Free Republic

Despite the denials, South Africa’s banks have had enough. In recent weeks, all four of the biggest banks have severed their links to the Guptas, closing the bank accounts of the Gupta holding company, Oakbay Investments. The Guptas were furious. In newspaper advertisements, they said the banks were jeopardizing the livelihoods of 7,500 of Oakbay’s “employees and dependents.” The Zuma government swiftly responded by delegating three cabinet ministers to meet with the banks to settle the matter. It was an extraordinary state intervention in a private business dispute. And, critics said, it was further proof of the remarkable power of...

An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, the White House said Monday, announcing a rare success in U.S.-Taliban talks since the militant group took power a little more than a year ago Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and is believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. He was traded for Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban associate convicted...

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is pressing Vanita Gupta, the nominee for the number three position at the Justice Department, over millions of dollars in stock holdings she has in a chemical company that makes a key ingredient that Mexican drug cartels use to make heroin. Gupta holds between $11 million and $55 million in shares of Avantor, a Pennsylvania-based chemical company, according to financial disclosures she has filed with the Office of Government Ethics. Gupta’s father, Raj Gupta, serves as chairman of the board of Avantor. Gupta is the wealthiest political nominee that President Joe Biden has picked while in...