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Firefighter douses a vehicle after a blast outside a court building in Islamabad, Pakistan November 11, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Pair of suicide bombers strike Pakistan, World’s biggest mining project breaks ground, Israel’s Parliament to impose death penalty for some, “Cryptoqueen” to be sentenced
15: A pair of suicide attacks in Pakistan yesterday killed at least 15 people. One struck the capital Islamabad, killing at least 12 and injuring another 27 – the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for it, prompting Pakistan’s defense minister to say the country is in a “state of war.” The other bomber detonated outside a military school in the northwest, near the Afghan border.
$23 billion: The world’s biggest mining project is breaking ground in Guinea today, financed by China. The $23-billion iron-ore mine aims to reduce the energy needed to produce steel, quadruple Guinea’s GDP by 2040, and deepen China’s dominance over Africa’s resources.
39: Israel’s Parliament voted to advance a bill that would impose a death penalty for Palestinians who murder Jewish Israelis for nationalist reasons, but not for Jewish Israelis who kill Palestinians for the same reasons. The vote was 39 to 16. A member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party proposed the bill. Israel abolished the death penalty in 1954.
$5.6 billion: A Chinese woman who was found guilty of stealing Chinese pensioners’ funds to buy billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency before fleeing to the United Kingdom is set to be sentenced today for money laundering. Qian Zhimin, otherwise known as “cryptoqueen,” received deposits of 40 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) from 120,000 people in China.
8: Eight Democratic senators joined 52 of the 53 Republicans in the upper chamber to formally pass the continuing resolution that would fund the US government through the end of January. House progressives were seething, furious that their Senate peers passed the bill without extending healthcare subsidies. Speaker Mike Johnson has told House members that the lower chamber could vote on the bill by Wednesday.
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to the media during a visit to El Salvador to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man deported without due process by the Trump administration and sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), in San Salvador, El Salvador, on April 16, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Maryland senator flies to El Salvador, Russian journalists jailed, California sues Trump admin over tariffs, EU tilts right on asylum, Peru’s ex-president guilty of money laundering
1: On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) flew to El Salvador to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abgrego Garcia, a Maryland resident wrongfully deported to a brutal high-security prison there. Van Hollen, who met with the Salvadoran vice president, is the only US lawmaker to make the trip. The Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration should “facilitate” Garcia’s return to the United States, but US President Donald Trump has shown no willingness to do so. (Does that mean the United States is facing a constitutional crisis? Here’s what Ian Bremmer has to say).
4: Four Russian journalists were convicted of extremism and jailed in a closed-door trial in Moscow for associating with the Anti-Corruption Fund — a group founded by the late opposition leader and political activist Alexei Navalny. The individuals pleaded not guilty, arguing they were merely doing their jobs as independent journalists.
-0.2: Before Washington unveiled sweeping tariffs that rocked the global economy, the World Trade Organization forecasted global goods trade to grow by 2.7% in 2025. The updated forecast shows a decrease of 0.2%, a swing of 2.9 percentage points. WTO director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also warned that trade between the US and China could plunge by 81-91%, due to the superpowers’ trade war.
5th: California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, sued the Trump administration over the “emergency” rule that allowed the executive branch to impose tariffs — a power constitutionally reserved for Congress, the Golden State alleges.
7: The European Union has designated seven countries—Kosovo, Colombia, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and India — as “safe” places for migrants to return, a decision that will result in the denial of asylum applications for citizens from those countries. The move comes amid growing anti-immigrant pressure from far-right parties across the continent.
15: Peru’s former president Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia have been found guilty of money laundering and each sentenced to 15 years in prison. The couple was convicted of accepting nearly $3 million in illegal campaign funds from construction giant Odebrecht and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. Humala was taken into custody, whereas Heredia sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy in Lima and was granted safe passage to Brazil.FILE PHOTO: The Toronto Dominion (TD) bank logo is seen on a building in Toronto, Ontario, Canada March 16, 2017.
TD Bank guilty of money laundering
Two US subsidiaries of Canada’s second-biggest bank agreed last week to pay $3 billion US in fines, pleading guilty to conspiring to money laundering in the United States and giving the bank a huge black eye.
US regulators imposed an asset cap and other business limitations, unusual steps that underline the seriousness of the violations.
Senior executives at the bank joked about money laundering and failed to maintain controls to prevent criminals from using the bank during an aggressive expansion in the United States, the US Justice Department said.
The bank allowed one criminal based in Queens, New York, David Sze, to move more than US$470 million through TD over three years, depositing large amounts of cash into accounts opened by other people. Sze bribed bank officials while laundering revenue from narcotics and other illicit activities.
The decade-long failure to uncover illegal activity through the bank raises questions about the quality of oversight provided by its board, the Globe and Mail wrote on Wednesday.
TD CEO Bharat Masrani, who has announced plans to retire next year, has called the plea “a sad day in our history.”
TD’s dramatic failure in the United States highlights what experts see as longstanding failings in Canada’s regulatory regime regarding money laundering.
Malaysian tycoon says Berjaya isn't involved in Perak firm linked to US cyber crime charges
PETALING JAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - One of Malaysia's richest men Vincent Tan said on Friday (Sept 18) that his conglomerate Berjaya Corp Bhd has no interest in SEA Gamer Mall , after two of the digital game store's executives were arrested over cyber crime and money laundering allegations.