E paper pdf (8 06 2017) (lhr)

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Thursday, 8 June, 2017 I 12 Ramzan-ul-Mubarak, 1438 I Rs 20.00 I Vol VII No 341 I 20 Pages I lahore edition

HIgHly SyMbolIC TaRgeTS

RaRe twin attacks hit iRan’s Majlis, khoMenei’s shRine g

OffiCialS Say gunmEn dRESSEd aS wOmEn StORmEd PaRliamEnt

g

Ending HOuRS-lOng SiEgE, SECuRity fORCES kill all fOuR attaCkERS

TEHRAN

g

STORY ON PAGE 03

AGENCIES

unmEn and suicide bombers attacked iran’s parliament – the majlis – and the shrine of revered revolutionary leader Ruhollah khomeini on wednesday, killing at least 12 people, wounding dozens and igniting an hours-long siege at the legislature that ended with four attackers dead.

Quoted by an iranian state-run news website, iran’s Emergency department head Pirhossein kolivand said that 12 people were killed and 42 wounded in the two attacks. the islamic State militant group claimed the attacks iran. iran’s intelligence ministry said that a third attack was foiled. iran’s counter-terrorism unit also said that one of the attackers at the shrine had been neutralized, in addition to the bomber. the attacks began mid-morning when assailants armed with kalashnikov rifles stormed the parliament building. the majlis is iran’s principal legislative body and it has 290 members, including Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews.

One of the attackers later blew himself up inside, where a session had been in progress, according to a statement by iran’s state tV. deputy interior minister mo-

govt announces eid holidays STORY ON PAGE 03

Rabbani accepts withdrawal of Hashmi’s resignation STORY ON PAGE 02

Pentagon says Pakistan could host China’s future military base STORY ON PAGE 03

JIT will not get extra time, says Supreme Court

sehr-o-iftar timing fiqah-e-hanfia fiqah-e-jafaria sehr 3:18 am

sehr 3:08 am

iftar 7:07 pm

iftar 7:17 pm

Pakistan to become full SCO member today STORY ON PAGE 02

hammad Hossein Zolfaghari said that the apparently male attackers wore women’s attire. a semi-official news agency reported the siege had ended with four of the attackers killed. the aamaq news agency released a 24-second video purportedly shot inside the parliament building during the siege. the video, circulated online, shows a gunman and a bloody, lifeless body of a man lying on the ground next to a desk. a voice on the video says in arabic: “do you think we will leave? we will remain.” another voice repeats the same words.

tV footage showed several police snipers on the rooftops of buildings around the parliament. Shops in the area were shuttered, and gunfire could be heard. witnesses said the attackers were shooting from the fourth floor of the parliament building down at people in the streets below. “i was passing by one of the streets. i realised people are hiding and lying down on the streets,” said Ebrahim ghanimi, who was around the parliament building when the assailants stormed in.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 03

Musharraf says change in country only possible through democracy STORY ON PAGE 04

Pakistan ready to respond to any threat STORY ON PAGE 02

KP announces Rs603b tax-free budget STORY ON PAGE 05

02 NEWS

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE MEETS

Pakistan fully Ready to ResPond to any tHReat

Cabinet’s body Condemns terror inCidents in Civil, military offiCials rejeCt allegations; express afghanistan, resolves to support afghan people ConCern on deteriorating afghan seCurity situation ISLAMABAD

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sTAFF RePORT

HE National Security Committee (NSC) of the federal cabinet on Wednesday said it was fully aware of the institutional collaboration by elements hostile to Pakistan and vowed to defend itself resolutely against manifest and future threats.

The special meeting of the committee made it evident following a review of the issues of national and regional security here at the PM Office. It was the second meeting of the NSC in as many

weeks. Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif chaired the meeting which was attended by country’s top civil and military officials.

The forum strongly condemned the recent incident of terrorism in Kabul and resolved to remain steadfast and resolute in support of Afghan people. The participants expressed concern on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan and strongly rejected the allegations against Pakistan in that context.

It was highlighted that Pakistan was the only country in the Afghan equation which has achieved clear and measurable success against terrorism despite

Rabbani accepts Hashmi’s resignation withdrawal ISLAMABAD AGeNCIes

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani has accepted the request of former Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Nehal Hashmi to take back his resignation, saying that the senator had admitted he submitted his resignation under duress and unusual circumstances. Rabbani said Leader of the House Raja Zafarul Haq should be apprised of the development. Rabbani said Hashmi had submitted his resignation in the office of the Senate secretary, but he didn’t appear on June 5 for confirmation of his resignation. He was asked to appear on June 7; however, Hashmi submitted an application to take back his resignation on June 6 and said he resigned under pressure. The chairman said he asked Hashmi if he wants to take back his resignation, to which the former PML-N leader said he wants to. His resignation has therefore been taken back, Rabbani said.

Nehal Hashmi asked the Senate chairman on Tuesday not to consider his resignation.

Hashmi had submitted his resignation as a PML-N senator after instructions from the PML-N leadership following his recent controversial remarks against the judiciary.

Hashmi failed to show up on Monday in Rabbani’s office to personally verify his resignation, as asked by Rabbani. According to a written request submitted to the Senate chairman, Hashmi said he submitted his resignation amid intense pressure. Hashmi claimed that he wants to continue serving his duties as a Senator. After Hashmi’s request of resignation withdrawal, a Raja Zafarul Haq led PML-N delegation requested the chairman of Senate to accept Hashmi’s earlier resignation, as he had already been suspended from the party following the release of the provocative video.

limited capacity and at a huge human and economic costs. “Pakistan has not only remained committed to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan but also worked with all regional and global initiatives to that end.”

At the same time, Pakistan has shown exceptional restraint even when the Afghan territory was used for terrorist acts in Pakistan which resulted in massive human losses, they said. “Pakistan was fully cognizant of the institutional collaboration by elements hostile to Pakistan and would defend itself resolutely against manifest and future threats.”

At the same time, Pakistan remains

committed to continue its ongoing efforts for local, regional and global peace, the statement said. The meeting was attended by Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar, Minister for Interior Affairs Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman General Zubair Mahmood Hayat, Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Zakaullah, ISI Director General Naveed Mukhtar and other senior officials.

The limbo called Supreme Judicial Council sinCe its reaCtivation in november 2015, CounCil is yet to deCide a single referenCe ISLAMABAD shAh NAwAz MOhAl

The Supreme Judicial Council of Pakistan—after its activation back in November 2015 by then chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali—as of yet hasn’t decided upon even a single reference against as many as four justices, who hail from various high courts.

Due to the in-camera nature of hearings, since it is a trial of a peer by fellow peers, the actual goings on of the Supreme Judicial Council remain hidden from the media gaze. However, few references did create ripples like one filed against Chief Justice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi by Islamabad High Court Bar Association.

In October 2016, the Islamabad High Court Bar Association filed a reference against Chief Justice Kasi under Article 209 of Constitution of Pakistan when 74 different appointments and recruitments made by IHC were declared null and void. The lawyers’ community demanded that CJ Kasi should resign, as his involvement in illegal postings and appointments have come to the fore. Another judge Justice Iqbal Hameed-urRehman resigned from the post.

Despite scheduled hearings every month, the references are still pending and no future resolve is in sight.

According to sources, as of March 2017, four references are being heard

by Supreme Judicial Council, which include references against Chief Jus-

tice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi and Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddique pertaining to misconduct along with misuse of authority for personal use.

Interestingly, some judges, whose references are pending before SJC, have demanded that their trial be done in an open court. The council, however, has rejected the proposal as it is against the time-tested norms of jurisprudence that call for in-camera hearing of a trial of a peer by his fellow peers.

Another judge from LHC Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, when summoned to appear before Supreme Judicial Council, filed a petition under Article 184 (3) last year.

In his petition, he brought into question the rules of SJC, labelling them against the ‘spirit of Constitution’.

Even after the lapse of almost a year, Justice Naqvi continues to perform his duties, and due to in-camera proceedings of SJC, little is known about the progress made.

Only last week Justice Asia Saeed Khosa had refused himself from the SC’s proceedings against Justice Mazahir. The fate of another reference against LHC’s Justice Farrukh Irfan— whose name, ironically, is also figured in the Panama Papers—is no different.

Supreme Judicial Council, a constitutional body entrusted to hear references of misconduct against serving judges of Supreme Court and high courts, is the only judicial body competent to remove them.

“The rule of the Supreme Judicial

Council is to conduct in-camera trials.

If there is some exceptional reason, then they opt otherwise. I don’t know on what grounds a judge can demand to conduct them in open,” said Advocate SM Zafar, a notable constitutional lawyer and senior Jurist. “The reason for conducting these proceedings incamera is to save the judges from slender and disrepute, as open proceedings can bring a bad name for all parties involved. Those judges against whom the cases are underway can take advantage from the open hearings by giving them popular angles. It is a person’s wish to paint a picture portraying him as innocent and those judging him as biased against him,” he said.

“Supreme Judicial Council is empowered to form its own rules by Constitution. The council had decided to hold its proceedings in-camera. Now, what is the rationale behind it? First, we have to see what the nature of the trial is. The nature of the trial is that SJC conducts a trial of a peer by the peers. The judge in the case is not on trial and no punishment is to be given to him,” said Justice (retd) Naseem Sikandar, a corporate lawyer and former judge Lahore High Court.

Sikander added that traditions handed down to us from time immemorial can’t be brushed aside by exigencies of the present. “They have to amend the rules. It is not the choice of the accused judge to opt for open or in-camera trial. The younger generation is not aware of the implications of the open trial involved in this case. If a judge comes clean out of the Supreme Judicial Council, the proceedings he came out clean from will keep on haunting him for the rest of his career,” he concluded.

Pakistan, India to become full members of SCO today Pakistan is set to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in its upcoming session in Astana, Kazakhstan which starts June 8.

In a statement released to the media, the Foreign Office (FO) has stated that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will participate in the 17th meeting of the Heads of State Council (HoSC) of the SCO on June 8-9 in Kazakhstan. The PM will hold bilateral meetings there with other leaders on the sidelines of the summit. PM Sharif will also attend the inauguration ceremony of the International Expo 2017, which will host 100 participating countries, including Pakistan. Pakistan, which

has been an observer at the SCO since 2005, applied for a permanent membership in 2010. According to the FO spokesperson, “The decision, in principle, to give membership to Pakistan was taken by the SCO Heads of States in a meeting held in Ufa, Russia, in 2015”.

In the press release, the FO stated that Pakistan had been actively participating in the organisation’s activities as an observer and that it fully subscribes to the “Shanghai Spirit”. The statement further added that Pakistan shares “historical and cultural links, as well as strong economic and strategic complementarities” with members of the SCO. It stated that the SCO

will help Pakistan advance its interests regional peace, stability and development and its support for regional cooperation against terrorism and extremism. India is also set to be included in the SCO in the upcoming Summit in Astana. In becoming full members of the SCO, Pakistan and India will join the ranks of current members Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.

According to Chinese media, the inclusion of the two countries, which previously held observer status, will “add to the potential and the global influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation,” China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Li

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Huilai said.

MODI LOOKS FORWARD TO DEEPENING TIES WITH SCO STATES: “I look forward to deepening India’s association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his pre-departure statement.

Modi said he looked forward to further progress in ties with SCO nations for “mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people”.

While India will seek to bridge the gap with Central Asian countries on is-

Pakistan to recommend three ad-hoc judges in Jadhav case Pakistan will reportedly be recommending three names to International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Wednesday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case filed by India over convicted spy Kulbhushan Jadhav. A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf will be presenting the names to the court.

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk, Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali have been recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees at the UN court.

Representatives of Pakistan will convene a meeting with President of the ICJ today (Thursday). Members who are to meet the ICJ chief include the attorney general and Director General (DG) of South Asia Affairs Dr Faisal among others. Pakistan’s counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi among two senior lawyers are part of the delegation as well. India took to the UN court last month, seeking a provisional stay of execution of Jadhav, which was granted.

“Court considers it a failure on the part of Pakistan to present counsellors to Jhadav,” said President Ronny Abraham who announced the verdict. “A link exists between the rights invoked by India and the provisional measures being sought by the state,” he continued. Counsel for Pakistan Khawar Qureshi maintained that responsibility to punish terrorists lies with all of the countries. Qureshi said that the issue at hand concerns national stability of Pakistan and ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to rule on such case. News Desk

Media should help improve Pakistan’s soft image: Marriyum

ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb while chairing a high level meeting on Wednesday in the ministry, stressed the need for an effective use of digital media to promote a soft image of Pakistan at the global level. In this regard, she directed all the concerned departments of the IB&NH ministry to work in a more integrated and cohesive manner to make the best use of social media, which is one of the greatest technological advancement of the recent age.

The meeting was attended by I&B secretary, director general of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, director general of External Publicity Wing, director general of cyber wing and other senior officials of the ministry. AGeNCIes

sues related to trade, connectivity and energy through the membership of SCO, terrorism will be a key focus area for the government, according to an Indian newspaper.

Whether or not a meeting materialises between Modi and Nawaz Sharif (the Indian government said there’s no proposal yet), Modi’s bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO summit is expected to be one of the highlights in Astana. While the Indian government has not yet confirmed the bilateral, sources said the Indian PM is likely to yet again touch upon the three issues which have beset Sino-Indian ties recently—China’s opposition to UN ban on Masood Azhar, CPEC, and also Beijing’s refusal to support India’s NSG membership bid. News Desk

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

NEWS

03

PANAMA CASE

nothing unusual about Hussain’s Jit picture: Bilawal KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has responded to Hussain Nawaz’s leaked photo, saying there is nothing in the picture to be bickered about. PPP chairman said it can be seen in the photo that Hussain Nawaz is sitting honourably on a chair, with a side table, pencil, paper, file, and all the facilities. Bilawal remarked the upholders of the rule of law were trying to become the oppressed now because they are at the receiving end. The leadership of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) talked a lot about the rule of law in the last five years; however, the party itself is not willing to follow it, said Bilawal. ONlINe

Government announces holidays for eid The interior ministry on Wednesday announced a three-day holiday on the occasion of Eidul Fitr for government organisations, semi-government organisations, banks and educational institutions. The notification stated the holidays will run from June 26 to June 28 (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). Federal government employees, who have both Saturday and Sunday off on weekends, will enjoy a five-day holiday on Eid. Eidul Fitr is likely to be on June 26 or June 27 this year.

The Islamic festival marks the culmination of the month of Ramzan in which Muslims fast for 30 days. News Desk

PM believes in rule of law, democracy: PMl-n ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leaders Wednesday rejected the allegations of making the joint investigation team controversial. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family fully believes in rule of law and supremacy of democracy as he has presented himself and three generations of Sharif family for accountability”, Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said. He was addressing a press conference along with Senator Mushahidullah Khan here at the press information department. He said, when the Prime Minister’s son Hussain Nawaz had objected over the members of JIT, he was using his right to object. However, when the Supreme Court rejected Hussain’s objection, he accepted and himself appeared before the JIT. APP

‘Pakistan could host China’s military base’ A Pentagon report released on Tuesday singled out Pakistan as a possible location for a future Chinese military base, as it forecast that Beijing would likely build more bases overseas after establishing a facility in the African nation of Djibouti. The prediction came in a 97-page annual report to Congress that saw advances throughout the Chinese military in 2016, funded by robust defence spending that the Pentagon estimated exceeded $180 billion. That is higher than China’s official defence budget figure of $140.4 billion. Chinese leaders, the US report said, appeared committed to defence spending hikes for the “foreseeable future,” even as economic growth slows. Beijing, however, “firmly opposed” the Pentagon report, saying that Chinese government was a force for safeguarding peace and stability. AGeNCIes

Jit will Get no extRa tiMe: suPReMe CouRt Counsel requests sC to direCt investigators to stop video reCording of proCeedings immediately ISLAMABAD

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sTAFF RePORT

HE Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which is investigating Panama Papers case, to submit response over leaking of Hussain Nawaz’s picture of his appearance before it.

A three-member special implementation bench of the apex court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and comprising Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Justice Ijazul Ahsan heard the Panama implementation case.

During the proceedings, Khawaja Haris Ahmad, counsel for Hussain, appeared and pleaded the court to constitute an independent commission headed by a retired or sitting judge of

the apex court to inquire into the circumstances leading to the leaking of his client’s photograph on social media and to identify the person or persons responsible for the same.

He also pleaded the court to direct JIT members to immediately stop the video recording of its proceedings relating to recording of statement and interrogation of witnesses. Haris said that the photo leak was against ethical and legal codes and recording videos of the JIT’s proceedings was similar to pressurising witnesses appearing before the body.

He said that the recording of proceedings does not allow witnesses to speak without being treated like a criminal. He said that recording the statement of a witness was a violation of the Sections 161 (public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration

the Court orders inquiry into hussain nawaz’s photo leak in respect of an official act) and 162 (taking gratification for exercise of personal influence with public servant) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

“The manner and timing of the release of the photograph has raised questions about the motives of the person or persons behind this sordid affair, he said. Justice Ejaz remarked that Hussain Nawaz’s leaked picture was screen shot and not of video recording. He remarked that let the bench first hear the JIT over the issue.

“If need arises of detailed investigation then the court will look into it,” he added. The court asked the JIT to file its response to Hussain’s plea and adjourned hearing for Monday (June 12).

JIT head Wajid Zia submitted its second report in a sealed envelope. The bench after reviewing the report advised the JIT to submit a separate application list-

ing the problems, obstacles and difficulties being faced in completing the assigned task.

Justice Ejaz Afzal remarked that the court would issue directions to the attorney general based on the application. He hoped that the team would complete the task in the given time. The bench reiterated that the JIT would not be allowed extra time to complete the task assigned to it. “We will not allow extra time under any circumstances,” Justice Azmat remarked.

