbasi said the case against the three accused was baseless.

“There is no case,” he told media in the courtroom, minutes before the hearing got underway. “This is an entirely frivolous petition.”

Aljazeera

Geneva The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday said the planet will reach the crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2030, precipitating the risk of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people.

In a report, the IPCC said that governments around the world must take “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to avoid disastrous levels of global warming, CNN reported.

The date, which falls well within the lifetime of many people alive today, is based on current levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The planet is already two-thirds of the way there, with global temperatures having warmed about 1 degree Celsius. Avoiding going even higher will require significant action in the next few years, the report said.

Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net zero” around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Lowering emissions to this degree, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy, industry, buildings, transportation and cities, according to the report.

“One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1 degree Celsius of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, co-chair of IPCC Working Group I.

Coral reefs will also be drastically effected, with between 70 and 90 per cent expected to die off, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Countries in the southern hemisphere will be among the worse off, the report said, adding “projected to experience the largest impacts on economic growth due to climate change should global warming increase”.

“Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5 degrees C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some eco-systems,” CNN quoted Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II, as saying.

Monday’s report is three years in the making and is a direct result of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

In the Paris accord, 197 countries agreed to the goal of holding global temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

More than 90 authors from 40 countries were involved in leading the report, helped by 133 contributing authors.

(IANS)

US Vice President Mike Pence has called on Google to end its censored Chinese Search engine the “Dragonfly” project.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Pence in a speech on Thursday said American companies must reconsider turning over intellectual property as they expand in China.

Google’s modified search engine — codenamed “Dragonfly” — would “strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” Pence said.

The news about Google’s plan to build a censored search engine in China broke in August when The Intercept reported that the search platform would blacklist “sensitive queries” about topics including politics, free speech, democracy, human rights and peaceful protest, triggering internal protests among some Google employees.

Two weeks after that report, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the company’s employees that the China plan was in its “early stages” and “exploratory”.

Google operated its services in China until 2010.

Pichai is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in November to allay concerns over privacy issues and the tech giant’s entry into the Chinese market.

He confirmed the November schedule during a private meeting with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill in September.

“We remain committed to continuing an active dialogue with members from both sides of the aisle, working proactively with Congress on a variety of issues, explaining how our products help millions of American consumers and businesses, and answering questions as they arise,” Pichai had then said in a statement.

IANS

Islamabad is seeking an American role in facilitating talks between India and Pakistan because the two neighbouring countries are not engaging bilaterally, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said, warning that absence of such facilitation could lead to escalation of tension.

But the latest Pakistani request in this regard has again been rejected by the US, the top Pakistani diplomat told a Washington audience on Wednesday, a day after he had meetings with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, during which he raised the issue only to be pushed back by the Trump administration.

“When we asked the US, to play a facilitating role…Why do we ask? Simply because we are not engaging bilaterally. And that bilateral disengagement is…a distraction. We want to focus, we want to move on the western side of the border, which we are not being able to because we have to watch our back from eastern side (towards India). That is not a healthy situation to be in,” Qureshi said in response to a question at the US Institute of Peace, a US Congress-funded top American think-tank.

“Now can you (United States) facilitate? The answer from them is no. They wanted (it done) bilaterally. But there is no bilateral movement,” Qureshi said. He went on to warn that this could lead to an escalation of tension between the two countries.

“If that lack of facilitation leads to escalation and some of the statements that have come out of late have not been very helpful,” the Pakistani foreign minister said in an apparent reference to the remarks by Indian leaders; “the so-called surgical strikes and stuff like that doesn’t make sense. It does not, that’s politics.. there are elections around the corner,” he claimed in response to a question.

Imran Khan’s new government in Pakistan, he claimed, is not shy of engaging.

Referring to the cancelling of his meeting with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New York, he alleged that India backed off. However, he quickly evaded India’s reasons for this – glorification of terrorists by issuing postal stamps and brutal killing of India’s security personnel by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

“If the Indians have a better option, share it with us. If disengagement, if not talking to each other will resolve and stabilise the region, fine. If that’s their analysis fine,” a hassled Qureshi said.

