#Election Commission of Pakistan

[coochiequeens]

Ladies, vote for yourself and those denied the right

Dhurnal (Pakistan) (AFP) – Perched on her traditional charpai bed, Naeem Kausir says she would like to vote in Pakistan's upcoming election -- if only the men in her family would let her.

Issued on: 05/02/2024 - 08:41

In  the village of Dhurnal in Punjab, spread across crop fields and home to several thousand people, men profess myriad reasons why women should not be allowed to vote © Farooq NAEEM / AFP

Like all the women in her town, the 60-year-old former headmistress and her seven daughters -- six already university educated -- are forbidden from voting by their male elders.

"Whether by her husband, father, son or brother, a woman is forced. She lacks the autonomy to make decisions independently," said Kausir, covered in a veil in the courtyard of her home.

"These men lack the courage to grant women their rights," the widow told AFP.

Although voting is a constitutional right for all adults in Pakistan, some rural areas in the socially conservative country are still ruled by a patriarchal system of male village elders who wield significant influence in their communities.

In the village of Dhurnal in Punjab, spread across crop fields and home to several thousand people, men profess myriad reasons for the ban of more than 50 years.

"Several years ago, during a period of low literacy rates, a council chairman decreed that if men went out to vote, and women followed suit, who would manage the household and childcare responsibilities?" said Malik Muhammad, a member of the village council.

"This disruption, just for one vote, was deemed unnecessary," he concluded.

Robina Kausir, a healthcare worker, talks to AFP in Dhurnal of Punjab province, ahead of the upcoming general election © Farooq NAEEM / AFP

Muhammad Aslam, a shopkeeper, claims it is to protect women from "local hostilities" about politics, including a distant occasion that few seem to remember in the village when an argument broke out at a polling station.

Others told AFP it was simply down to "tradition".

First Muslim woman leader

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has stressed that it has the authority to declare the process null and void in any constituency where women are barred from participating.

In reality, progress has been slow outside of cities and in areas that operate under tribal norms, with millions of women still missing from the electoral rolls.

Muhammad Aslam, a shopkeeper, claims a ban on women voting is to protect them from "local hostilities" about politics © Farooq NAEEM / AFP

The elders in Dhurnal rely on neighbouring villages to fill a government-imposed quota which maintains that 10 percent of votes cast in every constituency must be by women.

Those who are allowed to vote are often pressured to pick a candidate of a male relative's choice.

In the mountainous region of Kohistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province home to almost 800,000 people, religious clerics last month decreed it un-Islamic for women to take part in electoral campaigns.

Although voting is a constitutional right for all adults in Pakistan, some rural areas in the socially conservative country are still ruled by a patriarchal system of male village elders who wield significant influence in their communities © Farooq NAEEM / AFP

Fatima Tu Zara Butt, a legal expert and a women's rights activist, said women are allowed to vote in Islam, but that religion is often exploited or misunderstood in Pakistan.

"Regardless of their level of education or financial stability, women in Pakistan can only make decisions with the 'support' of the men around them," she said.

Pakistan famously elected the world's first Muslim woman leader in 1988 -- Benazir Bhutto, who introduced policies that boosted education and access to money for women, and fought against religious extremism after military dictator Zia ul-Haq had introduced a new era of Islamisation that rolled back women's rights.

However, more than 30 years later, only 355 women are competing for national assembly seats in Thursday's election, compared to 6,094 men, the election commission has said.

Pakistan reserves 60 of the 342 National Assembly seats for women and 10 for religious minorities in the Muslim-majority country, but political parties rarely allow women to contest outside of this quota.

Those who do stand often do so only with the backing of male relatives who are already established in local politics.

"I have never seen any independent candidates contesting elections on their own," Zara Butt added.

'Everyone's right'

Forty-year-old Robina Kausir, a healthcare worker, said a growing number of women in Dhurnal want to exercise their right to vote but they fear backlash from the community if they do -- particularly the looming threat of divorce, a matter of great shame in Pakistani culture.

She credits part of the shift to access to information as a result of the rising use of smartphones and social media.

"These men instil fear in their women – many threaten their wives," she told AFP.

Robina, backed by her husband, is one of the few prepared to take the risk.

When cricketing legend Imran Khan swept to power in the 2018 election, Robina arranged for a minibus to take women to the local polling station.

Only a handful joined her, but she still marked it as a success and will do the same on Thursday's election.

"I was abused but I do not care, I will keep fighting for everyone's right to vote," Robina said.

[xtruss]

“Pakistan’s Corrupt to their Cores Army Generals, Politicians, Election Commission and Judges” Can Keep Imran Khan Out of Power, but It Can’t Keep His Popularity Down

— By Charlie Campbell | January 17, 2024 | Time Magazine

Supporters of PTI, the Most Popular Political Party of Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, rally against the national election commission’s decision to ban the party’s cricket bat symbol, in Karachi on Jan. 14, 2024. Fareed Khan—AP

It’s not been a great couple of years for Pakistan’s Imran Khan. Since his ouster as Prime Minister in an April 2022 no-confidence vote, the cricketer-turned-politician has been shot, hit with over 180 charges ranging from rioting to terrorism, and jailed in a fetid nine-by-11-foot cell following an Aug. 5 corruption conviction for allegedly selling state gifts. As Pakistan approaches fresh elections on Feb. 8, the 71-year-old’s chances of a comeback appear gossamer thin, despite retaining broad public support.

Pakistan’s military kingmakers are using every trick at their disposal to sideline the nation’s most popular politician and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Over recent months, thousands of PTI workers have been arrested, dozens of party leaders resigned following lengthy interrogations, Khan’s name was banned from mainstream media, and constituency boundary lines were redrawn to allegedly benefit his opponents. Khan’s own nomination papers have also been rejected.

“Elections are being held but I’ve got serious doubts whether real democracy or democratic principles are being followed,” says Samina Yasmeen, director of the Centre for Muslim States and Societies at the University of Western Australia.

And now Khan won’t even have his cricket bat.

On Monday, Khan’s PTI party was banned from using its iconic cricket bat logo on ballot papers, significantly hampering its chances amongst an electorate which is up to 40% illiterate. Most crucially, it effectively bans the PTI as a party and means its candidates will likely have to stand as independents, who will reportedly use a range of symbols ranging from a rollercoaster to a goat. “The election symbol is an integral component of fair elections,” Raoof Hasan, PTI’s principal spokesman and a former special assistant to Khan, tells TIME. “It’s rendering the party toothless.”

Pakistani lawmakers are constitutionally obliged to vote along party lines for certain key matters, including the leader of the house and financial legislation. But if PTI-backed candidates are officially independents, they are under no such constraints, making it much easier for the opposition to cobble together a coalition by targeting individuals with inducements. Additionally, PTI will be ineligible to receive its rightful proportion of the 200-odd parliamentary “reserved seats” for women and minorities that are allocated according to a party’s proportion of the overall vote, which would instead be divvied out to the other registered parties.

