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Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail

Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan will remain in prison, having also been convicted in another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Khan. (Reuters file photo)
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Updated 03 June 2024
Reuters
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Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail

Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case, but to stay in jail
  • Former leader was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022
Updated 03 June 2024
Reuters
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ISLAMABAD: A high court in Pakistan acquitted jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday from a conviction on charges of leaking state secrets, his lawyer and his party said, but Khan will remain in prison for now due to a conviction in another case.
Khan, 71, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was Khan’s foreign minister during his tenure from 2018-2022, was also acquitted of the charges.
“Thank God, the sentence is overturned,” a spokesman for legal affairs from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Naeem Panjutha, said in a post on the X social media platform.
Despite the acquittal, Khan will remain in prison, having also been convicted in another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Khan, contravening Islamic traditions.

Topics: Imran Khan Pakistan

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Thousands of Indian investors lose $100 million in Ponzi scheme

Thousands of Indian investors lose $100 million in Ponzi scheme
Updated 2 sec ago
Reuters
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Thousands of Indian investors lose $100 million in Ponzi scheme

Thousands of Indian investors lose $100 million in Ponzi scheme
  • Indian police arrest two individuals after a case was filed against Falcon Invoice Discounting
  • Falcon promised returns of up to 22 percent to nearly 7,000 investors since 2021
Updated 2 sec ago
Reuters
HYDERABAD: Thousands of investors in India are scrambling to recoup nearly $100 million after they were caught in a Ponzi scheme that duped them into making short-term investments promising high returns, according to a police statement and multiple victims Reuters spoke to.
Indian police arrested two individuals on Saturday after a case was filed against Falcon Invoice Discounting, which promised returns of up to 22 percent by claiming to connect depositors with the likes of Amazon and biscuit maker Britannia.
Falcon collected 17 billion rupees (about $196 million) from nearly 7,000 investors since 2021 but has repaid only half, according to a statement from police in the southern state of Telangana.
Ankit Bihani, a New Delhi-based jeweler, met with 50 other investors last week to discuss measures, including legal remedies, to recoup the collective 500 million rupees they said they had lost.
“Most of them (investors) got to know about the investing platform through social media and invested in it,” Bihani said.
Falcon used the money from new investors to pay out older ones and diverted the remaining funds to various shell entities, the police said. Authorities are hunting for Amardeep Kumar, Falcon’s founder and the main accused, a source said.
However, some of the victims that Reuters spoke to are left wondering if they will recoup the money – entire life savings, in some cases – they entrusted to Falcon.
“It is my hard-earned money. We don’t know when and how will we get it back,” said Roopesh Chauhan, a tech employee who lost 15 million rupees.
S. Smriti, an assistant professor, reached out to the police after losing over 3 million rupees.
“The money was all our savings,” said Smriti.
Indian authorities have expressed concerns over a recent surge in complaints from people being duped by phoney investment schemes that rely on fraudulent apps, websites and call centers to deceive unsuspecting investors.
Britannia, Amazon and Falcon did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters sent on Monday.

Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border

Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border
Updated 19 min 58 sec ago
Reuters
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Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border

Myanmar detains 270 foreigners from scam compounds on Thai border
  • Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked by criminal gangs forced to work in scam compounds
  • Despite operating for years, the scam centers have only recently faced renewed scrutiny
Updated 19 min 58 sec ago
Reuters

Myanmar authorities detained 273 foreigners from scam compounds along the border with Thailand on Monday, as a senior Chinese official visited frontier towns on both sides in a widening crackdown on illegal online operations.
Hundreds of thousands of people trafficked by criminal gangs have been forced to work in scam compounds that have sprung up across Southeast Asia, including the border between Thailand and Myanmar, the United Nations says.
Despite operating for years, the scam centers have only recently faced renewed scrutiny after the rescue and return to China of actor Wang Xing, abducted in Thailand after being lured there with the promise of a job.
Officials from China, Myanmar and Thailand met in Myawaddy this week, including China’s assistant public security minister, Liu Zhongyi, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Tuesday.
“The representatives held a coordination meeting in Myawaddy and discussed the preventive system for telecom fraud between the three countries,” it said, referring to the Myanmar town abutting Thailand in the vicinity of which Wang was rescued.
Since the end of January, Myanmar authorities have found 1,303 foreigners who entered the country illegally and worked in scam compounds in the Myawaddy area, with 273 detained on Monday, the paper added.
Myanmar has been in the throes of a widening civil war since 2021, when its powerful military overthrew an elected government, sparking protests that have morphed into a rebellion against the junta.
Swathes of the Southeast Asian country are now controlled by armed groups, including parts of Myawaddy that are run by the Karen National Army, a militia led by regional warlord Col. Saw Chit Thu.
“We will work until the scam centers and human trafficking are eradicated,” he told reporters on Monday, that signalled the growing pressure on his group from regional countries.
Their tactics include the cutting of Thai electricity, fuel and Internet supplies to some border areas.
A group of 260 scam center survivors from Myawaddy entered Thailand last week, most of them victims of human trafficking, said Choocheap Pongchai, the governor of the Thai province of Tak.
Two of the group have handed to police for further investigation, he added.

