Friday, July 10, 2020
Opinion: Americans Must Know if Their President Is a Crook
By Bob Bauer
When Richard Nixon declared, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook,” we often forget that he wasn’t talking about Watergate. He was speaking about compliance with tax law. The public had a “right to know,” in this case, what was in his returns and if he had followed the law.
The Supreme Court’s decisions on Thursday in the Trump tax cases vindicated important principles about presidential accountability under the rule of law. A 7-to-2 majority rejected the president’s claim of immunity from compliance with a state criminal subpoena, and the court also turned down his argument that state prosecutors and Congress should have to meet demanding standards to obtain a president’s personal financial information.
But these cases left very much in doubt when the president will have to provide his tax returns, and it is clear that the public will not see them any time soon, if ever.
President Trump has severely damaged the “norm” or practice that presidents have followed since the Carter administration in voluntarily releasing their returns. Some future presidential candidates and presidents may revive the norm, but others may decline, especially if they conclude that there is no real electoral penalty. Those presidents who refuse disclosure now have the ability to contest in court the specific avenues that Congress, or prosecutors, have tried to use in Mr. Trump’s case to obtain the returns.
The American public’s own interest in dependable, timely access to this or any president’s tax filings depends on strong reform legislation from Congress. Legislation, not more and seemingly endless litigation, is the only answer to the gap in transparency about a president’s financial affairs and potential conflicts of interest.
But a president’s disclosure of returns is not just a transparency practice that meets with general public favor and press interest. Releasing returns is vitally important in all presidencies in supplying information not available through a president’s other financial reporting obligation under the Ethics in Government Act. Unlike that act’s reporting by broad categories of income, assets and liabilities, tax returns reveal a lot more and in great detail, like all sources of income, deductions taken, details about foreign business dealings and the existence of offshore accounts.
The ball is in Congress’s court — if not in this session, then in the next. In looking at legal reform of the presidency in the wake of President Trump, Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard professor and assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, and I have come up with a bipartisan plan for the release of presidential tax returns and related information, as well as mechanisms for enforcement.
First, all presidential candidates and presidents (and vice presidents) release their tax returns for each filing year while a candidate or, if elected, for each year in office. The obligation should fall on all presidential candidates who are the nominees of major parties or independent or third-party candidates who qualified for enough state ballots for the general election to garner, in theory, a majority in the Electoral College.
Second, this disclosure requirement should also apply to immediate family members of the president and vice president who serve in the Executive Office of the president, or at departments and agencies. For purposes of conflict of interest policy, the interests of family members should be imputed to the president if he or she assigns them White House or executive branch responsibilities.
Third, while not often discussed in the current tax return controversies, it has been Internal Revenue Policy for decades to conduct a mandatory annual audit of presidential returns. A reform law should mandate that, once the I.R.S. has completed these audits, it release them to the public.
Fourth, the Office of Government Ethics, which administers the Ethics in Government Act financial filing requirements for the executive branch, should have the responsibility of managing tax return disclosure law. It would work with the president and vice president (and candidates subject to the requirement) to ensure that it has received a completed filing for public release and it should be authorized to consult with the I.R.S. for this purpose. The law should also provide that if a president balks, then the Joint Committee on Taxation should be authorized to demand the returns from the Treasury secretary and, if necessary, to sue for enforcement in federal court.
A reform along these lines is consistent with the Constitution. Courts have long upheld personal financial disclosure requirements imposed on public officials. The Supreme Court has noted that presidents’ privacy rights are strongest when asserted “in matters of personal life unrelated to any acts done by them in their official capacity.” The vast powers that president wield, including their administration of the tax laws, leave little doubt about the relevance of their personal tax affairs to their official duties and to the objective of deterring corruption. The disclosure norm that Mr. Trump disregarded spoke powerfully to the public interest in this tax information.
Moreover, this history refutes any suggestion, rooted in a concern for the separation of powers, that tax return disclosure interferes with presidents’ performance of his or her constitutionally assigned functions. It is true that Trump’s refusal to release his personal tax returns incited a battle that has proved costly to his presidency. But the fault for the damage done lies in Mr. Trump’s rejection of the longstanding transparency norm. As the historian Arthur Schlesinger wisely suggested years ago, a “strong presidency” is one conducted “within an equally strong system of accountability.” Mr. Trump has fought this accountability and has not made the presidency stronger in doing so.
