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German Finance Ministry Raided In Money Laundering Probe

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Zoe Maven
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German prosecutors raided the finance and justice ministries on Thursday as part of an investigation into the government’s anti-money laundering agency.

The probe into the Financial Intelligence Unit, an agency of the finance ministry under Social Democrat chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, is looking at whether it was told to ignore warnings of suspect payments to Africa.

The raids come at a pivotal moment for Scholz, who opinion polls suggest has a good chance of becoming German chancellor in national elections on Sept 26.

Scholz rebuffed criticism from lawmakers following the raids, but the episode casts a cloud because it refocuses attention on the ministry he runs.

The FIU and BaFin, the financial regulator, which also answers to Scholz have been under scrutiny for failing to spot problems at payments firm Wirecard, which collapsed last year in Germany’s biggest corporate fraud.

Scholz, speaking on a campaign stop in Potsdam, said he had had bolstered staff at the FIU agency to almost 500 from 165 and invested heavily in better equipping it.

He signalled his frustration with the raids, saying that prosecutors with questions “could have put them in writing”.

The FIU declined to comment.

The probe comes as the country’s anti-money laundering efforts are under review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body that groups countries from the United States to China, to tackle financial crime.

The FIU has long struggled to keep up with the tens of thousands of warnings it receives about suspect money transfers, according to people familiar with its work.

It only stopped using fax machines to receive such reports from banks in the past few years.

Libyan Parliament Speaker Says Election Plan Approved

By
Zoe Maven
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Libya’s eastern-based parliament speaker on Thursday signed a law allowing a presidential election to take place in December, though another body of state rejected the move, saying the legislation was flawed.

Parliament speaker Aguilah Saleh has sent the law that would allow the Dec. 24 presidential election to other political bodies and to the United Nations, the chamber’s spokesman said.

The High State Council, a body empowered by a political agreement in 2015, said Saleh had unilaterally pushed the law through using powers he did not possess in order to “obstruct the upcoming elections by deliberately issuing a flawed law”.

The presidential and parliamentary elections were mandated through a U.N.-backed political forum last year in a process that also led to the installation of a unity government in March.

The eastern-based parliament, elected in 2014, has not yet agreed a law for an election to replace itself.

Its law on the presidential election would allow serving officials to stand for office so long as they temporarily stepped down from their posts three months before the vote.

Parliament agreed the bill last month and sent it to the legal committee, but did not then hold another vote on it before Saleh issued it as law.

Libya’s peace process has stuttered since the unity government was installed, amid hold-ups in agreeing how elections should be held and over a unified budget, and there are doubts whether the election will take place.

Likely presidential candidates include eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader who was ousted and killed during a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

Russia And Belarus Agree Closer Energy, Economic Integration

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Zoe Maven
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko attend a news conference following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia September 9, 2021. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

The leaders of Russia and Belarus on Thursday agreed to set up a unified oil and gas market and to deepen economic integration in the face of what they regard as unjustified Western sanctions on both their economies.

The agreement, reached after Kremlin talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, is likely to be seen as the latest show of support by Putin for Lukashenko

The West has hit Belarus with sanctions to punish the authorities for the crackdown. Russia is under Western sanctions too for its treatment of Ukraine.

Moscow and Minsk have long been formally part of a “union state” and held talks about further integration.

That has prompted concerns from the beleaguered Belarusian opposition that Lukashenko will trade off chunks of sovereignty in return for even more backing from the Kremlin against the West.

The two leaders told a news conference that they had agreed to 28 integration road maps that covered common approaches to macro-economic policies, including monetary policy, taxes and custom rules.

They also announced plans to integrate their energy markets.

Putin said the two countries would sign a document before December 2023 to create a unified gas market and conclude similar agreements for oil and electricity.

He said Moscow would also leave its prices for natural gas unchanged for Belarus at the current $128.5 per 1,000 cubic metres in 2022.

The talks happened on the same day that Russia and Belarus formally opened vast joint military drills, a week-long exercise across the territory of both countries and in the Baltic Sea that has alarmed some NATO countries.

First Post-Evacuation Flight Has Taken Off From Afghanistan

By
Zoe Maven
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Qatar’s Foreign Ministry says the first international commercial flight to leave Afghanistan since the withdrawal of U.S. troops departed Thursday, which has helped open the airport in Kabul.

Speaking in Islamabad, Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said the airport “has been tested and operationalised in the past few days,”.

A large group of foreigners were aboard the Doha-bound flight, Al Jazeera television reported. The Qatar Airways plane had arrived in Kabul earlier on Thursday carrying aid, it said.

