ISLAMABAD: PTI has filed a foreign funding case against JUI-F at the Election Commission of Pakistan.
PTI member Farrukh Habib has submitted a petition.
This includes a transcript of a TV interview with former JUI leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, in which he said that Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam had received foreign funding, Habib said.
Habib said former JUI-F leader Maulana Khan Muhammad Sherani should be summoned.
Habib said, in his petition, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed admitted that JUI-F Chairman Fazlur Rehman took funds from Libya and Iraq.
MNA has asked the ECP to summon Maulana Fazl and ask about funding.
The ECP has summoned 19 parties, said Habib, suggesting Fazl should hand over the receipt to the ECP.
Earlier, Prime Minister Imran Khan had directed government spokesmen to expose the Opposition’s propaganda and said those who tried to frame PTI in a foreign funding case were trapped alone.
The case for foreign funding has now become high on the agenda for the anti-government campaign of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), which they believe will help them bring down Imran Khan. Opposition parties demanded the ECP not to delay the case any further.
LONDON (Reuters) – Some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds are caught in rising technology-related tensions between the United States and China, according to a Reuters analysis of their archival data and public disclosures.
FILE PHOTO: General view of the Norwegian central bank, where the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is located, in Oslo, Norway, 6 March 2018. REUTERS / Gwladys Fouche / File Photo
These range from the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Singapore to the Swiss central bank and the US $ 1.1 trillion TIAA, which was founded more than a century ago by Andrew Carnegie as the American Teacher Insurance and Annuity Association.
US investors are barred from owning stakes in more than 40 Chinese companies seen as having military ties in a series of moves since November as US President Donald Trump seeks to strengthen his hardline policies toward Beijing.
That prompted Nuveen’s TIAA unit to sell stakes in blacklisted companies including China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, as well as microchip giant SMIC, state oil company CNOOC and cellphone and gadget maker Xiaomi.
Other US public pension funds are expected to follow.
CalPERS, the largest fund, holds Hong Kong-listed ‘H’ shares in several companies, including a 1.1% stake in China Telecom and 0.2% of China Mobile and China Unicom respectively, according to Refinitiv data. CalPERS, which has been criticized by Republican politicians for its investment in China, did not respond to a request for comment.
Florida State Administration, which manages $ 200 billion in assets and has small stakes in China Telecom, China Mobile and Xiaomi, according to Refinitiv data, told Reuters it would comply with the ban.
“Those sanctions really bite US institutions,” said Elliot Hentov, head of policy research at State Street Global Advisors.
And the ripples aren’t just felt in the United States.
A number of sovereign wealth funds (SWF) have been affected as the New York Stock Exchange and index providers MSCI, S&P Dow Jones, and FTSE Russell have removed blacklisted companies from the benchmark, causing some share prices to drop more than 20%.
Norway’s $ 1.3 trillion SWF, the world’s largest, owns a 0.2% -0.6% stake in China Telecom, China Mobile, Xiaomi, CNOOC and China Unicom Hong Kong as part of its $ 35 billion Chinese equity portfolio. more broadly, according to the most recent disclosure running through early 2020. It said it would not comment on specific holdings.
Singapore’s GIC, which is referred to as an “independent country investor”, owns 10% of Hong Kong-listed China Telecom’s ‘H’ shares and owns about 1.4% of mainland’s SMIC, A- and H-shares, Reuters calculations based on stock exchange filings shows. GIC declined to comment.
Other holders are the Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ), British Columbia Investment Management, CPP Investment Board, PGGM Vermogensbeheer, an independent pension fund based in the Netherlands and APG Asset Management.
Non-US investors are not legally obliged to make any changes and many will see the value of their Chinese investment soar in recent years.
China’s equity market is at a 13-year high and the market capitalization of a major technology index has doubled from two years ago.
“We view our investment in China – an important country in the global economy – with a long-term perspective,” CDPQ told Reuters, declining to comment on specific investments.
Graph: Increased Chinese equity investment from the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund –
GAME WEIGHT
While China’s increasing weight in global markets is driving state funds to hold onto a larger Chinese portfolio, recent cyber espionage bans and claims of 5G company Huawei and the social media dance craze app TikTok show how technology is now a major geopolitical battleground. .
With no indication of a new approach by US President Joe Biden, China Telecom, China Mobile, Xiaomi and CNOOC shares have fallen between 12% and 22% since being blacklisted in November or this month.