Although the Trump tax cases addressed complex constitutional issues, they are defined in the public mind and debate by something simpler: the struggle over access to his tax returns.
And, on that question, only Congress can do by legislative reform what is required to protect an interest in this information that is deeply implicated in but still separate from Congress’s or a prosecutor’s: the interest of the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/opinion/trump-taxes-supreme-court.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
#Pakistan overtakes Italy to become 11th worst-affected country from #Covid-19
Pakistan has overtaken Italy when it comes to the number of Covid-19 cases reported in the country, becoming the 11th worst-affected country by the pandemic, data from the John Hopkins University revealed on Friday.
According to the NCOC, the number of positive cases in the country jumped to 243,599 after 2,751 cases were reported on Thursday. On the other hand, Italy’s positive cases stand at 242,363 as per data from the university’s resource center.
Pakistan reported 75 deaths over the past 24 hours, taking the nation’s Covid-19 death toll past the 5,000 mark. According to the NCOC, currently, the total number of people who have succumbed to the virus stand at 5,058.
The rising death toll has also resulted in Pakistan overtaking China — the epicentre of the virus — in the number of deaths. Pakistan has also become the 18th worst-hit country by the coronavirus in terms of fatality.
The NCOC’s report shared that the total number of active Covid-19 cases in Pakistan stand at 89,449, with 149,092 people recovering so far.
The breakdown, as per the reports, stated that Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) currently has 1485 cases, Balochistan 11,099 cases, Gilgit Baltistan (GB) reported 1,619, Islamabad 13,829 cases, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) 29,406 cases, Punjab 85,261 cases and Sindh is the worst affected province with 100,900 cases of the virus.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/07/10/pakistan-overtakes-italy-to-become-11th-worst-affected-country-from-covid-19/
Deadly crash, fake pilots expose #Pakistan’s broken airline
For decades Pakistan International Airlines Corp stood for a resurgent post-colonial nation, flying the flag from New York to Tokyo. Now the airline is struggling to recover from a fatal crash, years of losses, a collapse in global air travel and the stunning revelation that almost a third of the nation’s pilots obtained fake licenses.
That latest admission, from Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, tipped the airline from crisis to full-blown catastrophe. Khan didn’t say whether the pilots of the crashed Airbus SE jet, who were discussing the coronavirus when they retracted the landing gear just before touching down in Karachi, were among those who held dubious licences. But his announcement came on the same evening that investigators held the cockpit crew responsible for the accident.
Investigations into at least three major crashes in Pakistan in the past decade found the pilots were either at fault or didn’t follow guidelines. Khan said that 262 of over 850 pilots in Pakistan had fake qualifications and many didn’t even sit the exams themselves.
“I’m not shocked by this,” said Nasrullah Khan Afridi, President of Pakistan Airlines Cabin Crew Association. “In our culture, unfortunately, there is so much wrongdoing among politicians and others that everyone is looking for a short cut. Everyone with dubious records, including the regulator which issues pilot licences, should be punished.”
The shock is reverberating beyond Pakistan, which is not the only country in Asia to have reported problems in the past over the certification of pilots as a slew of new budget carriers competed to sign up cockpit crews. In the past few years, India and some nations in Southeast Asia have also come under scrutiny for cases of exaggerated flight hours or simulator time.
“This is not just a PIA or Pakistan only issue, it is widespread in India, Indonesia and also the Philippines,” said Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation safety consultant and former pilot based in the southern Indian city of Chennai. In 2011-12, several hundred pilots working for airlines in India were found to have fake certificates, he said. “A similar charade takes place from flying schools in Indonesia, Philippines etc. They collect the full fees from trainees but actual flying is done only on paper.”
Arun Kumar, head of India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said the country has no cases of pilots with fake documents, even for those who qualified overseas. “All documents are duly checked and verified,” he said. “We have a robust system in place.”
