Will Pakistan be blacklisted? FATF to take final call

Agencies
October 18, 2019

Islamabad, Oct 18: Backed by longtime ally China, Pakistan is confident it will avert blacklisting over terrorism financing by a global watchdog on Friday but it will not be completely off the hook until it proves it is genuinely severing ties with Islamist militants, officials and analysts said.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last year placed Pakistan on a grey list of countries with inadequate controls over terrorism financing. The group, holding a five-day meeting, will decide on Friday whether to retain that or blacklist it alongside Iran and North Korea.

If blacklisted, Islamabad faces financial consequences and economic setbacks at a time when its economy is facing a balance of payment crisis.

"The main challenge for Pakistan is to convince the FATF that it is taking complete and irreversible steps against terrorist financing," Michael Kugelman, deputy director Asia Program at the Wilson Center think tank, told Reuters by email.

Pakistan, which blames arch-rival India for lobbying to blacklist it, is relying for support on friendly countries like China, Turkey and Malaysia.

Three votes are mandatory for any country to escape the blacklisting. Two top government officials and security personnel told Reuters that in a recent visit to Beijing, Pakistan's civil and military leadership secured a guarantee from Chinese leaders that Islamabad would not be placed on a blacklist. China is presiding over the ongoing FATF plenary in France.

"God willing, we're trying that we get out of this grey-list as soon as possible, and I think you should believe that a comprehensive effort is being put in place," Finance chief Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told a news conference over the weekend.

If Pakistan does avert blacklisting it will be just a temporary relief until the FATF meets again in February 2020.

Critical Report

Ahead of the current plenary, the watchdog's Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) issued a critical report on progress made by Islamabad since last year.

Of the 40 recommendations, the report said, Pakistan fully complied with only one, largely complied with nine, partially complied with 26, and totally missed four parameters, which were mandatory if Islamabad wanted to be removed from the grey list.

It said Pakistan should adequately identify, assess and understand risks associated with militant groups operating in Pakistan such as Islamic State group, al-Qaeda, Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which continue to raise funds openly.

Islamabad says it has seized the groups' assets and put the militants on trials, like the entire leadership of the JuD, including its chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks in 2008, which killed 166 people.

"My sense is that Pakistan has taken very real steps against terrorist financing, but so long as the state retains ties to militant groups, concerns will remain within FATF about Islamabad's genuine commitment to act conclusively," the Wilson Center's Kugelman said.

Pakistani author and analyst Ayesha Siddiqa said Pakistan was unlikely to completely abandon militant proxies any time soon.

"I would start believing when JeM infrastructure gets downsized, its leader Masud Azhar is publicly arrested and put on trial," she told Reuters. "With Afghanistan still brewing, I don't think we are close to cleaning our house."

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News Network
May 5,2024

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Iran has urged Muslim countries to cut all relations with the Israeli regime as means of pressuring Tel Aviv to end its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Saturday, addressing the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia’s capital Banjul.

“Beyond doubt, this time period will also pass by, despite all its hardships and adversities for the Palestinian nation,” he said.

“However, the manner and quality of the role that is played by us, Muslim states, in the face of this crisis will go down in history,” the top diplomat added.

“Undoubtedly, severance of diplomatic and economic ties and [imposition of] practical arms and trade embargo [on Israel] serves as an important means of cessation of its genocide in Gaza and atrocities in the West Bank and the Noble al-Quds.”

At least 34,654 people have died in Gaza since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the war in response to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its goals, including defeating Gaza’s resistance, causing forced displacement of the territory’s entire population to neighboring Egypt, and enabling the release of those who were taken captive during al-Aqsa Storm.

Amir-Abdollahian said Gaza’s developments proved that elimination of the Palestinian resistance “was nothing but an illusion.”

“Because the Israeli regime is not a legitimate government. It is only an occupying apartheid power,” he said, adding, “Passage of time is not going to lend legitimacy to an occupying power.”

The foreign minister asserted that realization of sustainable peace and security in the region was only possible through cessation of the regime’s occupation of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

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News Network
May 7,2024

prajwa.jpg

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) on Monday responded to Karnataka’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) regarding a blue corner notice issued against JDS MP Prajwal Revanna.

In its response, Interpol said that all 196 member countries were alerted to identify and report if Prajwal Revanna is spotted at any port in their jurisdiction.

The Karnataka government issued a Blue Corner Notice on Sunday against Prajwal Revanna, who is facing allegations of sexual abuse by his staff members.

A Blue Corner Notice is issued by the international police cooperation body to collect additional information from its member countries about a person’s identity, location or activities about a crime.

The notice was issued after the 33-year-old Hassan MP reportedly flew to Germany soon after the Karnataka State Commission for Women chairperson Nagalakshmi Chowdhary wrote to the CM to order a probe into the sexual allegations against Prajwal.

Last week, the anticipatory bail application of Prajwal Revanna was also denied by Justice Santosh Gajanana Bhat’s bench of People’s Representative Court in Bengaluru.

Earlier, his MLA father and son of former Prime Minster HD Deve Gowda, HD Revanna was remanded to Karnataka SIT custody in a kidnapping-related sex scandal case.

His arrest came after the kidnapped victim was rescued from Revanna’s close assistant Rajasekhar’s farmhouse in Kalenahalli, Hunsur Taluk after the SIT conducted the rescue operation to find her, the police said.

The abduction case was filed by the son of a woman who worked at the Revannas’ house for nearly five years. He alleged that his mother was kidnapped from her home on April 29 by Satish Babanna a relative of Revanna.

The Karnataka Sex Scandal case pertains to explicit video clips allegedly involving the 33-year-old Prajwal, grandson of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, which went viral on social media.

Those videos began to make rounds in Hassan in recent days, following which the state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the sexual abuse allegations against the MP.

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News Network
May 4,2024

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Mangaluru, May 4: A tragic incident unfurled last evening in Subrahmanya of Kadaba taluk in Dakshina Kananda, where a young gentleman, who had recently entered the bonds of matrimony a mere ten days hence, met his untimely demise due to a lightning strike.

As twilight descended, a tempestuous thunderstorm, accompanied by billowing rain clouds, cast its shadow over the locale.

Somasundar was diligently engaged in the task of piling up dried nuts in the yard to shield them from the impending deluge, when fate cruelly intervened, subjecting him to the fatal force of a lightning bolt.

Despite the expeditious efforts to convey him to Kadaba Community Hospital subsequent to his sudden indisposition, he tragically succumbed to his injuries. 

Somasundar, who operated a car washing enterprise in proximity to Subrahmanya, is mourned by his mother, sister, and wife.

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