Month: April 2022

Last Sunday, Mr Khan’s ruling party blocked a no-confidence vote which he was widely expected to lose.

His government then dissolved parliament and called a snap election.

Furious opposition members launched an appeal with the Supreme Court to decide the legality of the blocked vote.

The Supreme Court said in a ruling late on Thursday that the vote should go ahead.

In response to this, Mr Khan announced that he had called a cabinet meeting and would address the nation on Friday evening.

“My message to the nation is that I have always fought for Pakistan and will continue to fight till the last ball,” he wrote in a Twitter post.

News of the court’s decision was met with cheers of jubilation on Thursday night by dozens of opposition members, who were gathered outside the court.

The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif, told local news outlets that the court had “definitely fulfilled the people’s expectations”.

But furious supporters of Mr Khan chanted anti-American slogans in reply, as police in riot gear separated the two sides.

The Supreme Court has now ordered parliament to reconvene on Saturday to proceed with the vote, which is expected to go against Mr Khan.

It is unclear what other options Mr Khan can exercise to avoid that outcome, unless he and his MPs decide to submit resignation en masse in an attempt to avoid the humiliation of a defeat, says BBC Urdu reporter Abid Hussain.

He says the united opposition, buoyed by the unanimous verdict, has declared it a win for Pakistan’s democracy, even though there have been rumours that they had quiet support from country’s powerful military.

In the event Mr Khan is ousted from power, the opposition parties are expected to appoint a new prime minister who can hold power until August 2023, when a new election is scheduled to be held.

In the days leading up to the vote, Mr Khan claimed without evidence that the political opposition was in a conspiracy with the US to remove him because of his friendly relations with Russia and China. Washington has strongly denied his claim.

On Sunday, opposition lawmakers tabled the no-confidence motion to parliament.

But parliament’s deputy speaker Qasim Suri – who also comes from Mr Khan’s political party – blocked the vote on grounds of this “foreign interference”, effectively foiling any attempt to oust Mr Khan from power.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court found that the move to block the vote was illegal, saying it was “contrary to the constitution and the law and had no legal effect”.

The court also ruled that Mr Khan’s decision to dissolve parliament was invalid. A dissolution of parliament would have mandated snap general elections to be held within 90 days, which Pakistan’s electoral commission had declared as not possible.

Mr Khan, a former star cricketer turned politician, swept into office in 2018 on a platform to tackle corruption and cronyism.

While he still has many supporters, he has lost some popular favour amid a rise in living costs, ballooning foreign debt and other scandals.

Analysts also say that Mr Khan may have lost support from the military, a crucial backer of any Pakistan leader.

The Supreme Court’s decision marks another chapter of political turmoil in Pakistan. None of the nation’s prime ministers have ever served out a full five-year term, due to various political scandals and power plays by the military in the past decades.

Military coups and removals of democratically-elected leaders have left Pakistan under direct military rule for 33 of the 75 years it has been an independent nation. However the current military leadership claims it is not involved in recent political developments.

Attorney General Letitia James requested he be fined $10,000 (£7,650) per day until he complies.

A judge previously ordered Mr Trump to provide the files as part of Ms James’s probe into the Trump Organization.

The former president’s lawyer called the motion “frivolous”.

The New York attorney general opened a civil inquiry in 2019 into claims that – before he took office – Mr Trump had inflated the value of his assets to banks when seeking loans.

Mr Trump and his family have denied wrongdoing and the former president has called the inquiry a “witch hunt”.

In February, a judge ruled that Mr Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr, 44, and daughter Ivanka Trump, 40, must answer questions under oath in the New York investigation into their business practices.

They appealed the order to appear but did not object to a separate part of the ruling that the former president comply with a subpoena “seeking documents and information”. Those were meant to be produced by 31 March.

In court documents filed on Thursday, the New York attorney general said Mr Trump has not produced the requested documents and has raised objections “based on grounds such as overbreadth, burden, and lack of particularity”.

“The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” Ms James said in a statement.

Ms James has repeatedly blamed Mr Trump for creating unnecessary delays in the legal process.

Mr Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said in a statement sent to Reuters that: “We are prepared to adamantly oppose the frivolous and baseless motion filed by the attorney general’s office.

“Our client has consistently complied with the many discovery requests served by the attorney general’s office over the years.”

The civil case is separate to a Manhattan criminal investigation into the Trump Organization’s practices.

Campaigners successfully challenged the government after it overturned a decision by Westminster Council to refuse permission for the monument.

The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust described the process to approve permission as “flawed”.

The charity, which launched the case, argued the project was the “right idea, wrong place”.

It opposed the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre being built in Victoria Tower Gardens, a small triangular Grade II-listed green space next to Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster.

The trust’s lawyer, Richard Drabble QC, argued it did not comply with a 1900 legal act affecting park land, which contains “a prohibition on using Victoria Tower Gardens as anything other than a garden open to the public”.

