Category: FOREIGN

Foreign Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program.

  • ‘Salt Bae’ accused of stealing artwork featuring himself

    Nusret Gökçe, popularly known as Salt Bae, is being sued for $5 million by a Brooklyn-based artist William Hicks, who claims the social media star has used his artwork without permission all over the world, the New York Post has reported.

    According to details, Brooklyn-based artist William Hicks filed a lawsuit filed in the District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 12, suing the renowned Turkish butcher, chef, and restaurateur for $5 million in damages after Gökçe reportedly printed his art on menus, takeout bags, and signs at international Nusr-Et Steakhouse locations in Turkey, Greece, and the United Arab Emirates without permission. Hicks claimed that Gökçe never sought a license to use the artwork and has yet to compensate him for use of the copyright.

    “Defendants also unilaterally decided that they would instead unlawfully adapt, create, and distribute unauthorized derivative versions of the original works … to display in Nusr-et steakhouse locations in at least Abu Dhabi, Ankara, Etiler, Mykonos, and Bodrum Yalikavak Marina,” read the court documents.

    Hicks allegedly sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that they stop using the original artworks in April 2020, but Gökçe and the companies “doubled down on their already widespread infringement, expanding their willful use of the Infringing Materials to locations in Doha, D Maris Bay (Turkey), Boston, Dallas and several additional locations in Istanbul.”

    Earlier, in 2019 the famous chef came into news for underpaying those working in his restaurants.

  • Dubai police arrest 11 Ukrainian women, one Russian man after nude photoshoot

    Police in Dubai have arrested 11 Ukrainian women and a Russian man for their involvement in a nude photoshoot on a high-rise balcony after footage of the same went viral, foreign media reported.

    Dubai is a top destination for the world’s Instagram influencers and models, who fill their social media feeds with bikini-clad selfies from the coastal city’s luxury hotels and artificial islands.

    But the city’s brand as a glitzy foreign tourist destination has at times provoked controversy and collided with Emirates’ strict rules governing public behavior and expression based on Islamic law.

    The nude photoshoot scandal comes just days before the holy month of Ramzan and as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lands in nearby Doha, Qatar, for an official state visit.

    Over the years, Dubai increasingly has promoted itself as a popular destination for Russians on holiday. Signs in Cyrillic are a common sight at the city’s major malls.

    Dubai police announced earlier this week they had arrested a group of people on debauchery charges over a widely-shared video showing naked women posing in broad daylight on a balcony overlooking the city’s upscale Marina neighborhood

    Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that 11 of the detained women were Ukrainian, while a Russian diplomat in Dubai said the photographer who filmed the naked women held Russian citizenship.

    Police declined to identify those detained. More than a dozen women appeared in the video and the nationalities of the others arrested were not immediately known.

    The detainees are reportedly being deported.

  • ‘Desire peaceful relations’ – Khan replies to Modi’s letter

    ‘Desire peaceful relations’ – Khan replies to Modi’s letter

    Prime Minister Khan has responded to the letter written by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Pakistan Day, telling Modi that the Pakistani people “also desire peaceful, cooperative relations with all neighbours, including India”. The letter is dated March 29, a week after PM Khan received the letter from Modi.

    PM Khan started the letter by saying, “I thank you for your letter conveying greetings on Pakistan Day. The people of Pakistan commemorate this Day by paying tribute to the wisdom and foresight of our founding fathers in envisioning an independent, sovereign state where they could live in freedom and realise their full potential,” clearly stating that Pakistan is a place where people live in freedom.

    Letter written by Imran Khan to Narendra Modi

    PM Khan said Pakistan was convinced that “durable peace and stability in South Asia is contingent upon resolving all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan, in particular the Jammu & Kashmir dispute” . He also added that the “creation of an enabling environment is imperative for a constructive and result-oriented dialogue.”

    “Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration,” PM Khan concluded, after conveying his best wishes to the Indian people in the fight against coronavirus.

    It should be noted that in Modi’s letter to Khan, the same phrase was used to end the letter.

    In the letter that Modi wrote to Khan, Modi stated that, “an environment of trust, devoid of terror and hostility” was necessary if both countries were to move forward.

    Social media was abuzz after the news of the letter broke, with details emerging that Pakistan and India were going to resume trade.