Adita Irawati, a spokeswoman for Indonesia’s Transportation Ministry, said the country has never uncovered any abuse of documentation similar to what was found in Pakistan, and Indonesia has a mechanism in place to prevent such practices.Representatives for the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines did not immediately respond to requests for comment. As of Dec 13, almost half of the flying schools in Philippines were inactive, with about a dozen of them either facing stop orders or having their licences revoked or denied, data from the regulator showed.The deluge of disasters at PIA has galvanized the government to speed up reform of the industry in Pakistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered the nation’s Civil Aviation Authority to fast track further actions for the nation’s airlines, and the authority itself, including cutting jobs.
Pakistan dismissed 28 pilots with suspicious licences, information minister Shibli Faraz said Tuesday. The probe is ongoing.
“It takes a lot of courage to come out and say our industry is broken,” said Faaiz Amir, a former Air Vice Marshal who investigated a 2012 crash of a Bhoja Air flight near Islamabad. “The system needs to be revamped. Civil aviation needs to be restructured and reorganised.”
They have their work cut out. PIA is the most likely airline in the world to fail in the absence of a bailout as Covid-19 cuts demand for air travel, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. The carrier has one of the highest staff-to-planes ratios, after successive governments shied away from major payroll cuts on concern they would spark labour unrest. The fake pilots disclosure prompted the European Union Aviation Safety Agency to ban airlines from Pakistan flying to its member states, and recommend other carriers not use pilots with Pakistani credentials for flights to the EU.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said it was “assessing the situation.”
Even without the latest round of catastrophes, the airline was struggling from high costs and increased competition from rivals such as Emirates, a carrier it ironically helped establish in 1985. PIA hasn’t made a profit in 15 years and liabilities amounted to $3.8 billion at the end of last year. It has some 14,000 employees for a fleet of only about 30 planes.
After years of propping up the carrier with cash bailouts -- the latest was 3.2 billion rupees ($19 million) last month for PIA to pay interest payments -- the government has promised to carry out measures including job cuts and the sale of non-core assets.
“It’s a belated, welcome and decisive realization,” said A.A.H. Soomro, managing director at Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Securities. “The conoravirus-induced travel decline coupled with plunging tax revenues have motivated the government to fix bleeding public sector entities.”
PIA traces its roots to 1946 when Orient Airways flew in the then-undivided India. After partition it was one of the first in Asia to begin a regular service to London and in the heady days of expansion in the 1960’s and 70’s was considered a model for new national airlines in other parts of the region.With prestige and growth came mismanagement and losses as the airline became a source of foreign revenue and a conduit for jobs and contracts at home. PIA is managed by either generalist bureaucrats, or military officers, or both, fostering a bureaucratic and unaccountable system, according to Mosharraf Zaidi, a senior fellow at Islamabad-based think tank, Tabadlab.The state of the nation’s aviation industry began to be reflected in its accident record. In 2010, an Airblue flight slammed into a rain-soaked hillside near Islamabad, killing 152, an incident also blamed on pilot error. Two years later, the nation suffered another major disaster when a Bhoja Air Boeing 737-200 carrying 118 passengers and 9 crew members crashed on approach at the capital. In both cases, the official reports identified pilot errors.
The recent PIA disaster was the first fatal plane crash for the airline since 47 people were killed in an ATR-42 in 2016.
Amid calls for reform and a change of government, the airline has had six chief executive officers in five years. The current administration says current CEO Arshad Mahmood Malik, a Vice Chief of Air Staff in the nation’s air force who was appointed in October 2018, is trying to restore the airline.
“The tragic recent crashes are a lingering legacy of past mismanagement and corruption that is in the process of being cleared up,”said Shireen Mazari, the minister for human rights in Khan’s cabinet and a close aide to the Prime Minister. Malik is taking steps such as “ferreting out pilots, engineers and others with fake licences and qualifications, implementing a modern cost-efficient reservation system, and returning to service costly planes that had been cannibalised for parts,” she said.
Other actions include selling or monetising non-core assets, built up over the years when the company was a conduit for national prestige. Its prime asset, the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, which was previously valued at $1 billion, may be turned primarily into an office tower with retail space on the ground floor.
But with no flights to Europe and possibly to other countries as aviation authorities weigh the concern about the training of its staff, the core airline itself may need substantial government support to survive.
