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Pakistan’s new government on Thursday said it would ban the import of over 30 luxury items including cars and fruit jams in an austerity move to help boost the country’s faltering economy.

Cash-strapped Pakistan has been hit by a storm of crippling debt, dwindling foreign currency reserves and galloping inflation.

The national currency hit a historic low on Thursday, with 200 rupees fetching $1.

“My decision to ban (the) import of luxury items will save the country precious foreign exchange,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif tweeted.

The move was an effort to target the country’s elite, with the banned goods including mobile phones and cars — which make up the largest share of import bills on the list — as well as cosmetics and jams.

“We will be able to save $6 billion by imposing a ban on import of the luxury items,” information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said at a press conference, adding that the ban would be effective immediately. 

“The decision will give a boost to the local economy and industry”.

However, business leaders said the country must seek consent from the World Trade Organization, which regulates international trade. 

“I think it is a prudent step by the government… it would help save much needed foreign exchange to pay off our international trade debts,” said Khalid Tawab, the former senior vice president of the Pakistan Chamber of Commerce.

“The government has not declared a financial emergency yet, but that is the situation we are facing, and so under such circumstances the WTO could be persuaded to relax its rules.”

Pakistan’s current trade deficit stands at $39.2 billion.

Former leader Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote last month, largely as a result of failing to reverse the soaring cost of living and prices of basic goods.

The announcement comes as Pakistan officials are locked in negotiation with the IMF in the Qatari capital Doha over the release of funds as part of an agreed loan programme. 

A six billion dollar IMF bailout package signed by former prime minister Imran Khan in 2019 has never been fully implemented because his government reneged on agreements to cut or end some subsidies and to improve revenue and tax collection.

Islamabad has so far received $3 billion, with the programme due to end later this year.

Officials are seeking an extension to the programme through to June 2023, as well as the release of the next tranche of $1 billion.

A major sticking point is likely to be over costly subsidies — notably for fuel and electricity — and Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said he wants the two sides to “find a middle ground”.

Ukrainian prosecutors on Thursday requested a life sentence for the first Russian soldier on trial for war crimes since the start of Moscow’s invasion, AFP journalists in the courtroom reported.

The prosecution asked the judge to sentence the 21-year-old Russian army sergeant to “life imprisonment” for killing 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov in the first days of the Russian offensive. 

The request came just a day after the landmark trial opened and as two other Russian soldiers were in court Thursday for crimes against civilians.

Kyiv says it has opened thousands of war crimes cases since Moscow launched its invasion.

In court, Russian serviceman Vadim Shishimarin asked the victim’s widow to forgive him and described how he shot the man dead in the opening days of Russia’s invasion.

Addressing his victim’s widow, Kateryna Shelipova, Shishimarin said: “I know that you will not be able to forgive me, but nevertheless I ask you for forgiveness.” 

He said he shot Shelipov as he and several other Russian soldiers were retreating to rejoin their units in Russia, saying another soldier had put pressure on him to carry out the killing. 

– ‘I shot him at short range’ –

The soldiers found a civilian car, a Volkswagen, which they hijacked to “get to where our army was and go back to Russia”, Shishimarin said.  

“As we were driving, we saw a man. He was talking on the phone. He said he would give us up.”

Shishimarin said another soldier in the car, who he said was not his commander and whom he called an “unknown” soldier, “told me to shoot”. 

“He started to say in a forceful tone that I should shoot,” he told the court.

“He said I would be putting us in danger if I didn’t. I shot him at short range. It killed him.”

Judges questioned him in Ukrainian, with an interpreter translating for Shishimarin — who is from the Siberian region of Irkutsk — into Russian. 

The killing took place near the northeastern village of Chupakhivka on February 28, four days into Moscow’s invasion.

The soldiers then took a civilian captive as they retreated into the forest, Shishimarin said, claiming they did not harm him.

The Russians then “voluntarily” gave themselves up to Ukrainian forces.

– ‘What did you come here for?’ –

The youthful-looking soldier, dressed in a grey and blue hoodie, looked towards the ground with his head leaning on the glass defence box where he was held as Kateryna Shelipova testified on her husband’s death.

“What did you come here for, to free us from what?” Shelipova asked the soldier, referring to Moscow’s claims that its troops are liberating Ukrainian territories.

“What did my husband do to you?” she said, adding she had “heard the shot” while getting water from a well.

She then saw a car and “a young man in it with a rifle. I remember him well”, she said, referring to Shishimarin.

“Five minutes later I saw my husband. He was dead with a shot in his head. I started screaming very loudly.”

She said the incident took place around 11.00 am. 

“My husband was in civilian clothing. In a coat and trousers,” she said.

Another captive Russian soldier who was in the car, 20-year-old Ivan Matysov, told the court that the third unknown serviceman in the car “shouted in a commanding tone” to Shishimarin to shoot the civilian.

Both soldiers — Matysov and Shishimarin — said the third man was not a more senior officer, suggesting Shishimarin was not obliged to follow the order to shoot.

