Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for supporters to protest and ‘stand up for their rights’ after he was sentenced to three years in jail for illegally selling state gifts he received while premier.

The 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician was arrested after police descended on his home in Lahore – Pakistan’s second biggest city. He will now be taken to the capital, Islamabad, before being imprisoned in the central jail in Adyala, Rawalpindi.

‘I have just received the information that Imran Khan has been arrested,’ Attaullah Tarar, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, told reporters.

After he was taken away by police Saturday, a video statement Khan made before his arrest was posted to his Twitter account with him urging his supporters not to stay silent.

‘My fellow Pakistanis, they will have arrested me and I’ll be in jail by the time this message reaches you. I have just one request and appeal, that you are not to sit silently at home,’ he said. 

‘This is a war for justice, for your rights, for your freedom… chains don’t just fall off, they have to be broken. You must continue peaceful protest until you get your rights.’ 

Police have already been pictured making arrests as protests from Khan’s supporters began almost immediately after his arrest – just months after mass demonstrations took place when he was detained in May. 

Legal experts say guilty verdict reached by a district court could end Khan’s chances of participating in national elections that have to be held before early November.

Khan was not present for the hearing at the Islamabad High Court, and the judge ordered his immediate arrest and banned him from politics for five years. It’s the second time the popular opposition leader has been detained this year. 

‘Judge Humayun Dilawar announced that involvement in corrupt practices has been proven,’ Pakistan TV said. 

Khan is facing over 150 cases brought against him since being ousted in April last year – charges he says are politically motivated. Khan’s legal team said they would be filing an immediate appeal.

‘It’s important to mention there was no chance given to present witnesses, neither was time allotted to round up arguments,’ a member of the team said.

The sentence relates to an inquiry conducted by the election commission, which found Khan guilty of unlawfully selling state gifts during his tenure as prime minister from 2018 to 2022. 

Khan – who was ousted after a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022 – denies any wrongdoing.

The former Pakistan PM is accused of misusing his premiership to buy and sell gifts in state possession that were received during visits abroad and worth more than 140 million Pakistani rupees.

His dramatic arrest in May – where he was filmed being forcibly removed from court by security officers – sparked nationwide violent demonstrations from supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in almost all of the country’s major cities. 

Hundreds of protesters were arrested after government and military property was attacked and at least eight people died as unrest gripped Pakistan. 

In the aftermath of his release following three days in custody, PTI has been targeted by a crackdown with thousands of arrests, reports of intimidation and muzzling of the press.

Among the hundreds of cases brought against him, several involve corruption, terrorism and inciting people to violence over the deadly protests.

His arrest followed months of political crisis and came hours after the powerful military rebuked the former international cricketer for alleging a senior officer had been involved in a plot to kill him, which saw an assassination attempt last year. 

Khan has long warned he would be arrested to prevent him participating in elections that are due to be held before the end of the year.

Parliament is likely to be dissolved after it completes its term in the next two weeks, with national elections to be held by mid-November or earlier.

Khan rose to power in 2018 on a wave of popular support, an anti-corruption manifesto, and the backing of the powerful military establishment.

When he was ousted in April last year, analysts said it was because he lost the backing of the top generals.

In his campaign for re-election, Khan has highlighted the power the top brass wield behind the scenes – a subject historically considered a red line in Pakistan.

While many analysts believe Khan came to power with the help of the military, the former cricketer has been one of the army’s most vocal critics. 

Khan is the seventh former prime minister to be arrested in Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was arrested and hanged in 1979. The current prime minister’s brother, Nawaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister, was arrested several times on corruption allegations. 

Spanish locals have been spotted out before dawn to lay down their towels in a prime spot on a Costa Blanca beach – as holidaymakers are waking up earlier and earlier to claim sun loungers. 

Early-risers in Torrevieja on Thursday proudly planted their flags in the sand even before the sun rose.

They started setting up at 5.30am just after council cleaners had finished their night shift as similar scenes also played out just over an hour’s drive away in the popular holiday spot of Benidorm.  

One local dug his sun umbrella – in the red and yellow of the Spanish national flag – into the sand and plonked his deckchair beside it before disappearing. 

Another even planted a mini-Spanish flag into the top of his parasol – and stood next to it with his arms crossed in front of him as if he were defending his territory against foreign marauders.

Having a lie-in during time off abroad now seems to have gone out of the window for holidaying Brits as instead an early battle begins each day to claim the best spots.  

It comes as a study revealed Brits get a thrill out of managing to grab a sun lounger by the pool before anyone else. 