Ali Wahab, Head of Debt Capital Markets at Sharjah Islamic Bank, said the minister’s revelation has put its future in jeopardy. “When an airline will not fly and has no revenue, how will it repay its debts?”
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1948036/deadly-crash-fake-pilots-expose-pakistans-broken-airline
US bans Pakistan's PIA over pilot licence scandal
The United States has banned Pakistan International Airlines from operating chartered flights to the country, the airline said, after it announced nearly 150 pilots would be grounded over fake or dubious licences.
It follows a similar move by European Union aviation regulators to bar the state-run carrier for six months.
PIA said in a statement that the Federal Aviation Authority in the US had revoked approval for the airline due to "recent events identified by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority that are of serious concern to aviation safety".
Pakistan's aviation minister revealed in June that a government review had found around 260 of the country's 860 active pilots hold fake licenses or cheated on exams.
PIA at the time said it would immediately ground about a third of its 434 pilots, just weeks after one of its planes crashed in Karachi killing 98 people -- an accident blamed on pilot error.
So far 17 pilots have been fired in the first phase of its investigation, a PIA spokesman told AFP.
The airline had suspended its commercial operations to the US in 2017 after booking financial losses on the route.
But in April the US Department of Transport granted it special permission to operate chartered flights for one year, largely to bring back stranded Pakistanis during the coronavirus lockdown.
Until the 1970s, Pakistan's largest airline was considered a top regional carrier but its reputation plummeted amid chronic mismanagement, frequent cancellations and financial struggles.
#Pakistan - #PPP - Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari condoles the death of Dr. Faisal due to Covid-19
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has paid rich tributes to Shaheed Dr. Faisal who succumbed to the Covid-19 and was performing his duty in Abbottabad’s government hospital.
Chairman Bilawal expressed deep grief and sorrow over the demise of Dr. Faisal and expressed his solidarity with the family.
Dr. Faisal was one of the doctors appointed through contract, who waited months for their salaries from the PTI government. Chairman Bilawal said that the lives of doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff are in jeopardy under the control of the selected government. Alongside the fact that our health staff is contracting Covid-19, the challenge of the government’s criminal approach is also facing us, he stated.
The incompetent government has become a nursery of the Covid-19 due to its anti-people policies. The sacrifices of doctors and paramedical staff will not go in vain, the nation will always remember their determination and efforts, he concluded.
Chairman Bilawal expressed deep grief and sorrow over the demise of Dr. Faisal and expressed his solidarity with the family.
Dr. Faisal was one of the doctors appointed through contract, who waited months for their salaries from the PTI government. Chairman Bilawal said that the lives of doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff are in jeopardy under the control of the selected government. Alongside the fact that our health staff is contracting Covid-19, the challenge of the government’s criminal approach is also facing us, he stated.
The incompetent government has become a nursery of the Covid-19 due to its anti-people policies. The sacrifices of doctors and paramedical staff will not go in vain, the nation will always remember their determination and efforts, he concluded.