Although international flights have gone in and out with officials, technicians and aid, this was the first such civilian flight since the evacuation which followed the Taliban’s seizure of the capital on Aug. 15 as foreign military forces pulled out.

A U.S. official had said earlier that 200 foreigners in Afghanistan, Americans among them, were set to depart on charter flights from Kabul on Thursday after the new Taliban government agreed to their evacuation,

Qatari and Turkish technical teams had helped restore operations at the airport, from where 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans were evacuated by U.S.-led forces in the fraught days after the Taliban takeover.

Qatari special envoy Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani described the flight out of Kabul on Thursday as a regular flight and not an evacuation and that there would also be a flight on Friday.

The White House confirmed on Thursday that US citizens and legal permanent residents were on the chartered Qatar Airways flight and thanked Doha for its role in facilitating operations at the airport.

National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement that the safe flight was the result of careful and hard diplomacy and engagement.

Tropical Storm Mindy Makes Landfall On Florida Panhandle

By
Zoe Maven
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0

A swath of the Florida Panhandle was under a tropical storm warning after Tropical Storm Mindy made landfall Wednesday night.

The storm touched down over St. Vincent Island, about 10 miles (15 km) west southwest of Apalachicola, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Mindy could cause as much as 6 inches of rainfall across the Florida Panhandle and portions of southern Georgia and South Carolina through Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. Scattered flash, urban, and small-stream floods are possible.

Forecasters said Mindy’s arrival occurred only a few hours after it had strengthened into a tropical storm Wednesday evening. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 75 km/h and was moving northeast at 33 km.

The tropical storm warning is in effect from Mexico Beach, Florida, to the Steinhatchee River to the east. That area is about 500 kilometers east of southern Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida made landfall late last month. The region is still recovering from the deadly and destructive Category 4 storm.

Mindy is the 13th-named storm of what has been another busy Atlantic hurricane season.

According to a tweet from Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach, the average date for the 13th-named storm from 1991-2020 was Oct. 24

New UN Test Ban Chief Says Goal Is To Bring Pact Into Force

By
Zoe Maven
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The new head of the U.N. nuclear test ban treaty organization says his goal is to have the treaty enter into force, which would require ratification by eight countries; the U.S., China, Iran, Israel, Egypt, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Speaking at a news conference Robert Floyd said he remains optimistic, but is also realistic, not underestimating the challenge.

Floyd said he wants to sit down with each of the eight countries to discuss why five of them signed the treaty and understand their “current circumstances” regarding the treaty.

He said he would like to ask them, “What pathway do you see going forward so they could ratify?”

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, known as the CTBT, has 196 member states — 185 that have signed the treaty and 170 that have ratified it. But the treaty has not entered into force because it needs ratification by the eight non-ratifying nations that had nuclear power reactors or research reactors when the U.N. General Assembly adopted the treaty in 1996.

Floyd, who was previously the director-general of the Australian Safeguards and Nonproliferation Office, became executive secretary of the treaty organization Aug. 1 after being elected over his predecessor, Lassina Zerbo, who was seeking an unprecedented third term.

Floyd said that “the most immediate future ratifications will not be from the eight” nuclear nations adding that there are about 25 countries that haven’t ratified the treaty.

He noted that only one nuclear test explosion has been carried out in the 21st century — by North Korea. “CTBT has effectively created a norm against nuclear testing, even though it is yet to become legally binding.

He added that today there are more than 13,400 nuclear weapons in existence, which is enough to destroy the world many times over.

Unionist Leader Says Brexit Deal Could Sink N Ireland Govt

By
Zoe Maven
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1

The leader of Northern Ireland’s largest British unionist party heightened post-Brexit political tensions on Thursday, saying the U.K.’s divorce deal with the European Union could collapse the Belfast government and trigger a new era of violence and instability.

Democratic Unionist Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said rules for Northern Ireland trade agreed by the U.K. and the EU last year must be fundamentally changed within weeks.

In a speech in Belfast, he said the agreement known as the Northern Ireland Protocol fundamentally undermined the economic integrity of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland’s position in it.

He said that the problems must be resolved in weeks and not months or years, and threatened that DUP ministers would quit Northern Ireland’s Protestant-Catholic power-sharing administration rather than implement the deal in its present form.

That would effectively collapse the government, which is run by the DUP and Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein.

He also said DUP ministers would boycott regular meetings with politicians in Ireland as a protest against the new rules.

The crisis straining U.K.-EU relations stems from trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc.