    Others were hopeful that maybe this time Pakistan and India might commit to a new peace.

    While some are apprehensive.

    A separate message was also sent by President Ram Nath Kovind to his Pakistani counterpart Arif Alvi. Indian government officials have told the Indian press that it is a routine letter sent every year.

  • Pakistani who attacked French magazine’s office says PM Imran, Khadim Rizvi influenced him

    Pakistani who attacked French magazine’s office says PM Imran, Khadim Rizvi influenced him

    The Pakistani man who attacked the former offices of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, last September was radicalised by videos of preachers in his home country and anti-France demonstrations at the time, AFP reported, citing a local newspaper.

    According to Le Parisien, police investigation has revealed the 26-year-old had spent the days leading up to his knife attack watching extremist preachers on YouTube and TikTok denouncing France and Charlie Hebdo.

    “I couldn’t eat. I was crying watching the videos,” Zaheer Hassan Mahmood told investigators.

    Weeks before, the magazine had republished sketches of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which were considered blasphemous by Muslims, to mark the start of a trial of men linked to a 2015 attack on its offices.

    Mahmood said he did not realise the magazine had moved offices after the 2015 attack and presumed the two people he slashed with a meat cleaver were employees of the publication, the report said.

    Both victims, who worked for a TV production company with no links to Charlie Hebdo, sustained serious injuries.

    Mahmood, from the village of Kothli Qazi in Punjab province, had entered France with false papers showing him as an unaccompanied minor, enabling him to claim asylum.

    Islamist groups organised demonstrations in Pakistan in September against Charlie Hebdo and French President Emmanuel Macron, who defended freedom of expression and blasphemy, which is legal in France.

    Mahmood watched videos by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the late founder of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party, and other radical preachers.

    He was also influenced by Prime Minister Imran Khan, who accused Macron of “attacking Islam”, the newspaper said.

    Blasphemy is a criminal act in Pakistan, where laws allow death penalty for anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or Islamic personalities.

    Mahmood said he initially intended to damage the office building, rather than attack people, and has offered to apologise to his victims.

    Investigators have found a video he sent to a friend the day before his attack which called for the decapitation of blasphemers, and he received a call from Greece the same day which appeared to refer to a pre-meditated assault.

    He has been charged with “attempted murder with relation to a terrorist enterprise”.

  • Modi, Bilawal, Tariq Jamil among others wish PM Khan a swift recovery

    Prime Minister Imran Khan on March 20 tested positive for COVID-19. According to details, the premier is suffering from ‘mild symptoms’ and is self-isolating at home. PM Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi has also tested positive for the virus.

    Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Faisal Sultan, while talking to the media, said that they “are monitoring his clinical parameters, and medical treatment will be given to him if required.”

    “Right now, there is no need for any treatment, as such,” added Dr Sultan.

    Soon after the news of PM Imran testing positive spread, prayers started pouring in for his speedy recovery. Among those who sent him good wishes include Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maulana Tariq Jamil, PPP co-chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal.

    “Best wishes to PM Imran for a speedy recovery from COVID-19,” said PM Modi.

    “Our thoughts and prayers are with him during this time of difficulty,” said PM Rajapaksa.

    “May Allah grant him full and speedy recovery,” said Maulana Tariq Jamil.

    PPP’s BBZ and Sherry Rehman and PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal also prayed for the PM’s swift recovery.

    PM Khan’s former teammates Wasim Akram, Ramiz Raja and Waqar Younis also prayed for his swift recovery.

  • Saudi Arabia says COVID-19 vaccination is ‘must’ for 2021 Hajj

    Saudi Arabia says COVID-19 vaccination is ‘must’ for 2021 Hajj

    Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health has said that only people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 will be allowed to attend Hajj this year.

    “The COVID-19 vaccine is mandatory for those willing to come to Hajj and will be one of the main conditions [for receiving a permit],” read a statement signed by the Minister of Health.

    In 2020, the Kingdom reduced the number of pilgrims to around 1,000 to avoid the spread of the coronavirus barring Muslims from around the world from the rite for the first time in modern times.

    In the same notification, Saudi Minister of Health Dr Tawfiq al-Rabiah said the government must be prepared to “secure the manpower required to operate the health facilities in Mecca and Medina”.

