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U.S. Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine

(CTN News) – Two sources familiar with the agreement have confirmed that secret arms sales from Pakistan to the United States helped to secure a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year.
Pakistan’s involvement in a conflict it was pressured by the U.S. to take sides on may be seen in the arms sales made to support the Ukrainian military.
This disclosure sheds light on the kind of covert dealings between financial and political elites that are rarely made public despite the fact that average citizens ultimately foot the bill.
Protests have been going on for quite some time now throughout the country because of the IMF’s insistence on severe structural policy adjustments as a condition of its recent bailout. In retaliation, Pakistan has experienced a spate of major attacks during the past few weeks.
There has been a political crisis in the country for almost a year and a half, and the current protests are just the latest chapter. With American support, the Pakistani military orchestrated a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022.
State Department personnel had privately voiced their displeasure with Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” attitude on the Ukraine crisis from Khan’s administration, leading up to his removal. They claimed “all would be forgiven” if Khan were deposed and foretold doom if he continued in power.
With Khan out of the way, Pakistan has become an important ally for the United States and its partners in the fight, and the United States has recently repaid the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its loan.
The new administration in Pakistan was given enough time to implement a widespread crackdown on civil society and to imprison Khan thanks to the emergency loan that allowed them to delay elections indefinitely.
“Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident researcher at the Middle East Institute and expert on Pakistan, told The Intercept.
Pakistan is a major manufacturer of standard weapons used in low-intensity conflicts. Open-source news sources on the battle have shown that the Ukrainian military is reportedly using shells and other ordinance manufactured in Pakistan despite neither the United States nor Pakistan acknowledging the arrangement.
A member of the Pakistani military revealed records describing the weaponry deals to The Intercept earlier this year. From the summer of 2022 until the spring of 2023, the records detail U.S. and Pakistani agreements regarding the sale of munitions.
An American brigadier general’s signature was verified against his public mortgage records in the United States; corresponding Pakistani and American documents were compared for discrepancies; and previously unreported disclosures of Pakistani arms sales to the United States were reviewed to ensure the authenticity of other documents.
According to the records, the arms transfers were facilitated by Global Military Products, a division of Global Ordnance, a contentious arms trader whose connections to shady people in Ukraine were the focus of a recent New York Times piece.
U.S.-brokered arrangements to purchase Pakistani military equipment for Ukraine are documented by contracts, licencing, and requisition documents signed by American and Pakistani parties.
Sources familiar with the arrangement and a related document confirm that the State Department took the IMF into confidence regarding the undisclosed weapons deal, which contributed significantly to securing the bailout from the IMF.
Pakistan was having trouble meeting the IMF’s financing and refinancing targets connected to the country’s debt and foreign investment that were necessary to secure the loan. The sale of firearms was a lifesaver, with the money made from ammunition exports to Ukraine more than covering the shortfall.
The loan reduced economic pressure, allowing the military government to postpone elections and intensify the assault on Khan’s supporters and other dissenters. Elections could be a moment of truth in the protracted aftermath of Khan’s removal. The United States mostly kept quiet as massive human rights crimes in Pakistan cast doubt on the survival of that country’s shaky democracy.
“The premise is that we have to save Ukraine, that we have to save this frontier of democracy on the eastern perimeter of Europe,” Rafiq added. This country in Southeast Asia is going to have to foot the bill.
So they can be a dictatorship and their people can be denied the freedoms that every other celebrity in this country is saying we need to support Ukraine for — the freedom to choose our leaders, the freedom to have civic freedoms, the rule of law, and all these other things that may differentiate many European countries and consolidated democracies from Russia.
The Intercept reports that on May 23, 2023, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Masood Khan, met with the United States’ assistant secretary of state, Donald Lu, at the State Department in Washington, D.C. to discuss how Pakistan’s arms sales to Ukraine could improve the country’s financial standing in the eyes of the International Monetary Fund.
The discussion was scheduled for a Tuesday in order to iron out any kinks before the meeting between U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Blome and then-Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was to take place in Islamabad the following Friday.
During their discussion on May 23rd, Lu informed Khan that the United States had cleared payment for Pakistan’s armaments production and that he would inform the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in confidence about the programme.