Topics: Myanmar

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4 Pakistani troops killed while responding to an attack on aid trucks in restive northwest

4 Pakistani troops killed while responding to an attack on aid trucks in restive northwest
Updated 37 min 14 sec ago
AP
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4 Pakistani troops killed while responding to an attack on aid trucks in restive northwest

4 Pakistani troops killed while responding to an attack on aid trucks in restive northwest
  • Some security forces were also wounded in the overnight ambush in Kurram
  • No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but suspicion is likely to fall on Sunni militants
Updated 37 min 14 sec ago
AP

PARACHINAR, Pakistan: Militants in Pakistan overnight ambushed security forces who were responding to an earlier attack on aid trucks in the country’s troubled northwest, leading to a shootout in which four troops were killed, officials said Tuesday.
The ambush happened hours after authorities dispatched reinforcements to respond to Monday’s attack on a convoy of aid trucks in which a driver and security official were killed in Kurram, a district in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Some security forces were also wounded in the overnight ambush in Kurram, where at least 130 people have died in recent months in clashes between rival Shiite and Sunni tribes, officials said. Several trucks that were heading to Parachinar, the main city in Kurram, were looted and burned, authorities said.
Qaiser Abbas, a doctor at a hospital in Parachinar, said they received the bodies of four security forces Monday night from Kurram, where authorities noted a large-scale operation was being planned to try to apprehend the perpetrators of the attacks.
No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but suspicion is likely to fall on Sunni militants.
Shiite Muslims dominate parts of Kurram, although they are a minority in the rest of Pakistan, which is majority Sunni. The area has a history of sectarian conflict, with militant Sunni groups previously targeting minority Shiites.

Topics: Pakistan

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French envoy: Europe does not want Asia to choose sides in US-China rivalry

French envoy: Europe does not want Asia to choose sides in US-China rivalry
Updated 37 min 49 sec ago
Reuters
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French envoy: Europe does not want Asia to choose sides in US-China rivalry

French envoy: Europe does not want Asia to choose sides in US-China rivalry
  • Marchisio was speaking to journalists at a luncheon in Singapore, where French President Emmanuel Macron will deliver the keynote address on May 31 at Asia’s largest security meeting
Updated 37 min 49 sec ago
Reuters

SINGAPORE: The new French ambassador to Singapore said on Monday that France and Europe do not want their Asian partners to have to choose between the United States and China.
Stephen Marchisio, who took office on Tuesday, said France sees increasing pressure, “maybe more on the US side,” that partners in Asia must make a choice.
“It’s very important to say we can talk to everybody,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to choose.”
Marchisio was speaking to journalists at a luncheon in Singapore, where French President Emmanuel Macron will deliver the keynote address on May 31 at Asia’s largest security meeting.
Marchisio said the president will insist during his address that each state in the region can defend its own interests.
“You can do that even if you disagree with the Chinese political model. And you can do that even if you don’t want a military base from the US on your soil,” he said.
The US embassy in Singapore referred questions to the G7 statement signed in Munich by France and the United States, which said all members were committed to “a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific region.”

EUROPE MUST UNITE
Marchisio also said Europe must stand united — including possibly avoiding US weapons purchases — in the wake of incendiary remarks from members of the Trump administration in Munich in recent days.
He said that some countries saw defense-related purchases as a way to gain favor with the US government during the first Trump administration, but that views had changed now, especially after Vice President J.D. Vance’s confrontational comments about Europe in Munich at a security conference.
“What happened in Munich? He tries to attack the very core of democracies,” Marchisio said. “So it triggers another level of questions.”
Now European countries might not buy American military hardware, he continued, because there was no guarantee that doing so would ease US pressure or antagonistic rhetoric.
“We don’t like to say that, but ... we will retaliate if we have to,” he said, referring to tariffs and other US pressure.
Marchisio added that the best-case scenario is that Europe does not need to retaliate, as the United States and European countries have many shared interests and industries.
Singapore defense minister Ng Eng Hen said at the Munich conference that Asia’s image of America had shifted.
“The image has changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent,” he said.

Topics: France

Russian drone attacks injure mother, two children in central Ukraine, official says

Russian drone attacks injure mother, two children in central Ukraine, official says
Updated 56 min 2 sec ago
Reuters
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Russian drone attacks injure mother, two children in central Ukraine, official says

Russian drone attacks injure mother, two children in central Ukraine, official says
  • Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in their attacks in the war, that Russia started with its full-scale invasion on Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Updated 56 min 2 sec ago
Reuters
A Russian overnight drone attack on the city of Dolynska in central Ukraine injured a mother and her two children and forced the evacuation of people from 38 flats after their apartment building was damaged, a regional official said on Tuesday.
“A difficult night for the Kirovohrad region,” Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “An enemy drone hit a high-rise building in Dolynska.”
The mother and one of the children were hospitalized, Raikovych added.
He posted photos of flames bursting out of windows of a high-story apartment building.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in their attacks in the war, that Russia started with its full-scale invasion on Ukraine nearly three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
The attack took place as top Russian and US officials are meeting in the Saudi Arabia for talks — without the participation of Kyiv or its European allies — on how to end the war in Ukraine.

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