Turkey indicts six more Saudis over Khashoggi murder

Turkish prosecutors have indicted six new Saudis suspected of involvement in the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, local media reported on Monday.

Istanbul prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for two of the suspects and up to five years in jail for the remaining four, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

The Washington Post contributor, Khashoggi, 59, was killed and dismembered at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, in a case that tarnished the reputation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Khashoggi went inside the consulate to obtain paperwork for his marriage to Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz.

The six Saudi suspects, indicted just days ahead of the second anniversary of the journalist’s death, are not in Turkey and should be tried in absentia, according to local reports.

In a separate case launched in July, an Istanbul court began to try in absentia 20 other Saudis over the murder, including two former aides to the Saudi prince.

Turkish prosecutors claim Saudi deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and the royal court’s media czar Saud al-Qahtani led the operation and gave orders to a Saudi hit team.

Khashoggi was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a 15-man Saudi squad inside the consulate, according to Turkish officials. His remains have not been found.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the order to murder Khashoggi came from “the highest levels” of the Saudi government but has never directly blamed Prince Mohammed.

In September, a Saudi court overturned five death sentences issued after a closed-door trial in Saudi Arabia that ended last year, sentencing them to 20 years in prison instead.Twenty Saudi nationals are already on trial in an Istanbul court for Khashoggi’s killing. CNN Turk said the indictment against the six suspects, including two consulate workers and four other Saudi nationals, was sent to the court to be combined with the main case.

Two of the suspects, a vice consul and an attache, were facing life jail sentences for premeditated murder with monstrous intent, the broadcaster said.

The four others, who CNN Turk said had arrived in Istanbul on Oct 10-11, 2018, more than a week after the killing, were charged with destroying, concealing or tampering with evidence, which carries a sentence of up to five years in jail.

The Istanbul prosecutor’s office did not immediately provide comment on the media reports.

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Trump on defensive as tax report makes bombshell revelations ahead of debate

After a bolt-from-the-blue tax revelation report, President Donald Trump took a defensive mode on the evening of his first televised debate against Joe Biden on Monday.

The recent tax bombshell showed he has been avoiding paying almost any federal income tax for years.

The scoop from The New York Times, reporting that Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and none at all for 10 of the previous 15 years, was a shot to the jugular of the self-described billionaire.

Trump, who portrays himself as a hard-nosed businessman on a mission to drain the Washington swamp, dismissed the Times story – which the newspaper says is based on examination of his long-secret tax returns.

"The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information," he tweeted Monday.

But with several new polls on Sunday once again suggesting Biden has the upper hand, the Republican goes into the debate in Cleveland on Tuesday ever more on the defensive.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll put Biden 10 points ahead of Trump nationally, at 53 to 43% support among registered voters, while an NBC News-Marist poll gave the Democrat a similar lead of 54 to 44 in key swing state Wisconsin – which Trump had carried in 2016.

Trump's Democratic challenger is homing in on the president´s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his controversial rush to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But the tax report threatens the core of Trump's political identity – that vaunted ability to connect with blue-collar voters.

Though its impact on voters was still unclear, the Times report hands Biden piles of new ammunition.

And the Democrat's campaign immediately opened fire with an ad comparing typical income tax payments by ordinary Americans, such as $10,216 for nurses, to that reportedly paid by Trump the year he took office: $750.

Billionaire or bust?

The Times story raises new doubts about whether Trump is really the man with the Midas touch as he claims, or a hapless spendthrift owing a lot of people money.

He is the first president in years not to make his tax returns public, claiming he can´t because he is under audit.

In his trademark brash style, he also once boasted that getting out of taxes "makes me smart."

On Monday, he tweeted: "I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits."

But according to the Times, Trump´s tax returns show he managed large-scale tax avoidance partly because his supposedly successful businesses – particularly the golf courses – are such money losers.

The Times said that Trump benefited from a $72.9 million tax refund now subject to an official audit. He also reportedly took tax deductions on residences, aircraft, and $70,000 in hairstyling for television appearances.

And in a detail that raises the issue of potentially serious conflicts of interest, the Times said that loans and debts of $421 million personally guaranteed by Trump are largely due for repayment in what would be his second term.

A former Democratic presidential candidate, billionaire Tom Steyer, tweeted that in 2017 he paid $32 million in federal taxes. Trump is "a cheat, and he stinks at business. In November he´s going from the White House to the outhouse," he wrote.

Drug test demand

Even without the fresh fuel of the tax story, Tuesday´s Trump-Biden debate was destined to be a brutal affair.

Trump is intensifying the longtime smearing of his rival´s mental state. One of his new catchphrases is that Biden "doesn´t know he´s alive."

And as the debate nears, Trump has said they should both take a drug test.

"Joe Biden just announced that he will not agree to a Drug Test. Gee, I wonder why?" Trump tweeted Monday.

When asked by reporters about the demand over the weekend, Biden laughed before declining to comment.

Trump on Monday tried to strengthen his claims that the government has responded strongly to the Covid-19 crisis, announcing the distribution of 150 million rapid tests that are able to deliver a result in 15 minutes.

Over 205,000 people in America have died from the virus, by far the highest death toll in the world.