Imran Khan Waves a Cricket Bat, the Election Symbol of His Pakistan’s Most Popular PTI Party, during a rally in Faisalabad on May 5, 2013. Daniel Berehulak—Getty Images

Then again, even registering as independents has not been easy for the PTI. Each candidate must file their nomination in the constituency where they intend to stand, but PTI’s candidates frequently find their nomination papers snatched from their hands by shadowy security personnel. To avoid this, the PTI has taken to dispatching several candidates with nomination papers in the hope that one might break through the security cordon.

But even if one does manage to submit papers, each candidate requires a proposer and seconder to attend the nomination in person. On many occasions, a PTI candidate has presented his papers only to find either or both has abruptly been “kidnapped,” says Hasan, meaning that an alleged 90% of its candidates’ nomination papers have been rejected. “This is massive pre-poll rigging.”

The hurdles facing Khan and PTI stand in stark contrast to the lot dealt to Nawaz Sharif, three-time former Prime Minister, who was most recently ousted for corruption in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In 2018, Sharif traveled to London on bail for medical treatment but absconded and remained a fugitive in exile. But on Oct. 21, an apparently healthy Sharif returned to Pakistan, where his corruption conviction was swiftly quashed and last week his lifetime ban from politics also overturned. On Monday, Sharif, 74, launched his campaign to return as Prime Minister for a fourth time—much to the chagrin of disenfranchised PTI supporters.

“The temperature is going to rise in the next few weeks when candidates step out to do rallies,” Khan’s sister, Aleema, tells TIME. “There’s going to be anger on the streets.”

It’s no secret that Pakistan’s military kingmakers have thrown their support behind Sharif, which ultimately means he’s a shoo-in to return to power. But Khan’s enduring popularity means more heavy-handed tactics will be required. Despite all PTI’s headwinds, and extremely patchy governance record while in power, a Gallup opinion poll from December shows the imprisoned Khan’s approval ratings stand at 57%, compared to 52% for Sharif. PTI remains confident that they will win if allowed to compete in a fair fight.

“People, especially at the grassroot level, are very pro-Imran Khan,” says Yasmeen. “Even if he tells them to vote for a piece of furniture, it will be elected.”

Corrupt to His Core, Thief, Looter, Traitor, Money Launderer, Morally Bankrupted Boak Bollocks and Pakistan Army’s Production Pakistan's Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addresses his supporters in Lahore on Oct. 21, 2023. Aamir Qureshi—AFP/Getty Images

A big question is why the international community has been so muted in the face of such brazen irregularities—especially the U.S., which under the Joe Biden administration claims to have made democracy promotion a key foreign policy priority. The stakes are high; nuclear-armed Pakistan is drowning in $140 billion of external debt, while ordinary people are battling with Asia’s highest inflation, with food prices rising 38.5% year-on-year.

The truth is that Khan has few friends in the West after prioritizing relations with Russia and China. “From a Washington perspective, anyone would be better than Khan,” says Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

Sharif, by contrast, is perceived as business-friendly and pro-America. Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington’s foreign policy priorities have shifted to China, Ukraine, and now Gaza. Yet the importance of a trusted partner in Islamabad was made plain this week following an Iranian airstrike on alleged Sunni militants in Pakistan territory that killed at least two children and threatens a further escalation of the violence already roiling the Middle East.

American priorities in Pakistan are keeping a lid on terrorism and stabilizing relations with arch-nemesis India—and Sharif has a better record on both. However, these priorities aren’t necessarily shared by Pakistan’s military overlords, who may be backing Sharif today but have engineered his ouster thrice in the past—once via a coup d’état. There remains “a lot of bad blood between Nawaz and the military,” says Kugelman, “even if he were to become the next Prime Minister, civil-military relations could take the same turn for the worse.”

After all, no Pakistan Prime Minister has ever completed a full term—and if Sharif gets back in, few would bet on him becoming the first at the fourth time of asking. It may be part of the reason why Khan has adopted a stoic disposition despite the deprivations of his prison cell. “He is cold in jail but quite happy,” says Aleema Khan. “He’s read so many books, maybe two to three every day, and he’s very content to have this retreat time—spiritually, mentally, and physically, he says he feels better.”

Perhaps content in the knowledge that, while February’s election may be beyond hope, in Pakistan you may be down, but you’re never truly out. And that’s all the more reason to keep fighting. “We shall be in the election,” says Hasan. “We’re not going to back off, we’re not going to walk away, we’re not going to forfeit even a single seat throughout the country.”

[justnownews]

Election Commission Seeks Further Clarification from Supreme Court on PTI Reserved Seats

Islamabad, September 26, 2024– The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has once again approached the Supreme Court, seeking clarification regarding the reserved seats for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in light of recent legal developments.In its appeal, the ECP has requested guidance on how to reconcile the July 12 court decision with the newly passed Election Amendment Act. The commission…

[emergingpakistan]

نتائج میں بے ضابطگیوں پر الیکشن کمشین کو فوری ایکشن لینا چاہیے

حکومت کی تشکیل کے لیے بند دروازوں کے پیچھے مذاکرات شروع ہو چکے ہیں اور کچھ حلقے انتخابی باب کو بند ہوتے دیکھنے کے لیے بے تاب ہوں گے، جن کے نتائج کو تقدیر کا لکھا سمجھ کر قبول کیا جائے گا۔ تاہم ایسا لگتا ہے کہ شہری، جن میں سے بہت سے لوگوں نے ڈرائے دھمکائے جانے کا سامنا کیا اور اپنے ووٹ کا استعمال کرنے کے لیے کئی رکاوٹوں کو عبور کیا، اب حالات کو نظرانداز کرنے کا ارادہ نہیں رکھتے اور اس کی وجہ بھی ہے۔ اس الیکشن میں نمایاں بے ضابطگیاں سامنے آئیں اور ووٹرز کو ان کا جواب ملنا چاہیے، یہ ضروری ہے کہ الیکشن کمیشن آف پاکستان ووٹرز کے خدشات کو فوری طور پر دور کرے۔ سب سے اہم مسئلہ وہ ہے جو ملک کے کچھ حصوں میں عوامی مینڈیٹ کی چوری جیسا نظر آتا ہے، یہ بات رپورٹ ہونے والے مختلف نتائج میں پائے جانے والے تضاد سے بھی ظاہر ہوتی ہے۔ بین الاقوامی برادری سمیت دیگر حلقوں میں اس بات پر تشویش بڑھ رہی ہے کہ آخر کیوں الیکشن کمیشن کے جاری کردہ نتائج ان اعداد و شمار سے بہت مختلف ہیں جو امیدواروں نے ذاتی طور پر جمع کیے تھے یا وہ غیر سرکاری نتائج جو کہ ٹی وی چینلز نے اپنے آزاد ذرائع سے حاصل کیے تھے۔