Online adds: The Joint Investigation Team has once again summoned Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz on June 9 and June 10 respectively at 11am. According to summons, Hussain will appear before JIT on Friday at 11am while Hassan will appear on Saturday to face more investigation.

rabbani offers in-camera sitting to share info ppp lawmaker requests govt to take missing person’s matter to un

sherry says india trying to aitzaz urges for having strong use others’ soil in foreign poliCy to have better ConspiraCies against pakistan terms with all neighbours

ISLAMABAD sTAFF RePORT

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani has said that the parliamentarians have right to know about major issues including missing of Habib Zahir, a retired Pakistan Army colonel who was disappeared in Nepal on April 6.

During the Senate session, he asked Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch that they were ready if the government wants to share information in-camera regarding the kidnapping of the retired army officer.

Baloch informed the Senate that the government was taking sincere efforts for the early recovery of the retired army colonel. To an adjournment motion, moved by Senator Mian Muhammad Ateeq Shaikh, he said that the government was seriously handling this issue and trying to recover him as early as possible.

He said that the Foreign Office and other relevant departments were playing role in the disappearance of Col Habib, a resident of Rawalpindi. He said that the missing retired colonel had reached Nepal via Oman on April 6 this year. He said he was traced through his last mobile call which he made to his family member when he was at a village near the Indian border.

He said that the person who received him at the airport in Nepal was an Indian citizen, who was working

with a firm related with mountaineering sector. Baloch said that the involvement of India’s RAW intelligence agency cannot be ruled out in the disappearance of Col Habib. “We were looking for conducive proof of Indian involvement in Habib’s kidnapping,” he said.

Earlier, the upper house discussed in detail the matter of disappearance of Col Habib. Senator Ateeq said that the government had cordial relations with the Nepal government and urged the government to use good offices to recover the missing Pakistani. He said that the retired army officer was busy in search of job and shared his CV for a job but he was trapped. He said that those who received him at the airport in Nepal was reportedly the Indian citizen. He urged to take sincere steps for his early recovery him. According to media reports, RAW was involved in the disappearance, he said.

Former interior minister Senator Rehman Malik said that it was a matter of intent of committing crime by India. He said that Internet was used to trap Col Habib.

Bilaterally, “it is our right by way of charter of Interpol to make all steps to recover our citizen,” he said. He said that it was national issue as country’s enemy was involved in the kidnapping. He said that this was consistent attack and a crime which was committed by India against Pakistan. He said that India has basically exploited a person who wanted a job. He said that the investigating agencies should investigate all facts. He requested the

government to take this matter in the United Nations.

Senator Abdul Qayyum said that India always remained busy in destabilising Pakistan. India must involve itself to promote peace in the region, he suggested. He said that it was the responsibility of the United Nations and super powers to resolve these types of matters. However, he said that they had adopted dual standards.

He said that Indian was trying to provoke in western border. He said India was creating destabilisation in the region. Senator Sehar Kamran said that Col Habib was trapped by showing impression of giving job to him. She said that it was a matter of concern that the land of Nepal was used for the purpose.

She said that all possible steps should be taken by the government for early recovery of Col Habib. She said that Indian can go anyway against Pakistan to ‘isolate’ it. Senator Sherry Rehman said that Pakistani embassy had an important role to play in recovery of Col Habib. She said that India was trying to use soil of other countries in conspiracies against Pakistan.

Senator John Kenneth Williams said that country’s authorities should make proper strategy for early recover Col Habib. Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan urged for having strong foreign policy to have better terms with all neighbouring countries. He suggested that the government should take this matter on international forum.

rare twin attacks hit iran’s majlis, khomenei’s shrine contInueD froM pAge 01 Police helicopters circled over the parliament building and all mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected. The semi-official ISNA news agency said that all the entrance and exit gates at the parliament were closed and that lawmakers and reporters were ordered to remain in place inside the chamber during the siege.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called the attack a cowardly act. “Iran is an active and effective pillar in the fight against terrorists and they want to damage it,” he said. Soon after the parliament attack, a suicide bomber and other assailants targeted the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini located just outside Tehran, according to Iran’s official state broadcaster.

It said a security guard was killed and that one of the attackers was killed by security guards. A woman was also arrested. Khomeini, who died in 1989, is a towering figure in Iran. He led the 1979 revolution that toppled the ruler and became Iran’s first supreme leader. The TV footage showed security forces, some uniformed and others in plainclothes, around the large and ornate shrine.

IS often claims attacks around the world, even when links to the group cannot be confirmed and appear dubious. Iranian security officials have not said who they suspect is behind the attacks, though the state media has referred to the attackers as terrorists. The unusual attacks prompted the Interior Ministry to call for an urgent security meeting. Officials at one point urged people to avoid using public

transportation until further notice.

SYMBOLIC ATTACK: The attackers chose symbolically significant targets for their assault. The tomb houses the body of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founder and first supreme leader, and it is a popular destination for tourists and followers. He led the revolution that overthrew the Iranian ruler in 1979 and was supreme leader for 10 years.

PAKISTAN STRONGLY CONDEMNS TERROR ATTACKS IN IRAN: Pakistan on Wednesday strongly condemned terrorist attacks on Iranian parliament and the shrine of revered revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini in which, reportedly, precious lives of innocent people have been lost.

“We stand in solidarity with the people of Iran in their hour of grief,” Foreign Office stated in a

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statement here. “We offer our deep condolences to the people of Iran, government, and the bereaved families and pray for the speedy recovery of those injured.”

Pakistan condemns terrorism, which is a global phenomenon and common challenge, requiring resolute and coordinated approach to deal with the menace, the statement concluded.

UNITED STATES CONDEMNS: In a statement the US State Department has said that it ‘condemns the terrorist attacks in Tehran today’. “We express our condolences to the victims and their families, and send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Iran. The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world.” However, US President Donald Trump, who is known for his tweets, didn’t tweet about it.

04 NEWS

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

govt aCCuSeS KHurSHeed SHaH oF Not taKiNg Na SeriouSly

Parliamentary committee confirms appointment of 3 additional judges in PHC IsLAMABAD

IsLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

The Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointment has confirmed the nomination of Advocate Supreme Court Arshad Ali, Advocate Supreme Court Nasir Mehfooz and Advocate Supreme Court Shakeel Ahmad for appointment as additional judges of the Peshawar High Court for a period of one year in a meeting on Wednesday. The names were forwarded to the committee by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan that is fully empowered under Article 175 (A) of the Constitution, which deals with the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court, high courts and the Federal Shariat Court. It is pertinent to mention here that the Judicial Commission of Pakistan comprises of the chief justice of Pakistan, four most senior judges of the Supreme Court as members, a former chief justice or former judge of the Supreme Court for a term of two years as member, federal minister for Law and Justice as member, attorney general as member and a senior advocate of the Supreme Court nominated by the Pakistan Bar Council for a term of two years. The meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Judges Appointment in the Superior Courts was chaired by Senator Muhammad Javed Abbasi and attended by Senator Raja Zafarul Haq, Senator Farooq H Naik, Senator Ilyas Bilour, MNA Mahmood Bashir Virk and MNA Muhammad Arshad Khan Leghari.

PM Nawaz Sharif congratulates French President Macron IsLAMABAD APP

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday called French President Emmanuel Jean Michael Frederic Macron on phone and congratulated him on his election as the president of the French Republic. The prime minister, on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan, extended sincere felicitations to Emmanuel Macron on his historic win in the elections. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reaffirmed his commitment to further strengthening the friendly ties between the two countries and expressed confidence that the bilateral relations between the two nations would continue to flourish under the vibrant leadership of Macron. The prime minister also invited the French President to visit Pakistan. The prime minister also condoled with the French president over the recent terrorist attacks and assured that Pakistan stands together with France and Europe in eliminating the menace of the terrorism.

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STAFF REPORT

HE National Assembly on Wednesday witnessed a heated debate by various federal ministers, criticising the opposition leader for running away from the parliament rather than playing its due democratic role to address peoples’ problems.

Responding to fierce speech of opposition leader Syed Khursheed Shah, they said that the government was still ready to listen to the opposition leaders as PML-N believed in democracy.

However, they come hard on the opposition leader for hurling allegations against the PML-N leadership.

Speaking at the floor of the House, Minister for Kashmir Affairs Barjees Tahir said like other parties, the PMLN also rendered supreme services for the supremacy of the judiciary and con-

stitution. He said the opposition leader was still stuck to its gun despite delivering daily speeches in the House and then staging walk outs.

He said the opposition members should highlight the problems of their constituencies in the House but they have failed to perform their due role in the budget discussion. He urged the opposition not to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere and desist to destroy the national institutions.

The prime minister has repeatedly said that he (PM) would respect the court decisions, he said. State Minister for Interior Balighur Rehman said it was most unfortunate that the opposition leader was depriving other opposition members of their rights to speak in the House. He said the opposition leader was stressing for live telecast of his speech although there was no such precedent.

Even during the PPP rule, they never

gave any opportunity to the opposition leader to telecast live speech, he said. He said the credit also goes to the PML-N government that an opportunity was given to the opposition leader to telecast his live speech in 2015. He said media was giving due coverage to the opposition and their demand was out of the context.

State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali criticized the opposition leader for leveling allegation against the PML-N leadership. He said PPP had failed to deliver in Sindh and it should focus on the province rather than leveling allegations against the federal government.

He was of the view that the people who were hurling allegations against the PML-N leadership were themselves plundered the national wealth and purchased palaces in Dubai, US and other countries. He said PML-N did not sign the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to hide their corruption rather

PPP was the sole beneficiary.

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif fought for the supremacy of the judiciary instead for an individual person. He challenged the opposition to prove a signal penny corruption in all development projects including the Sahiwal Coal, Bikki and Haveli Bahadurshah Power plants.

The minister said the government saved Rs80 billion in every power projects. He questioned how an ordinary FIA director general could become a billionaire and purchased flats in United Kingdom. He said those people were criticising PML-N who was responsible for economic disaster, promoting corruption and plunging the country into terrorism.

In the past, PML-N lawmakers were attacked during the PPP rule and never allowed then opposition leader Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan’s speech to telecast live, he told the House.

Vladimir Putin supports Qatar, a US partner criticised by Trump Mashal’s father TEHRAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin reached out to the leader of Qatar just days after the Middle Eastern country was accused by neighbors of supporting terrorism.

"Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Russia's principled position in favor of settling crises by political and diplomatic means, through dialogue," the Kremlin said in a summary of Putin's conversation with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

That's a pointed show of support for Qatar, which finds itself isolated from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Arab nations who believe the regime supports terrorism and is too friendly with Iran.

It's also another example of Russia's cozying up to a critical US partner in the Middle East at a time of tension between traditional allies.

"Russian-Qatari cooperation, primarily in the trade, economic and investment areas, was discussed, and the results of the meeting of the bilateral Intergovernmental Commission in April 2017 were highly praised," the Kremlin said, Washington Examiner reported. That announcement came hours after President Trump took credit for Saudi Arabia's decision to cut diplomatic ties with the Persian Gulf neighbor.

"So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries

already paying off," Trump wrote in a series of tweets. They said they would take a hard line on funding, extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!"

Qatar is home to a critical US military base, including the headquarters of US Central Command in the region.

"The United States and the Coalition are grateful to the Qataris for their longstanding support of our presence and their enduring commitment to regional security," said Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway, a Defense Department spokesman, said one day before Trump's tweets. TASNIM

Chaos to prevail if controversy mars JIT report: Sanaullah LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Wednesday that the Joint Investigation Team’s report getting marred by controversy can lead to chaos in the country. Speaking to media in Lahore, he said: “If a campaign starts against the JIT report, then I will be at the forefront.” The minister said that the Sharif family reserves the right to boycott the JIT. Sanaullah stated that it is the Supreme Court’s responsibility to present a satisfactory answer in relation to the issue of Hussain Nawaz’s picture before the session and the controversial Whatsapp call.

He said after the picture of the PM’s son surfaced, there exists no doubt that the Sharif family has been ridiculed. He alleged that the witnesses in the case were being pressurized, and notice should be taken of the matter. The apex court on Wednesday expressed satisfaction with the progress of the JIT probing the prime minister’s family’s global financial dealings. The head of the JIT, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Additional Director-General Wajid Zia, had earlier submitted the probe team’s interim progress report to the special implementation bench.

Since the last progress report was submitted, the probe has been marred by several controversies.

A news report published in an English newspaper had revealed that a person claiming to be the Supreme Court registrar had surreptitiously contacted the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), asking for specific persons to be included in the list of potential JIT members.

The prime minister’s son, Hussain, had raised questions of bias against one of the SECP officials who made it to the probe team. However, those objections were not entertained by the court. INP

wants security for his daughters

The father of lynched Mardan university student, Mashal Khan, filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking the government's help for relocation of his daughters and himself to Islamabad in light of alleged security threats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the family's hometown of Swabi. Muhammad Iqbal Khan in his petition requested the provision of living arrangements and the admission of his daughters at colleges in Islamabad. The petition maintains that since Mashal's murder, his sisters have "not been able to pursue their studies for obvious security concerns", adding that "The education of the two daughters has become impossible in Swabi or anywhere in KP. There is an urgent need for the two being shifted to Islamabad." The petition maintains that in this light, it would be necessary for the applicant, Muhammad Iqbal Khan, to move to Islamabad, but this is impossible due to limited financial resources. The petition requests that the government provide living arrangements on a rent basis to allow Khan to move to Islamabad, and seeks admission for his older daughter "in any medical college at Islamabad/Rawalpindi". Khan claimed that it has become "very difficult" for his elder son, a civilian clerk in the Pakistan Air Force, to continue working at his post and said that once he shifts to Islamabad to "oversee the education of his daughters", he will leave his son his small business to run. NEWS DESK

Musharraf says change in country only possible through democracy SAYS HE’LL WELCOME GOVT’S DISMISSAL BY SC AFTER JIT INVESTIGATION News Desk Former military ruler General (retd) Pervez Musharraf has said he would welcome the change if the current elected government is dismissed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan through JIT-led investigation.

He was addressing the press conference held at the office of All Pakistan

Muslim League in Dubai.

Musharraf, who had toppled the government in 1999, said that the change in the country could only be brought through democracy.

Although, he also said that Pakistan was in the need of change and replacement of the system, so it would be, according to him, a "bonus". Pervez Musharraf also expressed his high hopes with the Supreme Court to bring change in the country or Army could do it through back channel. Musharraf hinted to return to Pakistan after the formation of ‘third political force’ in the country.

He said that he was ready to lead the grand alliance of the political parties, who

are fed up with the politics of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

On Tuesday, some leaders of religious and political parties met with Pervez Musharraf in his residence and asked him to lead what they termed as "grand political alliance."

President Awami League Riaz Fatiyana, Sunni Itehad Council Chairman Hamid Raza, Muttahida Wahdadat-iMuslimeen Additional Secretary Nasir Shirazi, President of Muslim League Jenejo Iqbal Dar, Pakistan Mazdoor Itehad Chairman Naeem Quershi, as well as APML Secretary General Dr Amjad, were present at the press conference.

CMYK

He did not announce any specific date to return to the country, saying when his "grand alliance" gets successful and popular then he will definitely make his return. The former military ruler rejected the current government claims of better economic outlook and regretfully asserted that Pakistan's foreign direct investments and exports had been decreasing. Further, he said that Pakistan's international status and repute has been blown out due to the current foreign policies.

He stated that Pakistan's image was tarnished among the international community, especially in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the US and Iran.

He also praised the assistance of

Saudi Arabia and UAE to Pakistan during difficult times, saying that Pakistan should stand with both the brother countries. Musharraf said that Pakistan should not get itself involved in the sectarian wars in the Middle East but try to mediate between the rival countries as this war will not benefit anyone.

Musharraf also said that his party was in contact with the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) of Tahirul Qadri to include in the alliance. In the concluding remarks, Musharraf said that all parties of urban Sindh, including MQM-Pakistan and Pak Sar Zameen Party (PSP), should not be divided and should bring themselves on one page for the betterment of the country.

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

Five-member Qatari delegation led by Qatari emir’s secretary arrives in lahore News Desk A five-member delegation of Qatari royals arrived Lahore on Wednesday. The royal delegation—led by Qatari Emir’s secretary Abdul Hadi Mana Al Hajri—was welcomed

by DG protocol Punjab Government. According to reports, the delegation reached Lahore at 6:05PM on a special flight; later on, the delegation left for Model Town— which is the residence of Sharif Family as well as the camp office of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The nature of the Qatari delegation’s secret visit is currently unknown; however, it is believed the royals from land-locked Gulf nation will discuss the Qatar crisis. During this week, several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, severed all diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing the former of sponsoring terrorism in the region.

Siding against ally Qatar, trump injects uS into arab crisis President Donald Trump injected the United States into a volatile crisis among America's Mideast allies, siding Tuesday with Saudi Arabia and other countries against Qatar in a dispute that threatens to disrupt efforts to defeat the militant Islamic State (IS) group and counter Iran. In a series of early-morning tweets, Trump appeared to endorse the accusation that the small, gas-rich kingdom funds terrorist groups, a serious allegation against a strategic US partner that hosts a base with some 10,000 American troops. He also sought to cast the anti-Qatar action led by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates as the result of his trip last month to Riyadh, where he pressed leaders from dozens of Arab and Muslim governments, including Qatar's emir, to combat extremism. Trump said he'd told the kings, presidents and prime ministers that funding “Radical Ideology” can't be tolerated, and “Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!” “They said they would take a hard line on funding... extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!” Trump said on Twitter, claiming his visit to Saudi Arabia was “already paying off.” He appeared to take a more measured tone during a call with Saudi Arabia's King Salman. Trump told Salman that a united Gulf Cooperation Council is “critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability,” according to a White House readout of the conversation. The council includes Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. The president's sharp critique of Qatar pulled the US directly into a conflict that American diplomats had wanted the bickering parties to resolve among themselves. AGENCIES

‘Pakistan should maintain neutrality on Saudi-Qatar rift’ A senior Pakistan analyst strongly believes that Pakistan should stay neutral at this time of serious rift between Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies with Qatar.