The IMF estimates the finance gap at around $2 billion, and Lu admitted that the Pakistanis estimated the armament contributions to be worth $900 million. He informed Khan that the exact number the United States would report to the IMF was still up for discussion.
According to a source in Pakistan Today, Dar brought up the IMF issue with Blome at their meeting on Friday, and “the meeting highlighted the significance of addressing the stalled IMF deal and finding effective solutions to Pakistan’s economic challenges.”
Following the story’s release, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement calling the allegation “baseless and fabricated.” The spokesperson claimed that “difficult but essential economic reforms” were implemented thanks to the bailout “negotiated successfully between Pakistan and the IMF.”
To paint these talks in any other light would be dishonest. Another statement from the spokesman read as follows: “Pakistan maintains a policy of strict neutrality in the dispute between Ukraine and Russia and, in that context, does not provide any arms and ammunition to them.” There are usually stringent end user restrictions attached to Pakistan’s defence exports.
A State Department representative flatly denied that the United States had any hand in securing the loan. The IMF review was a topic of conversation between Pakistan and IMF officials, the spokeswoman said. We continue to urge Pakistan to work constructively with the IMF on its reform programme, but the United States was not a part of those talks.
A representative for the IMF said the organisation was not pressed, but they declined to say whether or not the IMF was told about the weapons programme in confidence.
IMF spokesperson Randa Elnagar strongly refuted claims that the organisation had been subjected to pressure over its decision to offer financial assistance to Pakistan. (We reached out to Global Ordnance for comment, but they declined to comment.)
Democratic Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a prominent figure in Washington on international issues, disputed the State Department’s denial.
When speaking to a group of Pakistani journalists earlier this month, Van Hollen said, “The United States has been very instrumental in making sure that the IMF came forward with its emergency economic relief.”
As the son of two State Department employees who were posted in Pakistan, Van Hollen is widely considered to have the most in-depth knowledge of Pakistan of any member of Congress. Van Hollen was born in Karachi.
Van Hollen told The Intercept on Tuesday in the Capitol that he learned of the United States’ role in facilitating the IMF loan from the Biden administration. Given the dire economic circumstances in Pakistan, “my understanding, based on conversations with folks in the administration, has been that we supported the IMF loan package,” he said.
Final-Minute Agreement with the IMF
On June 30, as part of a $6 billion deal reached in 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was scheduled to examine a planned payment of $1 billion, prompting the diplomatic conversation concerning the loan.
In the months and weeks leading up to the deadline, Pakistani authorities openly denied that they had severe issues in funding the new loan, despite the fact that failure to pass the assessment would mean no cash infusion.
Finance Minister Dar stated in early 2023 that the IMF was not requiring Pakistan to secure “external financing assurance,” or financial commitments from countries like as China, the Gulf nations, or the United nations.
However, in March of 2023, Dar’s optimistic judgement was openly disputed by the IMF person in charge of dealing with Pakistan. In an email to Reuters, IMF official Esther Perez Ruiz emphasised the need of borrowers proving their ability to make repayments. “Pakistan is not an exception,” Perez remarked.
Following the IMF’s announcement, Pakistani authorities scurried to find a workaround. According to published reports and confirmed by people familiar with the deal, the necessary finance amount was $6 billion.
The government of Pakistan stated it had acquired promises of almost $4 billion from Gulf countries to help them get there. If the United States were to inform the International Monetary Fund of the secret weaponry purchase for Ukraine, Pakistan’s financial sheet may grow by nearly a billion dollars.
According to Rafiq, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, “it was at an impasse because of the remaining $2 billion.” If the $900 million estimate is correct, then that sum represents over half of the total. That’s a huge difference in terms of the chasm that has to be crossed.
Rather than extending the previous series of loans and releasing the next $1.1 billion installment as planned on June 28, the IMF unexpectedly announced that it would be entering an agreement — “called a Stand-By Arrangement” — with fewer conditions, more favourable terms, and a value of $3 billion.

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
SEE ALSO:
Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.
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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.
Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.
The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.
Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.
Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.
He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.
“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.
Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.
SOURCE | AP
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