مبصرین کے شکوک و شبہات کو مزید تقویت اس بات سے ملی کہ مخصوص حلقوں کے آر اوز کی جانب سے جاری کردہ فارم 47 میں کچھ واضح بے ضابطگیوں کے ساتھ ساتھ نتائج کو حتمی شکل دینے میں بہت زیادہ وقت لگا۔ یہ عجیب بات ہے کہ ملک کے بیشتر حصوں سے چینلز کے ذریعے رپورٹ کیے گئے نتائج، الیکشن کمیشن کی جانب سے بہت بعد میں جاری کیے گئے نتائج سے قریب تر نظر آتے ہیں تاہم، بہت سے بڑے شہری حلقوں میں، جہاں میڈیا کی موجودگی اور وسائل درحقیقت سب سے زیادہ ہیں، وہاں نتائج میں فرق بہت زیادہ ہے۔ واضح طور پر، ان حلقوں میں نتائج کو مرتب کرنے کے دوران کچھ گڑبڑ ہوئی، جس کی فوری طور پر چھان بین کرنے اور اس کا ازالہ کرنے کی ضرورت ہے۔ ان جگہوں پر تحقیقات مشکل ہو جائیں گی جہاں امیدواروں کو فارم 45 نہیں دیا گیا، یہ ایک سنگین بے ضابطگی ہے جسے کئی پولنگ مبصرین نے نوٹ کیا ہے۔ تاہم متعدد امیدوار ایسے ہیں جو نتائج کو چیلنج کر سکتے ہیں۔

ان میں دیگر کے علاوہ، کراچی، لاہور، ملتان اور اسلام آباد میں پی ٹی آئی کے حمایت یافتہ کئی آزاد امیدوار بھی شامل ہیں، جن میں سے کچھ نے اپنی جیت کو راتوں رات شکست میں بدلتے دیکھا۔ لاہور میں سلمان اکرم راجا پہلے ہی عدالت میں آر او کے نتائج چیلنج کر چکے ہیں۔ دیگر امیدوار بھی اس عمل کی پیروی کریں گے۔ اس سے پہلے کہ معاملات مزید بگڑ جائیں، الیکشن کمیشن کو اس پر ایکشن لینا چاہیے۔ موجودہ سی ای سی نے فروری 2021ء کے ڈسکہ کے ضمنی انتخاب میں ہونے والی دھاندلی پر سخت اور اصولی کارروائی کی تھی، جس کا آغاز نتائج کو روکنے سے ہوا تھا۔ اب بھی اسی طرح کی کارروائی کی ضرورت ہے، خاص طور پر ان حلقوں میں جہاں ہارنے والے امیدواروں کے پاس اپنے دعوے کو ثابت کرنے کے لیے ثبوت موجود ہیں۔ مزید برآں، جہاں بھی قواعد اس کی اجازت دیں وہاں الیکشن کمیشن کو دوبارہ گنتی کی اجازت دینی چاہیے۔ اسے ایسی معلومات بھی جاری کرنی چاہیے جو آڈیٹرز کو اس کے نتائج کو کراس چیک کرنے میں مدد دے سکے۔ یہ ادارے کے لیے اپنی ساکھ بحال کرنے کا موقع ہے۔ بین الاقوامی دباؤ بڑھنے کے ساتھ ساتھ الیکشن کمیشن کو تیزی سے کام کرنا چاہیے۔

بشکریہ ڈان نیوز

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The governments of India and Pakistan attempted to interfere in Canada's federal elections in 2019 and 2021, Canada's spy agency said in documents made public late Thursday night.

In 2021, the government of India had "intent to interfere and likely conducted clandestine activities," including the use of an Indian government proxy agent in Canada, according to an unclassified summary written by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Two years earlier, in 2019, "Government of Pakistan officials in Canada attempted to clandestinely influence Canadian federal politics with the aim of furthering the Government of Pakistan's interests in Canada," CSIS wrote.

The stark assessments are contained in documents that were tabled as part of the federal commission of inquiry into foreign interference. The public inquiry is examining possible meddling by China, India, Russia and others in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Qasim Rashid at Let's Address This:

My wife Ayesha grew up in Pakistan and did her Masters in the United Kingdom. When we got married now nearly 18 years ago, I asked if she would take on my last name? She paused, looked at me, and said, “Why would I give up my father’s name?? Wait do women in America seriously change their entire identity when they get married? What happens if they get divorced? What about passports and ID cards? Social security cards? Tax documents? What about Driver’s Lic—“ “Ok, Ok I get the point!” I finally responded. “Sheesh. A simple no would’ve sufficed!” [...] The MAGA SAVE Act is punishing women who dropped their maiden names and took their husband’s names after marriage. As The Brennan Center for Justice stated after the House passed the SAVE Act last week:

[The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history. The Senate must stop it. The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. It should not become law. More than 21 million American citizens don’t have the documents required by the SAVE Act readily available. The bill would effectively eliminate forms of voter registration that millions of voters rely on: registering by mail, online, and through voter registration drives would no longer be possible. The SAVE Act would also create chaos for election administration by imposing significant burdens on election officials and disrupting the systems that keep our elections running smoothly.]

The SAVE Act Punishes Women In Particular

While the SAVE Act punishes a wide array of otherwise eligible voting US Citizens, it harms women in particular because of the western practice of women taking on their husband’s names after marriage. As NPR reports:

[Among the most notable changes outlined in the bill is the requirement to prove U.S. citizenship before registering to vote. Acceptable documents will include a birth certificate, U.S. passport, naturalization paperwork and certain versions of the Real ID that indicate citizenship. But for as many as 69 million American women who have taken on their spouse's name, their birth certificates no longer match the names they use today, according to an analysis by the progressive Center for American Progress. Meanwhile, more than half of all Americans do not have a passport, according to a 2023 YouGov survey. [emphasis added]]

It’s remarkable how MAGAs claim to support “traditional marriage” and are now happily punishing women who took the “traditional act” of changing their names. But the MAGA malice doesn’t stop here. After all, won’t suppressing women from voting also suppress Republican women from voting? Well, herein lies the rub. The answer is both yes, it will hurt Republican voting women, but more importantly, it will hurt Democratic voting women more.

Therefore, if you are the MAGA party in power and want to ensure you maintain control—then you do so by suppressing the vote. And you suppress the vote in such a way that even if you disenfranchise millions of your own voter base, that’s okay, as long as you disenfranchise millions more of the opposing side’s voter base. And that’s exactly what the SAVE Act does. Even though Trump disbanded two of his own so-called “election fraud commissions” because they were unable to find any actual fraud, MAGAs are pushing the voter suppression SAVE Act under the claim that it is necessary to combat voter fraud. Let’s be clear—if your path towards ‘winning’ an election is through voter suppression, then it isn’t democracy you support, it’s dictatorship. This is what MAGA politicians (and the four House Democrats who voted for the SAVE Act) are telling us they support. We should believe them. And we should take action by raising our voices.

The SAVE Act thar passed the House is an insult to women (and common sense), as it would make changing names a costlier process. Hopefully it gets stopped at the cloture vote, where it falls short of 60.