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Turkey indicts six more Saudis over Khashoggi murder

Turkish prosecutors have indicted six new Saudis suspected of involvement in the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, local media reported on Monday.

Istanbul prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for two of the suspects and up to five years in jail for the remaining four, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

The Washington Post contributor, Khashoggi, 59, was killed and dismembered at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, in a case that tarnished the reputation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Khashoggi went inside the consulate to obtain paperwork for his marriage to Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz.

The six Saudi suspects, indicted just days ahead of the second anniversary of the journalist’s death, are not in Turkey and should be tried in absentia, according to local reports.

In a separate case launched in July, an Istanbul court began to try in absentia 20 other Saudis over the murder, including two former aides to the Saudi prince.

Turkish prosecutors claim Saudi deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri and the royal court’s media czar Saud al-Qahtani led the operation and gave orders to a Saudi hit team.

Khashoggi was strangled and his body cut into pieces by a 15-man Saudi squad inside the consulate, according to Turkish officials. His remains have not been found.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the order to murder Khashoggi came from “the highest levels” of the Saudi government but has never directly blamed Prince Mohammed.

In September, a Saudi court overturned five death sentences issued after a closed-door trial in Saudi Arabia that ended last year, sentencing them to 20 years in prison instead.Twenty Saudi nationals are already on trial in an Istanbul court for Khashoggi’s killing. CNN Turk said the indictment against the six suspects, including two consulate workers and four other Saudi nationals, was sent to the court to be combined with the main case.

Two of the suspects, a vice consul and an attache, were facing life jail sentences for premeditated murder with monstrous intent, the broadcaster said.

The four others, who CNN Turk said had arrived in Istanbul on Oct 10-11, 2018, more than a week after the killing, were charged with destroying, concealing or tampering with evidence, which carries a sentence of up to five years in jail.

The Istanbul prosecutor’s office did not immediately provide comment on the media reports.

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Trump on defensive as tax report makes bombshell revelations ahead of debate

After a bolt-from-the-blue tax revelation report, President Donald Trump took a defensive mode on the evening of his first televised debate against Joe Biden on Monday.

The recent tax bombshell showed he has been avoiding paying almost any federal income tax for years.

The scoop from The New York Times, reporting that Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017, and none at all for 10 of the previous 15 years, was a shot to the jugular of the self-described billionaire.

Trump, who portrays himself as a hard-nosed businessman on a mission to drain the Washington swamp, dismissed the Times story – which the newspaper says is based on examination of his long-secret tax returns.

"The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information," he tweeted Monday.

But with several new polls on Sunday once again suggesting Biden has the upper hand, the Republican goes into the debate in Cleveland on Tuesday ever more on the defensive.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll put Biden 10 points ahead of Trump nationally, at 53 to 43% support among registered voters, while an NBC News-Marist poll gave the Democrat a similar lead of 54 to 44 in key swing state Wisconsin – which Trump had carried in 2016.

Trump's Democratic challenger is homing in on the president´s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his controversial rush to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But the tax report threatens the core of Trump's political identity – that vaunted ability to connect with blue-collar voters.

Though its impact on voters was still unclear, the Times report hands Biden piles of new ammunition.

And the Democrat's campaign immediately opened fire with an ad comparing typical income tax payments by ordinary Americans, such as $10,216 for nurses, to that reportedly paid by Trump the year he took office: $750.

Billionaire or bust?

The Times story raises new doubts about whether Trump is really the man with the Midas touch as he claims, or a hapless spendthrift owing a lot of people money.

He is the first president in years not to make his tax returns public, claiming he can´t because he is under audit.

In his trademark brash style, he also once boasted that getting out of taxes "makes me smart."

On Monday, he tweeted: "I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits."

But according to the Times, Trump´s tax returns show he managed large-scale tax avoidance partly because his supposedly successful businesses – particularly the golf courses – are such money losers.

The Times said that Trump benefited from a $72.9 million tax refund now subject to an official audit. He also reportedly took tax deductions on residences, aircraft, and $70,000 in hairstyling for television appearances.

And in a detail that raises the issue of potentially serious conflicts of interest, the Times said that loans and debts of $421 million personally guaranteed by Trump are largely due for repayment in what would be his second term.

A former Democratic presidential candidate, billionaire Tom Steyer, tweeted that in 2017 he paid $32 million in federal taxes. Trump is "a cheat, and he stinks at business. In November he´s going from the White House to the outhouse," he wrote.

Drug test demand

Even without the fresh fuel of the tax story, Tuesday´s Trump-Biden debate was destined to be a brutal affair.

Trump is intensifying the longtime smearing of his rival´s mental state. One of his new catchphrases is that Biden "doesn´t know he´s alive."

And as the debate nears, Trump has said they should both take a drug test.

"Joe Biden just announced that he will not agree to a Drug Test. Gee, I wonder why?" Trump tweeted Monday.

When asked by reporters about the demand over the weekend, Biden laughed before declining to comment.

Trump on Monday tried to strengthen his claims that the government has responded strongly to the Covid-19 crisis, announcing the distribution of 150 million rapid tests that are able to deliver a result in 15 minutes.

