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The United States and Pakistan reached a trade agreement expected to allow Washington to help develop Pakistan’s largely untapped oil reserves and lower tariffs for the South Asian country, officials from both nations said Thursday.Officials did not specify where the exploration would take place, but most of Pakistan’s reserves are believed to be in the insurgency-hit southwestern province of Balochistan, where separatists say the province’s natural resources are being exploited by the central government in Islamabad.“We have just concluded a deal with the country of Pakistan, whereby Pakistan and the United States will work together on developing their massive oil reserves,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.“We are in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership,” Trump added. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!”Total U.S. trade with Pakistan was an estimated $7.3 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Representative, which said on its website that U.S. exports to Pakistan in 2024 were $2.1 billion, up 4.4% ($90.9 million) from 2023. U.S. imports from Pakistan totaled $5.1 billion in 2024, up 4.9% ($238.7 million) from 2023, it said.There was no immediate comment from the Baloch nationalists and separatist groups. Balochistan has long been the center of violence mostly blamed on groups including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2019.Separatists in Balochistan have opposed the extraction of resources by Pakistani and foreign firms and have targeted Pakistani security forces and Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.Oil reserves are also thought to exist in the southern Sindh, eastern Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the “long-awaited” deal and thanked Trump for playing a key role in finalizing it.Pakistan had been pursuing a trade agreement since May, when Trump mediated a ceasefire between Pakistan and India following an escalation triggered by Indian airstrikes on Pakistani territory in response to the killing of 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir.Pakistan’s Finance Ministry said in a statement early Thursday the agreement aims to boost bilateral trade, expand market access, attract investment and foster cooperation in areas of mutual interest.The breakthrough came during a meeting in Washington between Pakistani Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and senior U.S. officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer.The deal includes a reduction in reciprocal tariffs, particularly on Pakistani exports to the U.S., the statement from the ministry said.“The agreement enhances Pakistan’s access to the U.S. market and vice versa,” it said. The agreement is also expected to spur increased U.S. investment in Pakistan’s infrastructure and development projects, it added. The ministry said the deal reflects both nations’ commitment to deepening bilateral ties and strengthening trade and investment cooperation. Munir Ahmed, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 to protect consumers from corporate overreach. Under Donald Trump, the 110-year-old bipartisan agency is now being converted into a weapon of censorship and repression for the administration to wield against its political enemies. Last week, the FTC hosted a workshop with the unambiguous goal of spreading disinformation about one of the administrations favorite targets: trans people. The event, which was titled The Dangers of “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors, brought in a group of professional anti-LGBTQ+ bigots to air conspiracy theories and medical disinformation about trans people, with the stated mission of eliminating gender-affirming care for trans youth. Instead of doing the FTCs actual jobprotecting Americans from the excess of Big Tech companiesthe workshop participants instead spent hours discussing disproven anti-trans talking points that the right continues to present as fact. Participants called for the FTC to investigate medical providers who offer gender-affirming care to minors, under the claim that these doctors are engaged in unfair or deceptive business practices. Not only would this intrusion clearly overstep the FTCs authority, it also illustrates how Trumps FTC would weaponize proposed internet censorship laws like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to target queer and trans people and their medical providers. Activists have repeatedly pointed out how anti-LGBTQ+ censorship would be supercharged under laws like KOSA, the online safety bill that Democrats and Republicans have been trying to push through Congress for years. The bill would allow the government to weaponize the FTC by giving the agency the power to pressure social media companies to remove any content that is determined to be harmful or causing distress to children. This language is intentionally vague, and organizations like Fight for the Future have warned it could easily be used to censor anything the government doesnt likefrom online LGBTQ+ communities and medical resources to information about abortion. Weve been here before: The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) promised to protect people online, but all it resulted in was sweeping censorship of online communities as social media companies moved to cover their own bottom line, exactly as they would act if KOSA passed. So, who would get to decide what is harmful or stressful to kids under KOSA? Under a previous version of the bill, lawmakers proposed allowing state attorneys general to decide what kind of content constitutes harm and should be censoreda green light to any state with laws that already discriminate against queer and trans people. The bills supportersincluding Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and the right-wing Heritage Foundationhave explicitly stated it would enable them to protect kids by censoring trans content. This is in line with the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda presented in Project 2025, whose architects describe their quest to