[mariacallous]

India is in the middle of a 44-day exercise to elect its next government, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi tipped to return his Bharatiya Janata Party to power for a third consecutive term. Modi, who aims to win nearly three-quarters of the country’s 543 parliamentary seats, has surprised many observers by using dehumanizing anti-Muslim language on the campaign trail—rhetoric that is more direct than that of his past speeches.

So far, the BJP campaign has focused on creating an irrational fear among India’s Hindu majority that if Modi doesn’t return as prime minister, a share of their private wealth and affirmative action job quotas will be given to Indian Muslims. Modi and his party have doubled down on this narrative at a moment when reports suggest that their quest for a supermajority is unlikely to succeed. The brazen continuation of such anti-Muslim rhetoric differentiates this campaign from the two others that have put Modi in the prime minister’s office.

Hate speech is a criminal offense in India, and it is specifically barred during an election campaign. However, Modi chose the three leaders of India’s Election Commission, the agency charged with conducting free and fair polls, and it has ignored his flagrant violations of the election code. As a result, as the campaign continues through the end of May, so too will Modi’s anti-Muslim tirades. India is expected to announce its election results on June 4.

If the BJP wins and Modi is once again crowned prime minister, his Islamophobic rhetoric will not simply disappear. Many political leaders campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but hateful rhetoric has real-life consequences. Modi’s campaign speeches have put a target on Indian Muslims’ backs, redirecting the anger of poor and marginalized Hindu communities away from crony capitalists and the privileged upper castes. It underscores an attempt to make members of the Muslim minority second-class citizens in a de facto Hindu Rashtra, or state.

These social schisms need only a small spark to burst into communal violence, which would damage India’s global status and growth. Furthermore, Modi’s campaign rhetoric is matched by the BJP’s choice to not put up candidates in Muslim-majority Kashmir, reducing its stake in ensuring robust democracy in a region that New Delhi has ruled directly since 2019. His language will also have a direct bearing on India’s fraught ties with its neighbor Pakistan. Finally, the state-backed ill treatment will likely not be limited to Indian Muslims—meaning that other religious minorities, such as Christians and Sikhs, will also be affected.

Around 200 million Muslims live in India—the second-largest Muslim population in the world, after that of Indonesia. Few mainstream Indian political leaders have plummeted to such depths in castigating these citizens. Modi’s campaign rhetoric makes clear that if he is elected to a third consecutive term, the nation’s Muslims will stand politically disempowered, economically marginalized, and deprived of their constitutional rights.

Modi’s political rise came in the wake of significant violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, when he was the state’s chief minister. Due to his role in the violence, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States all temporarily barred his entry. Leading the party’s campaign to victory in the state assembly in the same year, his campaign speeches were full of crude language against Muslims. But the BJP’s electoral success in Gujarat—winning the next two assembly elections before the launch of Modi’s national campaign—ultimately gave Modi political credibility within an extreme fringe of the party.

By 2011, Modi had started reinventing himself as a business-friendly leader with an eye on a national role. By the time he became prime minister three years later, the narrative of a so-called Gujarat model of economic development concealed his anti-Muslim ideological moorings. Modi’s mask slipped occasionally, but he often spoke with a dog whistle. Mostly, the prime minister reiterated an imagination of India as a Hindu nation. In a post-9/11 world, Modi presented an alternative model of battling Islamic terrorism and consolidated a Hindu majoritarian voter base—delivering a stunning election victory in 2019 after an attempted airstrike against an alleged terrorist training camp inside Pakistan.

This year, Modi has not campaigned on his track record of the past decade or on the party manifesto for the next five years as often as he has attempted to further polarize Hindus and Muslims. In a speech given on April 21, Modi suggested that the opposition Indian National Congress party, if elected, would redistribute property to Muslims. The party would “calculate the gold with [Hindu] mothers and sisters” and transfer it “among those who are infiltrators and have more children,” he said—using terms by which his supporters regularly describe Muslims.

Elsewhere, Modi alleged that Congress was helping Muslims in a plot to take over India: “The opposition is asking Muslims to launch vote jihad,” he said in March. Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh in early May, Modi said that voters would have to choose between “vote jihad” and “Ram Rajya,” the latter being a term referring to a mythical, idealized society that purportedly existed during the rule of Lord Rama, the hero of the famous Hindu epic Ramayana.

The prime minister’s economic advisory council soon released a paper that sought to stoke anxieties about a decline in the proportion of Hindus in India; during the period it covered—1950 to 2015—India’s population actually increased by five Hindus for every one Muslim citizen, but BJP leaders soon deployed the report to further demonize Indian Muslims.

The party’s official messaging has echoed Modi’s rhetoric. A now-deleted video posted on the Instagram account for the BJP’s Karnataka branch this month said, “If you are a non-Muslim, Congress will snatch your wealth and distribute it to Muslims. Narendra Modi knows of this evil plan. Only he has the strength to stop it.” It was followed by an animated clip depicting Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hatching a plan to benefit Muslims at the expense of Hindu groups.

Other Indian democratic institutions have done no better. Despite formal complaints from opposition parties and civil society groups, the election commission has neither punished nor restrained Modi. A petition in the Delhi High Court seeking immediate action against Modi for his “communally divisive speeches” was dismissed, with the judges arguing that it was “without merit” because the commission was already looking into the matter. “We can’t presume that they won’t do anything,” one judge said. But as the elections near the finish line, that is precisely what has happened.

Some observers are likely to dismiss Modi’s recent language as par for the course during an election campaign, when tempers run high. However, most surveys and polls have predicted an easy victory for the prime minister and the BJP; he has no need to resort to pandering to base emotions with toxic rhetoric. In an interview, Modi denied that he had uttered a word against Indian Muslims; he was proved wrong by fact-checkers and video evidence. India’s top political scientist said that through his denials in interviews, Modi is trying to influence the naive chroniclers while he continues with his anti-Muslim speeches for the masses and his supporters. Modi’s No. 2, Amit Shah, insists that the party will continue with this anti-Muslim campaign. By persisting with hateful speech, the BJP leadership is fueling a narrative that is likely to intensify discrimination against Indian Muslims during Modi’s rule.

As prime minister, Modi has spearheaded a project for the political disempowerment of Indian Muslims. For the first time in the history of independent India, the ruling party does not have a single Muslim member of parliament. In the current election, the party has put up just one Muslim candidate—on a list of 440—who is running for an unwinnable seat in Kerala. More broadly, religious polarization has made it difficult for Muslim candidates to win seats in areas without an overwhelming Muslim majority. During recent elections, there have been complaints of authorities barring voters in Muslim-majority localities in BJP-ruled states. Modi’s message to Indian Muslims is unequivocal: You do not matter politically.

India’s Muslims are economically disadvantaged, too. A 2006 committee under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress government found that the Muslim community faced high levels of poverty and poor outcomes on almost all socioeconomic indicators. India’s opposition parties have promised a new socioeconomic survey that could inform future policy without a focus on religion. Modi’s government, by contrast, opted to not conduct even the regular census in 2021—the first such instance in 140 years—due to COVID-19; it has not been conducted since.