Over 205,000 people in America have died from the virus, by far the highest death toll in the world.

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ADB approves $300 million policy-based loan for Pakistan to strengthen finance sector

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday approved a $300 million policy-based loan to help Pakistan strengthen its finance sector by supporting measures to develop competitive capital markets and encouraging private sector investment in the country, said a statement issued by the lender.

“Capital markets act as a major catalyst in transforming the economy into a more efficient, innovative, and competitive marketplace,” said ADB Senior Project Officer Sana Masood.

“The reforms proposed under this programme will lower the cost of financial intermediation and facilitate private sector investment to generate sustainable growth and job opportunities. It will also mitigate the negative impact of capital market instability on the economy and help to diversify Pakistan’s financial system,” Masood was quoted in the statement.

“Institutional strengthening of the debt management office will develop the government bond market on a sustainable basis,” said ADB Principal Financial Sector Specialist Syed Ali-Mumtaz H Shah. “Establishing a special tribunal for capital market-related cases would significantly enhance investor confidence in the equity market.”

The bank said that it has supported the development of Pakistan’s financial markets through three policy-based loans in the last two decades. It added that the Third Capital Market Development Programme will increase the “size and capacity of capital markets and support reforms that enhance the institutional and regulatory capacity of relevant government bodies”.

The bank believes that the programme will diversify Pakistan's investor base, develop important market infrastructure such as surveillance systems, and improve the supply of alternative financial instruments. It also said that the programme will also help the government to strengthen its debt management proficiency.

“The government and ADB have agreed to anchor the program to the design of a long-term national capital market master plan to build strong government ownership and coordination across the agencies,” said the statement. It also said that the lender will also provide an $800,000 technical assistance to support the implementation of key reform actions under the programme.

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New Zealand releases details of Pakistan tour

The cricket authorities in New Zealand on Tuesday released details of Pakistan’s tour during which the green shirts will play three T20Is and two Test matches.

In a statement, New Zealand Cricket also announced the schedule of matches with the West Indian team which will begin its tour with a Twenty20 match at Eden Park on Nov 27.

The New Zealand government had green-lighted the West Indies and Pakistan tours and was also expected to approve white-ball tours by Australia and Bangladesh in February and March, the cricket board said.

"We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the New Zealand government for helping us navigate this complex process," New Zealand Cricket Chief Executive David White said in a statement.

"Hosting these tours is incredibly important to us for two reasons: international cricket brings in revenue that funds the entire game of cricket in New Zealand and, also, it's crucial that we look after the fans of the game and sport in general, especially during these difficult times."

Pakistan tour of New Zealand

Twenty20 matches

1st T20I, Eden Park (Auckland) on 18 Dec
2nd T20I, Seddon Park (Hamilton) on 20 Dec
3rd T20I, McLean Park (Napier) on 22 Dec

Test matches

1st Test, Bay Oval (Mount Maunganui) 26-30 Dec
2nd Test, Hagley Oval (Christchurch) 03-07 Jan

After three T20s against West Indies, New Zealand play the first test against the Caribbeans at Seddon Park in Hamilton from Dec. 3 and the second at Wellington's Basin Reserve from Dec. 11.

The Black Caps will also play three T20s against Pakistan before their test series, with the first test from Dec. 26 at Tauranga and the second from Jan. 3 in Christchurch.

New Zealand's scheduled white-ball tour to Australia in January was postponed last week, but Australia are pencilled in for five T20s in New Zealand from Feb. 22, with Bangladesh to play three one-day internationals and three T20s from March 13.

With no international cricket in New Zealand for the bulk of January and February, players will be released to appear in the "Super Smash" domestic T20 competition.

White said NZC would cut the matches' general admission ticket prices by almost half to acknowledge the "challenging circumstances in which many New Zealanders had found themselves in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis."

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15-year-old boy martyred, four injured in Indian firing along LoC: ISPR

A 15-year-old boy embraced martyrdom and four got injured when Indian troops resorted to unprovoked ceasefire violation along the Line of Control (LoC) in Broh and Tandar sectors, according to Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR).

The military’s media wing said the Indian forces targeted civilian population which resulted in the martyrdom of 15 years old boy and injuries to four others.

“Pakistan Army troops responded effectively to Indian firing and targeted their posts,” it added.
Indian forces along the LoC and the Working Boundary (WB) have been continuously targeting civilian populated areas with artillery fire, heavy-caliber mortars and automatic weapons.

This year, India has committed 2,340 ceasefire violations to date, resulting in the martyrdom of 18 people and serious injuries to 187 innocent civilians, said FO Spokesperson Zahid Hafiz Chaudhry.

Last week, Foreign diplomats and defence attaches of 24 countries posted in Pakistan visited the Line of Control (LoC) to inspect India’s border violations.

Foreign diplomats and defence attaches of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa, Palestine, European Union, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Australia, Iran, Iraq, UK, Italy, Poland, Germany, France, Egypt, Switzerland, Libya, Afghanistan and other countries had visited the LoC at the Pakistani side.

Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG-ISPR) Major General Iftikhar Babar had briefed the visiting delegation about the ceasefire violations from the Indian side

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