criminalize pornography and LGBTQ+ pornography as one in the same, and propose making it a crime to promote transgender ideologyin other words, to erase trans people from public life, and punish anyone who refuses to do so. KOSAs Democratic supporters nevertheless insisted the new law wouldnt be used to censor LGBTQ+ content. But opponents of the legislation pushed back, leading to the bill being dropped twice since its first introduction in 2022. Human rights and civil rights groups have been clear: The inherent problem with KOSA is the duty of care built into the legislation that would encourage companies to censor content the government might take issue with. In a newer iteration of the bill, lawmakers tried to remove this roadblock by walking back their proposal to give enforcement powers to state attorneys general. Instead, the bill now proposes giving this power to the FTCthe very same FTC that just ran an hours-long anti-trans propaganda event. The FTCs sham workshop” made crystal clear that the agency would use these new censorship powers to carry out Trumps anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. Far from being neutral experts, the people invited to the FTC event by the Trump administration represent far-right NGOs like the Heritage Foundation, as well as groups like Moms for Liberty and Do No Harm, which have both been designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many of the participants have been paid to travel around the country giving testimony about the supposed dangers of LGBTQ+ healthcare, and have been directly involved in harassment campaigns against LGBTQ+ people and their allies. The meetings participants parroted the repeatedly-debunked theory of rapid onset gender dysphoria, cited widely-discredited junk science papers, and described lifesaving medical interventions like puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormones, and surgery with sensationalist terms like sterilization and mutilation. They also repeated a deranged right-wing hoax about a secret plot by hospitals to forcibly transition children. These are the same lies that have been consistently amplified by the Trump administration, with the plainly stated goal of ending trans healthcare in the U.S.not just for minors, but adults too. In reality, gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization in the country, and there is wide scientific consensus that it overwhelmingly improves the lives of trans people. For years, studies have consistently shown that access to hormones and clinical support drastically reduces rates of depression and suicide, particularly for trans youth. The rates of regret for gender-affirming surgical procedures remain extremely small, with some studies recording it as low as 1.7% to 2.1% for minors. Further studies also show, consistently, that the small percentage of people who later de-transition overwhelmingly do so not because they were tricked into gender-affirming care, but because of external pressure and strucural discrimination against trans people. But like everything in Trumpworld, the purpose of the FTC workshop wasnt to discuss facts or evidence. The administration purposely excluded trans patients, healthcare providers, parents, allies, and anyone else that would challenge its bigotry. At a time when the agency should be pushing back against the countless abuses of monopolistic Big Tech companies companies, the event had nothing to do with the agencys mandate of protecting consumer rightsjust like its use of laws like KOSA will have nothing to do with protecting children. Instead, it shows how Trump has transformed the agency into yet another tool of repression and propaganda to destroy the rights of queer and trans people in the U.S. Online communities are a lifeline for many LGBTQ+ people, especially for queer and trans youth who are often in desperate search of affirming spaces. Giving the FTC censorship powers with KOSA would allow Trump to destroy these communitiesas well as others used by abortion-seekers, activists, and anyone else the administration has deemed an enemy.
Category:
E-Commerce
Cigna beat Wall Street estimate for second-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by strength in its pharmacy benefit management business. It is one of the last health insurers to report quarterly results for the sector, which has been bogged down by persistently high medical costs in government-backed plans. Cigna, however, is insulated from such cost pressures as it recently sold its Medicare business to Health Care Service Corp. It banks more on its pharmacy benefit management and commercial health insurance businesses. “Our performance in the second quarter reflects our disciplined execution and the strength of our business mix,” said CEO David Cordani. Revenue from its Evernorth healthcare services unit, which includes Cigna’s pharmacy benefit management business, rose 17% to $57.83 billion during the quarter. Pharmacy benefit managers help negotiate drug prices and coverage with manufacturers on behalf of employers and health plan clients. PBMs’ business practices, however, have drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years from U.S. lawmakers looking to lower drug prices, state attorneys generals and from the Federal Trade Commission, which released a report earlier this year accusing PBMs of inflating drug costs. Cigna’s adjusted profit of $7.20 per share topped analysts’ average estimate of $7.15 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG. The company maintained its annual adjusted profit forecast of at least $29.60 per share, while analysts expect $29.68 per share. For the quarter, it reported a medical care ratio the percentage of premiums spent on medical care of 83.2%, up from 82.3% a year earlier, but in line with analysts’ estimate. The company said the increase was due to higher stop-loss medical costs. Stop-loss insurance plans help protect health plan sponsors, typically an employer, when medical claims pass a pre-designated threshold. Sneha S K, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
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