He can be booked for cooperative fraud under Cooperative Act, fraud and duping under National Penal Code, organised crime under Organised Crime Prevention Act and money laundering under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, lawyer says.
Oct 3: With almost all the votes counted, Lula had won 48% against Bolsonaro's 43% - a much closer result than opinion polls had suggested.
But Lula fell short of the more than 50% of valid votes needed to prevent a run-off.
Voters now have four weeks to decide which of the two should lead Brazil.
Winning outright in the first round was always going to be a tall order for any candidate - the last time it happened was 24 years ago.
But President Bolsonaro and Lula had given their supporters hope that they could achieve just that.
Both candidates can and will claim that this as a victory, though.
For Lula - who could not run in the 2018 election because he was in prison after being convicted on corruption charges - this spells a remarkable comeback.
And President Bolsonaro, whom opinion polls had shown trailing far behind Lula, will rejoice in the fact that he proved the pollsters wrong, just as he had predicted he would.
This is a drama which has been years in the making. The two men are arch-rivals and spent much of the campaign trading insults.
In the last TV debate before the vote, President Bolsonaro called Lula a thief, in reference to the corruption charges that put him in jail for 580 days before the conviction was annulled.
Lula, in turn, has labelled Mr Bolsonaro a madman.
Not surprisingly, that tension has filtered down into the streets. During the nights before the vote, neighbours here in Rio could be heard shouting "Lula is a thief" and "Out with Bolsonaro" at each other.
Since the two candidates are such polar opposites, much is at stake.
Lula says he will bolster measures to protect the Amazon rainforest, while Mr Bolsonaro has argued that parts of the rainforest should be opened up to economic exploitation.
Deforestation and forest fires have soared during President Bolsonaro's time in office. Climate activists have warned that if he is re-elected, the area could reach a tipping point.
Critics point out that Lula's environmental record during his time in office - he governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010 - was far from perfect.
But with Mr Bolsonaro counting on the agricultural sector and agribusiness for votes and support, it is Lula who is the preferred choice of climate activists.
But voters in Brazil have many other pressing concerns, such as rising food prices, which have contributed to an increase in poverty and hunger.
Many voters also mentioned education and Brazil's high levels of inequality as issues they want the new president to tackle.
Much of the campaign, however, was overshadowed by concern that Mr Bolsonaro may not accept defeat after he had said that "only God" could remove him from office.
He had also cast doubts on Brazil's electronic voting system, alleging - without providing any evidence - that it was open to fraud.
With the result much more favourable to him than predicted, he is now likely to concentrate more on how to sway those voters who cast their ballot for one of the other nine candidates who were eliminated in the first round.
Lula, who seems to thrive on overcoming obstacles, has already announced that "the fight continues until the final victory, that's our motto".
There can no longer be any doubt about the facts of what happened in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. Despite being told by his own inner circle, including by his loyal attorney general, William Barr, that he had lost a fair election in November 2020, US President Donald Trump broke democracy’s cardinal rule: He refused to accept his defeat and has been pushing conspiracy theories about electoral “fraud” ever since. Trump deliberately incited an armed mob to storm the Capitol, and when the crowd started baying for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged, he did nothing and told his staff tha
JUNE 10: It was an unprecedented evening affair. Even Watergate, which may have set the benchmark for modern high-profile and politically potent congressional hearings, conducted all their work during the day.
Democrats - and the two Republicans - on the committee insisted that it was important to present their work before a large American audience, both for history's sake and to set up legislative action to protect US democracy from future attacks.
The rest of the Republican Party, on the other hand, viewed the proceedings as a partisan show trial, one-sided and illegitimate.
With the three major networks, as well as every major cable news channel except Fox News, broadcasting the Thursday hearing in its entirety, the American public will have ample opportunity to make their own judgement.
A case against Donald Trump
If there were a question as to whether committee chairman Bennie Thompson holds Donald Trump personally responsible for the attack on the US Capitol, he put that to rest early in his opening statement. The then-president, he said, "was trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power".
"Donald Trump was at the centre of this conspiracy," he added.
Those are strong words. Now the committee has to present evidence to back that up.
It raises the question of whether, if this is what Mr Thompson and others truly believe, the committee will recommend that the former president himself be charged with a crime.
Within minutes of Thursday night's opening hearing, the chairman essentially accused Mr Trump of committing one.
Baseless election allegations
Before the 6 January committee can prove that Mr Trump intentionally subverted the peaceful and proper transfer of power to Joe Biden, it had to prove that the then-president was knowingly spreading false information.
To do so, committee vice-chair Liz Cheney didn't try to refute all the specific claims the president and his supporters have advanced. Instead she simply recounted and played video testimony of the president's own advisors confirming that the election results were valid.
In one key clip, Bill Barr - the president's attorney general - recounted how he used a dismissive expletive to tell the president that his of widespread election fraud were baseless.
She was, in effect, damning the former president with his own team's words.
The power of video
The primetime hearing was billed as something other than an ordinary congressional event. Instead of members of Congress hogging the microphone, it would be a slickly produced undertaking that would use video clips and documentary evidence to tell a powerful story.