In an interview with IRNA, Lieutenant General (retd) Talat Masood said that Pakistan has friendly relations with both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, so it should not get involved in this Arab countries’ fight.

He added that the reason Saudi Arabia has cut diplomatic ties with Qatar is because the Persian Gulf state wants to follow an independent policy which is not acceptable to Saudi Arabia.

“There has been rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia for a long time and they don’t see eye to eye on many issue, like for the instance Qatar’s support for Egypt’s Morsi, its independent oil policy and its relationship with Iran. So I think Saudi Arabia wants to force Qatar to follow policies of Riyadh in the Middle East,” he said.

Talat Masood went on to say that Qatar wants to be more independent and that is why we see many differences between the two countries. NEWS DESK

KP govt uNveilS rS603 BillioN tax-Free Budget RS208B ADP FOR 2017-18 PesHAwAR APP

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HE Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government here on Wednesday unveiled Rs 603 billion tax-free budget carrying development outlay of Rs 208 billion for the year 2017-18 with a major focus on the elimination of corruption and the development of the social sector.

Provincial Finance Minister Muzafar Said presented the fifth budget of the PTI-led coalition government in the KP assembly last Saturday afternoon with Speaker Asad Qaiser in the Chair.

A special meeting of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cabinet with Chief Minister Pervez Khatak in the chair on Wednesday approved budget proposals for the year 2017-18.

The KP government also announced 10 percent increase in salary and pension of the government employees after the merger of the 2010 ad-hoc relief.

Minimum wages have been increased from Rs14000

10PC INCREASE IN SALARIES to Rs.15000. The rise in salaries and pensions would burden the provincial kitty with Rs16.50 billion The province is also expected to receive Rs247.876 billion from the Federal Divisible Pool 2017-18, Rs.107 million as one percent share of the province in the war against terror from the federal divisible pool and Rs49.806 billion as straight transfers from the federation.

The province will receive Rs21.774 billion under net hydel profit and arrears from the federal government and Rs114.535 million as arrears of the net hydel profits.

The province’s own receipts have been pitched at Rs68.31 billion for 2017-18. The current expenditure has been pitched at Rs388 billion to meet the provincial expenditure to be incurred next year, said the finance minister.

The finance minister also informed that the provincial government will generate Rs126 billion from its own sources for the development programme whereas Rs 82 billion would be generated through foreign donor agencies aimed at feeding the development programmes.

ECC approves Rs41bn repayment for power distribution companies News Desk The Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet on Wednesday approved the provision of a government guarantee by the Ministry of Finance for repayment of a loan as well as interest, for a syndicated term finance facility for the power sector amounting to Rs41 billion.

The amount will be utilised for the purposes of funding the repayment liabilities of the Distribution Companies (Discos), through an arrangement between Power Holding (Private) Limited and Discos. The ECC discussed and approved proposals from different ministries on Wednesday in a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in the chair.

The ECC approved the proposal of Cabinet Division for the provision of bridge financing to the tune of Rs864 million for facilitating the Printing Corporation of Pakistan in procuring new printing machines for meeting the requirement of the Elec-

tion Commission of Pakistan, including with respect to the general elections in 2018.

ECC also approved the proposal of Ministry of Commerce for extending the deadline for export of sugar from May 31, 2017 to July 31, 2017. The ECC directed the relevant ministries to ensure price stability especially during the holy month of Ramzan.

While considering a proposal of the Economic Affairs Division, the ECC approved exemption from the payment of General Sales Tax (GST) for the German Development Agency – GIZ, in respect of goods purchased by GIZ. This exemption shall also be available on the procurement of services by GIZ received in Islamabad Capital Territory. This decision has been made to support the development activities carried out by GIZ in Pakistan. The ECC also considered and approved a proposal of Ministry of Industries and Production, finalised with consen-

Imran Khan afraid of accountability: Daniyal IsLAMABAD ONLINE

Imran Khan is afraid of accountability so he is reluctant to appear before the Election Commission.

These views were expressed

by National Assembly Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member Daniyal Aziz, while talking to journalists outside the election commission office on Wednesday. Daniyal Aziz said that Imran Khan along with Musharraf League and others is ridiculing the institutions.

“Imran Khan along with Musharraf League and others is making a mockery of the institutions. But the facts are in front of the people. Khan cannot keep on lying." Imran Khan has leveled allegations of contempt of court against me but the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief has failed to produce any evidence, he said.

"I appeared before election commission but Imran Khan remained absent and could not produce any evidence," he held.

PTI fOuNDINg MEMBER AccuSES KHAN Of cORRuPTION: Akhbar S Babar, a founding member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has

disclosed that a huge amount of money came to the container during sit-in days which were later transported to Banigala.

“A proper investigation should be carried in to it. Imran Khan has been proved a liar and now he is in blind alley; therefore, I am no longer in contact with him," he said this while talking to media men outside the Election Commission office. He alleged that Imran Khan has turned PTI into lotta group.

KHAN TuRNINg PTI INTO LAuNDRy: SAAD: Railways Federal Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that the PTI has turned into a laundry to wash the dirty clothes of ex-presidents Musharraf and Zardari.

While commenting on PPP leaders joining PTI, Khawaja Saad said that Imran Khan has become dry cleaner as he is washing dirty clothes of Musharraf and Zardari by allowing their followers to join PTI. Saad Rafique said on the generous offer of Imran Khan, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Mustafa Khar, Liaquat Jatoi, Aleem Khan, Raja Raiz and Nazar Gondal have joined PTI to form Naya Pakistan.

sus, for not deregulating the price of sugarcane.

The ECC accorded approval to the proposal of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources that up to 10 MMCFD gas from Tolanj field may be allocated to Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).

The price of gas will be as per the applicable petroleum policy.

ECC approved another proposal from the petroleum ministry for allocation of 2.9 MMCFD gas from Khamiso-01 well, located in Ghotki district, to Engro Fertilizer during the Extended Well Testing (EWT) period and post-approval of commerciality/development and production (D&P) lease of the field.

NEWS

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NaB a role model for SaarC countries, says Qamar Zaman ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry on Wednesday said Pakistan was a role model for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries in eliminating corruption. Chairing a meeting to review the performance of NAB, he said it was encouraging for Pakistan that it was considered as a role model for the SAARC countries in the eradication of corruption due to NAB’s efforts, a press release said. He said it was a great achievement for Pakistan to become the first chairman of SAARC Anti-Corruption Forum, adding that “Pakistan is the only country who’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), according to Transparency International report, has decreased from 175 to 116 during the last three years.” Since its inception, Chaudhry said, one of the NAB’s major achievements had been the recovery of around Rs 287.763 billion of ill-gotten money, which was deposited in the national exchequer. He said the NAB was one of the world investigation agencies, which has been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of all cases, including white collar crimes, in a maximum limit of 10 months from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to-investigation and finally to a reference in the accountability court. The chairman said the NAB had organised a SAARC seminar in Islamabad in which the member countries, including India, had participated and appreciated the anti-corruption strategy adopted by the NAB in curbing the menace of corruption. APP

PeMra directs PBa to follow ramzan guidelines ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) on Wednesday served a notice to the Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) to follow Ramzan guidelines. According to the PEMRA’s press release, the notice was sent in response to a letter by the PBA stating that the orders passed by the Islamabad High Court on June 5, 2017, are still in the field. The Ramzan guidelines are to be followed by the licensees of PEMRA; in the case of non-compliance, the PEMRA shall proceed under relevant laws. APP

06 LAHORE

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lahore’s footpaths have goNe the way of the dodo LAHORE

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SAMIULLAH RANDHAWA

R Ilyas who remains physically fit at 70 years old says that the reason behind his good health is exercise. He says that regular cycling and walking keeps him strong even at this age.

“I used to go to college that was 4 kilometres away from my residence, by foot. Though roads at that time were narrower than they are now, footpaths were free for walking.” Dr Ilyas recalled his college life saying that people at that time preferred to walk. He said that people still want to walk to their destinations but unfortunately the lack of footpaths have kept them from doing so.

The Punjab government has ignored the pedestrians’ rights in this regard in the

provincial capital as it despite spending billions of rupees on development projects.

The Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) led government has completed four years of its tenure in the province. With every passing day, Punjab chief minister and other government representatives have been boasting progress and development in the province but speaking from a pedestrian’s perspective, life has never been more difficult.

While passing through the roads in the city, it is very hard to find a feasible footpath or walkway for the pedestrians to walk on. If there is any footpath built, it is often occupied by encroachments.

Most of the times these footpaths are blocked with barriers installed by law and enforcement departments.

Dr Ilyas lamented that with people being forced to look for transport

rather than walking to their destinations, they walk less. This results in diseases that can easily be cured if people start walking more.

It has been observed that crossing roads from any point in the city is an arduous task for the pedestrians.

While travelling on Mall Road, which is considered as the central road of the city, the misery of the pedestrians can easily be seen. The footpaths adjacent to the Chief Minister House, Wapda House, Punjab Assembly and CCPO office, has been closed on account of security threats. Queens Road, one of the busiest roads of Lahore, where Ganga Ram Hospital and Fatima Jinnah Medical College (FJMC) are located, is not adorned with a single footpath that may ease the pressure of traffic that a pedes-

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trian has to bear. The lacking facility of footpaths on this road causes problems to the patients en route Ganga Ram and female students of FJMC. Similarly, the situation on other main roads and arteries in the city is not different. A couple of years ago, the government completed a signal free corridor on Jail road. During the construction of this project, the pedestrians’ rights were ignored. Bridges were constructed along the road that was supposed to facilitate the pedestrians but they were never used as most of the commuters that cross the road are either students that don’t bother to use the bridges or patients that cannot go up the bridge.

The busiest road of Lahore, Ferozpur Road, also turned into a signal free road also keeps the pedestrians at a disadvantage. Commuters avoid

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walking on this road.

Advocate Azhar Siddique termed the government as a violator of laws for infringing the rights of the pedestrians. Speaking to Pakistan Today, he said that walking is the fundamental right of any citizen and the government is responsible for providing this right to every citizen. He added that Article 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25 and 38 of the Constitution deal with this fundamental right of the pedestrians.

Traffic Engineering and Transport Planning Agency (TEPA) Chief Engineer Israr Saeed said that to facilitate the pedestrians footpaths have been constructed throughout the roads.

While talking to Pakistan Today he said that the pedestrians are considered as the most important part of the traffic that also have the strength to disturb the vehicular traffic.

“TEPA has always considered footpath a major part of the road which unfortunately has been encroached”, he said adding that now this was the responsibility of the enforcers of law to vacate the footpaths for pedestrians.

However, he stressed that there is a dire need to educate the pedestrians because even they do not follow the rules while walking.

Khadija case: Court orders to provide case record to accused

LAHORE: Women look with astonishment at another woman riding a motorbike on her own. zUBAIR mAHFOOz

LAHORE APP

Punjab Assembly continues discussion on Budget 2017-18 LAHORE APP

The Punjab Assembly continued discussion on the annual budget 201718 for third consecutive day on Wednesday. As many as 29 lawmakers from both treasury and opposition benches took part in the debate on the provincial budget. However, low presence of lawmakers was noticed throughout the sitting.

Earlier, the fourth sitting of the 30th session of the current assembly started 43 minutes behind its scheduled time with Deputy Speaker Sardar Sher Ali Gorchani in the chair.

Speaker Punjab Assembly Rana Muhammad Iqbal is currently performing as acting governor Punjab in the absence of the Punjab Governor Muhammad Rafiq Rajwana.

Participating in the budget debate, treasury lawmakers said that the new financial year would be the year of improvement. In the next financial year, they said, additional Rs 55 billion would be spent on health sector, adding that in 2017-18 budget, Rs 263 billion had been allocated to Specialized Healthcare and Primary and Secondary Health. They termed the provincial budget as a historic one and a people-friendly one and said that hefty allocations have been made for

various sectors.

They said that next year, all the THQ hospitals would be modernized and 100 mobile health units would also be procured for easy access of people to healthcare facilities. They said that these initiatives reflect the poeple-friendly policies of Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif.

They said that greater emphasis had been laid on education sector as hefty allocations had been made for this sector. “The new financial year will be a year of development for agriculture sector and it will flourish more in days to come,” the legislators said.

Opposition lawmakers, who spoke on the proposed budget, were Dr Wasim Akhtar from JI, Mian Aslam Iqbal from PTI, Sardar Shahabuddin Din from PPPP. Present in the House, Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha noted all the proposals and suggestions to be incorporated in the Budget, 2017-18. Provincial Ministers Rana Sanaullah Khan, Khalil Tahir Sindhu, Zaeem Hussain Qadri attended the session. Tomorrow, (Thursday), will be the last day for general discussion on annual Budget 2017-18.

On completion of the day’s agenda, the chair adjourned the House till next morning, Thursday 11:00 am.

Gut bacteria can prevent Listeria infection: study LAHORE STAFF REPORT

A new study suggests that gut bacteria may hold the key to preventing Listeria infection.

Researchers have identified gut bacteria that could protect against Listeria infection. Researchers from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York identified four species of gut bacteria that reduced the growth of the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes in mice, but they suggest that much of these beneficial bacteria may be eliminated by antibiotic use. Study co-leader Simone Becattini and colleagues say that their findings indicate that colonising patients’ guts with the four bacterial species though probiotics could help to stave off Listeria infection.

Symptoms of listeriosis may include headache, fever, diarrhoea, muscle aches, and fatigue. In severe cases, the infection may lead to septicemia, meningitis, and even death. Listeria infection is most commonly caused by consumption of contaminated dairy products such as soft cheeses, though infection has also been linked to deli meats, melon, and raw sprouts.

The new study suggests that a lack of protective gut bacteria may play a

role in greater susceptibility to Listeria infection among these populations.

Becattini and colleagues came to their findings by analysing the gut microbiomes – that is, the population of microorganisms in the gut – in a group of mice treated with antibiotics, as well as mice treated with chemotherapy drugs, and comparing them with those of control mice. On introducing L monocytogenes to the rodents, the researchers found that those treated with antibiotics showed greater vulnerability to Listeria infection.

They found that the drugs boosted the bacterium’s ability to colonise the gastrointestinal tract and reach the circulatory system, which caused the mice to die.

On further investigation, the researchers identified four species of gut bacteria – all of which were part of the Clostridiales family – that appeared to protect against Listeria infection.

The researchers then tested these probiotic bacteria on L monocytogenes in the laboratory, and they found that they were able to reduce the pathogen’s growth.

Next, the researchers transferred the probiotic bacteria into germ-free mice – that is, mice that possess no microorganisms – and exposed them to L monocytogenes.

A local court on Wednesday, with the adjourning the hearing of Khadija stabbing case, directed the investigation officer to provide case record to the accused.

Judicial Magistrate Mubashir Hassan Awan conducted the trial proceedings at Cantt Courts here.

The victim, Khadija, was also present during the hearing.

At the outset of the proceedings, the court was informed on behalf of the accused, Shah Hussain, that case record had not been provided to the defendant which was mandatory to ensure a fair trial. The court was requested to issue directions for providing the case record.

At this, the court directed the investigation officer to provide case record to the accused and adjourned further hearing. It is pertinent to mention here that the Chief Justice Lahore High Court Syed Mansoor Ali Shah took the administrative notice of Khadija stabbing case a few days ago and directed the judicial magistrate to hear the trial on a daily basis and conclude it in 30 days.

On May 3, 2016, Khadija was allegedly stabbed 23 times by her classmate, Shah Hussain, on Lahore’s Davis Road.

Over a year since the horrific incident, she still awaits justice and appeals to society to raise its voice for her.

CM addresses participants of 106th NMC LAHORE STAFF REPORT

Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif addressed the participants of the 106th National Management Course (NMC) Wednesday. He replied to different questions put up by the participants. Chairman P&D briefed the participants on the development strategy of Punjab; while the ACS (Home) informed the participants about various steps taken for elimination of terrorism and bringing improvements in the law and order situation. Similarly, Chairman Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) highlighted the steps taken for effective utilization of information technology in different sectors to further improve the service delivery mechanism. Rector of National School of Public Policy Azmat Ali Ranjha headed the delegation of the 106th NMC.

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

IpwM faIls to preveNt MIsapproprIatIoN IN raMzaN bazaars LAHORE

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RANA HAIDER

HE government of Punjab has subsidized edibles, especially those that are commonly used in the month of Ramzan, for the consumers to purchase them at a low price. The subsidy sanctioned by the government in this regard is worth 9.35 billion rupees. Despite the relief that the government intends to extend to the people, due to the incapability of the Industries, Prices, Weights and Measures (IPWM) Department to measure the weight of the goods that are being supplied in the market, most of the subsidy appears to be providing no respite to the people at all. The IPWM

also lacks the technical staff to measure the weight correctly.

It is important to note that in the Ramzan bazaars, set up by government, the peons of the IPWM supervise the proceedings there.

According to sources, the salesmen in the Ramzan bazaars are indulged in misappropriation, but they get away with it because the staff of the IPWM is unable to take action against them. It has come to the attention of this scribe that the hundreds of millions of rupees are allocated to the department, yet its performance remains abysmal to date.

Also, for a province like Punjab that has a population of 103 million the strength of staff in the department is only 431 employees. Even from the

designated seats, almost 80 remain unoccupied.

330 Ramzan bazaars have been setup in the province out of which 25 are model bazaars. In the 9 divisions of Lahore 31 Ramzan bazaars have been setup and in each of these bazaars an employee of the IPWM has been assigned so that he may keep a check and balance on the activities of the salesmen and buyers there. According to sources, these employees have failed to perform effectively because they lack the expertise required to handle misappropriation.

