The security forum, in its 21st iteration, is held every year in Singapore by IISS, gathering military and political leaders to discuss security issues. It ends on June 2. – Reuters
World News
CHICAGO – Aircraft shortages are turning into a moneymaker for some airlines as the dearth of supply allows carriers to sell new planes to leasing companies at much higher prices than they paid.
Carriers such as Denver-based Frontier Airlines and Hungary’s Wizz Air have reported gains up to hundreds of millions of dollars through selling planes after taking delivery and renting them back for their own use. These sale-and-leaseback transactions have long been a way for airlines globally to generate liquidity and ease the strain on their balance sheets.
The tight airliner market has made these deals far more attractive, with US airlines this year accounting for 24% of global sale-and-leaseback transactions, up from 10% in 2022, according to Cirium Ascend Consultancy.
Passenger carriers will receive 19% fewer aircraft this year than expected because of production issues at Boeing and Airbus, according to AeroDynamic Advisory. In addition, roughly 350 Airbus A320neo jets are expected to be grounded between 2024 and 2026 to deal with a flaw with RTX’s Pratt & Whitney engines.
As a result, new aircraft prices are 20% higher than the pre-pandemic period, said John Heimlich, chief economist at Airlines for America (A4A), an industry group that represents major US carriers.
Frontier this month reported a gain of $71 million in the first quarter from these deals, up 78% from last year. It will likely see similar gains in the current quarter, said Rob Morris, head of global consultancy at Cirium.
Wizz Air booked a gain of about 245 million euros ($266.5 million) in its most recent financial year, up about 146%.
Mr. Morris described the sale-and-leaseback market as “very competitive” where pricing power sits with the selling party.
Some carriers are also benefiting more than others by getting the timing of orders right. Frontier, for example, placed a big order in 2021 when inflation was relatively lower and air travel demand had not recovered.
US airlines such as Delta, American and United have also done deals, but not as often as Frontier. The discount carrier has more than 200 new Airbus planes on order for deliveries through 2029.
Frontier said this month while it is getting the planes from Airbus at a “material discount to the market,” it is selling them to lessors at a much higher price.
That bit of financial engineering allowed the ultra-low-cost carrier to nearly break even in the first quarter, worrying some analysts who said the airline’s business appears to have become more reliant on these deals than flying passengers.
“We remain concerned that outsized sale-leaseback gains are increasingly core to Frontier’s profitability,” said JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker.
But Frontier sees its aircraft order book as a “major asset” in a supply-constrained market as production challenges at planemakers are expected to persist.
“It’s a core part of the business, the cash is real,” CEO Barry Biffle told investors this month.
Lessors share that view. Aengus Kelly, CEO of aircraft leasing giant AerCap this month predicted that tightness in global jet markets will last through the rest of the decade.
LEASE PRICES SURGE
Surging prices for new aircraft also mean soaring rents. Airlines are spending 30% more on aircraft leases than before the pandemic, A4A’s Heimlich estimated.
The lease rate for an Airbus A321neo has hit $455,000 per month, Cirium data shows, up 30% since 2020. Airlines are not only required to pay monthly rents for the duration of their lease contracts, but also maintenance compensation and a security deposit.
Delays in aircraft deliveries can also leave airlines in a spot, especially those dependent on these deals to generate cash and manage their expenses, said Courtney Miller, founder of consultancy firm Visual Approach Analytics.
Brazilian airline Gol, which filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this year, struggled to manage high leasing and interest expenses after Boeing failed to deliver planes at a rate that could fund its operations.
Frontier’s situation is not as dire, but it has reported profit in just one of the last five quarters.
“The delivery treadmill has to keep running to fund the airline,” Mr. Miller said. “What happens when the deliveries can’t keep up?” – Reuters
NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – India’s election was in full swing when hundreds of social media users shared a video that appeared to show Home Minister Amit Shah saying the ruling party wanted to scrap a quota system aimed at undoing centuries of caste discrimination.
The controversial comments caused a brief furor before fact-checkers stepped in and declared the video a fake that had been made using old footage that was doctored with the help of basic editing tools – a so-called cheapfake.
In the run-up to the ongoing election, the results of which are due on June 4, politicians and digital rights groups voiced concern that voters could be swayed by misinformation contained in AI-driven “deepfake” videos.