Qureshi who left for Pakistan after his meetings with Trump administration officials said it is unfortunate that the two countries are not engaging. “It’s unfortunate. That’s the way it is. Now. What does this government want? We want normalisation. We want co-existence. You’ve got to recognise the reality. Pakistan is a reality. So is India. We have issues. How do we resolve them?” he asked.

After coming to power, the first speech made by the Prime Minister Khan was “that every step you (India) take towards peace, we will take two. And he meant it. It wasn’t just because it sounded good. It wasn’t to please anyone. He is too blunt a person to please people. He can be very straight and he can be very blunt. But he said that because he feels that way,” Qureshi claimed.

India has highlighted how Pakistan created the conditions for cancellation of the meeting in New York – due to Pakistan issuing postage stamps glorifying terrorists and the brutal killing of three of its security personnel by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

The Pakistan foreign minister did not mention that in his answer and only said that the stalled dialogue process is not good for the two countries and the region.

Responding to a question on India’s stand that talks and terrorism cannot go together, a view which is shared by Washington too, Qureshi referred to a statement by Imran Khan while he was an opposition leader and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi that “there would always be spoilers.”

“There will always be spoilers. There will always be elements that will scuttle the process of peace. But when they do that, let us re-engage to fight them. They will push us back. But we have to see what is in our interest, what is in the regional interest. What’s in Pakistan’s interest,” Qureshi said quoting what Imran Khan had told Prime Minister Modi.

IANS

Russian President Vladimir Putin called former spy Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned along with his daughter in the UK, a “traitor” and suggested that the incident was being “artificially blown up” by the media.

Asked at an energy forum on Wednesday in Moscow to comment on the case and its consequences, the Russian President launched into a tirade against Skripal, who was hospitalised along with his daughter Yulia after exposure to a military-grade nerve agent in Salisbury in March, reports CNN.

“I see that some of your colleagues are pushing the theory that Skripal is almost a human-rights activist,” Putin said.

“He’s just a spy. A traitor to the Motherland. There’s such a thing as a traitor to the Motherland. He’s one of them. He’s just a scumbag, that’s all.”

Putin said that the Salisbury affair “is being artificially… blown up” by the media, but added: “It’ll pass, eventually… The sooner it’s over, the better.”

The comments come amid a deepening diplomatic clash between Moscow and the UK, which has blamed the March 4 poisonings on the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

UK investigators have also formally linked the attack on the Skripals to the June 30 poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, a couple living in Amesbury, near Salisbury.

Sturgess died on July 8 after applying a substance to her wrists from a perfume bottle found by Rowley.

The Kremlin has consistently dismissed official British allegations.

(IANS)

Iran will not sit for talks with the US over the existing issues as the conditions are not ripe, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday.

“I’m not ruling out the prospect of talks (with Washington) provided the necessary conditions for talks, and that is reliability,” Zarif was quoted as saying by Press TV.

“Reliability is that when you sign something you are bound by it. Otherwise, everything will fall apart,” he said, adding that “we are waiting for some sense of realism”.

Iranian authorities have stressed that Tehran will not sit for negotiations under Washington’s threats and sanction pressures.

Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the historic Iranian nuclear pact, Washington vowed to reimpose sanctions lifted under the accord against Tehran and inflict punishments like secondary sanctions on nations having business links with Iran.

Washington’s withdrawal from the landmark Iran nuclear deal was criticized across the world. Some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.

The Trump administration, according to reports, has called for renegotiation of the Iranian 2015 nuclear deal as well as Tehran’s developing missile programme. However, Iran has ruled out possibility of talks over defence plans.

(IANS)

US President Donald Trump’s administration has begun denying visas to unmarried, same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and UN employees, the media reported.

According to a report in Foreign Policy magazine on Monday, the policy affected same-sex partners of diplomats and staffers working at the UN global headquarters in New York. The partner must show proof of marriage by December 31 or leave the country within 30 days.

The majority of 193 UN member countries do not legalize same-sex marriage, meaning diplomats face a tough choice.

The report said the new policy meant at least 10 unmarried UN employees currently in the US will have to get married in order for their partners’ visas to be extended.

Since the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the US policy has dictated that diplomatic visas are only extended to married spouses.

The US mission to the UN reportedly notified couples of the decision in July and it took effect on Monday, according to the report.