The IPWM has failed to keep any sort of check and balance on the Ramzan bazaars due to which there is rampant hoarding and overpricing there.

Shujat chides PM for failing as a foreign minister LAHORE STAFF REPORT

President Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) and former Prime

Minister Ch Shujat Hussain has said that Pakistan should not make Afghanistan and Iran a matter of honour and dishonor and should focus on its own issues first.

Until now, he said, Nawaz Sharif as the foreign minister should have gone to these countries and held detailed meetings with foreign ministers of both the countries. Shujat said that Nawaz Sharif should not consider himself as the prime min-

ister but he should think of himself as the foreign minister and should try to set things right.

In a statement issued here today (Wednesday), he said that two months back he had warned that the in-charge of foreign affairs should himself go to Afghanistan and hold talks with President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah-Abdullah for improving the situation.

Shujat Hussain said that Ashraf Ghani’s refusal to come to Pakistan is disappointing as it is in Afghanistan’s best interest to maintain good ties with Pakistan.

He said that suicide attacks in Iran are of great concern and the news of attacks on shrines has come as a source of great grief to him.

Lahore Police launches police application for smart phones LAHORE STAFF REPORT

The Lahore Police has decided to launch a police application for mobile phones through which the residents of the city would be able to take pictures of any suspicious individual and send it directly to the police.

According to sources, DIG Operations Dr Haider Ashraf said that the Lahore police is on the verge of making an app that would give information to the residents about police stations; they can also send pictures of crime to police through this app.

The DIG further said that the app can be downloaded in Apple and Android phones.

LAHORE 07

08 FOREIGN NEWS

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

MyAnMAr ArMy plAnE wITh ovEr 100 on boArd MISSIng AfTEr loSIng coMMUnIcATIon yaNGON

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AGENCIES

Myanmar army aircraft with 120 people on board, including soldiers, family members and aircraft staff, went missing on Wednesday on a flight from a southern town to the city of Yangon, the military and civil aviation officials said.

The Chinese-made Y-8-200F transport plane left the coastal town of Myeik at 1:06 p.m (0636 GMT) heading north to Myanmar's largest city of Yangon on a regular weekly flight that visits several coastal towns, officials said.

The plane lost contact 29 minutes after take off while flying at 18,000 feet over the Andaman Sea, about 43 miles (70 km) west of the town of Dawei, the military said.

"We don't know what exactly happened to this plane after the loss of contact," said Kyaw Kyaw Htey, a civil

aviation official at Myeik airport.

Civil aviation authorities initially said there were 105 people onboard.

The military later said those on board

included 106 soldiers and family members and 14 aircraft staff. The maximum capacity of the aircraft is 200 people, said a military officer.

Kyaw Kyaw Htey said the weather had been "normal" with good visibility when the plane took off.

The military launched the search soon after the plane went missing, mobilizing six navy ships and three military planes.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It was carrying 2.4 tons of supplies, the military said.

Later, a local official and an air force told agencies that debris from the missing Myanmar military plane was found in the Andaman Sea late Wednesday.

“Now they have found pieces of the damaged plane in the sea 136 miles away from Dawei city,” said Naing Lin Zaw, a tourism official in Myeik city, adding that the navy was still searching the sea.

An air force source requesting anonymity confirmed a navy search and rescue ship had found pieces of the plane.

Five militants, army major killed in northeast India At least 12 killed in India firecracker factory blast AGENCIES

Kuwaiti emir leaves Saudi after brief visit, no word on outcome of talks RIyaDH

DubaI AGENCIES

The United Arab Emirates warned on Wednesday that anyone showing sympathy with Qatar over sanctions imposed by its Gulf neighbours could face up to 15 years in prison. "The UAE attorney general warns that any participation in conversation or social media or any other means that demonstrates sympathy to Qatar or protests the position of the UAE and other states against the Qatari government may face a prison sentence of three to 15 years and a fine of no less than 500,000 dirhams ($136,125, 120,715 euros)," said a statement carried by UAE-based media.

The four governments also closed their airspaces to all Qatari flights and banned Qatar-based news giant Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia has closed Qatar’s only land border.

Like much of the Gulf, the UAE has harsh cybercrime and defamation laws which have drawn condemnation from international human rights groups. Article 29 of the cybercrime law criminalises any online publication of information "with intent to make sarcasm or damage the reputation, prestige or stature of the state or... any of its symbols".

Turkey's Erdogan holds talks with leaders on lowering Qatar tension

NEW DELHI An explosion at a fireworks factory in central India on Wednesday killed 12 workers and injured 10 others, some with serious burns, an official said. Dozens of employees managed to escape unhurt but firefighters spent two hours bringing the major blaze under control in Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh state. “It’s unclear what caused the blast,” local administrative chief Bharat Yadav told agencies from the accident site. “Maybe there was some security or procedural lapse.

We have launched an inquiry into the matter.” Workplace accidents are common in India, where poor safety standards and lax enforcement of regulations have led to horrific deaths. As many as 13 people were killed in April in a massive fire at a government-run fuel and grain depot in Madhya Pradesh. Later that month, five factory workers were burned to death in Jaipur after tons of molten rubber leaked at a tyre unit. In February six workers were burnt alive at an air conditioning manufacturing plant in the southern city of Hyderabad.

UAE threatens Qatar sympathisers with jail time

aNKaRa AGENCIES

NEW DELHI AGENCIES

An Indian army major and five suspected militants were killed in a gunfight in a remote northeastern Indian state close to the border with Myanmar, police said Wednesday.

The gunfight broke out late Tuesday after troops raided a militant hideout in the forests of Mon district in Nagaland state following an intelligence tip-off.

The militants lobbed grenades and fired with automatic rifles at the troops, triggering a nearly eight-hour gunfight.

“The officer was killed in the initial assault and two soldiers were injured. Five terrorists have been killed,” Nagaland police chief LL Doungel said.

Search operations are still on in the area to prevent militants from escaping to Myanmar, he said.

The guerrillas are suspected members of organisations that in turn are part of a broad mix of militant groups

in the northeast fighting against Indian rule.

The United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia is based in Myanmar and its militants are active in most of the seven northeastern states.

It was blamed for the 2015 attack on an army convoy in Manipur state that left 20 soldiers dead, prompting India to carry-out strikes inside Myanmar against the rebels.

Northeast India, linked to the rest of the country by a narrow land corridor, has seen decades of unrest among ethnic and separatist groups.

The region is home to dozens of tribal groups and small guerrilla armies whose demands range from greater autonomy to secession from India.

Over the years the insurgency has waned across the region, with many groups striking deals with New Delhi for more powers.

At least 50,000 people have lost their lives in the conflicts since the first insurgency broke out in Manipur in the early 1950s.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has spoken by phone with the leaders of Qatar, Russia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on lowering tension, presidential sources said, after Arab powers cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting militant groups.

"The importance of regional peace and stability was underlined in the talks, as well as the importance of focusing on the path of diplomacy and dialogue to lower the current tension," the sources said in a statement.

Turkey has good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbours and Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday that Ankara wanted to help resolve the dispute. After the talks between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said late on Monday they called for dialogue and compromise. Erdogan also spoke with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait. The sources said Erdogan would continue his contacts on the issue.

Deuba sworn in as Nepal PM, forms small cabinet KatHmaNDu AGENCIES

AGENCIES

Kuwait's emir left Saudi Arabia after what state news agency KUNA described as a "brotherly visit" but there was no word on the outcome of the talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz on a major diplomatic rift.

State news agency KUNA said Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah left Jeddah along with senior officials who accompanied him. The Saudi state news agency had earlier reported that King Salman and Sheikh Sabah had discussed the "development of events in the region," but gave no details. KUWAIT EMIR HEADING TO ABU DHABI: Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah has flown to Abu Dhabi to continue talks on resolving the Gulf crisis, a Doha-based media agency reported.

Veteran politician Sher Bahadur Deuba was sworn in as Nepal’s new prime minister on Wednesday and formed a small cabinet with seven members.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari administered the oath of office and secrecy to Deuba, 70, during a function at the President’s Office. This will be his fourth stint in the top post.

He chose seven ministers—three each from the Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre and one from the Nepal Loktantrik Forum.

Gopal Man Shrestha of the Nepali Congress was appointed deputy prime minister and minister for education.

Gyanendra Bahadur Karki and Farmullah Mansoor were appointed as finance minister and labour minister

respectively.

Krishna Bahadur Mahara of CPNMaoist Centre was appointed deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

CPN-MC leader Janardan Sharma was appointed home minister and Prabhu

Sah was appointed as a minister without portfolio.

Nepal Loktantrik Forum chairman Bijay Kumar Gachhadar was appointed deputy prime minister and minister for federal affairs and local development.

Deuba, also president of the Nepali Congress, returned to power on Tuesday, 12 years after he was unceremoniously removed by then King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah.

He received 388 votes during voting in the 593-member Parliament. A total of 558 lawmakers voted in the prime ministerial election, with Deuba being the lone candidate.

Former premier Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda’s CPN-MC, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal, Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum-Nepal, Nepal Loktantrik Forum and CPN-Samyukta voted for Deuba.

The RJP-N, which has 25 seats in Parliament, voted for Deuba after reaching a three-point deal under which the new government will address the party’s demand for amending the Constitution.

FOREIGN NEWS 09

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

Mauritania cuts ties with Qatar, Jordan to downgrade representation NOuaKCHOtt/ammaN

TrUMp pIcKS chrISTophEr wrAy AS nEw fbI dIrEcTor WasHINGtON

AGENCIES

Mauritania on Tuesday announced that it was cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar in solidarity with its Mideastern allies. Mauritania became the ninth country to sever ties with Qatar.

Earlier Tuesday, Jordan said it will downgrade its diplomatic representation with Qatar after examining the “cause of the crisis” between Doha and several other Arab states. Jordan also revoked the license of Doha-based TV channel Al Jazeera, government spokesman Mohammad al Momani said. Oil producer Gabon condemned Qatar for “failing to respect international commitments and agreements on counterterrorism,” a statement from its foreign ministry said. The Central African nation was “preoccupied with Qatar's continuing support for terrorist groups”, it said. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain said on Monday they would sever all ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. The other countries that have taken similar action against Qatar are Yemen’s government, Maldives and Mauritius.

russian hackers ‘planted false story’ behind Mideast rift WAsHINGTON: US intelligence officials believe Russian hackers planted a false news story that led Saudi Arabia and several allies to sever relations with Qatar, prompting a diplomatic crisis, CNN reported Tuesday. FBI experts visited Qatar in late May to analyse an alleged cyber breach that saw the hackers place the fake story with Qatar’s state news agency, the US broadcaster said. Saudi Arabia then cited the false item as part of its reason for instituting a diplomatic and economic blockade against Qatar, the report said. Qatar’s government said the May 23 news report attributed false remarks to the emirate’s ruler that appeared friendly to Iran and Israel, and questioned whether US President Donald Trump would last in office, according to CNN. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told the broadcaster that the FBI has confirmed the hack and the planting of fake news. “Whatever has been thrown as an accusation is all based on misinformation and we think that the entire crisis is being based on misinformation,” he said. “It was started based on fabricated news, being wedged and being inserted in our national news agency, which was hacked and proved by the FBI,” he added. If accurate, the allegations would indicate Russian efforts to undermine US foreign policy, building on US intelligence concerns that Russian hackers attempted to influence last year’s presidential election, won by Trump. The Kremlin denies meddling.

MOsCOW sAYs ‘ZERO’ PROOF RUssIAN HACKERs INVOLVED IN QATAR CRIsIs Moscow on Wednesday dismissed allegations that Russian hackers helped spark the diplomatic crisis around Qatar. “We’re getting tired of reacting to unsubstantiated banalities,” Andrei Krutskikh, a Kremlin advisor on cybersecurity, told the Interfax news agency. “Whatever happens it is hackers. It’s a stale claim and as ever there is zero evidence, and conclusions are drawn before the incident is even investigated,” he said. AGENCIES

U

AGENCIES

S President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he is tapping lawyer and former Justice Department official Christopher Wray to serve as his new FBI director, on the eve of critical testimony by the intelligence agency chief he ousted.

Wray, a litigation attorney with law firm King & Spalding in Washington and Atlanta, previously served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division from 2003 to 2005.

“I will be nominating Christopher A Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

At King & Spalding, the Yale Law School graduate chairs a unit representing entities and individuals in white collar criminal and regulatory enforcement issues, civil litigation

and internal corporate investigations, according to the law firm’s website.

At the Justice Department, he helped handle corporate fraud scandals, served on president George W Bush’s Corporate Fraud Task Force and oversaw major fraud investigations including that of energy giant Enron.

He also helped coordinate the agency’s response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The announcement came just one day before sacked FBI director James Comey gives highly-anticipated testimony on Russia’s interference in the 2016 US elections and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign.

Comey is expected to dispute Trump’s claim that the then-FBI chief told him multiple times that he was not under investigation, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with

Comey’s thinking.

That potential bombshell testimony—in which Comey also may address whether Trump urged him to halt or ease up on an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn and his ties to Russia—takes place before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Adding to the drama, a top secret NSA report leaked this week examines repeated attempts by hackers from Russian military intelligence to break into US voting systems before last year’s presidential election.

Keen to crack down on leaks, the Trump administration quickly announced the arrest of 25-year-old intelligence contractor Reality Winner on charges she violated the espionage act.

No definitive evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia has yet come to light.

But the allegations have drawn comparison to the 1970s Watergate scandal that brought down president Richard Nixon.

Muslim Brotherhood rejects Saudi terror accusations CaIRO AGENCIES

The Muslim Brotherhood, in its first reaction to the Gulf crisis on Wednesday, rejected what is said were false accusations of terrorism by Saudi Arabia.

In statement on its website, the world's oldest Islamist movement called on the kingdom to cease its support for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and not to listen to the rulers of the United Arab Emirates, whom it called corrupt and oppressive.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday, partly over the tiny Gulf monarchy's alleged support for Islamist groups such as the Brotherhood.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said on Tuesday Qatar needed to take several steps, including ending its support of Palestinian Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, to restore ties with other key Arab states.

"The Kingdom's insistence on backing the obscene putschist (Egyptian) regime, providing it with financial and political support, attacking the moderate Islamist movement represented in the Muslim Brotherhood, and accusing it of terrorism, puts the Kingdom's credibility at stake," the Brotherhood said.

Egypt's military, then led by Sisi, ousted former President Mohamed Mursi, a Brotherhood leader, from power in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. The move was backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. "Do not listen to the princes of oppression and injustice in the UAE, those corrupt men are a plague on the (Islamic) nation and the Kingdom both. They are the cohorts of Zionists and finances of oppression and obscenity," the group said.

The Brotherhood, a global organisation which started in Egypt in 1928, has experienced splits ever since it lost power in its country of origin. The statement came from a Cairo-based wing.

sAUDI FM sAYs 'BROTHER sTATE' QATAR MUsT ACT TO END CRIsIs: Adel Al-Jubeir said Wednesday that Qatar is a “brother state” and that punitive steps against the emirate were a well-intentioned effort to stop its support for Islamic extremism.

Speaking in Berlin, the Saudi foreign minister also said efforts would be made to resolve the conflict within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“We see Qatar as a brother state, as a partner,” he told a joint press conference with German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel, according to the German simultaneous translation.

“But you have to be able to tell your friend or your brother when they are doing the right thing and when they are doing the wrong thing.”

Jubeir said that “for many years Qatar has taken steps to support certain organisations”.

“This has been condemned in the past, but unfortunately we have not received appropriate cooperation on this and that’s why these measures have now been taken.”

He added that “we have taken these steps in the interest of Qatar… and in the interest of security and stability in the region.” “And we hope that our brother Qatar will now take the right steps in order to end this crisis,” he added.

GERMANY URGEs sTEPs TO DEFUsE CRIsIs: German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged all sides to avoid further escalating the crisis gripping the Gulf, warning that disagreements among Gulf states could weaken the US-led coalition’s fight against Islamic State.

“We all—and that is also the view of my Saudi counterpart—are interested in avoiding any further escalation, because the region is already facing great tensions and challenges,” Gabriel said after a meeting with Saudi foreign minister.

Iran hits back at India, inks gas field deal with Russian firm NEW DELHI AGENCIES

Iran has signed a basic agreement with Russian energy giant Gazprom for development of Farzad-B gas field, discovered by a consortium of Indian state-run companies, in an apparent retaliation against India's bid to pressure Tehran for a formal deal by cutting purchase of Iranian oil.

This is likely to strain ties between the two countries as it can potentially hit India's ongoing participation and investment in development of oil and gas sector in Iran. The agreement with Russia comes on the back of India's failure to finalise a commercial contract for Farzad-B with Iran despite the optimism expressed by PM Narendra Modi and President Hassan Rouhani for the same when they met in

CMYK

Tehran last year.

Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh recently told Argus, the top global energy market information provider, that FarzadB field was among three such agreements signed with Gazprom. The other two fields are North Pars and Kish gas fields.

Zanganeh's announcement, made in an interview to Argus publication, follows his threat to replace the Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh, the overseas acquisition arm of flagship explorer ONGC, in Farzad-B. Indian media on May 30 reported that Iran was considering the option of inducting companies from other countries to replace the Indian consortium or relegate it to developing a small part of the offshore field. Government officials in New Delhi downplayed Iran's preliminary deal with Gazprom and said they

london terror: police arrest another attack suspect LONDON: London police early Wednesday arrested a 30-year-old man in east London in connection to the lethal attack on London Bridge and are searching his home. Two men are now in custody on suspicion of violating the Terrorism Act. They have not been identified or charged. All others who had been arrested have been released without facing charges. London officials said a large part of the outer cordon of the crime scene had reopened. Borough Market, a popular gathering place, remains closed as more evidence is gathered. The attack, and prior attacks in Manchester and near Parliament in London, have prompted British Prime Minister Theresa May to call for tougher counter-terrorism laws even if it means changing human rights protections. Reaction to the attack has dominated the final days of campaigning before Thursday's general election, with opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and others criticising May for cutting police numbers by roughly 20,000 during her tenure as home secretary. Seven people were killed and nearly 50 others were wounded in the Saturday night rampage. AGENCIES

were positive about a formal deal. But there are others who see the Gazprom deal as Tehran's willingness to play hardball and let commercial considerations guide relations with India. Farzad-B negotiations have been in a stalemate since the field's discovery in 2008. The two sides have missed several deadlines even after oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan's visit to the country last year. India has blamed Iran's flip-flop over the terms of the delay, while Tehran holds the Indian consortium's offer as "unsatisfactory".

