Dutch tourists warned to be careful after
contaminated alcohol kills 30 in Istanbul
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Netherlands residents about contaminated alcohol in Istanbul, which has killed at least 30 people this week. Dozens of people have been admitted to the hospital. Foreigners are among the victims.
It is not known whether any Dutch people have become ill or died. The Ministry said it had not received any requests for help.
According to the Ministry, the people died after drinking alcohol that was likely illegal and that was contaminated with methanol to make the drink stronger. It advised people to only buy alcoholic beverages in official stores that are allowed to sell alcohol.
“Check carefully whether bottles are still sealed. Only go to reliable bars and restaurants. Do not drink home-distilled alcohol, for example, on the street or at someone’s home. Always keep an eye on your food and drinks,” the Ministry advised.
Late last year, tourists also got sick and died from drinking methanol-laced alcohol in Vang Vien in Laos. 
Reporting by ANP and NL Times
This happens on the Indian sub-continent fairly often, but usually at weddings and often with horrendous consequences.
In third-world countries like Pakistan, you never know whether the corruption was on the part of the accused or is on the part of the government who want to bury any strong competitors for their position and their own corruption system.
But being Pakistan, I suspect Khan is innocent. After all, Pakistan's Deep State murdered Benazir Bhutto 17 years ago, and her father before that.
Former Pakistani PM Imran Khan gets
14-year sentence on corruption charges
Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Pakistan's anti-corruption court handed former Prime Minister Imran Khan a 14-year jail sentence in a land bribery case against him, his attorney said on Friday.
The case was one of the largest against the embattled, but still popular, former cricket star who has been in jail since 2023. Prosecutors had charged that Khan sought land in exchange for favors from real estate developer Malik Riaz Hussain.
Prosecutors said the deals were made in connection with the Al Qadir Trust, which was a front company for the ex-prime minister, and his wife Bushra Bibi.
Bibi, who had led large rallies demanding that her husband be freed, was taken into custody Friday shortly after the verdict, where she was also convicted of land corruption.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, of PTI, had long charged that the land was purchased for a spiritual educational institute and was not connected with any individual personal gain.
PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan called the trial "politically motivated" and that Khan had "done no wrong."
"But [Imran Khan] will not give in," Ali Khan said, according to BBC News. "He will not break."
Imran said after the verdict that he would "neither make any deal nor seek any relief."
Navalny's lawyers sentenced to prison terms of up to 5 1/2 years on 'extremism' charges
Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A Russian court handed down prison sentences of between 42 and 66 months Friday to three lawyers of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after they were convicted of aiding his Anti Corruption Foundation, which authorities have designated an "extremist" organization.
Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser were arrested in October 2023, four months before Navalny died at age 47 at a remote correctional facility inside the Arctic in February, on charges that they were acting as go-betweens, relaying messages from Navalny to his colleagues.
Their arrest left Navalny without any legal representation and completely cut off from the outside world in the months before his death from what authorities claimed were natural causes at the Polar Wolf penal colony 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.
Kobzev was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in penal colony, Lipster to five years, while Sergunin's term was reduced to 3 1/2 years in exchange for pleading guilty.
The district court in Petushki, 75 miles east of Moscow, which no press or family were permitted to attend, also banned each of the men from practicing law for three years.
Kosbev's lawyer condemned the case, telling the BBC's Russian service that the evidence used to convict the men was inadmissible because it was obtained by listening in on client-attorney meetings which was illegal under Russian law.
"They're not allowed to eavesdrop on meetings between a lawyer and a client in a penal colony in principle -- there's a direct legislative ban."
Lipster's lawyer, Andrei Orlov, while expressing regret at the outcome, vowed to fight on.
The U.K.-based Amnesty International called the long sentences handed down to the three "shameful," saying "their only crime" was standing up for justice and human rights and demanded they be set free.
"The prosecution and sentencing of Vadim Kobzev, Aleksei Liptser and Igor Sergunin is a shameful attempt to silence those who dared to defend Aleksei Navalny and make his voice heard even from behind bars," said Amnesty International Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director Marie Struthers.
"By targeting lawyers for merely doing their job, the Russian authorities are dismantling what remains of the right to legal defense, and abusing what is a criminal justice system only in name.
"We call on the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release these individuals and drop all charges against them."
Amnesty said the lawyers, who were added the national registry of "extremists and terrorists" by the Russian financial regulator in November, were the latest victims of an orchestrated campaign of arbitrary detentions, prosecutions and harsh criminal sanctions targeting associates and supporters of Navalny and his FBK.
The action formed a wider pattern of "unabashed misuse of anti-extremism legislation" by the Russian state to crack down on civic activists, Amnesty added.
FBK head Ivan Zhdanov noted the sentences were handed down exactly three years to the day from Navalny's arrest on his return to Russia in January 2021 after treatment abroad for near-fatal Novichok poisoning the previous summer, saying he very much doubted the timing was coincidental.
Years of harassment of the movement and other opposition political figures by authorities intensified in the months before a court banned FBK in June 2021 after the Kremlin made an application for it to be outlawed on grounds it was an "extremist organization."
One wonders what evidence they had for declaring FBK and extremist organization? Is anti-corruption considered extremism in Russia?
We will never know, of course, because Russia's courts are very secretive and have no appeal system that I am aware of.
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