“Same-sex spouses of US diplomats now enjoy the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex spouses,” read the announcement obtained by Foreign Policy.

“Consistent with the (State) Department policy, partners accompanying members of permanent missions or seeking to join the same must generally be married in order to be eligible for a diplomatic visa,” it said.

Former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power blasted the move as “needlessly cruel and bigoted”.

Alfonso Nam, the President of UN Globe, a UN LGBTI staff advocacy organization, told Foreign Policy that same-sex couples were at risk of prosecution if they return to a country that criminalizes homosexuality or has not legalized same-sex marriages.

Diplomats would be eligible for “limited exceptions” under the Trump administration’s policy if they can prove they are from countries that outlaw same-sex partners, the report said. That exception, however, reportedly does not extend to UN officials.

(IANS)

A Chinese national living in California has been jailed for 46 months over a scheme to smuggle sensitive space and military communications technology to China.

Si Chen, 33, was sentenced on Monday after she pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which restricts the export of certain goods to foreign nations, the Justice Department said in a statement cited by CNN on Tuesday.

Si Chen, a resident of Pomona, a suburb of Los Angeles, was arrested in May 2017 and has been in custody since. She also pleaded guilty to money laundering and using a forged passport, the report said.

Prosecutors say that between 2013 and 2015, Si Chen purchased and smuggled numerous sensitive items to China without the proper export license, including components used in military communications jammers and devices used for space communications.

“This defendant knowingly participated in a plot to secretly send items with military applications to China. The smuggled items could be used in a number of damaging ways, including in equipment that could jam our satellite communications,” said US Attorney Nick Hanna in a statement.

The report said that Si Chen went by several aliases, including “Chunping Ji”, for which she acquired a forged passport and rented an office in Pomona to take delivery of the export-controlled items.

From Pomona, the goods were shipped to Hong Kong and then on to China. Court documents mentioned three unindicted co-conspirators who worked with Si Chen to smuggle the items to Hong Kong.

Her case came a week after another Chinese national, Ji Chaoqun, was arrested in the US over accusations of acting as an “illegal agent” at the direction of a “high-level intelligence officer” of a provincial department of the Ministry of State Security, China’s top spy agency.

IANS

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday replaced his Ministers of Defence and Health, Labour and Welfare in a major Cabinet reshuffle, with an eye on upcoming elections for the upper house of the Parliament in 2019, to be followed by lower house elections in 2021.

This was Abe’s first major reshuffle after he was re-elected as the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September.

Abe retained six of the 19 ministers in his Cabinet and named 13 new ministers, out of which 12 were former ministers, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was cited as saying by Efe news.

The most significant change in the Cabinet was new Defence Minister Takeshi Iwaya, who replaced Itsunori Onodera at a time when the government was set to push a controversial reform to change its pacifist Constitution.

Abe also named Takumi Nemoto as the new Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, replacing Katsunobu Kato, while veteran politician Yoshitaka Sakurada was appointed as the Minister of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Satsuki Katayama, currently the only woman minister in the Cabinet after Abe replaced two other female ministers, will be the new Regional Revitalization Minister.

Two of Abe’s closest aides, Finance Minister Taro Aso, and Suga himself retained their portfolios, along with Foreign Minister Taro Kono, Economy and Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko and Minister of State for Economic Revitalization and Human Resources Toshimitsu Motegi.

The reshuffle indicated Abe was set to continue with his economic policy or “Abenomics”, that was launched six years ago to revive the world’s third biggest economy.

The leader also reorganized the leadership of his party on Tuesday, naming former Health Minister Kato as chairman of the party’s general council, with the objective of pushing the proposed constitutional amendment.

This was Abe’s fifth Cabinet reshuffle in six years and across three terms.

IANS

The US President Donald Trump reviewed on Saturday in a phone call with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud the oil supply for stability of the market, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The two leaders discussed efforts to maintain supplies to ensure the stability of oil market and the growth of global economy.

Oil supply and prices are common interests of the US and Saudi Arabia.

Media reports said that Saudi Arabia would raise oil outputs in the coming months to deal with the drop in Iranian oil production and might limit outputs next year to balance global supply and demand when the US pumps more quantities of crude.

The two leaders also discussed developments in the region and the world.

IANS