But fact-checkers say most the falsified pictures and videos posted online during the six-week election have not been made using artificial intelligence (AI), instead using relatively cheap and simple techniques such as footage editing or mislabeling to present content in a misleading context.
“Maybe 1% of the content we have seen is AI-generated,” said Kiran Garimella, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who researches WhatsApp in India. “From what we can tell, it’s still a very small percentage of misinformation.”
Whether cheapfakes or deepfakes, the result can be equally convincing, fact-checkers say, putting the onus on social media companies to do more to root out all forms of misinformation being spread on their platforms.
“You can resurrect dead leaders using AI but people realize its propaganda… However, if you mislabel a video or clip it out of context, people are more likely to believe it,” said Pratik Sinha from Alt News, an Indian nonprofit fact-checking website.
“Rather than getting into the binary of deepfakes and cheapfakes, there is a need for finding a way to tackle misinformation more effectively,” Sinha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Both Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and X, formerly Twitter, introduced new policies to crack down on different forms of misinformation in a big year for global elections, but fact-checking groups say the results have been disappointing.
UPDATED GUIDELINES
Responding to criticism from its oversight board, Meta updated its guidelines in April to add prominent labels to all forms of misinformation. Meta’s earlier policy only applied to content altered or created using AI.
“We agree with the Oversight Board’s argument that our existing approach is too narrow since it only covers videos that are created or altered by AI to make a person appear to say something they didn’t say,” Monika Bickert, the company’s vice president of content policy, wrote in a blog post last month.
Under the new approach, which took effect before the Indian election started on April 19, fact-checkers working with Meta review and rate posts, including ads, articles, photos, videos, reels, audio on its social media network under six labels to provide more information to users.
They can use the labels False, Partly False, Altered, Missing Context, Satire and True.
Sinha questioned the policy’s effectiveness in tackling false and misleading digitally manipulated posts over the election period.
“I’m not sure how effective Meta’s labelling has been,” he said, calling for the company to release data on its fact-checking programs.
An analysis by the Thomson Reuters Foundation found many fact-checked videos on Facebook had not been labelled correctly, or carried no warning label at all.
In one video doctored through editing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to ask supporters to vote for a rival party. Rather than being labelled Altered, it is labelled Partly False – meaning it contains “some factual inaccuracies”.
X’s introduction in April of a new feature for Indian users to combat misinformation has also fallen short, said Karen Rebelo, deputy editor at fact-checking website Boom Live.
According to X, its Community Notes feature is designed to combat misinformation by inviting users from diverse backgrounds to contribute as note authors to set the record straight.
But Ms. Rebelo said different note authors often contradict each other, creating further confusion as no clear consensus arises on the veracity of the post in question.
“A lot of misinformation has notes on it but it’s not surfacing because other contributors don’t agree with it. X needs to find a way to work this out because otherwise it defeats the purpose of community notes,” she said.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation found a cheapfake video of Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the opposition Congress, could be found on X and had no notes on it despite being debunked by fact-checking websites.
In the mislabeled footage, viewed 43,000 times, Mr. Kharge appears to say his party would distribute Hindus’ wealth to minority Muslims.
BROADER THREAT
Even when doctored videos have been labelled as fakes by social media platforms, they often still spread unabated on messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Garimella said.
“Forty percent of the viral content being forwarded has already been fact-checked many times, but that hasn’t stopped it from spreading because there is no moderation as such on the messaging app,” Garimella said.
“That tells us that people perhaps aren’t aware (it is fake),” he said, warning that without tough controls by platforms that would likely continue.
Ahead of the election, Meta, which owns WhatsApp, launched a fact-checking helpline on the app with the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) to combat AI-generated misinformation in India.
Most content flagged to the helpline had been manipulated using simple methods, not AI-driven tools, said Pamposh Raina, head of the MCA’s Deepfake Analysis Unit.
But the alarm about deepfakes may have distracted platforms from the broader threat of misinformation, Sinha said.
“We’ve hardly seen any deepfake videos that spread misinformation … But (social media) put its money and resources into debunking deepfakes. It should have researched the market better,” he said. – Reuters
NEW YORK – Donald Trump became the first US president to be convicted of a crime on Thursday when a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.
After two days of deliberation, the 12-member jury pronounced Mr. Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts he faced.
Trump watched the jurors dispassionately as they were polled to confirm the unanimous verdict.