Miffed with the delay, New Delhi asked its refiners to reduce oil imports from Iran by a fifth. India is Iran's key oil buyer.

Iran hit back by reducing the payment window from 90 days to 60 days for Indian refiners. National Iranian Oil Company also cut the discount on ocean freight it offered to Indian buyers from 80 per cent to nearly 60 per cent. India had stood by Iran through the sanctions and continued to buy Iranian crude after seeking a US waiver.

10 COMMENT

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

Crossing the Rubicon

Bilawal Bhutto living in la-la land Pipe dreaming leadership weakens PPP

The wrath over Qatar’s attempt

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HILe bilawal bhutto continues to dream about PPP sweeping the next elections the party faces a meltdown in Punjab, the key province that provides access to power at the centre. A number of provincial leaders, some like Ghazanfar Gul with 30 year-long partnership, have left the party during the last two years. this year too, there were several notable defections: former PPP MNA Murtaza Satti and two former federal ministers Firdous Ashiq Awan and Nawaz Gondal. Gul resigned in protest against what he called the “corporate culture” introduced by Zardari. the others claimed Zardari had abandoned Punjab to the PML-N. the party had lost the activism which used to be its hallmark. the defectors claimed that the leadership failed to stand by them when they were persecuted by the PML-N. being politicians, they felt it was harmful for their careers to continue to be associated with a politically inactive party. All except Gul joined the PtI. Soon after losing elections Zardari assured Nawaz Sharif he would adopt a policy of reconciliation with the PML-N government. the PPP would support Nawaz administration for five years, he said, and start politics only when the next elections are announced. Zardari hoped that good relations with the PML-N government would put an end to calls for accountability besides a free hand to the PPP in Sindh. What is more, after 2018 elections the policy of reconciliation would help PPP get a share in any coalition that ruled the country.

With Zardari agreeing to play second a fiddle to the PMLN, the PPP activists initially looked up to bilawal bhutto to challenge the PMLN government. they soon discovered that bilawal lacked the capacity to take an independent stand. this thoroughly demoralized the Punjab party rank and file. the jiyalas lost interest in the PPP while those keen to contest elections joined the PtI which has an active leadership and a youthful and enthusiastic following. there are signs that tell there will be further defections from the PPP. It is unfortunate that what was a countrywide party has been turned practically into a party of rural Sindh alone.

Shehbaz’s call for accountability Across the board, please!

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Here is nothing wrong with the observation, really, that accountability should be across the board. A country on the march towards progressive, liberal democracy should not have mega corruption scandals like ogra, Punjab bank, NIcL, Nandipur, Swiss bank accounts, etc., as the Punjab chief minister rightly implied. but it leaves a little to be desired, to say the least, when a senior leader of the ruling party laments about unchecked high-level corruption. If there are indeed crooks aplenty roaming the land under their watch, what is really keeping the Sharifs from bringing them to book, as per their duty? clearly the House of Sharif is more than just a little unhinged by the goings on with regard to the JIt. And it is never really a coincidence that whenever the spotlight comes to focus on the Sharifs, there is a suddenly flurry of threats, intimidation and, often enough, leaks. So count on the Nihal Hashmi episode, as well as the matter of Hussain Nawaz’s photograph, to play out a little longer. Also, while PML-N loudmouths vent their frustration on PtI, they must realise that it was not for the latter to drag the former to the Supreme court in the aftermath of the Panama leaks. Unfortunately, in our Islamic republic, no government has empowered independent institutions to the point of challenging the rich and powerful through legal procedure; hence some manner of opposition must step in to fill the gap.

Still, Shahbaz Sharif is spot on about corruption, even if he overlooks the reason for his family ending in the dock every now and then. And, to follow through on his brilliant idea, the ruling party should make sure that crooks are no longer allowed to walk unchallenged in Pakistan. As the ruling party in the centre and Punjab for a while yet, let the PML-N set the standard for transparent and thorough accountability, regardless of whom the axe falls on once the findings are complete.

At least that way the Sharifs would no longer be unduly singled out, and they would also have kept their promise of ensuring accountability. Let Shahbaz put his administrative muscle where his complaining mouth is.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad Joint Editor Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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ariF Taj

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He propensity of being drawn into the whirlpool of crisis has been overriding in the Middle east since long. the latest spate of severing diplomatic ties with Qatar by major Arab neighbouring powers— and their allies— and the subsequent termination of cooperation in airline and banking sectors may ostensibly look a knee jerk reaction, given the announcement of the decision in an abrupt manner. In fact, after war in Iraq, civil war in Syria and ascendency of Muslim brotherhood in egypt, Gulf States have nervously been treading the crisscrossed path of divergent conflicting political agenda, stoking up the cauldron of mutual jealousies, anger and political rivalries. the present crisis is the result of this deep down mistrust and distrust in which crowns and royal princes are competing for geostrategic influence to ensure their political longevity, turning the region into a virtual chessboard. Qatar’s ambitious plans to export natural gas across the region are being viewed warily in the region owing to its geostrategic implications which worries Saudi Arabia.

What worries Saudis? the resentment began fomenting a rift when Qatar sought exportation of its natural gas— first found in 1971—proposing a pipeline to be laid as far as europe, passing through most of the Gulf

States, Iran and connecting it further to turkey and then europe onward. being located at the centre of the Persian Gulf, Qatar owns the world’s third largest natural gas reserves—after russia and Iran—which accounts for approximately 15% of the world’s natural gas, mostly coming from the North Field—an enormous sea field located at the sea border between Iran and Qatar— of which around 62% of the reserves are owned

by Qatar and the rest by Iran, the putative enemy country of Saudi Arabia. Qatar had kept a moratorium on gas production for a considerable period in the past, making oil of the fossil fuels its first priority, relegating gas to the second to be consumed after the oil reserves come to an end.

Now, when there is no moratorium any more

by Qatar on gas production as its closure of oil reserves are drawing nearer, an intensive drive for market exploration has been its priority. So far, Qatar gas supply has made it to reach UAe, oman and some other Gulf countries through Dolphin Pipelines, and for greater magnitude of gas trade it still has to fall back upon the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) techniques, an unsafe and costlier business alternative.

Qatar has been imploring the Gulf cooperation council (Gcc) since long for cooperation or collaboration in laying the proposed pipeline from Gulf region to europe. the proposed Qatar– eU Pipeline, which envisages the route starting from Qatar, passing through Saudi Arabia, bahrain, Kuwait waters and Iraq waters, Iran and finally entering turkey to connect it further to the eU states. the eU looks towards Qatar’s gas sanguinely as this would help reduce the former’s heavy dependence on russia and disqualify the use of gas supply leverage by russia for political reasons. Qatar pursued and has been pursuing the Gulf council tirelessly in this regard. Qatar believes the Gulf cooperation council, if earnestly concerts the pipeline, can help a great deal in removing irritant like bahrain-Qatar dispute over Hawar Islands, influence secure Iraqi waters—in

case Syrian route is not approved of given the civil war in the country. Qatar argues that if its engagement with Iran, Gcc influence on immediate neighbours and pipelines’ sea route are viewed collectively in terms of an organic whole or a compact unit, the project becomes viable despite unrest in the region. but Qatar’s implorations fell on the deaf ears each time. but Saudi Arabia, wishing to be the undisputed leader of the Arab world does not like Qatar to be an energy giant. other Gcc countries, more or less satellite states of Saudi Arabia do not support the project, lest it might harm their relations with the paramount power. the conclusion Qatar has drawn from this is that it has to explore other channels as its dogged tenacity for Gcc cooperation yielding no results.

Qatar’s alternative approach the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), initially considered and developed as a method of gas transportation to extremely remote places like the US, Japan and Korea, is not a cost efficient, secure and durable method as a pipeline project could be. Qatar is still pursuing this possibility of project adamantly and has started acting its own, independently, instead through Gcc. Qatar, over the years, has improved its relation with Iran and been inclined to influence course of events in the Middle east through its global media outreach of Aljazeera on the one hand and establishing liaison with different power actors operating in the region like Muslim brotherhood and certain Sunni militia outfits, on the other.

Qatar no longer seems inclined to toe the antiturkish Gcc line in the context of Da’esh versus bashar al-Assad. this is discordant approach in the eyes of the Gulf powers and the tiny Gulf state needs to be punished to bring to heel for making an attempt to cross the rubicon—the commandments of the Saudi crown.

Arif Taj is a former staffer of Pakistan Today.

He can be accessed via ariftaj2006@gmail.com

The elections are coming – time to clean out the stables With the military in the barracks, civilian leadership needs to pull up its socks

Dr FariD a Malik

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ctober 27, 1958 is etched in my memory when as a five year old I stood on the Mall road holding my father’s hand to receive Khan Qayyum Khan - the Muslim League leader. As part of the election campaign Khan Sahib was leading a long procession. My father – a leaguer and worker of the Pakistan Movement - was quite excited. We waited for hours till the ‘Zimama’ (Instant Newspaper) came out. the country came under martial law. Khan Sahib was arrested at the ravi bridge and lodged in the dangerous of Lahore Fort.

Ayub Khan promised to clean the stables. elections under the 1956 constitution were called off. Instead of seeking people’s mandate he imposed his own agenda which turned the country upside down. by 1968 he had piled the stables with enough dirt. the founding fathers of Pakistan were cornered and forced out of the political arena. those who resisted were physically eliminated.

Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy the political heavy weight from the eastern wing was found dead in a beirut hotel where he was living in exile. the stables had to be cleaned again. Yahya Khan the Army chief dislodged the dictator and promised to hold elections on the basis of one man one vote. the elections in 1970 were free and fair but the results were shocking for the establishment.

Forces of change prevailed over status-quo. elected representatives wanted to clean the stables, the ‘Khakis’ came in the way. civil war started in east Pakistan, Quaid’s country was dis-

Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9 Fax: 021-35381208

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membered, and the armed forces under General Niazi had to surrender. Age old idiom of ‘Ghazi ya Shaheed’ was modified as “Ghazi ya Shaheed ya Niazi”. Zulfiqar Ali bhutto (ZAb) came into power of what was left of the country. the democratic period was short lived (1971 to 1977). on July 05, 1977 the third Khaki dictator came into power on the promise of holding elections within ninety days. Instead his misrule continued for eleven years two months. Since then ten elections have been manipulated for desired results.

People’s mandate has been repeatedly denied. recently, General bajwa - while addressing a seminar at GHA - said that the ‘Khakis’ cannot do it alone. civilian institutions have to play their role. this was music to my ears. After 70 years the ‘Khakis’ have realised their limitations. General Pervez Musharraf the ex-Army chief and President remarked that under the existing circumstance PML-N will manipulate and win the elections in 2018. During his nine years of rule he was unable to clean the stables by reducing the PML-N influence on the administrative set-up in Punjab.

Now that the ‘Khakis’ have indicated their desire to return to the barracks where they belong, cleaning of stables has become important.

Ayub Khan ruled for ten years four months, Zia eleven years two months and Musharraf for nine years. they all promised to clean the stables yet they rode off leaving the dirt behind.

Dirty stables produce the contaminated riders and horses that we have been enduring for the last three decades. Farce elections and manipulated ballots defeat democracy. Doctrine of Positive results has failed ten times (1977 to 2013). the same flawed process should not be used again. the ‘Khaki’ desire to clear the stables is welcome but leaving them dirty will be disastrous for them and the nation. their withdrawal will create a vacuum that should be replaced with light not darkness.

Despite tall claims, the ‘Khaki’ performance in civilian areas has been dismal. by training they belong to the barracks and borders not board rooms. their intelligence agencies have all the data about the mismanagement in the country.

When the chief speaks, his words are backed by solid home work, and with three hostile borders and internal threats their plate is totally full.

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

Pakistan needs credible civilian leadership not political rogues who manipulate elections to enter the corridors of power. In the past the ‘Khakis’ have been responsible for introducing un-popular third rate politicians who claim to be electable. the country is longing for an honest ballot which will then ensure able leadership. the 1970 free and fair election produced the ablest assemblies ever. Democracy has survived because of their efforts with the unanimous 1973 constitution proving to be an anchor. being the only functional institution in the country the ‘Khakis’ can ensure an honest ballot.

Police in Punjab and Sindh as pointed out by General Musharraf is a private force and so is the administrative machinery only Khakis remain neutral. Judiciary can help in cleaning the stables of political rogues.

In the past according to benazir bhutto, the ‘Khakis’ have taken over the government without an exit strategy. Ayub Khan was forced to leave when there were chants of ‘Ayub Khutta’ all over the country. even then he lacked the courage to follow his own constitution and handed over power to the Army chief. Yahya Khan refused to step down even after the surrender in the eastern Wing. He had to be forced out. Zia - the worst of them all - did not even shy away from the judicial murder of an elected Prime Minister. Musharraf had to face the lawyers’ movement, he survived benazir’s assassination but had to step down when his impeachment was imminent. two chiefs after Musharraf have gone home gracefully on completion of their term. the current head of the Armed Forces is looking inwards while being teased by the political rogues who run the country. these embryos of dirty stables cannot be left in charge of the country and its financial resources. While the nation will welcome the return of the ‘Khakis’ to the barracks but only after cleaning the stables through a free and fair election, this will be their best exit strategy, leaving the country in the hands of truly elected leadership.

Dr. Farid A. Malik is ex-Chairman, Pakistan Science Foundation. He can be contacted at: fmaliks@hotmail.com. http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk I

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

COMMENT 11

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

Editor’s mail

Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

Fax: +92-42-32535230 E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan today exclusively

Sticking to words

The fourth pillar of the State The complimentary roles of the media and the government

Malik MuhaMMaD ashraF

A

rtIcLe 19 of the constitution reads “every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression and there shall be freedom of press, subject to any reasonable restriction imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court {commission of} or incitement to an offence”. the constitutional provision for freedom of expression and media is in consonance with the internationally recognised role of the states to regulate all the entities within its territorial limits in such a way that they contribute to the strengthening of the State, its ideological moorings, national interests and the moral values of the society with a view to promote peace and tranquillity in the country. In fact there is no concept of unbridled media freedom in the world and rightly so. the media represents the society and consequently is regarded as the fourth pillar of the State. It is universally recognised that freedom comes with responsibility. the media in any State has to exhibit sense of responsibility while enjoying its freedom. the Social responsibility theory was propounded by Dr. robert Maynard Hutchison, Vice chancellor of chicago University who headed Hutchison commission formed in US in 1942 to make recommendations on the freedom of expression and media’s obligations towards the society (in the backdrop of growing calls by the US public for government intervention to check the indiscretions of the media and attempts by the media to avoid incisive government regulation). It famously remarked “freedom comes with responsibility”. the report of the commission - submitted in 1947 - is regarded as the Magna carte of the modern concept of freedom of expression and media’s responsibilities towards the society. It unequivocally emphasised the need for the media to provide accurate, truthful and comprehensive account of events, act as a forum for exchange of comment and criticism, present and clarify goals and values of the society and make sure that it projects a representative picture of the constituent groups of the society. the report also reiterated the fact that society and public have a right to expect high standards of performance and as such intervention can be justi-

Judged in the backdrop of the foregoing, the fied to secure public good. ethical and professional codes of conduct for the media drawn up media landscape in Pakistan presents a very disby UNeSco, International Federation of Jour- mal picture. While it zealously tends to maintain nalists, Media associations, Press councils in and protect its freedom, it is not showing the the countries where self-regulatory arrangement sense of social responsibility that goes with the is in place and the code of ethics which forms freedom of expression. the media, regrettably, the part of Press council ordinance in Pakistan like the political polarisation in the country, is invariably espouse the principles of the Social also divided into anti-government, pro-governresponsibility theory propounded by Hutchi- ment, and rightist groups with each entity trying to rub-in its own skewed and partisan views on son commission. the media is regarded as a two-pronged national issues and even resorting to smear camweapon. A good and responsible media can lift paigns against their supposed rivals. consethe nation to dizzying heights by providing quently truth and social responsibility have strong support for its development and national become casualties of this rampant media culpride and a bad or irresponsible media can cause ture. the media can defend its freedom and play chaos and disorder in the society. Democracy is a rule of the people through their elected repre- its defined role only when it acts with responsibility. It goes to the credit sentatives. the governof the government that it ment thus formed is has not put any curbs on subservient to popular sovthe media notwithstanding ereignty. one of the hall the erratic and in some marks of the democratic cases, even a negative role system is the freedom of The report of the by certain sections of it, expression and the space the electronic that is provided to dissentCommission - regarded as particularly channels. It is satisfying to ing views and opinions exthe Magna Carte of the note that in recognition of pressed by different its responsibility towards sections of the society. For modern concept of media it was trying to enthe democratic system to function to its full potenfreedom of expression and courage a culture of selfregulation by the media tial, the participation on the media’s responsibilities with a view to lessens govpart of the general masses ernment interventions and is imperative which in turn towards the society also contemplating to requires dissemination of emphasised the need for promulgate legislation to reliable information to the ensure safe and secure masses on various public the media’s account of working environment beissues. this is where the mass media come in. events, acting as a forum sides promulgating an improved Access to the mass media in its for exchange of comment Information. the governdifferent forms has influment is also contemplating enced human lives in the and criticism, presenting to arrange training courses modern era. these forms and clarifying goals and for the journalists in the Inhave primarily provided formation Service Acadinformation and entertainvalues of the society and emy for their capacity ment to people across their building and enhancing respective countries and representing the their knowledge about ethglobally as well. Print constituent groups ical and professional codes media being the leader for the media. over a considerable period Media and governof time is now faced with ment have a complimencompetition from the electary roles in regards to tronic media which is repromoting well-being of shaping many of the social responses. radio apart from providing news and the masses and strengthening the State structure. views has also developed a penchant for enter- they are also watch-dogs against each other and tainment thereby getting a lot of acceptance. therefore need to recognise and acknowledge there is also now new media - with internet each other’s role ungrudgingly. the media has being its flag bearer. Internet has actually rev- a greater responsibility towards the society olutionised the media and made it possible to being its representative. A pluralist media havdisseminate information and ideas in real time ing an abiding commitment to dissemination of across the globe. these developments are feared truth and only the truth to the masses is actually to have posed threats to the democratic way of a bulwark for other liberties and fundamental thinking and new issues in regards to expanding rights., which makes it incumbent upon it to act role of the media have also come on the fore. in a responsible manner with the sole purpose the media has become quite unwieldy making of promoting the national interests, instead of it difficult for the governments to act as a watch- fomenting fissiparous tendencies in the society dog against the indiscretions committed by it. and encouraging political polarisation and the this however has made it even more imperative shenanigans of the anti-democratic forces. than before for the governments to make sure Malik Muhammad Ashraf is an academic. that the media does not cross the rubicon, with He can be contacted at: ashpak10@gmail.com all its accompanying negative fall-out.