The Kremlin on Wednesday said it was not informed of Shishimarin’s case. His lawyer said he had not had any contact with Russian officials.

An embarrassing slip of the tongue by former US president George W. Bush may have drawn laughter from his American audience, but it raised the ire of Iraqis.

In a speech Wednesday evening in Dallas about Russia’s war on Ukraine, Bush called the invasion of Iraq, which he himself ordered, “unjustified and brutal” — before quickly correcting himself.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and ushered in one of the bloodiest periods in the country’s modern history, marked by sectarian warfare and the rise of jihadists.

Between 2003 and 2011, when the US withdrew its troops, more than 100,000 civilians were killed, according to the Iraq Body Count tracker. The invasion cost the lives of nearly 4,500 Americans.

But on Wednesday it was the war in Ukraine that Bush talked about during an event organised by his foundation.

“The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean of Ukraine,” he said in a speech, drawing laughter from the audience.

“Anyway — 75,” he added, referring to his own age, to another burst of laughter.

Video footage of the gaffe has since gone viral online, with one post on Twitter having been viewed more than 14 million times in less than half a day.

It was also picked widely up by Arab media, stoking anger among Iraqis.

“The spectre of Iraq’s invasion and destruction haunts Bush Jr. His subconscious exposed it when it took over his tongue,” Iraqi journalist Omar al-Janabi tweeted.

“Yes it is a brutal and unjustified invasion which will remain your worst nightmare”, he added.

Iraqis also took to Facebook to criticise the former US president.

“The moment of truth has come — the invasion of Iraq is a lifelong nightmare that plagues your conscience,” Hamza Qusai wrote.

“The crime of your occupation of Iraq and its destruction will remain a nightmare that haunts your sleep and torments your dead criminal consciences,” added Nahedh al-Tamimi.

The US-led invasion of Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003 after accusations that the Saddam regime had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.

Hollywood star Russell Crowe quizzed candidates for Bangkok’s governor election campaign in a cameo television appearance on Thursday, almost a year after his tweets on visiting the capital delighted Thais.

The megapolis is preparing for its first governor poll in almost a decade on Sunday in the first significant election since youth-led pro-democracy rallies in 2020.

The Australian actor — who regaled his 2.7 million Twitter followers with his Bangkok adventures while filming Vietnam War-era drama “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” — beamed into Thailand’s Channel 7 daily current affairs programme “The Discussion”.

“Sa wat dee krap,” Crowe said, using the Thai greeting for hello and bowing with his palms, before launching into his questions for the candidates.

He queried them on plans to mitigate the regular threat of flooding in Bangkok, and make the city more “friendly to tourists”.

He also asked how they would make “beautiful Bangkok even more beautiful?”

During his time in the city, Crowe photographed the notorious tangle of overhead cables — which led to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha ordering local officials to fast-track efforts to put the wiring underground.

“What are your thoughts on visible power lines?” he also asked the candidates.

The Thai government said Crowe’s social media posts on Thailand had helped generate publicity last year ahead of the kingdom’s official border reopening in early November.

The 58-year-old Oscar winner posted about getting lost, making friends with a metre-long monitor lizard, bike riding along the river, and admiring the city’s “fascinating skyline”.

Work on the decommissioning of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has made “remarkable progress”, the UN’s nuclear watchdog chief said Thursday after a site visit, pledging to continue monitoring the process.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Mariano Grossi is in Japan on a two-day trip to assess efforts to dismantle the Fukushima Daiichi plant after the 2011 disaster caused by a devastating tsunami.

The process is expected to last decades and has encountered various difficulties including the build-up of contaminated water.

But Grossi said he was “really impressed by the remarkable progress that, in spite of the pandemic, has been done over the past two years.”

“We are going to be here before, during and after the (decommissioning) process,” he added.

“We are in the before, and it’s going well.”

A March 11, 2011, undersea earthquake off Japan’s east coast triggered a massive tsunami that overwhelmed cooling systems at several of the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s reactors and caused the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Decommissioning is expected to take around four decades, with painstaking work to remove molten fuel from damaged reactors among the tasks ahead.

A more immediate challenge involves disposing of more than a million tonnes of treated water from the site that is currently stored in massive tanks.

Japan’s government has endorsed a plan to release the water into the ocean after treating it to remove almost all radionuclides and diluting it.

The process will take place over many years, and has been backed by the IAEA and, this week, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority.

In a video message tweeted by Grossi from Fukushima, he insisted the release would “be done in full conformity with the international standards and therefore it will not cause any harm to the environment.”

But the plan has worried local fishing communities concerned about the reputation of their catch and prompted criticism from China and South Korea.

The disaster in northeast Japan left around 18,500 people dead or missing, with most killed by the tsunami.

Tens of thousands of residents around the Fukushima plant were ordered to evacuate their homes, or chose to do so.

Around 12 percent of Fukushima was once declared unsafe but no-go zones now cover just 2.4 percent of the prefecture, although populations in many towns remain far lower than before.