چیئرمین پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے ایبٹ آباد کے سرکاری ہسپتال میں کورونا وائرس کے باعث شہید ہونے والے ڈاکٹر فیصل کو خراج عقیدت پیش کرتے ہوئے کہا ہے کہ ڈاکٹر فیصل شہید کورونا وباءکے شکار انسانوں کی جانیں بچاتے ہوئے اپنی جان قربان کر دی۔ انہوں نے کہا کہ ڈاکٹر فیصل بھی کنٹریکٹ بھرتی کئے گئے تھے اور ان ڈاکٹروں میں سے ایک تھے جو کئی مہینوں سے پی ٹی آئی حکومت سے تنخواہ ملنے کے منتظر تھے۔ بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ سلیکٹڈ حکمرانوں کے زیر کنٹرول صوبوں میں طبی عملے کی جانوں کو داﺅ پر لگا دیا گیا ہے۔ مذکورہ صوبوں میں طبی عملے کو کورونا کے ساتھ ساتھ حکومت کی مجرمانہ پالیسی کا چیلنج بھی درپیش ہے۔ بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ نااہل حکومت عوام دشمن پالیسیوں کے ذریعے کورونا وائرس کی نرسری بن گئی ہے۔ چیئرمین پیپلزپارٹی نے ڈاکٹر فیصل کی شہادت پر ان کے خاندان سے یکجہتی اور افسوس کا اظہار کرتے ہوئے کہا کہ ڈاکٹروں اور طبی عملے کی قربانیاں رائیگا نہیں جائیں گے۔ قوم ان کے جذبے اور کاوشوں کو ہمیشہ قدر کی نگاہ سے دیکھے گی۔
آصف زرداری اور بلاول بھٹو سے مولانا فضل الرحمان کی ملاقات
سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری اور چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری سے مولانا فضل الرحمان کی بلاول ہائوس کراچی میں ڈیڑھ گھنٹے تک ملاقات۔
مولانا فضل الرحمان نے سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری کی صحت سے متعلق خیریت دریافت کی۔
سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری اور چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری کی مولانا فضل الرحمان سے اہم سیاسی امور پر گفتگو ہوئی۔
پاکستان پیپلزپارٹی اور جمعیت علمائے اسلام کا ملکی سالمیت اور بقا کی خاطر سیاسی امور میں ساتھ چلنے پر اتفاق کیا گیا ۔
سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری، چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری اور مولانا فضل الرحمان نے این ایف سی ایوارڈ پر غیرلچکدار مؤقف اپنانے پر اتفاق کیا۔
آصف علی زرداری، چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری اور مولانا فضل الرحمان نے18ویں آئینی ترمیم پر بھی غیرلچکدار مؤقف اپنانے پر اتفاق برقرار رکھا ۔
شریک چیئرمین پیپلز پارٹی آصف زرداری نے کہا کہ عوام دشمن بجٹ اور این ایف سی ایوارڈ سے متعلق کوئی سمجھوتہ نہیں ہوگا۔
آصف علی زرداری نے کہا کہ میں نے پہلے ہی کہہ دیا تھا کہ عمران خان حکومت چلانے کے اہل نہیں ہیں ۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ گزشتہ برس میں نے ٹِڈی دَل کے حملوں سے متعلق پارلیمان میں حکومت کو خبردار کیا تھا، حکومت نے اپنی ضد اور انا کی وجہ سے ٹِڈی دَل کے حملوں سے متعلق میرے خدشات کو سنجیدہ نہیں لیا۔
آصف علی زرداری نے کہا کہ اگر ٹِڈی دَل کے حملوں کی فوری روک تھام نہ کی گئی تو ملک میں خوراک کا بحران پیدا ہوجائے گا۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ عوام امید کی نظروں سے ملک کی اپوزیشن جماعتوں کی جانب دیکھ رہے ہیں کہ وہ سلیکٹڈ حکومت سے انہیں نجات دلائیں۔
سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری نے کہا کہ کورونا وائرس کے بحران کے دنوں میں عمران خان کی نااہلی کھل کر سامنے آچکی ہے۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ پاکستان اور عمران خان ساتھ ساتھ نہیں چل سکتے، عمران خان کے دورِحکومت میں ملک میں سب سے زیادہ کرپشن میں اضافہ ہوا۔
چیئرمین پیپلز پارٹی نے کہا کہ عمران خان نیب کو استعمال کرکے اپوزیشن جماعتوں کے سیاست دانوں سے انتقام لے رہے ہیں۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ دوسال ہوگئے ہیں، عمران خان نے کوئی ایک ایسا کام نہیں کیا جو عوامی مفاد میں ہو۔
بلاول بھٹو زرداری نے کہا کہ ملک کی تمام اپوزیشن جماعتیں سلیکٹڈ حکومت کے خلاف ایک پیچ پر ہیں۔
سابق صدر آصف علی زرداری اور چیئرمین پی پی پی بلاول بھٹو زرداری کے نکات سے مولانا فضل الرحمان نے اتفاق کیا۔
فضل الر حمان نے کہا کہ پی ٹی آئی حکومت نے ملکی معیشت کو دیوار سے لگادیا ہے، پاکستان کی تاریخ میں کبھی معیشت کی منفی شرح نمو نہیں ہوئی۔
انہوں نے کہا کہ اگر معیشت کو بچانا ہے تو سب نے ملک کر سلیکٹڈ حکمرانوں کا مقابلہ کرنا ہوگا۔
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