    These facilities will be stationed at entry points for pilgrims, he said, in addition to a formation of a vaccination committee for pilgrims within Saudi Arabia.

  • MBS off the hook: US to impose sanctions, visa bans on Saudis over Khashoggi’s killing

    MBS off the hook: US to impose sanctions, visa bans on Saudis over Khashoggi’s killing

    The Biden administration will announce sanctions and visa bans on Friday targeting Saudi Arabian citizens over the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but it will not impose sanctions on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, US officials said.

    US President Joe Biden’s actions in the first weeks of his administration appear aimed at fulfilling campaign promises to realign Saudi ties after critics accused his predecessor, Donald Trump, of giving the Arab ally and major oil producer a pass on gross human rights violations.

    A senior Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the approach aims to create a new launching-off point for ties with the kingdom without breaking a core relationship in the Middle East. Relations have been severely strained for years by the war in Yemen and the killing inside a Saudi consulate of Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote columns for the Washington Post.

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved of an operation to capture or kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a declassified US intelligence assessment released on Friday in a manner choreographed to limit damage to US-Saudi ties.

    “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the report posted on its website.

    Importantly, the decisions appear designed to preserve a working relationship with the crown prince, even though US intelligence concluded that he approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi.

    “The aim is a recalibration (in ties) — not a rupture. That’s because of the important interests that we do share,” the senior Biden administration official said.

    The 59-year old Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct 2, 2018 and killed by a team of operatives linked to the crown prince. They then dismembered his body. His remains have never been found.

    The US Treasury Department will place sanctions on the former deputy Saudi intelligence chief, Ahmed al-Asiri, and will announce a sanctions designation on the Saudi Royal Guard’s rapid intervention force, the administration official said.

    The rapid intervention force, or RIF, was singled out in the declassified US intelligence report for its role in Khashoggi’s killing.

    The United States will also announce visa restrictions against more than 70 Saudi citizens as part of a new policy aimed at nations that carry out activities against journalists and dissidents beyond their borders, a second Biden administration official said. Such activities include efforts to suppress, harass, surveil, threaten or harm them.

  • Pakistani-American lobbyist, who donated for Trump and Kamala Harris, jailed for 12 years

    The American Federal Court in California has convicted a Pakistani-American political donor for violation of the Foreign Act, awarding him twelve years in prison along with a hefty penalty of $15.705 million in restitution and $1.75 million in criminal fine.

    According to The News, 50-year-old Imaad Shah Zuberi of Arcadia was sentenced by US District Judge Virginia A Phillips for forging records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level US officials, evading the payment of millions of dollars in taxes, making illegal campaign contributions, and obstructing a federal investigation into the source of donations to a presidential inauguration committee.

    Zuberi was born in Pakistan and migrated to the US with his parents when he was just three-years-old. Eventually, he secured US citizenship.

    In 1996, Zuberi served in the US Army for about six months and was honourably discharged after sustaining a knee injury. He received a BSc in 1997 from the University of Southern California and an MBA in 2006 from Stanford University.

    The Pakistani-origin man was facing charges of donating $900,000 to the Trump inaugural committee. He was also a top fundraiser for former president Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, Dawn reported.

    He donated at least $100,000 for Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and also raised funds for Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in 2014, and then-California attorney general Kamala Harris, now vice president, in 2015.

    In November 2019, Zuberi pleaded guilty to a three-count information charging him with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by making false statements on a FARA filing, tax evasion, and making illegal campaign contributions.

    In June 2020, Zuberi pleaded guilty in a separate case to one count of obstruction of justice. His sentence today pertains to both cases.

    “The violations were part of a larger surreptitious effort to route foreign money into US elections and to use it to corrupt the US policy-making processes,” prosecutors said in a court filing.

    They also pleaded the court to reject Zuberi’s claim that funnelling money to influence US policy-making and elections was the “way America works”.

    “Zuberi turned acting as an unregistered foreign agent into a business enterprise,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C Demers, adding, “He used foreign money to fund illegal campaign contributions that bought him political influence, and used that influence to lobby US officials for policy changes on behalf of numerous foreign principals.”