In a survey of 2,000 Brits by M&S Bank, 13 per cent of Brits said managing to get a sun lounger was one of the most exciting things about going on a summer holiday.

Other thrill-factors for a trip away included the smell of suntan lotion (18 per cent), getting your suitcase out (17 per cent) and googling the weather before travelling (18 per cent). 

Paul Stokes, who commissioned the study, said: ‘It’s easy to forget things. It sounds simple, but make a list.’ 

Traditionally, early-rising German tourists have been the first off the blocks to grab one of the outdoor beds, leaving many British holidaymakers disappointed. 

Locals in Benidorm were also spotted setting up their sunbeds in the middle of the night to beat British tourists. 

Pictures showed residents on the beach erecting parasols in the dark in front of the ocean.

As the waves crash against the sand in the dead of night, a desperate man can be seen in one video unravelling a beach mat with a deadly serious look painted across his face.

After putting the first one down successfully he appears to check that the coast is clear before wiping the sand from his hands and starting to lay down a second one at a right angle, perhaps to confuse his opponents.

As the camera pans round, it shows that he is adding to a line of colourful parasols and deckchairs already in place as a woman gazes out over the empty beach.

In one photo a local tests out one of the chairs while his friend sets up the equipment at night. 

Snaps taken in the daylight show the empty deckchairs and umbrellas before the morning scramble as Brits sleep soundly in their hotel rooms.

Despite the dangerously high temperatures, sunbathers have packed out Benidorm’s beaches, with many arriving very early to pick out the best spots for a day on the beach. 

Meanwhile, a security guard has been showered with praise for removing towels from the sun loungers at a hotel in Tenerife.

The staff member can be seen wandering round the poolside taking notes in the video while wearing a luminous yellow jacket.

Under the view of a hotel guest absorbed in a book, he sets his sights on one of the deck chairs, places a tub of suncream aside and whips a green towel away from it.

He then folds it effortlessly with one hand before placing it in the correct spot.

Sharing the clip to their channel, @renovatewithroberta wrote: ‘They should do this everywhere.’

The clip has been viewed more than 176,000 times since it was posted on TikTok last year.

Commenting on the post, one person wrote: ‘I agree, first come, first served.’

A second added: ‘They should do this at all resorts everywhere.’

A third wrote: ‘Spot on, you wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and leave your jackets on the chairs to reserve a seat’.

Another person posted: ‘Never got why people on holiday wanna get up first thing in the morning for a lounger, if they could only have breakfast at 6.30am, they’d freak out.’

Meanwhile, keen Britons have been spotted at the crack of dawn descending on a hotel pool to bag the best sunbeds at a Majorcan resort.

Footage shows hoards of holidaymakers armed with towels and inflatables rushing to reserve loungers on the Spanish island.

In a military-style operation some even rush over to get their hands on the spare loungers and cushions that have not even been put out yet. All the while a beautiful beach sits empty just 100ft away.

It comes as recent footage showed the increasingly tense sunbed war shrouding Brits’ summer holidays. 

The Majorcan ‘sunbed police’ can be seen taking revenge on hotel guests who had reserved loungers.

A staff member appears fed up as he swiftly removes towels and inflatables used to hog beds by the pool at the Viva resort on the Spanish island.

Dubbed the ‘towel police’ by TikToker John McGowan, the worker can be seen shoving holidaymakers’ belongings into plastic bags.

He even walks around the pool area with a stopwatch and clipboard to time how long each sunbed has been reserved for, Mr McGowan explained. 

If the hogger has not returned within 30 minutes, their items are removed from the beds.

It is generally accepted in Spanish resorts that a towel left on a sunbed is claimed by its owner for the entire day. The origin of this rule is not known, though it is thought to be a German invention.

One commenter quipped: ‘Well done to this resort. Hope others take note. It might make people’s hols less stressful if the towel dash doesn’t happen anymore.’

Sunbed wars have long been a common start to the mornings of British holidaymakers’ trips abroad. 

Although not all hotels allow this rule, when in place it can create heated competition.

Hilarious footage of guests at the four-star Spring Hotel Bitacora, Playa de las Américas in Tenerife, shows crowds of desperate tourists waiting next to their resort’s swimming pools and descending en masse to grab the best spots at the earliest possible time.

Britons armed with swimming togs and sun cream raced past rival holidaymakers with a grim determination to secure their place in the sun for a day.

