PM to appear before court in money laundering case today

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Chief Minister Punjab Hamza Shehbaz will appear before a special court in Lahore today (Saturday) in the Rs16 billion money laundering case filed against them.

Hamza’s counsel will present arguments for the confirmation of bail in the case filed against him and his family by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

It is worth mentioning that the court had extended the interim bail of PM Shehbaz and Hamza till June 4 (today) on the last hearing and had directed Hamza's lawyer to present his arguments today.

During the last hearing, the court took notice incomplete challan and ordered the prosecution to file a supplementary challan, completing all the requirements.

Meanwhile, PM Shehbaz and CM Hamza will also appear in an accountability court for a hearing of the Ashiyana Housing reference, in which the premier has already been indicted.

Strict security arrangements have been made around the courts ahead of PM's arrival.

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PM to appear before court in money laundering case today

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Chief Minister Punjab Hamza Shehbaz will appear before a special court in Lahore today (Saturday) in the Rs16 billion money laundering case filed against them.

Hamza’s counsel will present arguments for the confirmation of bail in the case filed against him and his family by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

It is worth mentioning that the court had extended the interim bail of PM Shehbaz and Hamza till June 4 (today) on the last hearing and had directed Hamza's lawyer to present his arguments today.

During the last hearing, the court took notice incomplete challan and ordered the prosecution to file a supplementary challan, completing all the requirements.

Meanwhile, PM Shehbaz and CM Hamza will also appear in an accountability court for a hearing of the Ashiyana Housing reference, in which the premier has already been indicted.

Strict security arrangements have been made around the courts ahead of PM's arrival.

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PM Shehbaz arrives in Quetta on day-long visit

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has arrived in Quetta on a day-long visit to Quetta and Gwadar.

Chief Minister Balochistan Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo welcomed the Prime Minister on his arrival.

During the visit, the Prime Minister will inaugurate Gwadar East Bay Expressway and will also take an aerial view of the Gwadar Port.

Later, the Prime Minister will address local notables and fishermen and talk to newsmen after meeting delegation of Chinese companies.

He will attend passing out ceremony of Staff College, Quetta as chief guest.

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Trade deficit crosses $43.33b in outgoing fiscal year

Data acquired from Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has revealed that Pakistan’s trade deficit crossed $43 billion in the first 11 months (July-May) of the outgoing fiscal year 2021-22, as the pace of increase in imports was more than the surge in exports due to the sky-high oil import bill.

Analysts fear that a record-high trade deficit may worsen the country’s current account balance and further weaken the rupee. They identified higher crude, petroleum products, edible oil, and other commodities prices in the international market as reasons behind the widening trade balance.

They further mentioned that growth in exports was reasonably good during the year, but it still has far less potential to reduce trade imbalances.

The first 11 months of the outgoing fiscal year witnessed a deficit of $15.88 billion or 57.85% higher than the $27.45 billion the economy racked up in the same period a year ago.

Imports surged to a whopping $72.18 billion while exports were at $28.848 billion in the July-May period. The imports were 60% more than exports, the PBS reported. In the same period last fiscal, imports were at $50 billion and exports at $22.576 billion. This depicts a 27.8% growth in exports and a 44.3% increase in imports.

Goods exports in May 2022 picked up 55.66% to $2.6 billion from $1.67 billion in the corresponding month a year ago, while imports rose by 25.4% to $6.64 billion from $5.297 billion in May 2021. The trade deficit in May 2022 swelled 11.5% to $4.04 billion from $3.63 billion in the same month a year ago.

Comparing trade performance with the previous month, goods exports in May 2022 were down 10.2% from $2.897 billion in April 2022. Imports during May 2022 were down by half a per cent from $6.679 billion in April 2022.

Amid the country’s external financing imbalance, the rupee devaluation did not significantly help boost exports.

It is worth mentioning that during the last fiscal year (2020-21) trade deficit stood at $31.1 billion or 34.3% higher than the $23.159 billion recorded in the fiscal year 2019-20. In FY21, imports clocked in at $56.405 billion and exports $25.30 billion.

During FY20, the exports hit $21.39 billion, while imports came in at $44.55 billion, a deficit of $23.159 billion.

The PBS also reported the services trade statistics for the first ten-month period (July-April 2021-22). During the period, the local companies hired more services from other countries than they provided to them.

The services trade deficit increased 71% to $3.58 billion in the period under review from $2.1 billion in the same period of FY21. The economy hired foreign companies’ services for $9.37 billion while selling its services abroad for $5.79 billion. In the same period of FY20, the services exports (money inflow) stood at $4.9 billion, and imports (outflow) were recorded at $6.99 billion. This represents an increase of 18.2% in exports and 34% in imports of services.

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Government mulls treason charges against Imran Khan

Federal government is reportedly planing to file treason cases against PTI Chairman Imran Khan and the chief ministers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan over PTI's May 25 march.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Interior, the cabinet’s special committee meeting was chaired by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.

Minister for Communications Maulana Asad Mahmood, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Kashmir Affairs Qamar Zaman Kaira, Minister for Economic Affairs Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Minister for Law Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar, including Interior Secretary Yousuf Naseem Khokhar and Islamabad Police IG Nasir Akbar were in attendance.