Rather than relying on data, Modi and his supporters prefer an emotional response that pitches poor and marginalized Hindus against Muslims. India is a highly unequal country: About 90 percent of the population earns less than the average income of $2,800 per year. This gap has widened under Modi, with the richest 1 percent now owning 40 percent of India’s wealth. By othering Muslims, Modi puts them at risk of becoming the object of other deprived groups’ ire, which could lead to further communal violence. A Muslim man was allegedly lynched in Gujarat during the current election campaign, without making national  headlines.

Islamophobia is at the core of the project to make India a Hindu state. Modi and the BJP frequently weaponize terrorism discourse to delegitimize critics and political opposition. In Kashmir, where the BJP is not running candidates this election, this tactic has fueled anger and hostility. The high turnout in the region seems to be an expression of rage against Modi’s 2019 decision to revoke its semi-autonomous status. When the ruling party leaders conflate Islam with terrorism, there is little chance of extending any hand of peace toward Pakistan, either. Modi and his ministers have vowed to take back Pakistan-administered Kashmir by force if necessary—no matter the grave risk of conflict between two nuclear-armed countries.

Finally, Modi’s rhetoric does not bode well for other religious minorities in India. In the border state of Manipur, the largely Christian Kuki community has suffered state-backed majoritarian violence for more than a year. In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state, Christian priests and worshippers are being jailed, beaten, and threatened by both Hindu majoritarian groups and state police. Meanwhile, the BJP has demonized the Sikh farmers who led protests against agricultural laws in 2020 and 2021, labeling them as separatist Khalistani terrorists. (Last year, Modi’s government was accused of involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada as well as in an attempted assassination in New York.)

Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians are India’s biggest religious minorities; they make up nearly one-fifth of the country’s population. To disempower these groups would spell the end of the historical bond between India and ideas of universal justice, human rights, and democracy. A majoritarian Indian state—a Hindu Rashtra—would instead make a covenant with bigotry, discrimination, and violence. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly asked Washington to blacklist Modi’s government for its suppression of religious freedom, but the Biden administration has refused to act so far.

However, the evidence is there for all to see—and Modi has further substantiated the charge of bigotry with his campaign speeches targeting Indian Muslims. No matter if the BJP achieves its supermajority, this rhetoric will have significant consequences for India. Modi is serving a warning. The world should take note before it is too late.

[world-of-wales]

Wait, what? Could you explain the M and India UK thing?

It all dials back to the Commonwealth and uk- india ties in terms of it. So, a little background - commonwealth was the second international organization/group joined by India after the UN. But the commonwealth was the first it joined as an independent sovereign state. Now at that time india was one of the first countries who put forth the demand that republics should also be able to join the CW and countries like them should not be expected to keep the monarch as the head of the state to be a condition for joining what is being called a voluntary organization. Because if they keep the monarch as the head of state, then the whole idea of independence from colonization loses its meaning. So the Indian leaders at that time put forth the demand that republics should be allowed in too, and these countries will be a part of the CW but no authority of the UK or the head of atate/monarch will extend to them. That was accepted because it was a fair demand and made sense. Hence, india joined the CW.

Even back then i.e post indepence in 1947 till the time of the london declaration in 1949, there was a lot of debate and controversy over the whole joining buisness and even then a large section of politicians and leaders were like this is stupid, why are we going back under their influence after having a 100 year long struggle to get out of it. But the then government including Jawaharlal Nehru (my fav Indian pm) who was his own foreign minister, were like India will need to have some sort of connection and some sort of ties with other nations internationally to make sure it can work in the global world. And even today, the Commonwealth forms the bedrock of india's contemporary relations with a number of African states and its dealings with canada, australia, etc.

JLN and his interim government agreed with the influence argument so they put forth the demand for the joining of republics with their own heads of states. It was agreed upon by the UK. But even after that, since india's independence a large section has been against the Commonwealth with the same arguments and people,intellectuals, politicians like shashi tharoor, the southern state CMs, some North Indian parties feel that India should leave the CW.

Now flash forward to the wedding in 2018, meghan came out wearing a veil embroidered with the national flowers of all the CW states, including guess which ones? The republics which are sovereign!!! Including - india (lotus), Pakistan (jasmine) and Bangladesh (water lily)

This thing was picked up by journalists and they ran with it on social media and in newspapers that the royals still think we are theirs. The whole of South Asian twitter was a mess, everyone was criticizing the UK, asking for the high commission to be summoned in front of parliamentary committes to see why they thought it was okay. In india politicians from both sides - the ruling bjp and the opposition parties jumped in. It basically became a f*ck CW, f*ck UK narrative. Now add to this the whole history of colonization and that makes it even worse.

The whole problem that people had with it was that, despite nearly 75 years of independence, UK still thinks we are theirs so why don't we kick them to the curb, we don't need the CW to have trade and other diplomatic ties with other states anymore. Pakistan, Bangladesh etc also had the same issues but it was the most amplified in india.

So in the official circles, for the first time, formal demands were being made that India should leave CW in 2018 because of that Givenchy wedding outfit and the attitude which it must have accompanied. It was always a thing in india, on the fringes of politics, to leave the CW as an agenda for some sections, but nobody ever took any initiative for it except making statements. The government didn't do it formally because let's be honest, 2018 was just a year off the next national elections and they had bigger fish to fry back then but I know it was pretty much a done deal as per the news coming out from 'sources' close to the cabinet, plans were being made. But it was sorted out later, a lot of it because bjp shares common ties with the Tories in the UK so they could smooth it over.

[scott1984fp2]

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[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-allow-workers-ignore-after-hours-calls-bosses-2024-02-07/

[xtruss]

“Hegemonic, War Criminal and Genocidal U.S.” Endorses Pakistan’s Sham Election, Heavily Rigged By the Corrupt Army Generals and Election Commission of Pakistan

Allegations of Widespread Electoral Fraud, Heavily Rigging, and Violence Mar Pakistan’s Election.

— Intercepted | March 6 2024

The U.S. State Department this week congratulated Pakistan’s new prime minister on assuming power, following elections that were marred by widespread allegations of heavily rigging, voter suppression, and violence targeting supporters of imprisoned Former Prime Minister Imran Khan. On a special crossover episode of Intercepted and Deconstructed, hosts Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim discuss the aftermath of Pakistan’s February 8 election, as well as growing calls inside the U.S. to hold Pakistan’s military-backed regime accountable for its ongoing suppression of democracy. Hussain and Grim also discuss U.S. interests in the region, and the historical ties between the Pakistani military and its supporters in Washington.

[beardedmrbean]

Two bomb explosions near candidates' offices in the Pakistani province of Balochistan killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens on the eve of general elections, officials said.

The first blast killed 16 people in Pishin district, north of Quetta city.

A second explosion left 12 people dead in Qila Saifullah to the east. There was no immediate claim for the attacks.