Some were reported to queue for 90 minutes first thing in the morning – waiting for some unknown signal before stampeding past opposing tourists towards the sun loungers.

Meanwhile at the Camp de Mar in Majorca a holidaymaker was shocked to see next-level towel reservation after sunbed hogs puts their towels down on the floor at the entrance to the pool area.

Photos show beach bags and towels placed in an orderly queue leading to the closed-off pool area so hotel guests can secure their sun bed the moment that it opens.

Holidaymaker Geoff said: ‘In an effort to control the sunbed madness, the door from the hotel to the pool area was kept locked until 8am.’

‘So people were lining their towels up on the floor in a queue order by the door before it opened. I must add this wasn’t youngsters, but mostly elderly and middle-aged people,’ he told the Mirror.

Discussing the behaviour of the other guests at a four-star hotel in Camp de Mar, he said: ‘The towel line actually went back much further [than the picture shows] and the owners were seated on the sofas just out of sight, ready to fly outside when the door was unlocked.

‘I don’t know what time they started, but we were up at 6.30am one morning to grab breakfast before an excursion, and there was already an established towel queue forming at the door. Crazy behaviour!’

Earlier this year, a holiday hero spoke out against some ‘entitled’ tourists who reserved sun loungers for nine hours while he and his wife were on holiday in Bali.

Newlyweds Thom Aspland and Lisa were honeymooning at Bali’s Grand Barong Resort where they were met by unfurled towels on sun loungers at 6.30am.

After returning at 1pm and seeing the chairs untouched, the couple waited for a further hour of no movement, before finally ditching the reserving towels and taking the spot themselves.

They were met at 3.30pm by the shocked pair of ‘entitled’ tourists ‘iPads and books in hand’. 

The couple were even sure to teach their competitors a lesson by ushering other tourists in their place as they left.

Speaking to Yahoo News, Thom said: ‘We definitely thought they were entitled, but were surprised they didn’t confront us.’

He assumed that the lack of confrontation was down to the fact that ‘they knew what they had done’. 

Thom also noted the hilarious extent of the couple’s pettiness in getting on the beds in the first place.

‘We didn’t even want the beds,’ he said, but the compulsion to prove a point was too strong.

‘Many places here have an hour rule, so we just made sure we gave them an hour once we got in the pool,’ he added.

He revealed that he and Lisa had been looking on from the bar for two hours before making their move.

He also gave comical detail about the approach of the pair who thought they would get away with the nine-hour reservation, saying that ‘they quickly walked towards the chairs, then stopped and looked at each other to pause’. 

‘They then frantically looked for their two personal towels’ before departing to their hotel room never to be seen again,’ he said.

The happy couple made absolutely certain that they proved their point when they left by passing the beds on to a mother and daughter after telling them the whole story.

Thom shared the ‘petty’ revenge story online with droves of followers agreeing that leaving towels on seats all day was ‘sun hogging’ and disrespectful.

‘Am I the only one hoping there’s a day two to this situation,’ one person said.

Another wrote: ‘Proof that not all heroes wear a cape.

‘Would shout you both a Bintang if I were there.’

‘I would’ve done the same except I wouldn’t have waited – if they weren’t there using them its free for all,’ a third added.

Some also commended the couple for waiting the hour that they did.

Thom then posted an update of the empty poolside chairs on the following morning as a sign of victory.

‘Free all morning,’ he declared.

In August, the hilarious moment a holidaymaker bagged five sun loungers by sprinting towards them before throwing his towels on the best pool-side spots was posted on TikTok by a guest who filmed the chaotic scene from her balcony at the Paradise Park Hotel in Los Cristianos, Tenerife.

The video shows a large pool surrounded by a decked terrace, moments before several people emerge and start running towards the sunbeds.

One man dressed in yellow can be seen sprinting towards the loungers with several towels on his arm. He skipped past rows of other chairs until he reached the ones in the prime pool-side spot.

While the other guests made their way towards the loungers, he took a shortcut to arrive there first and threw his towels down to claim the seats at an impressive speed.

This wasn’t the first time the man was on the hunt, as another video showed him in a black T-shirt securing the best spot.

Jess Clarke, who filmed the crowd, captioned her video: ‘Day Three Sunbed Wars’.

It quickly gained more than 11,000 likes and hundreds of comments were left by viewers saying, ‘Love it, so funny’ or remarking, ‘I’ve never seen sunbed wars that bad’.

Another commented: ‘Guy in yellow put in a proper shift.’

A fourth said: ‘9am sunbed wars paradise park Tenerife what a sight.’

