Author: Talahaique

PA President’s son Tareq Abbas also holds positions in other ventures incorporated by offshore company. Leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca reveal Tareq Abbas, son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, holds shares worth nearly $1 million in an offshore company with ties to the Palestinian Authority. The documents, leaked as part of the massive ‘Panama Papers’ scandal, show that a company called the Arab Palestinian Investment Company (APIC) was registered in September 1994 in the British Virgin Islands. Since then, the company’s economic portfolio has grown substantially, and is active in virtually every Palestinian economic sphere, including…

When Isabela Duque, a receptionist in the Brazilian city of Santos, decided to use all her savings to buy her first car, the process was fraught with suspicion. The seller asked for the full amount to be deposited in his bank account before transferring the car to her name, and Duque obliged. They went separately to the notary office to process the paperwork while Duque worried about the possibility the man would vanish with the car as well as her money. While Duque managed to complete the transaction successfully that day, her situation exemplifies the risks Brazilians often face when…

BRASILIA, Nov 21 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Finance Ministry lowered its forecast for the country’s economic growth for this year and 2024, a report by its economic policy secretariat showed on Tuesday. The ministry now expects gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2023 of 3.0%, slightly down from the 3.2% estimated in September. For 2024, the forecast was cut to 2.2% from 2.3% previously. “The change reflects increased uncertainties in the external environment due to the outbreak of geopolitical conflicts,” the secretariat said in its report, also mentioning the slowdown in China’s growth and the prospect of U.S. interest rates remaining…

Frankfurt (3/12 – 12) The relatively rapid cohesion of disparate nations, historically competitive or even at war with one another, into the European Union came about in part because of the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union. The specter of a tank invasion from Warsaw Pact nations, today forgotten, was such a reality that the German government kept a major portion of its gold bullion across the Atlantic. The USSR, an ally in World War II after being double-crossed by Hitler – remember the “Non-Aggression Pact signed in Moscow by von Ribbentrop and Molotov – was soon appraised as a…

Brazil’s president has denounced the attacks waged by the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip, which have resulted in the killing of more than 3,500 children, according to official figures. Speaking at the Planalto Palace, Luiz Inacio Lula da Lula said the conflict in Israel is an example of violence in which children make up many of the victims. “I see 3,000 children in the Gaza Strip succumb to a war that they didn’t promote, that they didn’t ask for, that they didn’t claim. Are the irresponsible people who waged the war mourning the deaths of these children? Are they…

Paris (08/11 – 75) Sri Lanka’s economic and political crisis of 2022 left the country bankrupt. Ranil Wickremesinghe took over as President of Sri Lanka in July 2022 when the country was in the middle of its worst economic and political crisis since independence in 1948. His predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had been forced out of power after facing mass protests prompted by 12-hour power cuts and persistent fuel and food shortages. The nation was bankrupt.Wickremesinghe brought in the International Monetary Fund and has focused on reaching macroeconomic stability and driving tough but much-needed structural reforms. Today, as Sri Lanka embarks…

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the government of Brazil have launched 558,170 US dollar-project in Tanzania to promote decent work in the value chain of cotton production in the East Africa Country. According to Prof Joyce Ndalichako, the country’s Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Labour, Youth, Employment and Persons with Disability), the ‘Decent Work in Cotton Sector’ project will enhance women and children’s well-being in the cotton farming communities. This follows recent statistics indicating that child labour in the country has reached 24.9 per cent, with the agriculture sector being the leading employer of children. “This…

Amid increasing local and international pressures for Guyana to implement ring-fencing provisions in the development of its offshore oil blocks, President of ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL), Alistair Routledge, has defended the absence of such provisions in the Stabroek Block Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), on the grounds that the company would be able to maximize the resources there, much to the benefit of Guyanese. “Typically, from my experience in most countries, what matters to the government and the people are really maximising development of the resources, and maximizing the revenue ultimately into the natural resource fund and operating without the ring…

Chinese online fast-fashion retailer Shein plans to start shipping the products it makes in Brazil to other markets in Latin America in 2026, its Brazilian production director Fabiana Magalhaes said. The firm started manufacturing clothes in Brazil earlier this year, its first production center outside China. It aims to have 85% of its sales in Brazil, including sales by vendors on Shein’s marketplace, produced locally by 2026. “The idea is that by 2026 Brazil will be ready to serve Latin America,” Magalhaes told reporters on Wednesday at an event at Shein’s Sao Paulo office. “We’ve already been doing some internal…

Hanoi (VNA) – A Vietnamese delegation led by Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court Nguyen Hoa Binh paid a working visit to Brazil from October 9-15. The trip aimed to further strengthen cooperation between legal and judicial agencies in general, and court systems in particular of the two nations. The two sides also shared knowledge and experience in the fields of juvenile justice; and organisation, management, and information technology application within the court system. The Vietnamese delegation had a working session with representatives from the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories (TJDFT) in…