Pak SC orders JIT to probe corruption charges against Nawaz Sharif

April 20, 2017

New Delhi, Apr 20: The Pakistan Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe PM Nawaz Sharif and his family's involvement in corruption in the Panama Papers case.

NawazIn a split judgement, the court cited insufficient evidence to outright convict and remove Sharif from office.

A five-judge bench, comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan, delivered the landmark judgement after examining arguments presented in the case. The 540-page verdict was split 3-2 among the bench, with two dissenting notes in the judgement by Justice Khosa and Justice Gulzar, who said that Sharif should be disqualified.

Further, the court directed Sharif and his two sons - Hasan and Hussain - to appear before the JIT, which would consist of officers from different agencies. The investigative team has been given two months time to complete the probe into alleged corruption by the Sharif family.

The JIT will present its report before the bench after every two weeks.

The case was launched on November 3 and the court held 35 hearings before concluding proceedings on February 23.

The case was based on several identical petitions by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and others about alleged illegal assets of Sharif's family in London.

The assets surfaced when Panama papers - a collection of leaked documents - showed that they were managed through offshore companies owned by Sharif's offspring.

The petitioners had asked the court to disqualify 67-year-old Sharif under Article 62 and 63 of the constitution because he was involved in corruption.

Sharif 's supporters hailed the decisions as a victory of justice.

"We have been vindicated as Prime Minister had last year asked to set up a probe commission to investigate Panama leaks scandal," said Khawaja Asif, defence minister and close ally of Prime Minister Sharif .

Earlier, the area around the Supreme Court, located in Islamabad's Red Zone, was put on 'red alert', with around 1,500 police, Rangers and Frontier Constabulary personnel deployed for security and maintaining peace.

Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of Pakistan People Party (PPP), in an interview with a private TV channel had asked Sharif to resign in case the decision went against him.

"We did not resist when the Supreme Court disqualified [then premier] Yousaf Raza Gilani. We chose another prime minister. Nawaz should do the same," said Zardari.

Zardari's handpicked Prime Minister Gilani stepped down in 2012 when the Supreme Court convicted him for disobeying court orders.

Zardari chaired an important meeting of the PPP yesterday and also called another meeting today after the court decision to assess the political situation.

Sharif's nemesis Imran Khan and his party announced it would launch a movement for the next election irrespective of the decision.

Khan held a meeting of party leaders yesterday and asked them to remain in Islamabad to decide the further course of action.

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News Network
April 19,2020

Washington, Apr 19: President Donald Trump has expressed his doubts over the official Chinese figures on the number of deaths in their country due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, claiming that the fatalities were way ahead of the US.

Trump's comments come two days after another 1,300 fatalities were added to the official count in the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak started. The revision puts China's overall death toll to more than 4,600.

"We are not number one; China is number one just so you understand," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Saturday. "They are way ahead of us in terms of death. It's not even close."

According to Trump, when highly-developed healthcare systems of the UK, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain had high fatality rates, it was O.33 in China.

The president asserted that the actual number was much more than the official Chinese death toll figures, which he said were "unrealistic".

"You know it, I know it and they know it, but you don't want to report it. Why?" he asked. "You will have to explain that. Someday I will explain it."

He also highlighted that on a per-capita basis, the mortality rate in the US was far lower than other nations of Western Europe.

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News Network
June 2,2020

Oakland, Jun 2: Facebook employees are using Twitter to register their frustration over CEO Mark Zuckerberg's decision to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.

While Twitter demoted and placed a warning on a tweet about the protests that read, in part, that “when the looting starts the shooting starts,” Facebook has let it stand, with Zuckerberg laying out his reasoning in a Facebook post Friday.

“I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Trump's comment evoked the civil-rights era by borrowing a phrase used in 1967 by Miami's police chief to warn of an aggressive police response to unrest in black neighborhoods.

On Monday, Facebook employees staged a virtual “walkout” to protest the company's decision not to touch the Trump posts according to a report in the New York Times, which cited anonymous senior employees at Facebook.

The Times report says “dozens” of Facebook workers “took the day off by logging into Facebook's systems and requesting time off to support protesters across the country." “I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we're showing up.

The majority of coworkers I've spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard,” tweeted Jason Toff, a director of product management at Facebook who's been at the company for a year.

Toff, who has a verified Twitter account, had 131,400 “likes” and thousands of retweets of his comment. He did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Monday.

“I don't know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable. I'm a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark's decision to do nothing about Trump's recent posts, which clearly incite violence. I'm not alone inside of FB.

There isn't a neutral position on racism,” tweeted another employee, design manager Jason Stirman.

Stirman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Sara Zhang, a product designer at the company, tweeted that Facebook's “decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe.

The policy pigeon holes us into addressing harmful user-facing content in two ways: keep content up or take it down.” “I believe that this is a self-imposed constraint and implore leadership to revisit the solution,” she continued. Zhang declined to comment to The Associated Press.

Representatives for Facebook did not immediately respond to messages for comment.

Twitter has historically taken stronger stances than its larger rival, including a complete ban on political advertisements that the company announced last November.

That's partly because Facebook, a much larger company with a broader audience,targeted by regulators over its size and power, has more to lose. And partly because the companies' CEOs don't always see eye to eye on their role in society.

Over the weekend, Twitter changed the background and logo if its main Twitter account to black from its usual blue in support of the Black Lives Matter protesters and added a #blacklivesmatter hashtag. Facebook did the same with its own logo on its site, though without the hashtag.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Wellington, Mar 25: New Zealand has declared a state of emergency as it prepares to go into an unprecedented lockdown late Wednesday for about a month.

The declaration temporarily gives police and the military extra powers. And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says any New Zealanders returning home from overseas who show symptoms of COVID-19 will be put in isolation at an approved facility.

“I have one simple message for New Zealanders today as we head into the next four weeks: ‘stay at home,’” Ardern said. “It will break the chain of transmission and it will save lives.”

Ardern said exceptions include people working crucial jobs, those leaving to pick up essentials like groceries, and those engaging in solitary exercise.

The country has 205 reported cases of the virus, although Ardern said that number could rise into the thousands before it begins to recede even with the strict measures being taken.

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