Justice Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican Party is scheduled to formally nominate Mr. Trump for president ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The crime of falsifying business documents carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison, though those convicted often receive shorter sentences, fines or probation. Incarceration would not legally prevent him from campaigning, or taking office if he were to win.
He will not be jailed ahead of sentencing.
The verdict plunges the United States into unexplored territory ahead of the November vote, when Mr. Trump will try to win back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden.
Mr. Trump, 77, has denied wrongdoing and an attorney representing him said they would appeal as quickly as possible.
“This was a disgrace,” Mr. Trump told reporters afterwards as he proclaimed his innocence and repeated his complaints that the trial had been rigged against him.
“The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,” he said.
Mr. Trump gave a thumbs-up sign through the tinted window of his SUV as his motorcade left the courthouse. Mr. Trump’s supporters stood in a park opposite the courthouse along with journalists, police and onlookers.
Opinion polls show Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, 81, locked in a tight race, and Reuters/Ipsos polling has found that a guilty verdict could cost Mr. Trump some support among independent and Republican voters.
The case had been widely regarded as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Mr. Trump faces. But the verdict looms large now as it is likely to be the only one before the election with the others delayed by procedural challenges.
The jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying business documents after sitting through a five-week courtroom presentation that featured explicit testimony from porn star Stormy Daniels about a sexual encounter she says she had with Mr. Trump in 2006 while he was married to his current wife Melania. Mr. Trump denies ever having sex with Ms. Daniels.
Mr. Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen testified that Mr. Trump approved a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms. Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 election, when Trump faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehavior.
Mr. Cohen testified that he handled the payment, and that Mr. Trump approved a plan to reimburse him through monthly payments disguised as legal work.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers hammered Mr. Cohen’s credibility, highlighting his criminal record and imprisonment and his history of lying. Mr. Merchan also cautioned jurors to examine his testimony carefully.
The relatively short amount of time jurors needed to reach a verdict was a sign that they thought there was enough evidence to back up Mr. Cohen’s testimony, said George Grasso, a retired New York judge who attended the trial.
A source familiar with the Mr. Trump campaign’s inner workings said the verdict was expected to prompt him to intensify deliberations on picking a woman as his vice presidential running mate. His campaign website labeled him a “political prisoner” and urged supporters to donate.
BIDEN CAMPAIGN: NO ONE ABOVE THE LAW
Mr. Biden’s campaign said the verdict showed that no one was above the law and urged voters to reject Mr. Trump in the election.
“There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box,” the campaign said in a statement.
The White House declined to comment.
Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans quickly condemned the verdict. “Today is a shameful day in American history,” House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said in a prepared statement.
The jury notified the court they had reached a verdict at 4:20 p.m. (2020 GMT) and the foreperson read out all 34 guilty counts shortly after 5 p.m.
Mr. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche asked Mr. Merchan to throw out the guilty verdict, arguing that it was based on the unreliable testimony of Mr. Cohen. Mr. Merchan denied his request.
A Trump appeal is likely to focus on porn star Daniels’ salacious testimony about their alleged sexual encounter as well as the novel legal theory prosecutors used in the case, but he faces long odds, legal experts said.
“We are going to appeal as quickly as we can. We will seek expedited review of this case,” Trump attorney Will Scharf told Fox News.
As a standalone crime, falsifying business documents is normally a misdemeanor in New York, but prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office elevated it to a felony on grounds that Mr. Trump was concealing an illegal campaign contribution.
They had the burden of proving Mr. Trump guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard under US law.
“We did our job. (There are) many voices out there. The only voice that matters is the voice of the jury, and the jury has spoken,” Mr. Bragg said.
Jurors heard testimony of sex and lies that have been public since 2018, although the charges themselves rested on ledger accounts and other records of Mr. Cohen’s reimbursement.
It was known as the “zombie case” because Mr. Bragg brought it back to life after his predecessor opted not to bring charges.
If elected, Mr. Trump could shut down the two federal cases that accuse him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and mishandling classified documents after leaving office in 2021. He would not have the power to stop a separate election-subversion case taking place in Georgia.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the cases, and has portrayed his various legal troubles as an effort by Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies to hurt him politically. – Reuters
SEOUL – North Korea said on Friday it had fired 18 short-range ballistic missiles during a drill as a demonstration of its willingness to launch a pre-emptive strike against South Korea’s “gangsters’ regime” if necessary to counter an attack.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided the firing drill of the 600mm “super-large” multiple rocket launchers on Thursday, state news agency KCNA reported.
South Korea said it had detected at least 10 short-range ballistic missiles fired by North Korea off its east coast, calling it a possible display for would-be weapons buyers, including Russia.
The launch, following the firing of tactical ballistic missiles and a failed satellite launch this month, was a clear act of provocation that threatens peace on the Korean peninsula, deputy spokesperson for Seoul’s unification ministry Kim In-ae told a briefing.
Artillery troops successfully hit the target of an island about 365 km (230 miles) away as Kim Jong Un oversaw the demonstration at the launch site, KCNA reported.
Photos published by state media showed 18 missiles, identified by experts as KN-25s, rising into the air from mobile launchers.
First tested in 2019, the “super-large” rocket blurs the distinction between multiple-launch rocket systems and short-range ballistic missiles, according to the Center for International and Strategic Studies.
North Korea has said a tactical nuclear weapon could be fitted to such missiles. Leader Kim urged the country’s nuclear forces to be ready to carry out the mission of war deterrence and take the initiative in case of war, KCNA said.
“Showers of fire for annihilation” during the drill showed North Korea’s will to defend its sovereignty and react against the enemy, KCNA said in another report.
The drill included the use of a recently unveiled fire-control system that is part of the government’s combined nuclear weapons management system, KCNA said.
The US State Department condemned Thursday’s launch using ballistic missile technology as reckless and violating multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The US Defense Intelligence Agency said analysis of debris imagery confirmed Russia has fielded North Korean missiles in its war in Ukraine, according to a report summary.
Russia and North Korea have denied arms deals, which would violate U.N. embargoes on Pyongyang, but have vowed to deepen cooperation in all sectors.
A column carried by KCNA criticized Wednesday’s deployment of US RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft from Japan to the Korean peninsula, saying the aircraft and other reconnaissance assets by the South and the US infringed on North Korea’s sovereignty.
South Korean media reported that a US military spy plane had flown above the Seoul metropolitan area and waters off the west coast this week, citing flight trackers.
On Wednesday, North Korea sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure across the heavily fortified border to South Korea, calling them “gifts of sincerity” and prompting an angry response from Seoul, which said the act was base and dangerous. – Reuters
TAIPEI/BEIJING – Taiwan’s military mobilized its forces and said it was confident it could protect the island, after China started two days of “punishment” drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to “separatist acts”.
The exercises, in the Taiwan Strait and around groups of Taiwan-controlled islands that sit next to the Chinese coast, come just three days after Lai Ching-te took office as Taiwan’s new president, a man Beijing detests as a “separatist”.
China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has denounced Lai’s inauguration speech on Monday, in which he called on China to stop its threats and on Tuesday Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called Lai “disgraceful“.
Lai has repeatedly offered talks with China but been rebuffed. He says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future, and rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
The Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it had started joint military drills, involving the army, navy, air force and rocket force, in areas around Taiwan at 7:45 a.m. (2345 GMT).
The drills are being conducted in the Taiwan Strait, the north, south and east of Taiwan, as well as areas around the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin, the command said in a statement.
Taiwan’s defense ministry condemned the drills, saying that it had dispatched forces to areas around the island and was confident it could protect its territory.
“The launch of military exercises on this occasion not only does not contribute to the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, it also highlights (China’s) militaristic mentality,” the ministry said.
A senior Taiwan official, speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that the drills are part of a scenario Taiwan had anticipated and that the island’s government has a “comprehensive grasp” of Chinese military movements.
Taiwanese officials had said in the run-up to the inauguration they were keeping watch for Chinese military movements.
The drills focus on joint sea-air combat-readiness patrols, precision strikes on key targets, and integrated operations inside and outside the island chain to test the “joint real combat capabilities” of the forces, China’s military said.
“This is also a strong punishment for the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces and a stern warning against the interference and provocation by external forces,” the command added.
Chinese state media published a map of the drills zones, in five areas all around Taiwan and the islands Taiwan controls near the Chinese coast.
Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwan’s top military think tank, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that although the drills would only last two days, the scope is large relative to previous exercises, as they included Taiwan’s outlying islands.