It didn't exactly begin that way. Although Mr Thompson kept his remarks fairly brief, Ms Cheney - the apostate Republican who has gone to war with her own party - spoke in a monotone for nearly half an hour.
While the allegations she made were serious, the words bogged down in lengthy paragraphs, numbered lists and "we will show you" expository statements.
It wasn't until the committee ran an extended video of the attack - comprised largely of security and police body camera footage, interspersed with Trump's speech excerpts and tweets - that the drama of the day's events became visceral, not cerebral.
As the video ended, the hearing room fell into silence - with many members of Congress watching as guests in the back of the room sat in stunned quiet and family of police officers who died after the attacks choking back tears.
Ivanka and Jared speak
The panel has conducted more than 1,000 interviews as part of its investigation so far, but three of those interviews - with Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, son Donald Trump Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner - have been of particular interest. On Thursday night, the public got its first look, albeit a brief one, at what two of them had to say.
Ms Trump spoke about how she had no reason to doubt then-Attorney General Bill Barr when he said her father had lost the election. Kushner dismissed the threats of members of Trump's legal team quitting in protest against what they viewed as his illegal and unfounded election challenges as "whining".
The elder Trump son, on the other hand, was entirely absent.
There may be more video presented in future hearings, but if viewers were hoping for juicy familial conflict, the hearings didn't deliver.
First-person emotion
The committee only had two individuals appear for in-person testimony during the evening's hearing - documentary filmmaker Nick Quested and Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards.
While the former offered some insight into the preparations the far-right group the Proud Boys made before the Capitol attack, it was Officer Edwards whose personal account lent the second half of the proceedings its power.
She spoke about the crowd turning on the police officers at the Capitol and how she saw leaders of the Proud Boys seemingly conferring before they launched their assault.
he recounted losing consciousness as she was knocked over, hitting her head on a concrete step. After she recovered, she continued to try to defend the Capitol, before she and Officer Brian Sicknick - who later died - were assaulted with chemical spray.
"What I saw was a war scene, like something I had seen out of the movies," she said. "I couldn't believe my eyes. Officers on the ground bleeding and throwing up... It was carnage. It was chaos."
With inputs from BBC
KATHMANDU, Feb 5: At a time when the use of electronic media in financial transactions is increasing significantly and fraud in various names is also on the rise, the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has advised the public to be vigilant and safe, saying that the temptation to cast lottery, misuse of mobile applications, solicitation of passwords and OTP from strangers on various pretexts has increased.
The central bank on Friday issued a notice to the public regarding the risks involved in conducting financial transactions through electronic means, urging users to pay special attention to electronic payments as complaints are being raised that criminal individuals and groups are using various electronic devices to defraud customers.
The central bank has asked people not to share their passwords, OTP or any other sensitive information, to change their passwords from time to time and to keep such passwords confidential. Similarly, if an unknown person requests the public to send money by sending a message through social media or any electronic medium, caution should be observed before responding to such requests.
Similarly, the bank has advised not to use unauthorized applications as the criminal group can find out its sensitive information while downloading unnecessary and unauthorized applications on mobile or other devices.
Meanwhile, the NRB has stated that complaints or grievances can be registered by contacting the banks and financial institutions and the NRB if there is any suspicion or complaint about fraud while conducting financial transactions through various channels
The significant increase in the use of electronic media in financial transactions is due to the development of electronic payment infrastructure, incentives for e-transactions and increasing use of modern equipment by the general public.
According to the latest data released by the Nepal Rastra Bank, more than Rs. 4.845 trillion has been transacted electronically in the last month of the current fiscal year alone. Of this, more than Rs 3.477 trillion has been transacted through RTGA alone. According to the bank, the electronic turnover was more than Rs 2.37 trillion in the month of Mangsir in the last fiscal year.
CAIRO, September 7: Egypt is set to start Tuesday trial proceedings against Hossam Bahgat, one of the country's most prominent human rights advocates, for a tweet criticising alleged electoral fraud.
Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), is already banned from travelling and his assets have been frozen due to another case in which he remains indicted.
Authorities have in recent years particularly targeted the group he founded. Three EIPR staff members were jailed last year, sparking an international campaign supported by celebrities including Scarlett Johansson that resulted in their release.
Another EIPR researcher, Patrick Zaki, remains in detention since February 2020 facing charges of "spreading false news" after he returned to Egypt for a visit from Italy, where he was studying at Bologna University.
In July, the US State Department condemned Cairo for specifically indicting Bahgat saying dissidents "should not be targeted for expressing their views peacefully".
Bahgat is accused of "insulting" Egypt's electoral commission, after he alleged that incidents of electoral fraud and vote rigging took place during last year's parliamentary elections.
Parliament is mostly comprised of loyalists of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and is viewed by critics as a "rubber-stamp" body.
Bahgat is also being prosecuted for "spreading false news", which can carry hefty fines and jail time.
"We will present evidence to the court of reports and information published by people involved in the elections," to support his allegations, Hoda Nasralla, one of Baghat's lawyers, told AFP. Tuesday's hearing is the first and a verdict is not expected to come immediately.