PUNJAb budget for financial year 2017-18 has various aspects which will obviously be discussed and commented up in the print and electronic media for many days with the discussants finding faults and shortcomings vigorously and not dilating on the good things in the budget for the welfare and well-being of the people throughout the province. this scribe is writing these few lines to appreciate Punjab chief Minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif for sticking to his words and honouring his statements and promises made regarding the new provincial budget. true to his sayings, no new tax has been levied in the provincial budget though some adjustments have been in the existing structure of taxes and duties through the Finance bill 2017 and record higher allocation of funds, perhaps in the range between rs 250 to rs 300 billion, have been made for South Punjab region, number of new measures will be undertaken including provision of safe drinking water in 37 tehsils of the region as well as equipping thousands of schools with solar energy under Khadam-e-Punjab Ujala Programme besides extending best possible healthcare facilities to the people . this is quite commendable and it is also hoped that the chief minister will ensure that all measures and initiatives for the welfare and well-being of the people in the urban and areas of the provinces included in the new budget will be implemented in letter and spirit under his personal supervision and guidance ensuring the fruits of these reach the people down the line at the earliest possible. Keep the good work going, please.

MEEM ZAy RiFAT Lahore

Dear Mr Trump: think before you tweet tHe world over, leaders of nations try their best not to spread panic or fear at times of turbulence, following a terror attack. but US President Donald trump has once again proven that he belongs to a new (read: bad) breed of leaders who only knows how to add fuel to the fire. After the London attacks on Sunday, the June 4th, Mr trump used his favourite social media platform, twitter, to take a jibe at London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan.

In his tweet, he wrote ‘at least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is “no reason to be alarmed!”’ Mr trump was quoting Mr Khan from a recent interview. However, his remark was taken out of context and used to create fear owing to Mr Khan’s religious affiliation.

In the interview, Mr Khan was, in fact, urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they see more police and armed officers on the streets as a precautionary measure derived from previous terror attacks. ever since Mr trump came into power, he and Mr Khan have had a bitter relationship as the US president and his family has never left alone the chance to put Mr Khan on the spot, often taking his quotes out of context; all this only because he is Muslim. they’re not even sparing him at a fragile time of a terror attack, when the last thing Londoners want is to doubt their own mayor.

While we were growing up we were repeatedly taught by our parents and teachers to think before we speak. And as the president of the world’s superpower, Mr trump should be advised to do the same: to think before he tweets.

ALiNA ARiF Karachi

New hospitals SoMetIMe back, an announcement was made at various levels that the federal government was going to construct more than forty state-of-the-art hospitals in different parts of the country during next three years. this was duly appreciated by one and all as quite a welcome and appreciable step in the right direction.

As per reports, these new hospitals were going to be established in densely-populated, deprived or marginalised areas of Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pukhtoonkhah (KP), balochistan, Gilgit-baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Federally-Administered tribal Areas (FAtA). construction n of these new hospitals preferably in the rural areas mostly will obviously go a long way in reducing the pressure and over-crowding of patients in the existing hospitals in the rural areas.

Somehow, no follow up statement has been made in this regard so far. While felicitating the federal government and praying for early construction it is pointed out that delay in any further announcement as to where these new hospitals are to be located and when construction work is going to commence is creating doubts in the minds of the people.

It is earnestly requested that the already delayed announcement about these hospitals should be made without wasting any further time along with location of these state of the art new hospitals in Punjab, Sindh, KP, balochistan and elsewhere across the country and whether any new hospital out of these will also be established in Islamabad as well.

Undoubtedly more and more new hospitals are needed all over the country, in rural and urban areas, to cater to healthcare requirements of increasing population, the federal and provincial governments will also do lot of good if they continue paying due attention also to further improving the prevailing conditions in the existing hospitals ensuring the patients not only get timely treatment but are also provided free medicines as well.

BiLAL NASiR Islamabad

12 WORLD VIEW

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

The $110 billion arms deal To saudi arabia is fake news

MArkAz

l

Bruce riedeL

AST month, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and his administration announced that he had concluded a $110 billion arms deal with the kingdom. Only problem is that there is no deal. It’s fake news.

I’ve spoken to contacts in the defense business and on the Hill, and all of them say the same thing: There is no $110 billion deal. Instead, there are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts.

Many are offers that the defense industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday. So far nothing has been notified

to the Senate for review. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arms sales wing of the Pentagon, calls them “intended sales.” None of the deals identified so far are new, all began in the Obama administration.

An example is a proposal for sale of four frigates (called multi-mission surface combatant vessels) to the Royal Saudi navy. This proposal was first reported by the State Department in 2015. No contract has followed. The type of frigate is a derivative of a vessel that the U.S. Navy uses but the derivative doesn’t actually exist yet. Another piece is the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system (THAAD) which was recently deployed in South Korea. The Saudis have expressed interest in the system for several

Saudi dispute with Qatar has 22-year history rooted in gas BlooMBerg Marc chaMpion

Saudi Arabia’s isolation of Qatar has been brewing since 1995, and the dispute’s long past and likely lingering future are best explained by natural gas.

Not only was that the year when the father of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, toppled his own pro-Saudi father, it was also when the tiny desert peninsula was about to make its first shipment of liquid natural gas from the world’s largest reservoir. The offshore North Field, which provides virtually all of Qatar’s gas, is shared with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s hated rival.

The wealth that followed turned Qatar into not just the world’s richest nation, with an annual per-capita income of $130,000, but also the world’s largest LNG exporter. The focus on gas set it apart from its oil producing neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council and allowed it to break from domination by Saudi Arabia, which in Monday’s statement of complaint described Qataris as an “extension of their brethren in the Kingdom” as it cut off diplomatic relations and closed the border.

Instead, Qatar built its own ties with other powers including Iran, the U.S. -Qatar hosts U.S. Central Command -and more recently, Russia. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund agreed last year to invest $2.7 billion in Russia’s state-run Rosneft Oil Co. PJSC. “Qatar used to be a kind of Saudi vassal state, but it used the autonomy that its gas wealth created to carve out an independent role for itself,” said Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, in Houston, Texas. “The rest of the region has been looking for an opportunity to clip Qatar’s wings.”

That opportunity came with U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, when he called on “all nations of conscience” to isolate Iran.

When Qatar disagreed publicly, in a statement the government later said was a product of hacking, the Saudi-led retribution followed.

Critically, Qatar’s natural gas output has been free from entanglement in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil cartel that Saudi Arabia dominates.

The new emir, having survived a counter-coup attempt in 1996, didn’t build pipelines that would have integrated Qatar into the markets of its Gulf neighbors. Two senior Qatari government officials alleged during the trial of the coup plotters in 2000 that Bahrain helped to organize the attempt with Saudi Arabia’s consent, according to a report by the BBC. At the time, those much richer oil states saw natural gas as virtually worthless, useful mainly for injecting back into oil wells to improve extraction rates. They were willing to pay only a fraction of the world market price for LNG, according to a paper

Krane co-authored with Qatar University’s Steven Wright.

The sole pipeline built, the Dolphin project connecting Qatar’s North Field to the United Arab Emirates and Oman, has operated at half to two thirds capacity. Contracts signed last year should fill the rest, yet the vast majority of Qatar’s exports will continue to go to markets in Asia and Europe.

More recently, demand for natural gas to produce electricity and power industry has been growing in the Gulf states. They’re having to resort to higher-cost LNG imports and exploring difficult domestic gas formations that are expensive to get out of the ground, according to the research.

Qatar’s gas has the lowest extraction costs in the world.

Qatar gas wealth enabled it to develop foreign policies that came to irritate its neighbors. It backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and armed factions opposed by the UAE or Saudi Arabia in Libya and Syria. Gas also paid for a global television network, Al Jazeera, which at various times has embarrassed or angered most Middle Eastern governments.

On Tuesday, Trump said on Twitter that when he talked about the need to stop funding radical ideology during his trip to the Middle East, “Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!”

Above all, gas prompted Qatar to promote a regional policy of engagement with Shiite Iran to secure the source of its wealth.

Gas isn’t the immediate cause of the current showdown, but “you can question why Qatar has been unwilling to supply its neighboring countries, making them gas poor,” said Wright, the academic, speaking by telephone from the Qatari capital Doha. “There probably was an expectation that Qatar would sell gas to them at a discount price.”

Adding to regional frustrations, in 2005, Qatar declared a moratorium on the further development of the North Field that could have provided more gas for local export.

Qatar said it needed to test how the field was responding to its exploitation, denying that it was bending to sensitivities in Iran, which had been much slower to draw gas from its side of the shared field. That two-year moratorium was lifted in April, a decade late, after Iran for the first time caught up with Qatar’s extraction rates.

“People here are scratching their heads as to exactly what the Saudis expect Qatar to do,” said GerdNonneman, professor of international relations and Gulf studies at Georgetown University’s Doha campus. “They seem to want Qatar to cave in completely, but it won’t call the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, because it isn’t. And it isn’t going to excommunicate Iran, because that would jeopardize a relationship that is just too fundamental to Qatar’s economic development.”

years but no contracts have been finalized. Obama approved the sale in principle at a summit at Camp David in 2015.

Also on the wish list are 150 Black Hawk helicopters. Again, this is old news repackaged. What the Saudis and the administration did is put together a notional package of the Saudi wish list of possible deals and portray that as a deal. Even then the numbers don’t add up. It’s fake news.

Moreover, it’s unlikely that the Saudis could pay for a $110 billion deal any longer, due to low oil prices and the two-plus years old war in Yemen. President Obama sold the kingdom $112 billion in weapons over eight years, most of which was a single, huge deal in 2012 negotiated by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. To get that deal through Congressional approval, Gates

also negotiated a deal with Israel to compensate the Israelis and preserve their qualitative edge over their Arab neighbors. With the fall in oil prices, the Saudis have struggled to meet their payments since.

You will know the Trump deal is real when Israel begins to ask for a package to keep the Israeli Defense Forces’ qualitative edge preserved. What is coming soon is a billion-dollars deal for more munitions for the war in Yemen. The Royal Saudi Air Force needs more munitions to continue the air bombardment of the Arab world’s poorest country.

Finally, just as the arms deal is not what it was advertised, so is the muchhyped united Muslim campaign against terrorism. Instead, the Gulf states have turned on one of their own. Saudi Arabia has or-

chestrated a campaign to isolate Qatar. This weekend Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt broke relations with Qatar. Saudi allies like the Maldives and Yemen jumped on the bandwagon. Saudi Arabia has closed its land border with Qatar.

This is not the first such spat but it may be the most dangerous. The Saudis and their allies are eager to punish Qatar for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, for hosting Al-Jazeera, and keeping ties with Iran. Rather than a united front to contain Iran, the Riyadh summit’s outcome is exacerbating sectarian and political tensions in the region.

Bruce Riedel is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, part of the Brookings Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence.

US urges Qatar dialogue Al-Monitor Laura rozen

Diplomats expressed hope June 6 that mediation efforts could ease the standoff between US Gulf allies, despite a series of incendiary tweets from US President Donald Trump.

But it was not clear whether Kuwaiti mediation efforts on June 6 had managed to cool off the day-old rift between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and their Arab allies on one side and tiny Qatar, diplomats said.

US officials also sought to bring together the erstwhile allies in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), even as their commander in chief appeared to side with the Saudis and Emiratis in their feud with Doha.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking to reporters in New Zealand on June 6, urged dialogue to resolve the crisis. “We are hopeful that the parties can resolve this through dialogue, and we encourage that, that they do sit together and find a way to resolve whatever the differences are that have led to this decision,” Tillerson said.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on June 5 announced a virtual blockade of Qatar, which hosts the largest US air base in the region. Some 8,000 US military personnel help conduct operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan out of Central Command’s al-Udeid base.

The Saudi-aligned nations accuse Qatar, the home of Al Jazeera television, of supporting Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood; these groups are accused of destabilizing Muslim countries and promoting terrorism. The Saudis are also furious at Qatar for promoting a less-confrontational stance regarding Iran.

The Pentagon insisted the rupture between the Sunni allies would not affect ongoing military operations, even as US-backed forces announced the beginning of a military operation to take back the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

“We recognize that there are differing views in the region that have gotten us to this point,” Defense Department spokesman Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway told Al-Monitor on June 6. “We encourage all our partners in the region to reduce tensions and work towards common solutions that enable regional security.”

Rankine-Galloway said, “US military aircraft continue to conduct missions in support of ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The United States and the coalition are grateful to the Qataris for their long-standing support of our presence and their enduring commitment to regional security.

We have no plans to change our posture in Qatar.”

Tillerson said he had been dealing with the Qatari leadership for 15 years and knew it well. Regarding the current breach between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, Tillerson said there had been long-standing differences of views and frustration had been building. But he also seemed to suggest that the countries accusing Qatar of backing extremism do not have perfect records on that front either.

“I think every country in the region has their own obligations they need to live up to, and they have their own challenges to live up to that commitment to terminate support for terrorism, extremism — however it manifests itself anywhere in the world,” Tillerson said. “And I would say that’s true of all the GCC countries; they have their own work to do in that regard.”

Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah traveled to Saudi Arabia on June 6 to meet with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud to try to mediate the dispute, after speaking by phone overnight with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The Qatari leader, “in order to allow Kuwait to mediate, decided to put off a planned speech to the nation,” Reuters reported, citing an interview by Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani with Al Jazeera TV. But the Kuwaiti emir returned to Kuwait on the night of June 6 after three hours of meetings in Saudi Arabia without going to Qatar, in what some analysts saw as a sign there had not been a breakthrough.

Trump, tweeting June 6, suggested he saw the rift between GCC partners as a sign of progress in his efforts to get the Muslim world to eradicate extremism. “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump tweeted. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

“So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and

50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding … extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar,” he wrote. “Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!”

Current and former US diplomats were left shaking their heads at the tweets, which contradict the administration’s message urging dialogue to resolve the dispute.

“Hard to tell if we will see different messaging after the run of recent tweets from POTUS, which to me sound clearly supportive of pressure on Qatar to change policies/posture on Iran and Islamists,” former US Ambassador to the UAE MarcelleWahba told Al-Monitor.

“You could certainly interpret it as encouragement, but it looks to me like this is mostly ex post facto self-congratulation,” former US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein, now with the Middle East Institute, told Al-Monitor. “The rooster crowed, the sun rose, thus the rooster made the sun rise! He should talk to his secretary of state, who took a much more nuanced position.”

Diplomats had earlier suggested the crisis was ripe for quiet US mediation.

“If John Kerry were still secretary of state, he’d be working the phone like crazy,” former US Ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche, now with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said. “We don’t know if Rex Tillerson has the same modus operandi. [But this rupture is an] opportunity to invite ourselves in to preserve the coalition that the president announced when he was in Riyadh.”

Wahba, who is now president of the Arab Gulf States Institute, said, “Given the close [US] relationship both with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, I think the US will step up to the plate” to help resolve the dispute. She added, “I doubt very much the US will just sit on the sidelines and let this crisis get more serious.”

The current US ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, has also taken to Twitter to defend improvements in Qatar’s efforts to reduce funding of extremist groups. On June 4, she retweeted several older tweets that thanked Qatar for the “great partnership, real progress to counter terrorist financing.”

State Department sources, speaking not for attribution, said Shell Smith was expected to wrap up her tour in two weeks. She could not immediately be reached for comment.

Officials said the overall slowness with which the Trump administration is nominating people for positions is not really affecting the United States’ ability to engage in diplomatic conversations to contend with the current crisis.

“We’re very clear in the fact that it is in our interests that the GCC work this out and they figure out a way to combine this commitment to get rid of terrorism without further fragmenting,” said one US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We don’t need to be fracturing along ideological lines.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said at the department press briefing June 6 that the United States was only informed of the rupture just before it was publicly announced.

“We were informed of that decision, but only immediately prior to that decision being made,” Nauert said. “My understanding is we learned from the UAE, just prior.”

“We recognize Qatar has made some great efforts to stop the funding of terror groups,” Nauert said. “They have made progress, but they still have work to do.”

LEISURE 13

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

ARIES

TAURUS

GEMINI

You might not be ready to let go your attachment to the anticipation of an upcoming experience.