One user recognised the man from Ms Clarke’s previous video titled ‘Day 1’.

The hotel is known for sunbed reservation races and similar scenes were captured on camera last year.

A viral TikTok video from July shows tourists at the Tenerife hotel making a shameless dash for the best poolside spot.

Footage shows a crowd of holidaymakers show up at a pool at Paradise Park just as it opens.

They then drop their towels on the hotspot’s best loungers – with some even glancing around guiltily as they do it.

TikTok user Sarah, whose clip has already garnered more than five million views in just one day, simply captioned it: ‘The Sunbed Race’.

Paradise Park spokesman Rafael Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo told MailOnline last year: ‘We were amused to see it – considering that our hotel has five swimming pools and areas with space and sunbeds for everyone.

‘Although we see quite a bit of talent among our guests for obstacle races.’

Weeks before, in June last year, sunbed blockers had their towels taken away by hotel staff at another resort in Tenerife.

Holidaymaker Amanda Proctor filmed the moment the workers picked up dozens of towels that guests had laid out on empty sun loungers in a bid to reserve the best seats next to the pool at the five star Gran Costa Adeje Hotel in southern Tenerife.

Amanda said that the staff at the hotel, which features four pools, took the guests’ bags and towels and left a note on the chairs telling them where to collect their belongings.

The holidaymaker said there was a sign at the hotel saying guests were not allowed to reserve sunbeds before 10am.

A spokesman at the hotel told MailOnline: ‘At GF Gran Costa Adeje, we defend the right of all our guests to enjoy our pools and we ask everyone to respect our policy.

‘All guests will have their space in our solarium. In this situation, our colleague, like the entire GF Gran Costa Adeje team, is a hero without a cape. We are very happy with the reaction to the video and from our customers.’

Amazon is considering forcing more ads on Prime Video users, despite customers already paying monthly fees for the steaming service.

The trillion-dollar company has reportedly been exploring options for new ‘ad tiers’ over the last couple of weeks, meaning members may have to sit through monotonous ads while watching TV shows or movies. 

This could look like making all Prime subscribers sit through ads and offering the option to ‘pay more’ for a commercial-free alternative. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the platform has been looking to imitate its competitors, such as Netflix and Disney+, who have introduced cheaper memberships with ads. 

Amazon already has an ad-supported TV service available on Prime Video called Freevee, which is integrated on the Prime home screen, but the commercial content would extend to other areas of the platform. 

On top of that Prime – which features more than 20,000 movies and 2,000 television shows – also hosts content from other networks, some of which include commercials.

Sports fans will already be familiar with the in-talks commercial content, as Sports coverage on Prime is the only area of the platform which currently includes ads. 

Amazon has not officially confirmed the rumours, but industry insiders have said that Prime subscribers would have the option to pay extra for ad-free shows and films if plans do go ahead. The MailOnline has contacted Amazon for comment. 

Ross Benes, Insider Intelligence principle analyst, said: ‘In recent years, Prime Video has gotten more aggressive about running promos prior to its show and including ad-filled sports broadcasts.

‘Officially putting ads into Prime Video allows Amazon to centralise its audience and be more consistent with branding.’ 

The rumours have not been received well by Amazon users, and frustrated customers have taken to  social media to complain about the service. 

One Twitter user said: ‘Why am I paying for Amazon prime if when I put a film on they slap 300 metaverse adverts in it?’ 

Another claimed that the introduction of ads ‘would result in me cancelling.’ 

An Amazon Prime membership – which includes free shipping on the retail site – is currently priced at £8.99.

But Amazon Prime is not the only offender. A host of other major streaming services including Netflix and HBO Max now offer plans which include adverts.

Typically these services are cheaper without ads, as a Netflix subscription starts at £4.99 but can climb to £15.99 a commercial-free plan. 

A Disney+ plan also starts cheaper than the Amazon package at £7.99 per month.

It comes as streaming services grapple with financial losses across the board, as shares of Paramount Global fell six per cent in trading. 

Netflix has suffered a volatile few years, which has seen its stock plummet by as much as 47 per cent at times. 

In the last quarter of 2022, the streaming giant saw its subscription base grow by a paltry 4 percent from the same period a year earlier. 

The hinder in membership has been sparked by a crackdown on account sharing this year. 

According to Netflix’s rules, people who do not live in the same household cannot stream from the same account. 

While this was always a rule, the streaming platform is bringing in a new device verification feature which makes viewers prove where they are viewing from. 

The new feature is yet to be implemented in the US after a roll-out in Spain and Canada prompted a drop in subscriptions. 

Yet account sharing is expected to be banned in the next three months- although no official date has been given.  

Amazon has intentionally put up a maze of prompts and steps that make it harder for users to cancel their Prime subscriptions.

Internal documents show the company’s scheme – codenamed ‘Iliad Flow’ – reduced cancelations by 14 percent at the height of its success in 2017.

The scheme involves four pages of deals, offers, ‘Remind Me Later’ snooze alarms, and other confounding distractions aimed at making people reconsider downgrading their accounts. 

But Amazon not only plotted to trick its customers, it hid those schemes from federal investigators, according to a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit filed Wednesday. 

Among other violations, the FTC has accused Amazon in its complaint of failing to hand over ‘Iliad’ documents in response to the commission’s civil investigative demand (CID), a kind of subpoena for corporate entities. 

Following a Business Insider expose on ‘Iliad Flow’ published in March 2022, the FTC said its investigators ‘quickly ascertained that Amazon had failed to disclose much of the now-leaked documents and information to the Commission.’

Amazon did this, the FTC complaint contends, ‘despite the fact that at least some of it was responsive to the outstanding CID,’ issued a year earlier on March 16, 2021.

So, here’s how ‘Iliad Flow’ worked and what Amazon put in place to throttle the flow of Prime membership cancellations.

First the option to ‘end membership’ was buried inside the ‘manage membership’ tab, which then would lead a Prime subscriber through a battery of prompts, deals and offers.

Iliad’s first gambit was to remind users of the Prime streaming benefits.  

‘Don’t give up on movie night’ Amazon’s first prompt read, reminding Prime members of items on their watchlist, and the days remaining until their next billing cycle.

On the next page, Amazon reminded users just how much money they could save by switching from a monthly Prime membership to an annual plan.    

The next prompt lets users know how much money they would save by switching from a monthly to an annual payment plan. 

Since February 2022, when Amazon raised their rates on both Prime models unequally, the savings differential between an annual and a monthly memberships has actually expanded from $37 to $41.

Iliad Flow’s last prompt asks that Prime members confirm their cancellation from a menu of five options.

The first three options promise to pause their membership, keep their membership or ‘be reminded later’ about their desire to quit Prime. 

The final two buttons, closer to the bottom of the page, finally offers a Prime member the opportunity to either pause or fully cancel their membership.  

‘Fittingly,’ as the FTC wrote in their civil complaint, ‘Amazon named that process ‘Iliad,’ which refers to Homer’s epic about the long, arduous Trojan War.’

Citing the leaked documents, regulators accused Amazon execs of having ‘slowed or rejected user experience changes that would have made Iliad simpler for consumers because those changes adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line.’

The vice president of Amazon Prime, Jamil Ghani, said in a statement that ‘customer transparency and trust are top priorities’ for the company.

‘By design, we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership,’ Ghani said. ‘We continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience.’

Ghani, alongside Amazon executives Neil Lindsay and Russell Grandinetti, were explicitly named in the FTC complaint as executives who ‘slowed or rejected’ suggested improvements to the user interface for Prime members.

But there was one manipulative tactic that, over time, came to be viewed — even inside Amazon — as beyond the pale: giving customers buttons and menu options meant to embarrass or bully them into signing-up for more services.

Not too long ago, Amazon’s prompts to ordinary customers presented them with a passive-aggressive offer for a free trial of Prime, where the option to say ‘No’ came via a menu button saying ‘No Thanks, I don’t want FREE Two-Day Shipping.’ 

That option to decline now comes as a straight-forward ‘No thanks’ but only because executives inside the company were finally persuaded that the tactic was leading to bad PR for Amazon. 

‘There is a well established external trend (negatively perceived) called ‘customer shaming,” according to one internal email, obtained by Business Insider, ‘and we’re even specifically called out in some cases.’  

Ex-Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, 86, is hospitalised for medical checks two months after being diagnosed with leukaemia and a lung infection

• Silvio Berlusconi, 86, has been admitted to Milan’s San Raffaele hospital 

By Rachael Bunyan

Published: 10:20 EDT, 9 June 2023 | Updated: 11:36 EDT, 9 June 2023

 

MIDAS SHARE TIPS UPDATE: Developer Harworth, a property business with a difference, has a mine of prime sites

By Joanne Hart, Financial Mail on Sunday

Published: 16:51 EDT, 27 May 2023 | Updated: 16:51 EDT, 27 May 2023

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