Sisi, a former army chief, took power in 2014 and has launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, with rights groups estimating that Egypt holds about 60,000 political prisoners.
Former US president Donald Trump forged a particularly strong relationship with Sisi. His successor, President Joe Biden, vowed on the campaign trail that there would be no more "blank checks" for Egypt's president.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May visited and praised Sisi for helping bring a truce that halted bloodshed between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
LONDON, Sept. 7 : Cryptocurrency advertisements, particularly from social media influencers, should face regulation according to the head of Britain's financial watchdog, who highlighted a recent ad posted by Kim Kardashian.
Virtual currencies and tokens have attracted interest from amateur investors lured by stellar gains but who also risk big losses and being scammed.
"As we live more and more of our lives online, we can't allow online business to operate in ways we wouldn't tolerate with any other business," Charles Randell, head of Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said on Monday.
"That includes rules which protect people from investment fraud and scams." Kardashian had advertised virtual token Ethereum Max in June in a story feed on her Instagram account, which has more than 200 million followers.
Randell stressed that Ethereum Max was not connected to Ethereum, which is the world's second most popular cryptocurrency after bitcoin.
"When she was recently paid to ask her 250 million Instagram followers to speculate on crypto tokens by 'joining the Ethereum Max Community', it may have been the financial promotion with the single biggest audience reach in history," Randell said.
He noted that the post was flagged as an advertisement in line with Instagram's rules. "But she didn't have to disclose that Ethereum Max -- not to be confused with Ethereum -- was a speculative digital token created a month before by unknown developers."
Randell stressed that he did not know whether Ethereum Max was a scam. However, he added that: "Social media influencers are routinely paid by scammers to help them pump and dump new tokens on the back of pure speculation."
The FCA has repeatedly warned against the risk of crytocurrencies, arguing that investors can potentially lose all their money because the assets are not backed by the UK government's financial services compensation sche.RSS
JERUSALEM, May 4: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a midnight deadline on Tuesday to put together a new coalition government — or be looking at the possibility of leading his Likud party into the opposition for the first time in 12 years.
Netanyahu has struggled to secure a parliamentary majority since March 23 — when elections ended in deadlock for the fourth consecutive time in the past two years.
Despite repeated meetings with many of his rivals and unprecedented outreach to the leader of a small Islamist Arab party, Netanyahu has not been able to close a deal during a four-week window.
That window was to expire at midnight, at which point the matter returns to President Reuven Rivlin in the absence of an agreement.
A failure to reach a deal would not immediately push Netanyahu out of office.
Rivlin could give him an additional two weeks to form a coalition. He could give one of Netanyahu’s opponents an opportunity to form a government, or in a final move of desperation, send the matter straight to parliament.
That would give lawmakers a chance to choose one of their own as a prime minister. If all options fail, the country would face another election this fall, meaning months of continued political paralysis.
In the March 23 election, Netanyahu’s Likud emerged as the largest single party, with 30 seats in the 120-member parliament. But to form a government, he needs to have the support of a 61-seat majority.
That task has been complicated in large part by members of his own religious and nationalist base.
The New Hope party, led by a former Netanyahu aide, refuses to serve under the prime minister because of deep personal differences. Religious Zionism, a far-right party that espouses an openly racist platform, supports Netanyahu but has ruled out serving in a government with the Arab partners he has courted. Yamina, another right-wing party led by a former Netanyahu aide, has refused to commit to either him or his opponents.
On Monday, Netanyahu said he had offered the head of Yamina, Naftali Bennett, the chance to share the job of prime minister in a rotation, with Bennett holding the post for the first year.
Bennett responded: “I never asked Netanyahu to be prime minister. I asked to form a government. Unfortunately, he does not have that.”
Looming over Netanyahu has been his ongoing corruption trial. Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and bribery in a series of scandals. The trial has moved into the witness phase, with embarrassing testimony accusing him of trading favors with a powerful media mogul. Netanyahu denies the charges.
In recent days, he has appeared increasingly frustrated, coddling potential partners one day and then lashing out at them with vitriol the next. Last week’s deadly stampede at a religious festival, in which 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews were killed, has only complicated his task by creating an unwelcome diversion and calls for an official investigation into possible negligence on his watch.
Netanyahu’s opponents, meanwhile, have been holding meetings of their own in an effort to cobble together a possible alternative government.
Netanyahu has also suffered a series of embarrassing — and uncharacteristic — defeats in parliament.
Earlier this month his opponents gained control of the powerful Arrangements Committee, which controls the legislative agenda until a new government is formed. Last week, he
was forced to abandon his appointment of a crony as the interim justice minister, just before the Supreme Court appeared set to strike down the move.
Despite all of Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities, it remains unclear whether his opponents can form an alternative government. The opposition includes a vast spectrum of parties that have little in common except for their animosity toward Netanyahu.
If Netanyahu fails to put together a coalition by midnight, he will do his utmost to prevent his opponents from reaching an agreement in the coming weeks.
That would keep him in office until the next election, allowing him to battle his
corruption charges from the perch of the prime minister’s office and giving him yet another chance to win a new term, along with possible immunity from prosecution
