SYRIA – An Israeli airstrike near the Lebanese-Syrian border has killed a prominent Syrian businessman who was sanctioned by the United States, local media reported Monday.

Mohammad Baraa Qatarji died when the strike hit the car he was traveling in on the al-Saboura highway near Damascus, according to Syrian state-aligned newspaper al-Watan. Qatarji had been sanctioned in 2018 by the US Treasury and was on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list for facilitating “shipments of fuel and weapons to the Syrian regime.”

According to OFAC, Qatirji and his company had facilitated the trade in fuel between the regime and ISIS and had provided oil products to ISIS-controlled territory.  “In a 2016 trade deal between the government of Syria and ISIS, the Qatirji company was identified as the exclusive agent for providing supplies to ISIS-controlled areas, including oil and other commodities,” OFAC said. According to the US Treasury website, Qatarji had a strong working relationship with officials within the Syrian government, including in the ministries of oil and trade.

Qatarji and his two brothers Zahed and Hussam – who are also sanctioned by OFAC – established a militia that fought alongside the Syrian regime in Aleppo in 2016. They are also accused of having links with Hezbollah. According to OFAC, earlier this year, Lebanon-based Syrian money exchanger Tawfiq Muhammad Sa’id al-Law provided Hezbollah with cryptocurrency digital wallets to conduct transfers on behalf of the Qatirji Company. (CNN)…[+]

ROME – Pope Francis urged religious orders on Monday to work and pray harder for new priests and nuns to join, as he acknowledged the congregations’ futures are at risk with the numbers of men and women entering Catholic religious life plummeting in parts of the world.

The Jesuit pope asked representatives of a half-dozen religious orders celebrating assemblies this summer in Rome how many people they each had training to be priests or nuns. Audience members responded saying eight, 12 and 17, with new members coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America. “The future is there, it’s true,” Francis told them. “We have to double these numbers!”

For over a decade, the overall number of Catholic priests and nuns from Europe and parts of the Americas has been in a free fall as new members fail to make up for deaths and desertions. The new priests in the Global South have limited the overall global decline, with a total of 407,872 priests recorded in 2021 compared to 413,418 in 2011, according to Vatican statistics.

But the drop has been much more precipitous in female religious orders, which on a global scale have been shedding around 10,000 members per year to death and desertions for over a decade. While there are exceptions with vibrant, growing communities, the number of religious sisters worldwide stood at 608,958 in 2021 compared to 713,206 a decade prior, according to the most recently available statistics. As with the men, Europe and the Americas have seen the greatest declines. (ABC news)…[+]

GUYANA – Why pay an investment committee, if there are no funds to be invested? This is the conundrum the Opposition is faced with presently, as the Government of Guyana has effected changes to the rules of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) – the country’s oil account – to allow for 98% of the earnings to be withdrawn this year.

The Investment Committee is essentially a board of seven members – including two specialists without voting powers. This Committee is tasked with advising the Board of Directors on the Investment Mandate, according to the NRF Act of 2021. Each member is remunerated “in respect of their office as the Minister (of Finance) may determine from time to time” according to the NRF Act.

The Investment Committee is chaired by Chartered Banker, Ms. Shaleeza Shaw. Other appointees include Executive Director of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Richard Rambarran, Attorney-at-Law, Michael Munroe, Mr. Lauris Hukumchand and more recently, Mr. Terrence Campbell (Opposition nominee and) and Mr. Ganesh Sugrim.

During the 83rd Sitting of the 12th Parliament last Monday at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara the 2023 Annual Report of the NRF was presented to the National Assembly by Minister with responsibility for Finance and the Public Service, Dr. Ashni Singh.

A key highlight of the document was the interest accumulated by the fund in 2023.

According to the document seen by this newspaper, “Net return generated by the Fund totaled G$18,105.25 million (US$86.84 million) for the year 2023, a substantial increase of 396% (G$14,455.17 / US$69.33 million) over the previous year’s level on account of higher interest rates on overnight deposits during 2023.”

During the Leader of the Opposition’s weekly press conference on Friday, spokesperson on oil and gas, Elson Low questioned the role of the NRF Investment Committee since he pointed out that the stage has been set for 98% of the earnings to be withdrawn by government, leaving a meagre sum for possible investments or savings.

He explained, “While we are seeing reports come out of the NRF, the real devil is in the details in a sense because we have a government which has of course changed the rules of the NRF Act so that a vast majority of resources – 98% of resources can be withdrawn.”

Low added, “That is alarming and it means that we are not going to have a substantial NRF for the next several years at least unless of course they come and change the rules again and make it even easier for them to access more funds.”

The economist observed that the Opposition’s nominee for the Investment Committee was only recently appointed by government, some one year after the candidate was proposed. (Kaieteur News)

Photo: Opposition spokesman on Oil and Gas, Elson Low. …[+]

NEW YORK – The 2024 election campaign has a new iconic image Donald Trump, moments after narrowly avoiding serious injury or death from an assassin’s bullets, standing with his fist raised, lines of blood streaked across his face, an American flag billowing in the breeze behind him.

The bloodshed in Pennsylvania will leave a lasting mark on the American psyche, puncturing the veneer of security around the highest levels of presidential politics of magnetic screening, bulletproof limousines and heavily armed Secret Service agents. Even former presidents are not insulated from the violence that can erupt in everyday American life.

It was also a dramatic moment in American political history one that is sure to be replayed in video clips, still photographs and testimonial accounts throughout the course of this presidential campaign and in campaigns to come.

In a rare address from the Oval Office Sunday evening, President Joe Biden called on Americans to cool the temperature around political debate. The attack has already begun coursing through America’s partisan dialogue, as numerous Republicans have spoken out to condemn President Biden and the Democrats for creating a rhetorical environment conducive to the violence.

They point to dire warnings about the former president becoming a dictator and threatening democracy as examples of the overheated language that could inspire an assassin. In particular, they highlight leaked comments the president made in private to donors just last week about increasing the attacks on the former president’s record and putting a “bull’s-eye” on him.

They’ve tried to take him out in so many other ways, financially, they’ve tried to throw him in jail,” Donald Trump Jr said in a television interview on Sunday. “It’s almost as if they would love for this to happen. At least so far, however, the motives and political affiliations of the alleged assassin, 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident Thomas Matthew Crooks, are in doubt. They may ultimately defy an easy partisan narrative.

The former president’s oldest son went on to add that, after the assassination attempt, those on the left can no longer accuse the former president of culpability for the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. That violent episode took place hours after the then-president had held a rally just a few dozen blocks away, challenging the 2020 election results. (BBC) …[+]