Nevertheless, you still long for a more easygoing day. You may be oblivious to the irony of being attracted.

You think your day is well planned, but you can't foretell how it will actually unfold. It's tempting to believe that everything will go your way, but it's challenging to adhere to a predetermined schedule.

You may be convinced that this is the right time to reinvent yourself because you can imagine so many alternatives.

Even if your creativity is running strong today, you could possess more self-confidence.

CANCER

LEO

VIRGO

Your irrepressible desire to go on an adventure may become slightly obsessive today. However, you might feel your fantasy vacation begin to slip away before you can actually manifest your dreams. Everyone.

The emotional landscape of your life is undergoing metamorphosis, no matter much you attempt to hold onto the status quo. But a business partnership or a romance may grow less practical over the days ahead.

Seeing your partner or coworker in a rational light is nearly impossible now because your illusions are spilling over, onto others as the radiant Sun joins confusing Neptune in your 7th House of Relationships.

LIBRA

SCORPIO

SAGITTARIUS

Complaining about your plight at work won't help your cause today.

However, the Sun is joining surreal Neptune in your 6th House of Work, fogging the details and obscuring your path. Instead of attempting.

Sharing romantic fantasies with someone you love isn't all that simple now because there is much more drama than appears on the surface. Fortunately, the idealistic Sun-Neptune conjunction occurs in your.

You might get away with skipping the minor details today and heading right for the finish line without any additional planning. Although you may be quick to grasp the general concepts, you will not have.

CAPRICORN

AQUARIUS

PISCES

You may be called upon to manage several small emergencies that crop up today. Fortunately, you can produce a lasting positive effect on your immediate environment while smoothing out the bumps in the.

Your innate intelligence comes in handy today because you can rely on logic if you're not sure of where you stand on a specific issue. However, your beautiful daydreams still could distract you, delaying.

Your perspective is bent out of shape today, with your dreams so close that you believe you can touch them. However, it's tricky business to bring your idealistic visions out of the clouds and all the.

cRosswoRd

ACROSS 1 Eating iron (4) 3 Gambling capital of the world? (3,5) 8 Not bitter (4) 9 Siblings (in arms or in law?) (8) 11 Sensation on the skin (when cold or fearful) (5,5) 14 Score of sixty with one dart? (6) 15 Rut (6) 17 Dabbler in the arts (10) 20,21 Midnight (8,4) 21 See 20 22 Produce (8) 23 Hero of screen or stage (4)

woRd sEaRcH

DOwn 1 Disinfect with smoke (8) 2 Carrying of a payment over to a later date (8) 4 Rifle firing pellets (3,3) 5 Blame violently — I've a putter (anag) (10) 6 Works (4) 7 Average (2-2) 10 Someone hoping for another's happiness (4-6) 12 Unit of language taken from another tongue (4,4) 13 Of the brain (8) 16 Dry-roasted or salted snack item (6) 18 Burglar's loot (4)

HaGaR tHE HoRRIblE

dIlbERt

GaRFIEld

baldo

cHEss APART BIASED BITTER BLIGHT BRACE BROOM CELEBRITy CHORE CHUTE CLOUT DINER fACTS fAILURE GLASS GRUEL HASH HATE

HEATH IMPARTIAL LATCH MOBILE MURDER OPINION PARTNER PHOTOGRAP H POWDER SHACk SHAfT SHREW SNARE STRIPE STRUCk TRACk

white tO PLAY AND MAte iN twO MOVes 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

Today’s soluTions

bRIdGE bIddING INNovatIoNs

sUdokU crossword solution sudoku solution

1.Nh5 Qd7 [1...Qxh4 2.g7# is mate] 2.Qg3 * chess solution

How to play fill in all the squares in the grid so that each row, column and each of the squares contains all the digits. The object is to insert the numbers in the boxes to satisfy only one condition: each row, column and 3x3 box must contain the digits 1 through 9 exactly once.

14

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

ARTS

Apple's first tV series shows whAt it tAkes to builD An App LOS ANGELES

A

Agencies

PPLE Inc's long-awaited move into original television series starts Tuesday, with a reality show about a universe that is key to the technology giant's business: the world of app developers trying to bring their ideas to the masses.

The 10-episode "Planet of the Apps," an unscripted show with similarities to ABC's "Shark Tank," is part of an effort to add exclusive video programming to Apple's music streaming service to help attract new subscribers.

The first episode will be available for streaming around the globe starting at 9 p.m. PDT on Tuesday (midnight EDT/0400 GMT).

Hollywood has been awaiting the entry of deep-pocketed Apple into original TV series, a field crowded with award-winning dramas and comedies from outlets such as Netflix and Time Warner Inc's HBO. The first "Apps" episode will be free to anyone who wants to see it on iTunes and the show's website. Subsequent episodes will be released each Tuesday on Apple Music and available only to the streaming service's sub-

scribers.

On the show, developers try to interest celebrity mentors with a 60-second pitch on an escalator. The advisers help contestants build their products and prepare appeals for funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, the first investor in Snapchat.

"The question when you have ideas is how to take those to fruition," Eddy

Drivers bewildered by twisting Chinese interchange Five suspended levels and cars going in all directions: a new highway interchange is driving motorists to tears, as they find themselves lost in a concrete maze resembling a plate of spaghetti.

After eight years of construction, the Huangjuewan interchange was completed last week on the outskirts of Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis in southwest China. The structure balances five layers of traffic with the highest 37 metres above ground. No less than 15 ramps have been built to allow vehicles to move from one level to another, in eight directions, according to the municipality's website. An official on Chongqing's urban and rural construction committee told Xinhua news agency that the complex design was necessary to link the city's core, airport, and expressway, with each ramp leading to a different zone. This navigational nightmare has set the internet ablaze. "If you miss a ramp, you will reach Chongqing one day later," warned one user on the social network Weibo. "My GPS told me: go where you want and leave me alone!", a commenter joked, while another christened the city "Chongqing, the city that you'll never leave." Agencies

Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, said in an interview. "Sometimes you may not know how, you might be afraid of what's involved. This really shows how that's possible."

Apple's future programming plans include an adaptation of comedian James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke" segment from his CBS show that will begin

airing in August, as well as a documentary about Sean Combs in June and another about Clive Davis in a few months, Cue said.

"Planet of the Apps" came from musician will.i.am, who with producer Ben Silverman had shopped the series to traditional TV players before approaching Apple. Will.i.am appears as a judge alongside entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Alba, who have started businesses.

"I felt like this was a great way to show that app developers or business people are not just white dudes in suits, or white dudes coding," Alba said.

In the first two episodes, developers present apps for online shopping, campus safety and a school backpack. One team tries to adapt after Google announces a feature similar to its own concept. Another developer feels overwhelmed by will.i.am's rapid-fire list of ideas.

At the show's end, viewers are told they can download the apps from Apple's App Store. The show itself will be promoted on the Apple.com home page, on iTunes and elsewhere.

"All of our customers are going to be exposed to this in one way or another," Cue said.

African park ranger hits out at Hong Kong ivory trade A frontline park ranger from the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday delivered an emotive testimony to legislators against the ivory trade in Hong Kong, as the city faces criticism over how it plans to phase out the trade.

The southern Chinese city, a major hub for ivory sales, announced last year that it would ban the import and export of the goods, but later clarified that it would only completely abolish the trade by 2021.

Critics say city authorities are dragging its feet and lagging behind China, where officials in December pledged to halt the enterprise by the end of 2017.

Garamba National Park manager Erik Mararv described the violent nature of the trade to the city's legislature, including an in-

cident last year where he and his team were ambushed by poachers near an elephant carcass.

"The poachers were hidden in the bushes closeby, it was a brutal contact and where three brave rangers... died," said Mararv at the hearing attended by lawmakers and ivory traders.

"They died by the side of an elephant which had its face hacked off," said Mararv, who was also wounded in the violent exchange.

He went on to argue that Hong Kong should not compensate ivory traders as it could further encourage the violent industry.

"The message to the poachers would be that the government of Hong Kong is buying up ivory and we'll see more animals and more people dying," added Mararv.

Traders, however, have called

for compensation, saying they have been forced to sell small portions of their remaining stock for the past 27 years, following an international ban in 1989.

"Why must the current situation of illegal ivory poaching kill our inventory, our own hard-earned money?" said trader Mung Waihung following the speech to the legislature.

The international trade in elephant ivory, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after populations of the African giants dropped from millions in the mid20th century to some 600,000 by the end of the 1980s. African ivory is highly sought after in China, where it is seen as a status symbol, and where elephant tusks are used in traditional medicine and used to make ornaments. Agencies

tyrannosaurus rex was not feathery, says study Tyrannosaurus rex had scales, not feathers, said a study Wednesday which rescues the giant lizard's reputation as a fearsome killer with a rough-and-tough hide. Recent research has claimed to provide evidence for feathers in ancestors of T. rex, and suggested the iconic carnivore may itself have sported bird-like plumage rather than reptilian scales. Those findings challenged a long-held contention that large-bodied dinos had no feathers, requiring them for neither warmth nor flight. For the new study, an international team of scientists tracked down museum samples of skin from T. rex and several of its cousins in the tyrannosaurid family, and compiled a database of fossilised hide impressions. These included skin patches of the neck, pelvis and tail of a T. rex from the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as well as samples from four other members of the extended tyrannosaurid family. That group roamed the planet during the Late Cretaceous, which extended from 99 million to 65.5 million years ago, when an asteroid slammed into Earth and wiped out all land-dwelling dinos. The team concluded that "extensive feather coverings" in tyrannosaurids -- which lived much earlier -- were already lost in the common forefather of T. rex and its cousins about the time the Late Cretaceous began. The data provides "compelling evidence" of an entirely scaly covering for T. rex, the team wrote in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. "Our discovery of fossilised scaly skin similar to that of modern reptiles on the bodies of a wide variety of tyrannosaur species (including T. rex)... paints a more traditional scaly-skinned picture of these huge predators," they wrote in a press summary. This suggested, in turn, "that most (if not all) large-bodied tyrannosaurids were scaly and, if partly feathered, these were limited to the dorsum (back)," they wrote. The study begged the question of why -- after T. Rex's ancestors evolved feathers from an even more ancient scaly forebear -- the giant tyrannosaurs reverted back to scales. Paleontologists believe the first birds appeared 150 million years ago and were descendants of small feathered dinosaurs. The first dino feathers were simple hollow shafts, which evolved over time into something resembling their modern shape, engineered for flight. Agencies

Myanmar's edible bird nest industry comes home to roost The cries of amorous swiftlets echo around the dark room, an unlikely gold mine for traders in southern Myanmar who are cashing in on rising demand for the edible nests from China's growing middle class.

Dozens of buildings dedicated to the tiny birds have sprung up around Bokpyin in recent years, their grey concrete structures towering over the humbler wooden and brick homes of the town's human inhabitants. Every morning and evening the air is filled with high-pitched twitterings blasted from loudspeakers that draw thousands of the swallow-like birds home to roost. Edible birds nests have become one of the main industries in the town, traditionally known for producing the chewable stimulant betel nut as well as rubber and palm oil.

Traders can charge around $2,000 a viss (equivalent to 1.63 kilogrammes) for the tiny nests -- more than the average person in Myanmar earns in a year. "We started making man-made bird nests (houses) 10 years ago," said Paing Set Aung, who owns one of the buildings where hundreds of swiftlets make their homes in the rafters.

"Initially there was a house where the birds came to roost by themselves. After

that, people started to construct man-made bird houses." Most of the tiny white nests, which are made from solidified bird spit, are sold to neighbouring China.

Long considered the reserve of the country's wealthy elite, who ate them during lavish banquets, they are in increasing demand from middle-class consumers.

Today the global edible birds nest industry is estimated to be worth $5 billion, most of it produced in Southeast Asia.

Myanmar's exports have surged since 2011 -- the year the former junta handed over power to a quasi-civilian government. "Bird nests are one of the main businesses in Bokpyin," said local Lin Aung, who built his first house five years ago and is now on his third.

"China is the top buyer of bird nests here." Once across the border, the nests are transformed into one of the most expensive foods in the world.

When boiled in water they dissolve into a gelatinous gloop which is then made into desserts or drunk as a soup or a tonic that is said to prolong life and improve strength.

There is little peer-reviewed scientific data showing that nests have proven medicinal properties. Nutritional studies have shown the saliva to be mainly made up of

protein, followed by carbohydrates.

In Shanghai restaurants sell the "the caviar of the East," as it is known, for hundreds of dollars a bowl. Many of them cater specifically to women, who believe the nests can help smooth the complexion and make them look younger.

The tonic is also said to help during pregnancy -- one of Shanghai's high-end spas solely for mothers-to-be even has its

own restaurant and sells gift bags for as much as 3900 RMB ($566).

Shoppers can also order the products online, including candied bird nests from Myanmar to be eaten as sweets.

"In China, the bird nest has been a really famous and much-loved traditional tonic since ancient times," Zhang Yi told foreign media agencies inside her NestCha restaurant.

"It is mild and a little sweet. It is good for women, the elderly, children and men." These luxury products are a far cry from the nests' humble beginnings on the islands of Myanmar's southern archipelago. To begin with they were harvested on the region's many islands by daring climbers who risked life and limb scaling treacherous cliffs without any safety equipment.

For years the industry was dominated by the Union of Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd (UMEHL), a sprawling conglomerate controlled by the military elites that ran Myanmar for half a century.

But, as in much of Southeast Asia, production has increasingly moved into urban centres.

Locals in the southern city of Myeik started building houses to attract the birds decades ago, then later production spread to Bokpyin and nearby Kawthaung.

There are now more than 130 houses devoted to the swiftlets dotted around the region, according to state media.

Competition for space in Bokpyin between bird nest producers and tourism developers has seen land prices surge to as high as $75,000 a plot in downtown -- on a par with parts of the commercial capital Yangon. Agencies

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

ARTS

15

AriAnA GrAnde becomes britAin’s heroine After mAnchester ‘one love’ concert

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AGENCIES

S pop star Ariana Grande, hardly a household name in Britain before a suicide bomber killed 22 people at her Manchester concert in May, has emerged as a national heroine there following an emotional televised benefit performance.

In the days following Grande's sold-out show on Sunday, which raised some $3 million for a victims fund and became the UK's mostwatched TV broadcast of the year, Britons have embraced the 23-yearold singer. They have called for her to be formally honored by Queen Elizabeth and the city of Manchester.

At the One Love Manchester concert, Grande hugged a weeping schoolgirl as they performed her hit "My Everything" before a crowd of 55,000 people.

The tiny performer ended the show alone on stage, singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in tears.

Her team is working to release that emotional final number as a sin-

gle to raise even more money for victims, the UK's Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The concert served as a catharsis for many in Manchester and all of Britain, moving British tabloid journalist Piers Morgan to write Grande a lengthy public apology for doubting her courage.

"By coming back to Manchester so soon, shrugging off the latest attack in London, standing on that stage and performing with such raw

emotion and power, you showed more guts, resilience, strength of character and ‘Blitz spirit’ then every sniveling, pathetic Daesh coward put together," Morgan wrote in the Daily Mail. Grande was herself a survivor of the May 22 bombing, still inside Manchester Arena when an explosion ripped through the lobby area following her encore. Morgan had criticized the apparently shaken singer for quickly returning home to Florida instead of staying to console

victims.

But within days Grande and her team began organizing the benefit, which overcame considerable logistical and security obstacles to take place less than two weeks later. Days before the show, she turned up unannounced at a Manchester-area Hospital to visit young girls wounded in the attack. Grande carried on with Sunday's show despite the attack in London the night before in which seven people were killed. She enlisted fellow entertainers such as Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Coldplay and Oasis frontman and Manchester native Liam Gallagher.

Daily Telegraph columnist Victoria Lambert similarly apologized for dismissing Grande, who first gained fame on the Nickelodeon teen comedy "Victorious," as a lightweight pop star not fit to be a role model for her daughter.

"Because far from being a cliched child star, Grande has shown herself to be a perfect role model for our daughters after all," Lambert wrote.

sansa stark to go darker, evil in season seven, says sophie turner

rihanna proves again that she’s the queen with indomitable response to body shamers Rihanna gave a hilarious response to body-shamers, one of whom was a sports writer suspended from his position after calling the singer “fat”. The 29-year-old songstress took to her Instagram account on Monday to respond to body-shamers. Rihanna’s post comes just days after a website published a now-deleted article with the headline that read, “Is Rihanna going to make being fat the hot new trend?” She posted a meme about hip-hop artist Gucci Mane and his changing physique. She captioned the weight loss meme, which featured a fuller photograph of the 27year-old rapper from 2007 next to his current thinner body, with a sad crying emoticon. “If you can’t handle me at my 2007 Gucci Mane, you don’t deserve me at my 2017 Gucci Mane,” read the meme alongside the comparisons of the Make Love hitmaker. In the article, author Chris ‘Spags’ Spagnuolo wrote that the Umbrella hitmaker “looked like she was wearing a sumo suit”. AGENCIES

George and Amal Clooney announce birth of twins Ella, Alexander

AGENCIES

Horror ‘It Comes at Night’ prompted by writer’s personal experience AGENCIES Trey Edward Shults burst onto the movie scene two years ago with his first film, festival favorite "Krisha," made on a paltry $30,000 budget with his own family members as actors.

"Krisha," a 2015 film about addiction that drew from the writer-director's personal life, went on to be one of the best reviewed films of the year and won several awards.

Now Shults, 27, appears to have done it again with a horror and psychological thriller, prompted by a deeply personal experience, that has scored glowing reviews.

"It Comes at Night," out in U.S. movie theaters on Friday, revolves around a family of three, led by dad Paul (Joel Edgerton), that is trying to survive in a plague-infested North America. The film starts with a shocking death and develops further into unease and paranoia when another family of three turns up at the rustic, remote home asking for refuge. Paul begrudgingly agrees.