The monument was set to include 23 bronze fins and an underground learning centre.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans for the memorial in 2016 but disagreements over its meaning, public safety and potential harm to parkland have followed the project.

Siccar Point Energy – which put the project on hold when Shell pulled out – has now been acquired by Ithaca Energy in a $1.5bn (£1.125bn) deal.

The new company has pledged to develop Cambo and the nearby Rosebank field.

Campaigners have criticised plans to develop Cambo, warning exploiting it would exacerbate climate change.

Ithaca’s chief executive Alan Bruce said Cambo and Rosebank were “two of the largest undeveloped and most strategically important discoveries” in UK waters.

Developing them, Mr Bruce added, was a “huge opportunity to not only help secure the UK’s energy future for at least another quarter of a century, but also to create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the process.”

A spokeswoman for Shell, which still owns a 30% stake in Cambo, told the BBC that it had nothing to add to its statement in December when the oil giant said it had “concluded the economic case for investment in this project is not strong enough at this time, as well as having the potential for delays.”

The Cambo oil field is thought to contain 800 million barrels of oil, but its development has not yet received final approval from UK government regulators.

Scotland’s first minister has also said the project should not get the green light because of concern over climate change.

The Scottish government said that unlimited extraction of fossil fuels was not consistent with its climate obligations.

A spokesman added: “We have consistently called on the UK government to urgently re-assess all approved oil licenses where drilling has not yet commenced against our climate commitments.

“New oil and gas fields do not present a timely solution to improving our energy security in the coming years. Even once operational, the extracted fossil fuels will still be affected by the same global market forces which have contributed to the current energy price crisis.”

The UK government has been approached for comment.

In December Siccar Point Energy, the project’s majority stakeholder, said it was pausing the Cambo project one week after its partner Shell pulled out.

Shell had a 30% stake in the field but said the economic case for investment in the North Atlantic project was “not strong enough”.

Siccar Point Energy said it would continue talks with the UK government over the future of the field.

On Wednesday the UK government released its energy strategy, which covered plans to boost UK energy independence and tackle rising prices.

The plans included a new licensing round for oil and gas projects in the North Sea – something the Scottish government dismissed, saying it was not a long-term solution to energy concerns.

The UK government said its commitment to more North Sea projects recognised “the importance of these fuels to the transition and to energy security”, adding that producing gas in the UK had a lower carbon footprint than that imported from abroad.

But its climate advisers last month said UK-produced gas would be sold internationally and would barely reduce the consumer price.

Akshata Murty opted to claim non-dom status, meaning she does not have to pay UK tax on her overseas income.

Critics estimate she would have avoided about £4.5m in UK tax last year.

The non-dom scheme is legal but Labour says it would be “breathtaking hypocrisy” if the chancellor’s wife had reduced her tax bill as he raised taxes for millions of workers.

Responding to the chancellor’s claims that Labour was unfairly smearing his wife, a Labour source told the BBC: “The chancellor would do better to look a little closer to home.

“It’s clear that No 10 are the ones briefing against Rishi Sunak and after his failure to tackle the cost of living crisis you can understand why.”

In an interview with the Sun newspaper, Mr Sunak said he believed he was the victim of a campaign to discredit him, saying: “To smear my wife to get at me is awful.”

But No 10 has rejected newspaper reports that its staff are leaking damaging material about the chancellor to the media, calling the allegations “categorically untrue” and “baseless”.

Ms Murty, an Indian citizen, owns a 0.9% stake in Infosys, the software giant founded by her billionaire father. Her stake fluctuates in value but is estimated to be worth more than £500m.

She receives annual dividend payments on the shares, which last year were reported to be worth £11.6m .

On Thursday, it emerged that Ms Murty pays £30,000 a year to maintain her non-domicile status, meaning she does not pay tax in the UK on her overseas earnings.

It is not known whether she pays tax on her Infosys dividend payments in India or in another jurisdiction.

Under the rules, people can be granted non-dom status if they live in the UK but intend to return home.

Mr Sunak insisted his wife had not broken any rules in his Sun interview.

“Every single penny she earns in the UK she pays UK taxes on… and every penny that she earns internationally, for example in India, she would pay the full taxes on that,” he said.

He said it was unfair to attack his wife when she was a “private citizen”, adding: “I’m an elected politician. So I know what I signed up for.”

Mr Sunak said his wife was domiciled in India and would eventually return there to care for her parents as they got older.

Labour has written to the chancellor to ask if his wife paid all foreign tax in India or in a tax haven such as the Cayman Islands. The party has also asked the chancellor if he benefits from his wife’s tax arrangements.

The Liberal Democrats have urged Mr Sunak to ban the partners of ministers from claiming non-dom status, calling it a “loophole”.