This is designed to demonstrate China’s ability to control the seas and prevent the involvement of foreign forces, he added.
“The political signals here are greater than the military ones,” he added.
There was no sign of alarm in Taiwan, where people are long used to Chinese military activity. The benchmark stock index .TWII, currently at a historic high, was up 0.2% on Thursday morning.
“The drills will have a short-term psychological impact, but won’t reverse the long-term upward trend of Taiwan stocks,” said Mega International Investment Services vice president Alex Huang.
In August 2022, China launched live-fire military exercises around Taiwan immediately after a visit, much condemned by Beijing, by former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi. That series of exercises, the scale of which was unprecedented, lasted for four days, followed by several days of additional drills. – Reuters
Republican attorney generals from 20 US states sued the Biden administration on Tuesday, seeking to block new reforms to the US environmental review process for major projects such as transmission lines and wind and solar farms.
States including Iowa, North Dakota, Texas and Florida challenged reforms included in a rule finalized in April by the White House Council on Environmental Quality in North Dakota federal court, arguing they go beyond the agency’s authority, would increase project costs and unfairly favor clean energy projects.
The reforms aim to streamline analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a bedrock environmental law that requires environmental reviews for major projects that receive federal permits or funding. NEPA reviews are the frequent focus of litigation, which can delay construction on projects for years.
The states said the regulations also require agencies to consider a wider range of a project’s impacts during environmental reviews including climate change and environmental justice considerations, which will cause project delays even though those factors are not explicitly detailed in NEPA’s text.
They said the rule changes will make it more difficult for some projects to receive approvals if they might impact disadvantaged or minority communities.
The rule will impose improper bureaucratic roadblocks for projects including highways or fossil fuel power plants “by forcing social, environmental and race-based regulations on developers,” the states said in a statement.
A White House spokesperson said the rule will speed up project reviews and make sure industry can move forward with key investments and projects, but declined to comment on the lawsuit directly.
The reforms build on and expand initial work to reform the NEPA process finalized in 2022, when the Biden administration began rolling back Trump administration changes that made the process less stringent.
The earlier Biden administration changes required federal agencies to consider the direct, indirect and cumulative impacts of proposed projects or actions.
The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality has called the newest reforms a “core element” of Biden’s efforts to build out clean energy systems and to rebuild American infrastructure.
It said in April that the new reforms are consistent with the agency’s legal authority. — Reuters
LONDON – Britain said on Wednesday it wanted to build a new large-scale nuclear power station in north Wales, naming a site on the island of Anglesey as its preferred location and launching talks with international energy companies about building the plant.
As part of efforts to meet climate targets and boost energy security, Britain is seeking to increase its nuclear power capacity by 2050 to 24 gigawatts, equivalent to about a quarter of projected electricity demand, from about 14% currently.
The Wylfa coastal site on the island of Anglesey was used for nuclear power generation between 1971 and 2015. That plant is currently being decommissioned.
The new plant at the site could generate enough power for six million homes for 60 years, and would be similar in scale to projects underway at Hinkley and Sizewell in England, the government said in a statement.
In 2020 Japan’s Hitachi scrapped plans to build a nuclear plant at Wylfa after failing to find private investors or secure sufficient government support.
The government did not name the firms that would be involved in discussions to develop the new project.
Earlier in May, the Financial Times reported South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) was in talks with the government to build a plant at Wylfa. — Reuters
KAMPALA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Evicted from her business. Thrown out of home. Then pummeled by family. That was enough to persuade Cindy to flee a surge in anti-LGBTQ+ violence that is sweeping her native Uganda.
It is one year since President Yoweri Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws ever enacted globally and a measure that has legalized a swathe of homophobic abuse.
Not least forced evictions – which have more than doubled in number as landlords, families and neighbors oust LGBTQ+ Ugandans from their homes or businesses with full legal backing.
The year-old act made it illegal to rent property to LGBTQ+ people such as Cindy, leading to a wave of evictions along with a surge in day-to-day discrimination.
“Ugandan laws prohibit same-sex relationships and like in many African countries where homosexuality has been criminalized, the punishment…is severe,” said Arnold Akello, a Kampala-based human rights lawyer.
While there is no official data on the scale of evictions, rights groups and lawyers report an uptick in distress calls, despite a slight softening of the law last month.