The divorce deal the two sides struck before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

Jordanian Court Upholds Convictions In Royal Plot

By
Zoe Maven
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A car transporting former Jordanian royal adviser Bassem Awadallah leaves the State Security Court after a verdict was announced in his trial alongside another official, accused of helping Prince Hamzah try to overthrow his half-brother King Abdullah II, in the capital Amman on July 12, 2021. - The court sentenced Awadallah and an ex-envoy to Saudi Arabia, Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, to 15 years in jail over a palace coup attempt that sparked a crisis in a kingdom seen as a regional oasis of stability. (Photo by Khalil MAZRAAWI / AFP) (Photo by KHALIL MAZRAAWI/afp/AFP via Getty Images)

A Jordanian court on Thursday upheld the conviction of two former senior officials on sedition and other charges connected to an alleged plot against the kingdom involving the half-brother of King Abdullah II.

Bassem Awadallah, who has U.S. citizenship and once served as a top aide to the king, and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, were sentenced to 15 years in prison in July by a state security court.

They were accused of conspiring with Hamzah, a former crown prince, and of seeking foreign assistance.

They had been swept up in a wave of arrests in April. Prince Hamzah, who was placed under house arrest that month, denied being part of any conspiracy and said he was being targeted for speaking out against corruption.

The king later announced that the royal rift had been resolved within the family, and Hamzah was never charged with anything.

Jordan is a close Western ally that hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees and has long been seen as an island of stability in a volatile region. But the rare palace feud exposed deep-rooted economic and social challenges in the country, which borders Israel, the occupied West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Awadallah’s U.S.-based lawyer, Michael Sullivan, had slammed the initial verdict, saying there had been a “complete lack of due process” and that his client had suffered “inhumane treatment, including beatings and psychological torture.” Jordanian prosecutors denied those allegations.

In a statement Thursday, Sullivan called the decision “a dark day for justice.”

He said Awadallah continues to be held in solitary confinement and denied contact with his family. Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor, urged the U.S. government to “continue its investigation” into Awadallah’s treatment and to demand the release of the full transcript of the closed trial.

Lebanon To Start Paying Cash Aid To Poor Families Next Month

By
Zoe Maven
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0

Lebanon’s government said Thursday it will start paying cash assistance next month to hundreds of thousands of poor families – in U.S. dollars – as the small nation sinks deeper into its economic crisis.

During a news conference in Beirut Minister of Tourism and Social Affairs Ramzi Moucharafieh said some 500,000 families will start receiving $20 a month for every family member up to a maximum of six persons,.

Moucharafieh said the payment will be made in U.S. dollars or the equivalent in Lebanese pounds at the black market rate. Economy and Trade Minister Raoul Nehme said the average payment for every family is expected to be about $93.

The move comes at a time when the government is planning to end subsidies on vital products such as fuel and some medicines that is widely expected to increase prices of most products.

The plan for payments comes as the Lebanese currency has been on a free fall since the economic meltdown began in October 2019.

The payment in U.S. dollars would guarantee that the poor families will be protected in case the pound drops further in the future.

The Lebanese pound is trading at about 20,000 to the dollar on the black market while the official rate remains as it was before the crisis at 1,507. The minimum monthly wage in Lebanon remains 675,000 pounds ($34).

The plan to end subsidies comes as the foreign currency reserves at the central bank have dropped dangerously low, from $30 billion at the start of the crisis in late 2019, to about $14 billion currently.

Moucharafieh said the number of families could be increased to 750,000 when the World Bank makes available a $246 million loan to give cash assistance to 160,000 more families and another program by the social affairs ministry that currently aids 36,000 families.

China, UK To Strengthen Cooperation On Climate Change

By
Zoe Maven
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0

China and the UK have expressed willingness to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in tackling global climate change and achieve positive results at the upcoming United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference and the Global Biodiversity Summit.

Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng and Alok Sharma, president-designate of the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), made the assurance during a video meeting.

COP26 will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, while the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) will be held in south China’s Kunming City online in October 2021 and offline in October 2022.

Han stressed that global solidarity and cooperation are needed to tackle climate change.

Expressing expectations for COP26, Han hopes that the climate conference will send a strong political signal for firmly upholding multilateralism, respecting multilateral rules and promoting actions.

He also expects that the delegates at COP26 will actively transform climate goals into specific policies and actions, and complete the negotiations to meet the Paris Agreement.

Both countries have maintained good cooperation in dealing with climate change and have set stronger carbon emission reduction targets to meet carbon neutrality, Han said, also calling both sides to exploit their advantages and strengthen dialogue related to climate change.

China, which holds the presidency of COP15, is willing to work with the UK to promote the success of the two conferences, Han said.

Hailing China’s efforts in tackling climate change, Sharma said the UK looks forward to expanding exchanges and cooperation in areas such as climate finance, energy and carbon trading and is willing to strengthen dialogue and coordination with China to achieve positive outcomes at COP26 and COP15.

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