    “Zuberi flouted federal laws that restrict foreign influences upon our government and prohibit injecting foreign money into our political campaigns. He enriched himself by defrauding his clients and evading the payment of taxes,” said Acting US Attorney Tracy L Wilkison for the Central District of California.

    “Today’s sentence, which also accounts for Zuberi’s attempt to obstruct an investigation into his felonious conduct, underscores the importance of our ongoing efforts to maintain transparency in U.S. elections and policy-making processes.”

  • China shares dramatic footage of deadly clash with India troops

    China shares dramatic footage of deadly clash with India troops

    Dramatic footage released by Chinese state media purportedly shows deadly clashes between troops at the Indian border last year — a rare insight into violence at the tense, remote frontier.

    China’s defence ministry on Friday named four soldiers killed in the brawl, in the first confirmation of deaths by Beijing from an incident that had also claimed the lives of at least 20 Indian soldiers.

    Footage later released by state broadcaster CCTV appeared to show Indian troops wading through a river towards Chinese soldiers in the barren and ice-covered Karakoram Mountains, carrying sticks and shields reading “police”.

    A bilateral accord prevents the use of guns by either side, and brutal clashes between the two sides on the ill-defined border often involve sticks, rocks and fist-fights.

    “They have now moved another new tent here,” one soldier says in the video, which claims the Indian side broke the consensus and crossed the line to “provoke” the Chinese soldiers.

    Later footage shows a large melee of troops from both sides and clashes in the dark, before Chinese soldiers are seen treating a man on the floor whose head is covered in blood.

    The high-altitude border battle in the Galwan valley in June was one of the deadliest clashes between the two sides in recent decades.

    Beijing acknowledged that the clash had resulted in casualties but did not confirm if any Chinese soldiers died until this week.

    The CCTV voiceover said the Chinese soldiers were “heroically sacrificed”.

    Battalion commander Chen Hongjun and three other soldiers have been given posthumous awards, the defence ministry said. State media reported that the youngest soldier to die was 19.

    India and China fought a border war in 1962 and have long accused each other of seeking to cross their frontier — which has never been properly agreed — in India’s Ladakh region, just opposite Tibet.

    Beijing and New Delhi later sent tens of thousands of extra troops to the border, but said last week they had agreed to “disengage” along the border area.

  • Dubai Princess Sheikha Latifa releases video from ‘villa jail’

    Dubai Princess Sheikha Latifa releases video from ‘villa jail’

    The BBC’s investigative news programme Panorama on Tuesday published a video it said was of Sheikha Latifa, one of the ruler of Dubai’s daughters, saying that she was being held against her will in a barricaded villa.

    According to a report of Reuters, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum drew international attention in 2018 when a human rights group released a video made by her in which she described an attempt to escape Dubai.

    Last March, a London High Court judge said he accepted as proved a series of allegations made by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum’s former wife, Princess Haya, in a legal battle, including that the sheikh ordered the abduction of Latifa. The sheikh’s lawyers rejected the allegations.

    “I am a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail,” Latifa, 35, said in the video published by the BBC as part of a Panorama programme airing on Tuesday.

    “All the windows are barred shut, I can’t open any window.” She said she was making the video in the bathroom of the villa, the only room she could lock herself into.

    Reuters could not independently verify when or where the video was recorded.The Free Latifa campaign, which has lobbied for her release, said it had managed to smuggle a phone to Latifa.

    David Haigh, one of the campaign’s co-founders and her lawyer, called for Latifa’s immediate release and an end to “a horrendous period of parental and human rights abuse that has significantly damaged the reputation of the UAE.”

    The Dubai government’s media office referred questions about the video to Sheikh Mohammed’s law firm, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    David Pannick, a lawyer in London representing Sheikh Mohammed in the legal battle with Princess Haya, said: “As one of the lawyers in current legal proceedings, I cannot comment.”

    Appearing alert and speaking calmly, Latifa said in the video that there were police officers stationed outside and inside the villa. “I just want to be free,” she added.

    In December 2018, the UAE foreign ministry said Latifa was at home and living with her family, after rights groups called on authorities in the Gulf Arab state to disclose her whereabouts and condition.

    Later, BBC News shared a detailed report on the matter, check out the video below: