Pakistan Protests, Wagner Group Classified as Terrorist Organization, Donald Trump Found Liable, Twitter Hacker Arrested

Pakistan was thrown into fresh political and social turmoil yesterday when former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on corruption charges. As we reported yesterday, Khan, who was the captain of the Pakistani cricket team before entering politics, was taken away by a crowd of riot police during a scheduled court appearance at the Islamabad High Court. His PTI party immediately called on his supporters to mobilise and protest the arrest and violent clashes have since broken out between security forces and supporters across the country. As of Wednesday morning, dozens of people have been wounded. And in the southwestern city of Quetta, at least one person was killed. Three of Pakistan's four provinces imposed emergency orders on gatherings. At time of writing, police had arrested almost 1000 people who they described as lawbreakers and miscreants. In Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, where the army has also been deployed to help maintain law and order, the attempts to control protests are not just limited to the street. Mobile Internet services have been disrupted across the country, and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has ordered restrictions on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. So what is the context to what's going on?

Imran Khan was prime minister from 2018 until he was ousted in a no confidence vote in April 2022. Since then, he's been calling for early elections and has led large protest rallies across the country, accusing Pakistan's powerful military of colluding with Western powers to bring him down. He's even accused a senior military officer of being behind last year's assassination attempt against him. The military denies all of these claims. Khan and his wife are accused of receiving millions of dollars worth of land as a bribe from a real estate mogul through a charitable trust. This is just one of many cases which he dismissed as politically motivated levelled against him since he was removed from office. In most cases, he could be barred from public office if convicted. This would obviously deal a major blow as he's hoping to return to power at the next election, set to be held by the end of this year. Imran Khan's spokesperson told the BBC that he expects the worst, adding that the army may push the country into chaos and anarchy. He said there is an economic crisis, there is a political crisis, there is a cost of livelihood crisis and consequently this occasion will be a catharsis for them to step out and I fear a fair amount of violence is going to be back. The social unrest comes at a precarious time for Pakistan, which has dangerously low foreign exchange reserves and is struggling to secure an International Monetary Fund bailout.

The UK is set to. Classify the Russian mercenary group, the Wagner Group, as a terrorist organization, according to media reports. The Wagner group has played a key role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including in the battle for Bakhmut and has also been involved in conflicts in Mali, the Central African Republic and elsewhere where they have been accused of carrying out atrocities. If the group is designated as a terrorist organization, it will become a criminal offence to be a member, attend meetings, encourage support or display its logo in public. It would also impose financial sanctions on Wagner, which has been suspected of helping move money out of the UK after Russian oligarchs were hit by sanctions. Meanwhile, in France, the French parliament unanimously passed a non-binding resolution that called on the EU to put the Wagner group on its official list of terrorist organisations. France's foreign minister admitted that the EU terrorist label wouldn't have a direct supplemental effect on Wagner, but added, We shouldn't underestimate the symbolic importance of such a designation, nor the dissuasive effect that it could have on states tempted to turn to the group for assistance.

In a bombshell verdict yesterday, former President Donald Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse of E! Jean Carroll in a manhattan Department store in the 1990s. The jury deliberated on the decision for just a few hours before all nine of them agreed that he was liable for battery and defamation. In total, the jury awarded her $5 million in damages. In response to the ruling, Carroll said today the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me, but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed. The former president responded to the case on truth Social saying,

Trump suggested that he could not have raped Carroll as she was not my type. This was despite confusing a picture of her with his former wife, Marla Marples. This case comes at a time when Trump is facing a variety of other legal troubles. It was only last month that he pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records over hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. He's also looking at criminal charges over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and is under federal investigation into how he acted in relation to the January 6th Capitol attack.

Back in July 2020, a number of high profile accounts on Twitter were hacked, including Floyd Mayweather, Mike Bloomberg, Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa. A generic tweet was posted on their account in which they claimed they were giving back to my community due to COVID 19. It was claimed that any bitcoin sent to them would be doubled. It's estimated that around 350 million Twitter users saw these tweets and thousands fell for the scam. The person behind this incident was Joseph James O'Connor, a British national residing in Liverpool. He was arrested and extradited to the United States to face charges alongside three other individuals involved in the Bitcoin scam. The US Justice Department additionally claims that he used the technology to stalk a minor. In essence, the hackers telephoned a small number of Twitter employees and convinced them to hand over internal login details, which then allowed the hackers to use internal tools to post the tweets. O'connor has pleaded guilty to hacking and could be sentenced to a total of 70 years in prison.