Islamabad decides to send its envoy back to India/node/1461946/world
Islamabad decides to send its envoy back to India
In this file photo Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Sohail Mahmood met with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on 19 February 2019 at Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. (Photo by Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry)
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Tuesday that its High Commissioner to India will return to New Delhi “after completion of consultations in Islamabad.”
According to an official handout, this was also communicated to the Acting Indian High Commissioner who was invited by Dr. Mohammad Faisal to the Foreign Office in Islamabad.
The move comes only a few days after India and Pakistan found themselves on the brink of war: New Delhi ordered an airstrike near Balakot in response to a February 14 suicide attack in Pulwama that killed more than 40 paramilitary troops, and Pakistan downed an Indian fighter jet on its side of Kashmir and captured its pilot who was later returned to his country as a “gesture of peace.”
While tensions are still brewing in the region, the Foreign Office also proclaimed that a Pakistani delegation “will visit New Delhi on 14 March 2019, followed by the return visit of the Indian delegation to Islamabad on 28 March 2019, to discuss the draft Agreement on Kartarpur Corridor.”
Other than that, Pakistan has also conveyed its commitment to India regarding “continued weekly contact at the Military Operations Directorates level.”
US Congress to depose Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell
Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell will be questioned behind closed doors by the US Congress on Monday, though she’s expected to invoke her right to not answer questions
Updated 2 sec ago
AFP
WASHINGTON:Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell will be questioned behind closed doors by the US Congress on Monday, though she’s expected to invoke her right to not answer questions. Maxwell, currently serving 20 years in prison for trafficking girls to the disgraced financier Epstein, will face questions from prison via videolink, in a deposition by the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee. Though no new US prosecutions are expected after the latest dump of government files on Epstein, numerous political and business leaders have fallen into scandal or resigned as their ties to the convicted sex criminal were revealed. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and how information about his crimes was handled. Maxwell, however, is expected to invoke her right to not incriminate herself, guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution. Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a minor. His extensive ties to the world’s rich and powerful, especially after he was released in 2009, have become politically explosive across the globe. He died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for trafficking children in what was ruled a suicide. Maxwell’s lawyers have pushed for Congress to grant her legal immunity in order to testify in the deposition, but lawmakers refused. Without that, her legal team said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. “Proceeding under these circumstances would serve no other purpose than pure political theater,” her lawyers said in a letter. Though the deposition will occur behind closed doors, Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, published a letter of the questions he intended to ask Maxwell even if she refuses to answer. Some touch on Trump’s ties to Epstein and Maxwell. Others focus on four “co-conspirators” as well as 25 other men who allegedly “sexually abused minors at Epstein’s island.” One of the questions asks: “Why do you believe they were not indicted?“ The Trump administration has already come under criticism for its handling of her case. Last year Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas after meeting twice with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Trump himself was a longtime Epstein associate, but has not been called to testify by the Oversight Committee, which is led by members of his Republican Party. Trump has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein’s activities. Also expected to be deposed by the committee are former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, both Democrats. The Clintons have called for their depositions to be held publicly to prevent Republicans from politicizing their testimony.