The vote has been marred by violence and claims of poll-rigging. Former PM Imran Khan is barred from contesting.

Police are still trying to determine the cause of the two blasts.

Resource-rich Balochistan - Pakistan's largest, and poorest, province - has a history of violence. It has seen a decades-long struggle for greater autonomy by various groups, some of them armed. Islamist militants, including the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), operate along the border with Afghanistan.

The bomb in Pishin, a town about 100km (62 miles) south-east of the Afghan border, went off in front of an independent candidate's party office. The provincial authorities said 25 people were also wounded.

Images on social media showed cars and motorbikes blown apart by the force of the explosion. Officials told the BBC the candidate was meeting his polling agent at the time.

The second blast targeted the election office of the JUI-F party. A senior police official told AFP news agency it took place in the main bazaar of Qila Saifullah, about 190km (120 miles) east of Quetta.

Twenty people were wounded in the incident and the number of casualties in the two attacks could rise, officials said.

There have been violent incidents in both Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces in the week before Thursday's vote, and the violence in Pishin and Qila Saifullah was not unexpected.

In mid-January, Baloch Liberation Army-Azad (BLA) insurgents released a pamphlet after claiming responsibility for bombing an election training office. The pamphlet urged people to boycott the elections. Soon after, reports of hand grenade attacks on political party offices were reported from various cities in the province.

Many voters in Balochistan feel neglected by the country's political parties, given the province has so few seats in parliament. They often feel candidates are foisted on them, with few if any links to Balochistan.

And many feel the vote is unfair. "It is a selection," numerous people told BBC Urdu in the city of Turbat last month.

Following Wednesday's attacks, the Balochistan government said Thursday's vote would proceed as planned.

"Rest assured, we will not allow terrorists to undermine or sabotage this crucial democratic process," provincial information minister Jan Achakzai posted on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 128 million voters are eligible to cast ballots in the election. In Pakistan's first-past-the-post system, 266 of 336 National Assembly seats are directly elected.

But many people are questioning the credibility of the vote as Khan and his party, the PTI, have been sidelined.

The PTI won the largest number of seats in the last general election but Khan was jailed on corruption charges last year and disqualified from running for public office. Last week he was convicted in three other cases and faces years in prison - he says all the charges are politically motivated.

The authorities deny carrying out a crackdown, but many PTI leaders are behind bars, in hiding or have defected. Thousands of the party's supporters were rounded up after protests - at times violent - when Khan was taken into custody last year.

PTI candidates are having to run as independents following the electoral commission's decision to strip the party of its cricket bat symbol. Electoral symbols are vital in helping voters mark their ballots in a country with high rates of illiteracy.

The man tipped to win Thursday's election is three-time former PM Nawaz Sharif, who himself was behind bars at the last election. Analysts say it appears he has done a deal with the military to facilitate his return to politics.

A high turnout will be key to the PTI's chances, many analysts say. How to tackle, and who to blame for, the country's economic crisis will be high in voters' minds. Results must be announced within 14 days of the election.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 10.29 (after 1950)

1953 – BCPA Flight 304 DC-6 crashes near San Francisco. 1955 – The Soviet battleship Novorossiysk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol. 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal. 1957 – Israel's prime minister David Ben-Gurion and five of his ministers are injured when Moshe Dwek throws a grenade into the Knesset. 1960 – An airplane carrying the Cal Poly football team crashes on takeoff in Toledo, Ohio. 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed to the United Republic of Tanzania. 1964 – Biggest jewel heist; involving the Star of India (gem) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City by Murph the Surf and gang. 1967 – Montreal's World Fair, Expo 67, closes with over 50 million visitors. 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. 1972 – The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre are released from prison in exchange for the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. 1980 – Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in a crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida, leading to the cancellation of Operation Credible Sport. 1985 – Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced as the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia. 1986 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the last stretch of the M25 motorway. 1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid. 1994 – Francisco Martin Duran fires over two dozen shots at the White House; he is later convicted of trying to kill U.S. President Bill Clinton. 1998 – In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presents its report, which condemns both sides for committing atrocities. 1998 – Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off on STS-95 with 77-year-old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space at that time. 1998 – ATSC HDTV broadcasting in the United States is inaugurated with the launch of the STS-95 space shuttle mission. 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of six and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he is landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel. 1998 – Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, makes landfall in Honduras. 1998 – The Gothenburg discothèque fire in Sweden kills 63 and injures 200. 1999 – A large cyclone devastates Odisha, India. 2002 – A fire destroys a luxurious department store in Ho Chi Minh City, where 1,500 people are shopping. More than 60 people die and over 100 are unaccounted for in the deadliest peacetime disaster in Vietnam. 2004 – The Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera broadcasts an excerpt from a 2004 Osama bin Laden video in which the terrorist leader first admits direct responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and references the 2004 U.S. presidential election. 2005 – Bombings in Delhi, India kill more than 60. 2008 – Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to five. 2008 – A pair of deadly earthquakes hits Baluchistan, Pakistan, killing 215. 2012 – Hurricane Sandy hits the east coast of the United States, killing 148 directly and 138 indirectly, while leaving nearly $70 billion in damages and causing major power outages. 2014 – A mud slide; the 2014 Badulla landslide, in south-central Sri Lanka, kills at least 16 people, and leaves hundreds of people missing. 2015 – China announces the end of its one-child policy after 35 years. 2018 – A Boeing 737 MAX plane crashes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia killing 189 people on board.

[nicklloydnow]

“Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has opened lucrative new pathways for him to cash in on his power, whether through his social media company or new overseas real estate deals. But none of the Trump family’s other business endeavors pose conflicts of interest that compare to those that have emerged since the birth of World Liberty.

The firm, largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity, has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.

Mr. Trump is now not only a major crypto dealer; he is also the industry’s top policy maker. So far in his second term, Mr. Trump has leveraged his presidential powers in ways that have benefited the industry — and in some cases his own company — even though he had spent years deriding crypto as a haven for drug dealers and scammers.

He has filled his administration with sympathizers to the crypto cause, including by appointing a former adviser to industry players as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, the Justice Department recently disbanded a crypto crimes task force, continuing a broader unwinding of Biden-era scrutiny of the industry.

(…)

Still, the company’s deal-making benefits the president’s family. A Trump business entity owns 60 percent of World Liberty, according to the company’s website, and is entitled to 75 percent of certain revenue from coin sales, which could be converted into cash.

“It’s one of the more successful things we’ve ever done,” Eric Trump, the president’s son who runs the family business, said in an interview this month at the Trump Doral golf course in Florida.

He and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., are actively involved in World Liberty, though they rely on three partners to oversee the daily operations. Two of them, Mr. Folkman and Chase Herro, have a mixed track record in crypto. The other is Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who is also a World Liberty founder.

In recent days, Zach Witkoff, Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro were in Pakistan meeting with the country’s prime minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, and other top government officials to discuss World Liberty. The trip, complete with limousines, a dance performance and police escorts, seamlessly blended the president’s business interests with the trappings of a state visit. (Mr. Wachsman said no U.S. government officials were involved in the meetings.)