EVICTED AND BEATEN
Cindy spent five years building up a successful hair salon on the outskirts of Kampala – or she had until February, when her landlord abruptly ordered her to leave.
Given he had evicted her without due notice, Cindy planned to sue before multiple threats persuaded her to drop the case.
A month later, she was evicted from her home, then attacked by relatives for “causing them ridicule for being a lesbian”.
Enough was finally enough.
“I sought refuge at a friend’s house…before crossing over to Kenya,” Cindy told the Thomson Reuters Foundation of her escape in March.
Since then, Cindy – who wanted to use only her first name – said five of her LGBTQ+ friends had also been evicted.
“They don’t even feel safe at the secret shelter where they sought refuge,” she said by phone from a safe house in Nairobi.
TOUGH NEW LAWS
While Uganda had long criminalized gay sex, the AHA was harsher than its colonial-era predecessor: part of a wave of tough new anti-LGBTQ+ measures sweeping parts of Africa.
In Ghana, just like in Uganda, LGBTQ+ people now risk eviction under an anti-LGBTQ+ bill that requires landlords to prevent same-sex relations on their property.
The fallout from such laws is chilling, advocates say.
Two months into AHA, Kampala-based rights group Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum said it had logged 36 evictions affecting 75 LGBTQ+ Ugandans. This compared to an average of six evictions a month before the law was enacted.
The rights group said legal clinics trying to help evictees reported that landlords were “zealously” enforcing the law, while most evictions outside the capital went unreported.
Last month, the Constitutional Court struck down a clause in the AHA that criminalized anyone who let a property be used “for the purposes of homosexuality” – but few expect much to change.
“The eviction cases are on the rise because landlords and even members of the public are becoming more bold in unlawfully evicting anybody they suspect to be queer,” said Saida Nakilima, a lawyer with the Kampala rights group.
NO SAFE HAVEN
Take Andrew, who was thrown out of his home in the eastern city of Mbale a week after the Constitutional Court decision.
The 28-year-old, who only gave his first name, said he had lived hassle-free for two years with two fellow gay men and that eviction came nine months before their tenancy expired.
“The landlord told us that he could not defy the government order by housing homosexuals. He declined to offer a refund of part of the rent we had paid and even dared us to go and report him to the police,” Andrew, a website developer, said by phone.
At first, the trio refused to leave but after neighbors brandished threats, they moved to a secret LGBTQ+ shelter.
“I doubt we will get justice,” Andrew said.
That same week, Grace got home from work to find her landlord had hired men to break in and throw out all her possessions after neighbors had reported her.
“The landlord told me that by virtue of hosting my lesbian friends, I was encouraging and promoting what he described as ‘the devil’s behavior’,” said the 26-year-old, who lives in Mukono, a city east of Kampala.
Her parents refused to take her in, accusing her of “embarrassing them”, so she now lives with a friend.
Even shelters that promise ‘safe’ housing for evicted LGBTQ+ Ugandans are no longer deemed safe.
John Grace, coordinator of a Kampala-based NGO refuge, said shelters like his were now limiting new admissions as they had become the target of police raids and homophobic attacks.
“We have been forced to change our mode of operations. Our premises are not open all day as they would initially, and we are only admitting extremely deserving cases,” he said by email. — Reuters
SYDNEY – Australia’s tax office has sought from crypto currency exchanges the personal data and transaction details of up to 1.2 million accounts as it looks to crack down on users who may be failing to pay their taxes amid a rising interest in digital tokens.
In a notice issued last month, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) said the data will help identify traders who had failed to report the exchange of crypto assets, or when they sold it for currency and used it to pay for goods or services.
The crypto industry’s complex nature can lead to a genuine lack of awareness of the tax obligations, the ATO said.
“Also, the ability to purchase crypto assets using false information may make them attractive to those seeking to avoid their tax obligations”, it said.
Personal data including the date of birth, phone numbers, social media accounts, and transaction details like bank accounts, wallet addresses, and the coin type will be sought.
Australia treats digital currencies as assets for tax purposes, and not as foreign currency. This means investors would have to pay capital gains tax on profit from selling crypto assets and when they trade digital assets.
Crypto assets have been gaining in popularity in Australia. A treasury report released in 2022 said more than 800,000 Australian taxpayers had transacted in digital assets in the last three years, with a 63% rise in 2021. — Reuters
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