Uncategorized
Man linked to Saudi prince at consulate when writer vanished
ISTANBUL — A member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s entourage during several trips abroad walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul just before writer Jamal Khashoggi vanished there, a surveillance photo leaked Thursday shows, drawing the kingdom’s heir-apparent closer to the columnist’s alleged slaying.
The man, identified by Turkish officials as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, has been photographed in the background of Prince Mohammed’s trips to the U.S., France and Spain this year.
Turkish officials say he flew into Istanbul on a private jet along with an “autopsy expert” Oct. 2 and left that night. That was the same day Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of Prince Mohammed’s rise to power, entered the consulate and was not seen again.
Saudi Arabia, which initially called the allegations “baseless,” has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press over recent days, including on Thursday over Mutreb’s identification. The AP could not immediately reach Mutreb for comment.
But Mutreb’s appearance at the consulate, as well as later at the consul general’s residence, adds to the growing pressure on Saudi Arabia amid international outrage over the disappearance of the writer, whom Turkish officials say was killed and dismembered.
In a further sign of that pressure, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will not attend an investment conference in Saudi Arabia, as did senior government officials from France, Britain and the Netherlands. Several top business executives have also
Analysts say that as long as the Saudis refuse to acknowledge what happened to Khashoggi, the leaks about the case will probably continue.
“Turkey wants to show to the world that it cannot be ignoble, selling values and principles in political deals with U.S. or Saudi to try to bury the truth and come up with an acceptable scenario,” said Yusuf Katipoglu, a Turkish analyst.
The pro-government Sabah newspaper on Thursday first published the images of Mutreb, showing him walking past police barricades at the consulate at 9:55 a.m. with several men trailing behind him. Khashoggi arrived at the consulate several hours later at 1:14 p.m., then disappeared while his fiancée waited outside for him.
A report Wednesday by the pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak, citing what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi’s slaying, said a Saudi team immediately accosted the 60-year-old journalist after he entered the consulate, cutting off his fingers and later decapitating him.
Previously leaked surveillance footage showed consular vehicles moving from the consulate to the consul general’s official residence, some 2
Mutreb’s name matches that of a first secretary who once served as a diplomat at the Saudi Embassy in London, according to a 2007 list compiled by the British Foreign Office. The same name also appears in an email published by WikiLeaks from the 2015 breach of surveillance company Hacking Team of Saudi officials being trained to use their software. That breach showed how governments were increasingly turning to mercenary hackers-for-hire to pry into the cellphones and computers of their domestic opponents.
Mutreb’s identity was confirmed by Turkish officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Mutreb also was identified in state and pro-government media reports.
It’s unclear what relationship Mutreb has with Prince Mohammed.
Images shot by the Houston Chronicle and later distributed by the AP show Mutreb in Prince Mohammed’s entourage when he visited a Houston subdivision in April to see rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Harvey. The same man wore lapel pins, including one of the U.S. and Saudi flags intertwined, that other bodyguards accompanying Prince Mohammed wore on the trip.
The three-week trip across the U.S. saw Prince Mohammed meet with business leaders and celebrities, including Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, who now owns the Post.
Mutreb also has appeared in images on Prince Mohammed’s trips to Boston, as well as Spain and France.
The Sabah report came as Turkish crime-scene investigators finished an overnight search of both the consul general’s residence and a second search of the consulate itself. Authorities have not said specifically what they found, although technicians carried out bags and boxes from the consul general’s home. He left Turkey on Tuesday.
The searches and the leaks in Turkish media have ensured attention remains focused on what happened to Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who went into a self-imposed exile in the U.S. after the rise of Prince Mohammed. It also put further strains on the relationship between the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter, and its main security guarantor, the U.S., as tensions with Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East remain high.
President Donald Trump, who initially came out hard on the Saudis over the disappearance but since has backed off, said Wednesday that the U.S. wanted Turkey to turn over any audio or video recording it had of Khashoggi’s alleged killing “if it exists.”
After briefing Trump on Thursday on his talks this week with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he told the Saudi rulers that the U.S. takes “very seriously” the disappearance of Khashoggi and will await the outcome of investigations by the kingdom and Turkey before deciding how to respond.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Reporters Without Borders jointly called for a U.N. investigation of the Khashoggi disappearance.
“If the government of Saudi Arabia is not involved in Jamal Khashoggi’s fate, it has the most to gain in seeing an impartial U.N. investigation determine what happened,” said Sherine Tadros of Amnesty International. “Without a credible U.N. inquiry, there will always be a cloud of suspicion hanging over Saudi Arabia, no matter what its leadership says to explain away how Khashoggi vanished.”
The Post published Thursday what it described as Khashoggi’s last column, in which he pointed to the muted international response to ongoing abuses against journalists by governments in the Middle East.
“As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate,” Khashoggi wrote. He added: “The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.”
___
Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Suzan Fraser, Sarah El Deeb And Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Carson Binda
BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.
“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”
Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.
Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.
When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.
The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.
“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”
If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.
Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.
“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”
From the Fraser Institute
By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss
This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.
But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.
Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:
Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.
Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.
Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).
Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.
Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.
Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.
Tegan Hill
Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute
Jake Fuss
Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute
Canadian judge rejects complaint against maskless workplaces as frivolous
Cancer drug pioneer praises RFK Jr., suggests link between childhood cancer and COVID shots
Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax
Celebrity Doctor says YouTube removed videos about vaccine discussions, insisted he take reeducation
Donald Trump appoints Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone as special ambassadors to Hollywood
Before Trudeau Blames Alberta, Perhaps He Should Look in the Mirror
‘This Is So Disgusting’: Joe Rogan Unloads On Gavin Newsom For ‘Creepy’ Behavior In Front Of Wildfire Wreckage
-
International2 days agoTrump orders U.S. withdrawal from World Health Organization
-
Daily Caller2 days agoTrump Takes Firm Stand, Exits Paris Agreement Again
-
illegal immigration2 days agoTrump to declare national emergency on border, issue executive orders
-
Business2 days agoTrump promises new era of government efficiency with DOGE
-
Brownstone Institute2 days agoThe Deplorable Ethics of a Preemptive Pardon for Fauci
-
Economy2 days agoTrump declares national energy emergency
-
Business2 days agoTrump signs executive order banning government censorship
-
Bruce Dowbiggin2 days agoOn The Clock: Win Fast Or Forever Lose Your Chance