President Trump has noted that conflict of interest laws do not apply to him, and that he has broad immunity for official actions he takes as president.

(…)

As a businessman who made his name in the tactile world of real estate, Donald Trump never aspired to build a digital coin empire.

Indeed, at the end of his first term, Mr. Trump turned to social media to express disdain for cryptocurrencies.

They “are not money,” he warned. Their “value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”

By last year, his views had begun to shift.

(…)

The change of heart also coincided with an influx of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the crypto industry into the Trump re-election effort. Under the Biden administration, the industry had faced nearly 100 enforcement actions by the S.E.C., and crypto executives wanted a leader to champion their interests in Washington.

During his campaign stumps, Mr. Trump’s qualms about crypto appeared to vanish. At a Bitcoin conference in July, he vowed to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.”

Two months later, Mr. Trump completed his conversion, announcing that he and his sons would enter the crypto marketplace with a new venture called World Liberty Financial.

(…)

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Mr. Trump said. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”

Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman were unusual choices to partner with a president.

Mr. Folkman, who has short curly hair and tattoos, ran a company in his 20s tutoring forlorn men on how to pick up women. In numerous podcast appearances, Mr. Herro has recounted his life’s redemption arc, describing a wild youth in which he was charged with marijuana possession and spent a couple of weeks in a Wisconsin jail.

The two men had worked together for years, selling everything from colon cleanses to get-rich-quick advice, before pivoting to crypto with uneven results.

In 2022, Mr. Herro urged a roomful of crypto enthusiasts to invest in the currency TerraUSD, calling it “one of the coolest assets in history.” The coin imploded a month later, erasing billions of dollars in wealth. Mr. Herro’s most recent venture with Mr. Folkman was a crypto platform called Dough Finance, which was hacked in July, leading to the theft of $2 million.

It’s not clear exactly how the pair earned the Trumps’ trust. But Steve Witkoff said last year that he met them through his son, and then introduced them to the family.

(…)

In October, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman got to work on the company’s first initiative — selling a new cryptocurrency, which it called $WLFI, with the goal of $300 million in sales.

These coins would be different from $TRUMP — the so-called memecoin that spiked in January after Mr. Trump marketed it to his followers before it abruptly crashed.

World Liberty, at least according to its marketing pitch, eventually plans to operate as a new type of internet bank that would allow customers to borrow and lend money in various digital currencies. Anyone who bought the $WLFI coins would get to vote on certain bank business decisions like shareholders in a traditional company.

Mr. Trump was at the core of the pitch. The company published a 13-page “Gold Paper” that described its mission and leadership team. On the cover was a portrait of Mr. Trump, styled to look as if gold paint had been splashed across the page.

He would serve as the company’s “Chief Crypto Advocate,” the paper said.

When World Liberty launched, the Trump family and its affiliates were given 22.5 billion units of the crypto coins — a stash now worth at least $1.1 billion on paper, depending on the various prices used in recent sales.

Under the company’s rules, the Trumps and other World Liberty investors are not allowed to sell their coins on the open market, though the company has said it might eventually lift that restriction if other buyers of the coin agree.

Initially, there were few buyers. By the end of October, World Liberty had sold only $2.7 million worth of the coins, a tiny fraction of its goal.

Election Day was a game changer.

With polls closed in most of America and Mr. Trump on his way to victory, the World Liberty account on X posted a celebratory message on Nov. 5: “Big things on the horizon.”

Soon a surge of investment flowed into World Liberty’s cryptocurrency.

Most crypto purchases are recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, with the buyers and sellers largely anonymized. But World Liberty has said it performs extensive checks on investors in its coin, so it knows who they are.

An analysis performed for The Times by the forensics firm Nansen, drawing on crypto industry data, showed that many of the investors were based abroad in places like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.

Federal law prevents foreigners from donating to presidential campaigns or inaugural funds, but World Liberty’s coin sale offered a new, legal way to back Mr. Trump.

“The main reason for purchasing such a token was to support Trump’s inauguration, as he was the first crypto-friendly president of the United States,” said Keer Lau, chief strategy officer at Orbiter Finance, a Hong Kong-based entity.

Some investors, domestic and overseas, have managed firms that ran afoul of U.S. regulations. One was Yoni Assia, an Israeli who founded eToro, an online trading platform whose U.S. subsidiary reached a $1.5 million settlement with the S.E.C. last year for crypto-related violations. Troy Murray, a Puerto Rico-based investor, also bought World Liberty’s coin. Before that, he had helped create BarnBridge, which in late 2023 agreed to pay the S.E.C. $1.7 million to settle its own crypto-related accusations.

Since Mr. Trump took office, some World Liberty investors have pushed the government for regulatory approvals, or are poised to interact with the administration as they try to build or expand businesses in the United States.

In March, Mr. Assia’s company notified the S.E.C. that it intended to go public in the United States. DWF Labs, a crypto firm based in the United Arab Emirates, announced this month that it had bought $25 million of $WLFI — and that it was opening a New York office.

(…)

The crypto executive with perhaps the most to gain from his affiliation with World Liberty is Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire who founded the crypto platform Tron.

Mr. Sun gained global attention late last year, when he spent $6.2 million at an art auction to buy a banana that had been duct taped to a wall. Not long after, Mr. Sun made another headline-grabbing maneuver: He spent $75 million on $WLFI coins.

The investment drew widespread criticism given that Mr. Sun had a clear incentive to gain favor with the Trump White House. During the Biden administration, the S.E.C. sued Mr. Sun, arguing that he had fraudulently inflated the price of a Tron cryptocurrency.

Mr. Sun has denied the S.E.C.’s charges, and in a text message to The Times last year, he said his World Liberty investment was simply a vote of confidence in the Trump family’s “excellent project.”

In late February, the S.E.C. asked a federal judge to halt proceedings in Mr. Sun’s case: The agency said it was exploring “a potential resolution.” The judge granted the stay.

Justin Sun gave World Liberty a big lift. But Mr. Trump’s company wanted more money. Much more.

So World Liberty executives soon announced what they called “a transformative initiative” to partner with other crypto outfits and invest in their coins. The strategy, the executives said in February, would leverage World Liberty’s growing clout to help their lesser-known partners.

(…)

But World Liberty’s public pronouncements omitted a key aspect of its private pitch to several crypto startups, executives at these companies told The Times. World Liberty wanted to sell its own coin — not just to invest in others’. It was proposing a currency swap.

Here is the deal World Liberty offered, according to executives at three crypto firms approached by the company: The startups would spend between $10 million and $30 million on a large chunk of World Liberty’s coins. In return, World Liberty would buy a smaller amount of each startup’s own cryptocurrency. World Liberty would keep the rest of the money for itself — a premium as high as 20 percent.