SMIC has bucked the trend with double digit gains.
“Some of the shares that are being released may be taken from owners of bargain-hunting assets outside the US,” said Winston Ma, a former managing director of the sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. “However, it may be difficult for them to absorb all of them.”
Graph: Gains mixed for Chinese companies amid blacklist uncertainty –
It wasn’t just Washington’s actions that caused trouble.
Beijing shocked markets in November when it suspended Ant Group’s $ 37 billion IPO plan by a few days and just as the Trump administration pushed through with its ban.
Alibaba, which owns a third of Ant, saw its market value shrink by more than a quarter. These are the top 10 global stocks and are widely held by government funds and pension funds.
US Stock Exchange Commission data sec.report/CIK/0001582202 suggests the Swiss central bank has doubled Alibaba’s stake in the past two years to $ 1.4 billion from the company’s $ 650 billion stake in September.
The November fall will remove about $ 350 million from that holdings. Alibaba shares recovered nearly half of their January losses after escaping a US blacklist.
Graph: Ownership of China Mobile by sovereign wealth funds, pension funds –
Graph: Ownership of Xiaomi Corp by sovereign wealth funds, pension funds –
Graph: Ownership of China Telecom Corp by sovereign wealth funds, pension funds –
Additional reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Anshuman Daga in Singapore, Maiya Keidan in Toronto and John Revill in Zurich; Edited by Catherine Evans
MILAN, 25 Jan (Reuters) – Italian energy group Eni has agreed to buy Spanish energy retailer Aldro Energia as part of its plan to increase its portfolio of electricity and gas retail customers in Europe.
The group said on Monday that its gas and electricity unit had purchased the entire Aldro Energía Y Soluciones SLU from Grupo Pithm to gain a foothold in the Iberian market. The deal includes the acquisition of the backoffice company Instalaciones Martìnez Dìaz.
Eni did not provide financial details.
“The company aims to increase its portfolio, reaching 11 million customers by 2023 to offer not only gas and electricity but also a whole range of services related to homes and energy,” said the chief executive of Eni Gas e Luce’s unit, Alberto Chiarini.
Eni, which like other oil and gas groups spends big on the energy transition, has put retail at the heart of its operations and aims to have more than 20 million customers by 2050.
Aldro Energía supplies energy to 250,000 customers primarily in Spain and Portugal, with a focus on small and medium-sized companies.
Eni already operates in the retail market in France, Greece and Slovenia.
Banco Santander advised Grupo Pithm while Mediobanca advised Eni.
Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Edited by Agnieszka Flak and Edmund Blair
(Reuters) – Australia’s securities regulator said on Monday that there was a cyber security breach on the server used to transfer files including a credit license application on which some information may have been viewed.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it was aware of the incident on January 15 although it appears that a credit license form or attachment was not downloaded.
“While the investigation is ongoing, there appears to be some risk that some limited information may have been seen by threat actors,” the regulator said in a statement late Monday.
The server has been disabled and no other technology infrastructure has been breached, ASIC added.
The incident occurred with file sharing software provided by California-based Accellion. The same software was used by New Zealand’s central bank, which faced cyber attacks earlier this month.
Accellion did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Reporting by Rashmi Ashok and Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Edited by Toby Chopra
Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple’s chief executive, last year publicly contemplated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the initial public offering for the San Francisco startup.
The company recently raised about $ 200 million in a venture funding round led by Tetragon Financial Group, with a valuation of $ 10 billion. The value of its flagship product, a cryptocurrency called XRP, has fallen over the previous year. But Ripple is poised to rebuild the infrastructure for cross-border trade, said Garlinghouse, promising that its future is bright.
A year later, the IPO was canceled. Instead, Ripple’s future hinges on the judge’s decision in a civil suit filed in December by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Regardless of the outcome, this case is expected to set a major precedent for how US regulators create rules and laws covering cryptocurrencies. It also highlights a broader truth about most digital currencies: Beyond the two largest, bitcoin and ether, most of the hundreds of others have struggled to find utilitarian value beyond speculation.
At the heart of the SEC’s suit is the debate about XRP, a bitcoin-like digital asset created by the founder of Ripple that will grow to become the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency. It is designed to be part of a network that will help banks cut costs in cross-border transfers. The related software, however, never gained traction, the SEC accused, leaving XRP with no apparent purpose, other than to funnel sales to Ripple.
