Category: z-Exclude

NEW YORK – Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical chief executive officer who served almost seven years in prison for securities fraud, is earning US$2,500 (S$3,370) a month consulting for a law firm and living with his sister in Queens, New York, according to the US Probation Office. Shkreli, 40, has had a mostly “positive adjustment” since being released from prison in 2022 and is currently employed by the Law Office of Christopher K. Johnston, according to a probation report filed…

(Washington, DC) – President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and legislators from his party have effectively paralyzed the country’s independent transparency and data protection agency by blocking nominations to fill vacant seats on its board, Human Rights Watch said today. The Senate should move swiftly to fill the three vacant seats. The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Data Protection (INAI) is the independent agency charged with enforcing transparency and data protection rules in Mexico. It has played an…

SINGAPORE – Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust (Manulife US Reit) has entered into a letter of intent to sell Phipps Tower in Atlanta, Georgia, to its sponsor The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. The purchase consideration should be no more than the average of two independent valuations commissioned by the Reit’s manager and its trustee, DBS Trustee. On Wednesday, the Reit manager said its proposed divestment comes as part of its ongoing strategic review to “enhance unitholder value”. It intends…

(Brussels) – European governments risk relying too much on voluntary audit and certification initiatives to protect rights in European Union minerals supply chains, Human Rights Watch said in a question-and-answer document released today. EU laws, including the draft Critical Raw Minerals Act released in March 2023, need to recognize that compliance with voluntary standards is no substitute for rigorous regulatory scrutiny and enforcement. Audit and certifications initiatives purport to assess and certify companies’ respect for human rights and the environment…

Most of us wouldn’t argue that private companies can’t run their businesses the way they prefer. The gold standard has been the right to refuse service to anyone — something that covers everything from refusing paper checks from certain customers to booting people off social media services for refusing to stop behaving like inveterate assholes. When private companies do things, they rarely mess with constitutional protections. There are guardrails in place to prevent discrimination against minorities and other historically oppressed…

SINGAPORE – Financial institutions are required to alert the police and the financial regulator if they suspect that a transaction could be related to a crime, although there is no threshold set for when they must flag these activities. They are also required to step up their measures to manage the higher risks of money laundering and terrorism financing posed by customers such as wealthy individuals, said a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) spokesman on Tuesday. MAS said financial institutions…

By Harun Maruf  The United States military has confirmed conducting a new airstrike against al-Shabab militants in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia. The airstrike took place in Jilib town on Saturday in collaboration with the Somali federal government, according to a press statement released Monday by the U.S. Africa Command known as AFRICOM. “The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement said. The AFRICOM statement did not say whether any of the…

A wave of uncertainty swept across India’s already unstable aviation sector as Go First, a once thriving private airline owned by the Wadia Group, announced a halt to its operations, making it the 11th airline to cease its services in the last decade. The budget airline opted for voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), delivering a significant jolt to the industry. The primary reason for this drastic move lies in the alleged failure of US-based…

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is focused on avoiding the mistakes that plagued past programs like the F-35, as the service officially kicks off its effort to build a sixth-generation fighter, Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday. That includes ensuring the Air Force has access to all the sustainment data it needs from the contractor building the Next Generation Air Dominance platform, Kendall told reporters at a breakfast roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “We’re not going to repeat the,…

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has accused Sweden of meddling in his country’s elections as the vote for a new president heads into a runoff next Sunday. Soylu, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party, accused election monitors from Sweden’s Oy ve Otesi (Vote and Beyond) of putting pressure on voters at polling places. “The Swedish state is funding this Oy ve Otesi association. Sending it money, but why? To interfere in the election in Turkiye. It is so obvious and clear,” the minister told a campaign rally in Istanbul, as quoted by the Aydinlik newspaper. Soylu is known for his harsh criticism of the West. He accused the United States on Wednesday of trying to influence the election, which will see Erdogan and his opposition challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, face off in the second round on May 28. END OF CONTENT

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russian forces weren’t occupying Bakhmut, casting doubt on Moscow’s insistence that the eastern Ukrainian city had fallen. Responding to a reporter’s question about the status of the city at the Group of Seven summit in Japan, Zelenskyy said: “Bakhmut is not occupied by the Russian Federation as of today.” “We are not throwing people (away) to die,” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian through an interpreter. “People are the treasure. I clearly…

Source: Saudi Press Agency Jeddah, May 21, 2023, SPA — The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America announce that on May 20, 2023, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, representatives of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces signed an Agreement on a Short-Term Ceasefire and Humanitarian Arrangements. The short-term ceasefire, which enters into force 48 hours after the signing of the Agreement, shall remain in effect for seven days and may be extended with the…

A suburban man whose federal life sentence was commuted by then-President Obama in 2015 has been charged with three counts of attempted murder in connection with a recent shooting on Interstate 57. Alton Mills, 54, of Evergreen Park, is being held without bond at the Cook County Jail, Illinois State Police said in a news release on Friday. Mills was arrested for a shooting that occurred on Sunday near the I-57 northbound entrance ramp from 147th Street in Posen, according…

A temporary ceasefire in Sudan has been agreed as fighting between two warring factions entered its sixth week. Previous truce attempts between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have tended to collapse within minutes of beginning. But the new deal will be enforced by a “ceasefire monitoring mechanism,” according to a US-Saudi statement. As part of the seven-day humanitarian ceasefire, Sudanese officials have agreed to restore essential services. Fighting between the two sides has plunged the country into…

SINGAPORE – AusGroup has applied to the Singapore High Court to wind up the company, saying it is unable to pay debts and that the “purpose of judicial management cannot be achieved”. In a bourse filing on May 19, the company added that it has applied to the court for its discharge from judicial management and to release the joint and several judicial managers from liability. The date of hearing for the applications will be fixed by the court, it…

The International Criminal Court says it is “undeterred” by Russia putting its chief prosecutor on a wanted list. It comes two months after the ICC’s Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a statement on Saturday, the court said the move was an attempt to undermine its “lawful mandate to ensure accountability for the gravest crimes”. Russia, which is not an ICC member, previously described the warrant against Mr Putin as being “void”. Mr Khan,…