World Liberty’s purchases would signal to the market that Mr. Trump’s firm had deemed the startups worthy of investment. But the market would have no way of knowing that World Liberty had been compensated for that endorsement. Some details of a similar pitch from World Liberty were previously reported by Blockworks, an industry news outlet.

(…)

The benefits of a partnership were enough to attract at least five crypto firms to strike other deals with World Liberty, without disclosing details of the financial arrangements, The Times found.

In one deal, the Sui Foundation, a U.S.-based group, announced that World Liberty would buy an unspecified amount of its cryptocurrency, prompting Sui’s price to jump more than 10 percent. As part of the arrangement, the foundation was slated to receive World Liberty’s coins in return, said two people familiar with the deal who requested anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

Other World Liberty partnerships have shown how Mr. Trump is mixing his official role with his business. In December, the company announced that it would use technology designed by a startup based in Lisbon, Ethena Labs. It also bought more than $5 million of Ethena’s cryptocurrency.

One of Ethena’s investors is Arthur Hayes, a crypto entrepreneur who pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act in 2022 and was sentenced to six months of home detention. Last month, Mr. Trump granted Mr. Hayes a pardon. (A spokesman who represents both Ethena and Mr. Hayes declined to comment.)

Another World Liberty partner is Ondo Finance, a New York-based startup backed by Founders Fund, the conservative billionaire Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm.

World Liberty made its first purchase of Ondo’s coins in December, buying more than 130,000 of them. The transaction at least briefly helped drive up the price of Ondo’s coin, drawing headlines in crypto news sites celebrating World Liberty’s bet.

In January, Ondo donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration, securing an invite to a candlelight dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, where the guest list included several of Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees. Ondo also helped sponsor an inauguration event called the Crypto Ball. Soon after, Donald Trump Jr. and World Liberty’s management team were headliners at a conference Ondo organized in New York.

(…)

In February, Eric Trump passed along some investment advice to his followers on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X: “In my opinion, it’s a great time to add $ETH.”

It was the ticker symbol for a digital coin called Ether. “You can thank me later,” he added, before deleting that line.

His advice proved prescient.

The next month, his father announced the creation of a “U.S. Crypto Reserve” — a Fort Knox-like repository of cryptocurrencies intended to help bolster the industry.

Mr. Trump’s announcement included a list of digital currencies to go into the stockpile. Along with Bitcoin, he included Ether, saying it would be “at the heart of the Reserve.”

Ether’s price surged more than 13 percent.

The spike had an immediate beneficiary: World Liberty. Over the previous few months, the company had bought $240 million worth of Ether, according to Arkham, a crypto data firm.

The day the president announced the crypto reserve, the value of World Liberty’s Ether stash rose by $33 million, assuming it had not sold any of its holdings. That gain was later lost as Ether declined in value.

That same pattern — Mr. Trump making policy pronouncements or posting messages that intersected with World Liberty’s business interests — occurred again in March.

In a video feed at a crypto conference in New York, Mr. Trump called on Congress to pass legislation governing stablecoins, a type of crypto designed to maintain a value of $1.

Both the Senate and the House have introduced bills that would make it easier for firms issuing stablecoins to operate in the United States. In his remarks last month, Mr. Trump said that the rise of stablecoins would “expand the dominance of the U.S. dollar.”

A week later, World Liberty announced it was releasing its own stablecoin, USD1. “The future is here, and it is so bright!” Zach Witkoff wrote on X.

Jordi Alexander, a crypto executive who helped World Liberty with its plans to launch its stablecoin, said in an interview that the company had already secured commitments of at least $1 billion from investors to buy the stablecoin once it hits the market.

The new venture will only compound World Liberty’s ethical conflicts. The company plans to offer USD1 on a platform developed by Binance, a giant exchange that settled criminal charges with the Justice Department in 2023. This week, Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman met with Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and former chief executive, in Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Zhao, who served four months in federal prison for money-laundering violations, has been seeking a pardon from the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. The pardon effort was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The overlap between Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements and his business interests have alarmed congressional Democrats, who moved recently to amend the pending stablecoin legislation to bar the Trump family from issuing one.

The amendment failed, and none of the concerns about World Liberty have disrupted its momentum.”

[10bmnews]

ECP announces Senate by-poll schedule on Taj Haider’s seat

PPP Senator Taj Haider (late) speaking with the media. — APP/File ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) Wednesday announced the election schedule for the Senate seat, which fell vacant due to the recent passing away of PPP Senator Taj Haider. According to a notification issued by the ECP, the Senate election will be held in the Sindh Assembly building on May 6. According to the…

[smqazi]

2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices:

PAKISTAN

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY!

Pakistan is a federal parliamentary republic. On April 11, parliament elected Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Shehbaz Sharif as prime minister and head of government. This parliamentary election, conducted in accordance with procedures in the constitution, followed a successful no-confidence vote in the National Assembly called by opposition parties, which replaced the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf administration by bringing to power a coalition government led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. 

In 2018, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the most National Assembly seats in the general elections, and the party’s leader, Imran Khan, became prime minister. While independent observers noted technical improvements in the Election Commission of Pakistan’s management of the polling process itself, observers, civil society organizations, and political parties raised concerns regarding pre-election interference by military and intelligence agencies that created an uneven electoral playing field. Some political parties also alleged significant polling day irregularities.

Police have primary domestic security responsibility for most of the country. Local police are under the jurisdiction of provincial governments. Paramilitary organizations, including the Frontier Corps that operates in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as the Rangers that operate in Sindh and Punjab, provide security services under the authority of the Ministry of Interior. The Frontier Corps’ primary mission is security of the border with Afghanistan, and the corps reports to the Ministry of Interior in peacetime and the army in times of conflict. 

The military plays a role in domestic security, including as the lead security agency in many areas of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas. While military and intelligence services officially report to civilian authorities, they operate independently and without effective civilian oversight or control. There were reports that members of the security forces committed numerous abuses.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents; forced disappearance by the government or its agents; torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government or its agents; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary detention; political prisoners; transnational repression against individuals in another country. 

Also arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including violence against journalists, unjustified arrests and disappearances of journalists, censorship, and criminal defamation laws, and laws against blasphemy; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws for the operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations; severe restrictions of religious freedom; restrictions on freedom of movement; serious government corruption; 

And lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of racial and ethnic minorities; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; the existence or use of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults; restrictions on workers’ freedom of association; and existence of the worst forms of child labor.

There was a lack of government accountability, and abuses, including corruption and misconduct by security services, often went unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity among perpetrators. Authorities seldom investigated or punished government officials for reported human rights abuses or acts of corruption.

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Violence, abuse, and social and religious intolerance by militant organizations and other nonstate actors, both local and foreign, contributed to a culture of lawlessness. Terrorist violence and human rights abuses by nonstate actors contributed to human rights problems, with terrorist violence exceeding that of the prior year. 

Terrorist and cross-border militant attacks against civilians, soldiers, and police caused hundreds of casualties. Military, police, and other law enforcement agencies continued to carry out significant campaigns against militant and terrorist groups.