On Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court acquitted former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in a graft case. With this, a significant obstacle for Sharif to run in the parliamentary elections in February has been removed. The decision comes weeks after Sharif’s right to appeal a conviction in a 2018 case relating to the purchase of luxury apartments in London was restored. The former PM now needs to be acquitted on the last set of graft charges, which are linked to his failure to disclose how his family set up steel mills in 1999.
Sri Lanka has reached an initial deal with a group of key official creditors, including India and the Paris Club, to restructure about $5.9 billion of its debt. The move will help the country to secure the next tranche of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) nearly $3 billion recovery package, thus expediting efforts to recover from an unprecedented economic crisis.
On Wednesday, a US military Osprey aircraft carrying six people crashed off the coast of southern Japan. According to Japanese Coast Guard officials, a crew member who was recovered from the ocean has been pronounced dead. Coast Guard spokesperson Kazuo Ogawa stated the cause of the crash and the condition of the five other people on board the plane were not immediately known.
Sixteen hostages held in Gaza were handed over to Israeli officials on Wednesday, authorities reported. Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, said, as per the agreement, 30 Palestinians — 16 minors and 14 women — will be released in exchange on Wednesday. Ansari stated that two Russian citizens and four Thai citizens were released outside the framework of the agreement, while the 10 Israeli citizens released included five dual citizens.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will begin an official visit to Vietnam starting today. “He is expected to attend a Vietnam-China inter-government meeting in Hanoi on Friday,” a source told the media.
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said that both countries must resume people-to-people exchange at all levels to prevent their delicate relationship from “getting knocked off the course again.” “The people-to-people exchange is the ballast to keep the relationship stable. Our two governments have a competitive and contested relationship, but at the people-to-people level, it’s really important that we stay connected,” he said in an exclusive interview with the SCMP.