 During the meeting, the interior minister, interior secretary and IG Islamabad briefed the participants on PTI’s ‘Azadi March’ held on May 25.

The participants deliberated over filing a case under the charges of sedition against former prime minister Imran Khan and the chief ministers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan, and Gilgit-Baltistan, Khalid Khursheed, the statement read.

“However, the committee postponed the meeting to deliberate over the matter further till June 6 to present its final recommendations before the federal cabinet,” the statement read.

During the meeting, Sanaullah urged the committee to recommend the federal cabinet file a treason case against Imran Khan.

“PTI’s long march was a fitna and fasad March, instead of ‘Azadi March’ as it was an armed uprising on the capital. Therefore, I urged the committee to recommend filing a treason case under section 124(A) of the CrPC [Code of Criminal Procedure] against Imran Khan and chief ministers of KP and GB,” he said.

While briefing the committee, the interior minister said a plan was made to siege and invade the capital with an armed force on May 25.

“With planning, around 2,500 miscreants were already sent to Islamabad and they tried to capture D-Chowk before the arrival of Imran Khan,” he said.

Sanaullah further said Imran Khan had violated the Supreme Court’s order and asked workers to reach D-chowk.

The interior minister told the committee that a group of armed people not only attacked police, Rangers and FC personnel, but also set trees and a metro station on fire.

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Apple app store blocked fraud transactions worth $1.5b

American multinational technology company Apple has said it blocked potentially fraudulent transactions worth around $1.5 billion last year.

The Cupertino giant claimed that it wiped out over 1.6 million risky and vulnerable apps and app updates from defrauding users. In 2021, with the App Review process, apps from more than 107,000 new developers landed on the store.

Apple rejected 34,000 apps for privacy violations, while 157,000 apps were rejected for being described as copycats or misleading users to make in-app purchases.

The new announcement by the company comes at a time when the iPhone maker is facing scrutiny across the globe over its tight measures on the App Store.

In a new post on its newsroom site, Apple detailed the efforts taken by the App Store throughout 2021 to prevent potentially fraudulent transactions on the platform.

As per the report, Apple has blocked fraudulent transactions worth around $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 11,021 crore) on the App Store and blocked over 1.6 million risky and vulnerable apps and app updates from defrauding users through the course of last year.

The company affirmed that it used various measures including an App Review process that leverages machine learning and heuristics to discover and prevent frauds.

Apple's multilayers App Review process was used to extract details about the apps' potential issues and violations. Under this process, every app and update were cross-checked to ensure that they follow the App Store's guidelines related to privacy, security, and spam.

Apple claims that more than 107,000 new developers get their apps onto the store with App Review last year. Also, 835,000 apps and 805,000 app updates that are found to be problematic were banned. Developers of banned apps can file an appeal to the App Review Board.

More than 157,000 apps were rejected for being copycats, misleading users, or manipulating them into making in-app purchases. Similarly, over the same stretch of time, the App Review team of Apple halted more than 34,500 apps for including hidden or undocumented features.

"Sometimes, nefarious developers try to circumvent App Review by creating an app that appears one way, only to alter its concept or functionality once it's been approved," said Apple, adding that it shut down over 155,000 apps from the App Store for these violations. Apple said it rejected over 343,000 apps last year for requesting more user data than necessary or mishandling data they already collected.

Apple also revealed some figures concerning App Store reviews and ratings. The company said that it processed over 1 billion ratings and reviews in 2021 and blocked more than 94 million reviews and over 170 million ratings from publication. Around 610,000 reviews were taken down after publication over customer concerns.

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Police bust ‘FluBot’ cell phone scam

A mobile phone scam dubbed FluBot has been busted by the police of 11 countries that spread around the world via fake text messages, Dutch and EU police said.

Dutch cybercops led an operation in May targeting the malware, which infects Android phones using texts which pretend to be from a parcel firm or which say a person has a voicemail waiting.

Hackers would then steal bank details from infected phones, which automatically sent messages to other mobiles in the user’s contact list, passing on the scam like a flu virus.

 “To date, we have disconnected ten thousand victims from the FluBot network and prevented over 6.5 million spam text messages,” Dutch police said in a statement.

The EU’s police agency Europol said FluBot was among “the fastest-spreading mobile malware to date” and was “able to spread like wildfire due to its ability to access an infected smartphone’s contacts.” Police had made the malware “inactive” but are still hunting the culprits, it said.

 “This FluBot infrastructure is now under the control of law enforcement, putting a stop to the destructive spiral,” Europol said.

The countries involved in carrying out the investigation were Australia, the United States, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, coordinated by Europol’s cybercrime centre.

FluBot became one of the world’s most notorious cyberscams after it first emerged in December 2020, “wreaking havoc” around the world, Europol said.

The agency said the bug had compromised a “huge number of devices worldwide”, especially in Europe and the United States, with “major incidents” in Spain and Finland. Australian media said last year that FluBot was spreading “like a tsunami” with some users being bombarded by texts.

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