Foreign News
Imran Khan jailed for 14 years in corruption case

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan has been sentenced to 14 years in prison over a corruption case, in the latest of a series of charges laid against him.
It is the longest valid prison sentence the cricket star-turned-politician, who has been detained since August 2023, has received.
He has faced charges in over 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts – all of which he decried as politically motivated.
The latest case has been described by Pakistani authorities as the largest the country has seen – though the country has seen huge financial scandals in the past, some of which involved former leaders.
Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were accused of receiving a parcel of land as a bribe from a real estate tycoon through the Al-Qadir Trust, which the couple had set up while he was in office.
In exchange, investigators said, Khan used £190m ($232m) repatriated by the UK’s National Crime Agency to pay the tycoon’s court fines.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party argued that the land was donated to the trust for a spiritual education centre and was not used for Khan’s personal gain.
In a post on X, PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said that the former prime minister “has done no wrong” and that this was a “politically motivated unfair trial”.
“But [Imran Khan] will not give in, he will not give up, he will not break,” he wrote.
Friday’s verdict comes after multiple delays as Khan’s party held talks with the government.
After his conviction on Friday, Khan told reporters in the courtroom that he would “neither make any deal nor seek any relief.”
Khan’s prison sentence of 14 years is the maximum that could be given in the case. He has also been fined more than £4,000.
His wife has been sentenced to seven years and fined more than £2,000. Bibi, who has been out on bail since last October, was taken into custody in court after her sentence was announced.
In 2023, Khan was sentenced to three years in prison for not declaring money earned from selling gifts he had received while in office.
Last year, Khan received a 14-year jail sentence over the selling of state gifts, and another 10 years for leaking state secrets. Both those sentences were suspended months later.
Despite being in jail and barred from holding public office, Khan still looms large over Pakistan’s political scene. Last year’s election saw candidates backed by Imran Khan winning the most number of seats out of all the parties.
Khan’s prosecution has triggered large-scale protests by his supporters – which have been met with a crackdown from authorities. Thousands of protesters have been arrested and many injured in clashes with the police.
[BBC]
Foreign News
Myanmar military announces temporary truce as quake death toll passes 3,000

Myanmar’s governing military has declared a unilateral, temporary ceasefire in the country’s civil war to facilitate rescue efforts after last week’s powerful earthquake, as state television reported the death toll from the disaster had surpassed 3,000.
MRTV said that the truce would last from Wednesday until April 22 and was aimed at making quake relief efforts easier.
The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule. Those groups must refrain from attacking the state, or regrouping, or else the military will take “necessary” measures, the army said in a statement.
The death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar rose to 3,003, and more than 4,500 were injured, MRTV reported late on Wednesday.
In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll from the quake rose to 22, with hundreds of buildings damaged and 72 people missing.
In an incident underlining the challenge of delivering relief at a time of civil war in Myanmar, the military said its troops fired warning shots after a Chinese Red Cross convoy failed to pull over as it travelled in a conflict zone.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media that its rescue team and supplies were safe after the incident on Tuesday.
Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson, said at a news conference that Beijing hoped “all factions and parties in Myanmar will prioritise earthquake relief efforts, ensuring the safety of rescue personnel and supplies from China and other countries”.
“It’s necessary to keep transportation routes for relief efforts open and unobstructed,” Guo said.

Military government spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said the Chinese Red Cross had not informed authorities it was in a conflict zone on Tuesday night, and a security team fired shots in the air after the convoy, which included local vehicles, failed to stop.
The military has struggled to run Myanmar following its coup against the elected civilian government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, reducing the economy and basic services, including healthcare, to tatters after civil war broke out.
The United Nations said more than 28 million people in the six regions were affected by the earthquake and that it put in place $12m in emergency funding for food, shelter, water, sanitation, mental health support and other services.
As hopes of finding more survivors were fading on Wednesday, rescuers pulled two men alive from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, and a third from a guesthouse in another city – five days after the magnitude 7.7 quake. But most teams were finding only bodies.
The rural parts of the hard-hit Sagaing region, mostly under the control of armed resistance groups fighting the military government, are among the most challenging for aid agencies to reach.
Earlier, Human Rights Watch urged the military government to allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid and lift curbs impeding aid agencies, saying donors should channel aid through independent groups rather than only the authorities.
“Myanmar’s junta cannot be trusted to respond to a disaster of this scale,” Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a report. “Concerned governments and international agencies need to press the junta to allow full and immediate access to survivors, wherever they are.”
[Aljazeera]
Foreign News
Death sentence for three Americans over DR Congo coup attempt overturned

Three Americans convicted for their role in a failed coup in Democratic Republic of Congo last year have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the presidency has said.
They were among 37 people sentenced to death last September by a military court.
The three were accused of leading an attack on both the presidential palace and the home of an ally of President Félix Tshisekedi last May.
The overturning of the sentences comes ahead of a visit to DR Congo by the newly appointed US senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos.
Boulos, father-in-law to President Donald Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, is expected to arrive in Kinshasa on Thursday on a trip that will also take him to Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
The US has not declared the three Americans to be wrongfully jailed in DR Congo but the State Department said previously there have been talks between the countries over the matter.
The three were convicted of criminal conspiracy, terrorism and other charges, which they denied.
[BBC]
Foreign News
Netanyahu nominates new Israeli spy chief despite court order

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated a former Navy commander to head the country’s domestic security services, despite the courts having blocked his bid to fire the previous head of Shin Bet.
Netanyahu’s office announced on Monday that he had nominated Vice Admiral Eli Sharvit to lead the agency, which surveils attacks from abroad and at home, including by armed groups based in Palestine and Lebanon. However, a halt to the sacking of Ronen Bar as head of Shin Bet, ordered by the Supreme Court, remains in place.
[Aljazeera]
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