Shults said the impetus for what he calls a scary, emotional and non-conventional horror film, came from his own father's death.

"The opening scene of the movie... is what I said to my dad on his deathbed, and he was full of fear and regret and he didn't want to let go.

"It was a traumatic thing that changed my life and two months after that I wrote this script and it like spewed out of me in three days... I was clearly grappling with the emotions that were going on in my head and applying that to this fictional narrative," he said.

Shults said much of the character of teen son Travis, who has nightmares, is also based on himself.

"I have trouble sleeping at night.

I'm really a night owl and night is when my brain is really active and it's when everyone else is asleep and you have to confront your own thoughts in a world that's quiet."

Despite the glowing reviews, one person who has not watched the finished film is Shults himself.

"We did a small test screening with a way rougher cut a while back and I had a few drinks and I broke down sobbing at the end of it uncontrollably, which I think was due to the fact of the personal nature of the movie but also just how exhausted I was from working and a few drinks," he said.

"I haven't watched it since."

Sophie Turner has hinted that her character Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones will go darker and turn evil in the forthcoming seventh season of the fantasy series. Turner talked about the forthcoming season of the show in an interview to Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore, reports Metro.co. She revealed, “Sansa has changed from being a naïve, vulnerable innocent young woman and being such an underdog… to being a leader, powerful and hungry for revenge from the people who have done her family wrong.” “I can totally see her becoming a Cersei and kind of driven mad by it, by the threats against her family. At the end of the day, that’s why (Cersei) does the things that she does, because she’s terrified of losing the people she loves. And so she’ll stop at nothing to protect them,” she added.

The 21 year-old, who also stars in film XMen: Apocalypse, added, “If that means becoming like a ruthless killer, leader, sadistic woman or evil lady, then so be it. I don’t think it matters to her, and I can see Sansa swinging that way too.” The seventh season of the show will debut in the US on July 16 and will have seven episodes.

ENtErtAINmENt dESk Amal Clooney on Tuesday gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, the first children for the international human rights lawyer and her movie star spouse.

“This morning Amal and George welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney into their lives. Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine,” George Clooney’s publicist Stan Rosenfield said in an email.

He added cheekily, “George is sedated and should recover in a few days.”

Amal Clooney, 39, and the 56-year-old Oscar-winning star of films like “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Three Kings” married in Italy in 2014, making them one of the world’s biggest celebrity couples.

Rosenfield did not say where the twins were born but the couple appear to have been spending much of their time recently in England, where they have one of several homes. The couple adopted a low profile during the pregnancy, keeping the news private for months before it

was confirmed in February by the actor’s close friend, Matt Damon.

Amal Clooney largely continued her work as a human rights lawyer, addressing the United Nations in March and urging the international community to investigate crimes committed by IS in Syria and Iraq.

Nevertheless, celebrity news media speculated for months about the sex of the twins, where they would be born and in which country they will be raised. On Tuesday, social media lit up with congratulatory messages and “Ella and Alexander” was among the top trending topics on Twitter.

Many contributors praised the choice of names as a refreshingly normal departure from a trend that has seen celebrity babies given names like Apple, Audio, Bronx, North West and Rocket.

“Good lord, the Clooneys have given their twins lovely ordinary names.

Shocking. And they call themselves celebrities…,” wrote British journalist Nicola Jane Swinney on Twitter.

Salman Khan says he doesn’t take his celebrity status seriously Superstar Salman Khan says he lives his life in the present and does not take his celebrity status seriously.

Asked what he wants to achieve in life, Salman told the media, “I live my life moment to moment. If I can make this moment the best one, I know I will get something out of it.”

“As an actor I’m doing my job. The persona you are seeing on screen is a contribution of more than 100 people

from the different departments like camera, make-up and lights. How can I take that madness that you guys (media and common people) call stardom so seriously? I don’t,” added Salman.

The Dabangg star, who has launched e-cycles under his Being Human brand, spoke on how difficult it was for him to play an innocent boy in his upcoming film Tubelight. “(The) character in the film took me back to my school days. Sohail and I

CMYK

used to recollect so many memories of our childhood. Playing an innocent and pure character at an age when you are no more innocent, when you have experienced the corrupt world, was quite a task,” he said.

Salman, who has previously collaborated with Kabir Khan in blockbusters like EkTha Tiger and BajrangiBhaijaan, said he was aware their styles were different. “Our understanding of films is very different. His approach is more real-

istic, he comes from documentary filmmaking. On the other hand, I am into commercial Bollywood. Perhaps that is why when these two meet, a new style is born.” However, he said he won’t work with Kabir if a script is not good.

Talking about the success of Aamir Khan’s Dangal, Salman said, “As long as no one is losing their money, I am happy.

If the audience loves the film, I am happy.”

Tubelight releases on June 25. AGENCIES

16 BUSINESS

Thursday, June 8, 2017

GE TransporTaTion siGns accord wiTh pakisTan railways DEAL SIGNIFIES THE SECOND CONTRACT BETWEEN PAKISTAN RAILWAYS AND GE TRANSPORTATION WITHIN THREE YEARS

Ecc endorses tax cuts for German development agency (GiZ) ISLAMABAD STAFF REPoRT

The Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet on Wednesday approved tax exemptions for the German development agency (GIZ), allowing Rs 864 million for purchasing new printing machines for general elections and approving another month’s salary to the Pakistan steel mill employees. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, chaired the meeting. The committee decided to give tax concessions to the German development agency (GIZ), on the pattern of tax concessions granted to different Chinese contractors working on the CPEC projects and Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an official source said. After giving tax concessions to Chinese, the source said it was expected that similar concessions will be sought by other friendly countries, international financial institutions and donor agencies. After Japanese and Germans, the Americans, British and Koreans are also seeking tax exemptions for their development projects. The biggest worry is how to refuse similar tax concessions to IFI’s supported projects. Since all the Chinese contactors working on the CPEC projects enjoy tax concessions, it will be very difficult for the government to refuse similar treatment to the contractors working on IFI’s financed projects, the source added. An official statement issued after ECC meeting said, while considering a proposal of the economic affairs division, ECC approved the exemption from the payment of General Sales Tax (GST) for the German development agency GIZ, in respect of goods purchased by GIZ. This exemption shall also be available on procurement of services by GIZ received in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). This decision has been made to support the development activities carried out by GIZ in Pakistan. The committee approved a proposal of ministry of water and power for provision of a government guarantee by the ministry of finance for repayment of loan as well as interest, for a syndicated term finance facility for the power sector amounting to Rs 41 billion. The amount will be utilized for the purposes of funding the repayment liabilities of the Distribution Companies (DISCOs), through arrangement between Power Holding Private Limited and DISCOs. The meeting also approved the proposal of ministry of commerce for extending the deadline for export of sugar from 31st May 2017 till 31st July 2017.

ISLAMABAD

p

STAFF REPoRT

AKISTAn Railways and GE Transportation have maintained a successful relationship for more than three decades and Wednesday’s announcement builds upon the commitment to further develop Pakistan’s rail infrastructure. GE Transportation will provide Pakistan Railways with twenty FDL C20EMP locomotives to help in the transportation of people

and goods across the country’s mountainous northern terrain.

These lighter weight locomotives, which operate on 2,000 horsepower, are designed to better maneuver difficult access roads. The AC/DC compatible locomotives enable the unique tractive effort necessary to operate the country’s northernmost landscape. The locomotives can serve both freight and passenger cargo, and will primarily be used to move between Karachi and Lahore (MLI) and later on to Pe-

shawar and Quetta. new locomotives would be dedicated to oil and coal supply, small businessmen of Faisalabad and Multan would also be accommodated, by running one good train each from these stations.

“We continue to make great strides towards reaching the transportation goal as part of the country’s Vision 2025 plan,” said Federal Minister for Railways Kh. Saad Rafique.

“Modernizing rail transportation and improving regional connectivity are critical components of the government’s plan, and we’re confident that our relationship with GE will help achieve these goals.”

“GE’s long-standing relationship with Pakistan Railways is a testament to

our reliability and innovation within the rail space,” said President & CEO, GE Pakistan Sarim Sheikh. “We look forward to delivering strong locomotives that help the country reach its goals in improving rail infrastructure across the country, improving the quality of services to citizens and supporting the nation’s economy.”

In 2015, GE and Pakistan Railways signed an agreement for 55 Evolutions Series Locomotives, of which 32 are already in the country. Similarly, Pakistan Railways’ agreement to purchase FDL locomotives further supports the Government of Pakistan’s desire to increase the share of rail in transportation from 4 percent to 20 percent within the next 10 years.

ATTOCK: Farmers busy in collecting tomato from field to sell in market and earn livelihood. oNLINE

PSX fails to impress amid cautious investors KSE 100 UP BY ONLY 18 POINTS KARACHI STAFF REPoRT

Within scale trading was seen as the day progressed, hinting at caution from the investing community. A lack of eye-openers remained to be observed on Tuesday and Wednesday following an eventful Monday which saw an accumulation of positions by local mutual funds & corporations.

The benchmark KSE 100 index, closed at 50,162.81 (+0.04 per cent) gaining only 18.18 points

at closing of the session. Trading in the benchmark index was seen between 50,000 and 50,500 range for the day while closing at similar level as the preceding Tuesday's session. The KMI 30 index gained only 52.11 points (+0.06 per cent) and the KSE All Share Index was up by 72.14 points (+0.21 per cent).

A total of 184 scripts advanced, 159 declined while 16 remained unchanged. The market volumes slightly increased from 231.7 million to 232.5 million for the day. Highest volumes were recorded in Deewan Farooq Spinning Mill (DFSM -9.86 per cent) followed by Engro Polymer & Chemicals Limited (EPCL +4.98 per cent). Commercial bank sector and cements shred -0.17 per cent and -0.09 per cent of their respective market

capitalizations during the day while Oil & Gas Exploration and Oil & Gas Marketing added 0.69% & 0.07% respectively. This is an unexpected development. Recently, according to numbers from MOODY’s, Pakistan Stock Exchange must see an upward trajectory. However the balance is not showing to be true.

The leaders almost remained the leaders, the gainers shed, while the losers stagnated. A mix like this will not add up to the overall economy.

Stocks and share trading is one of the most reflective instrument of a country’s overall economic sphere. The capital market is hence the place where investors, creditors and all other stakeholders should have a presence of mind.

Govt loses on another opportunity to revive economy: APTMA KARACHI STAFF REPoRT

SR. Vice Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Zahid Mazhar, said the government has once again lost the opportunity to revive the national economy through Federal Budget 2017-18, saying that the current budget has failed to support the export oriented industries including textiles.

In a statement issued to the press Zahid Mazhar said that the government has failed to bring in fundamental reforms to encourage exports, industry and employment. He said that the government has not announced any measures to generate employment, promote exports and encourage import substitution. The industry had requested reduction in

turnover tax. On the contrary the government has increased turn over tax from one per cent to 1.25 per cent. He pleaded for reduction in the minimum turnover tax to 0.25 per cent. The government has imposed two per cent further tax on supplies to unregistered persons, it should also do away with the imposition of two per cent further tax on the textile industry since the industry gets burdened with two per cent additional cost as the end users do not pay this tax.

Presently the system of zero rating is distorted and is actually not zero rating in true spirit. It needs some changes because there is no zero rating on some of the inputs. He requested the government that before passing the Federal Budget from the national Assembly it should ensure zero rating of all inputs including

packaging materials, spare parts and fuel and energy in true spirit.

The government has again extended delay in arranging timely refunds of sales tax which is crippling the liquidity of the industry, which will further lead to disastrous consequences He further said that unfortunately the government’s priorities do not include the textile industry which is earning about 60 per cent of the foreign exchange through exports for the country and providing more than 38 per cent employment in the manufacturing sector has been hit hard because of energy shortage, high price, and duty on the import of raw materials including cotton and synthetic fiber. The situation is further aggravated due to high cost of energy both gas and electricity as com-

pared to the regional competitors. The government should remove the levy of Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) on the system gas. He further demanded that the government provide gas at the regionally competitive rate of Rs. 400/MBTU as was earlier announced by ECC in november 2016 but was not implemented.

Mazhar said that the textile industry demands practical measures and not mere announcements. He said that the exportled growth package announced by the prime minister in January this year for textile industry was merely eyewash, as only an amount of Rs one billion has been released by State Bank of Pakistan so far Since the country has already suffered huge losses due to failure of cotton crop for the last two consecutive years,

the sr. vice chairman APTMA further demanded the government to ensure availability of raw materials to the industry by continuing the policy of import of cotton without duty and sales tax and review its decision to re-impose custom duty and sales tax on import of cotton as it will be suicidal for the textile industry.

Zahid Mazhar said that the trade deficit this year is expected to reach US 31 billion as imports are projected to close at $51 billion as against estimated exports of $20 billion. However the textile industry of Pakistan is capable enough to reverse this negative trend He said that the country has a potential to reach annual GDP growth of 8% provided the government immediately starts giving attention to the export sectors specially the textile industry.

BUSINESS 17

Thursday, June 8, 2017

CORPORATE CORNER

psX iniTial puBlic offErinG EXTEndEd To achiEVE sEllinG of 120M sharEs KARACHI

LAHORE: Prize winners pose alongside Vice Chancellor Dr. Zafar Moeen and P.R head Amir Pasha in a group photo at Ufone Iftar dinner. PRESS RELEASE

Miscreants damage tower connecting 500 kV Transmission line KARACHI: The spokesman of National Transmission and Despatch Company Ltd (NTDC) has said that miscreants made an attempt to blow up tower of 500 kV Hub-NKI transmission line. The explosive material partially damaged the legs of tower No 72 at Northern Bypass near 500 kV NKI grid station district West Karachi, however, power supply remained uninterrupted to concerned parts of Karachi. The spokesman said that the repair work of the damaged tower has been started and will be completed soon. NTDC then energized 500 kV Dadu-Shikarpur transmission line. Moreover, the spokesman said that NTDC has completed the rehabilitation work of seven (7) collapsed towers of 500 kV Dadu-Shikarpur transmission line and made it operational Tuesday night. The said transmission line was one of the three 500 kV transmission lines which were affected due to force majeure (high intensity cyclone) which damaged 16 towers on 21st May 2017. The NTDC spokesman said that with the energization of said transmission line, the second link has also been reestablished between Northern and Southern systems, enhancing the reliability and smoothness of the power transmission system of the country. PRESS RELEASE

Brain tumour is treatable via modern technology: dr irfan LAHORE: More people under 40 die of a brain tumour than from any other cancer.

Extensive research and development in methods of treatment of brain tumours has led to improved quality of life, improved survival and reduced surgical risk, said Consultant Neurosurgeon Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Dr. Irfan Yousaf, on world brain tumour day while talking to a group of journalists. Dr. Irfan further shared that symptoms of brain tumours normally include head-aches, nausea, fatigue, seizures, difficulty in speaking, and losing eye-sight. Specifically, a pituitary tumour affects one’s hormones and eye-sight. CT Scans and MRIs are used to diagnose brain tumours. Dr. Irfan noted how people usually lose hope after hearing about a brain tumour whereas it is a treatable. Compared to the past, today we have latest technology and advanced medication to control or completely eradicate the tumour. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are mainly used to treat this cancer. We now have computer assisted surgery which has presented good results. In his message to the public, Dr. Irfan Yousaf said that if a person is diagnosed with brain tumour, instead of worrying and feeling hopelessness, he or she should consult a neurosurgeon or a neuro-oncologist because fortunately, most modern treatments have been introduced in Pakistan and these have lower risks and better outcomes. PRESS RELEASE

Bengal tigress gives birth to three at zoo in islamabad RAwALpIndI: Bahria Enclave Islamabad’s zoo welcomed three new family members when the royal Bengal tigress gave birth to three cute cubs. The mother and the three newborns are in perfect health. By now, the cubs have started showing healthy physical activity, amusing everyone around with their frolics. The Bengal tigress was taken in at the zoo in 2014 and has enjoyed a distinguished status ever since. The cubs are a new attraction for the regular visitors and kids. In addition, a visibly excited zoo staff is receiving best wishes and enquiry calls from the residents of Bahria Enclave and other parts of the twin cities. ‘The tigress and the cubs are in perfect health. The four are staying together,’ said, Veterinary Officer, Bahria Enclave Club, Dr. Saima Somal.

She added, ‘the cubs are being fed by the mother and are receiving food supplements for better nourishment. Everyone is excited and we are taking great care of the new family members.’ Bahria Enclave Islamabad Zoo is home to a variety of animal species which are loved by the visitors particularly children. PRESS RELEASE

T

AIShA ARShAd

O complete the on-going divestment of Pakistan Stock Exchange PSX, a total of 160,295,320 ordinary shares – 20 percent of the total paid-up capital – are up for Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Initially, 75 per cent of the issue i.e.

120,221,320 shares were offered to highnet-worth/institutional investors through Book Building at Rs 28 (floor price) on June, 6th, and 7th. The remaining 25 per cent 40,074,000 shares will be offered to retail investors/General public at a strike price determined through Book Building on June 9th and 12th.

However, after failing to achieve the set target of 120 million shares by the end of the second session of IPO on Wednesday, June 7th – which received 76.95 million offers by the end of working hours – PSX issued a notice announcing the extension of the Book Building session till June, 8.

In view of investors’ interest observed in PSX divestment process, the Pakistan Stock Exchange Limited is pleased to announce that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has allowed extension in time for the book building for offer for sale of shares of the Pakistan Stock Exchange Limited for one day i.e. upto Thursday, June 8, 2017. Accordingly the eligible investors can now register until 3:00 pm and can bid until 5:00 pm on Thursday, June 8, 2017.

Till close of business Wednesday, bids of 74,015,392 shares have been received from 67 bidders. Further 26 Institutional and High net-Worth investors have been registered themselves with book runner (MCB Bank Limited) to participate in PSX book building process.

According to market sources, the low number of offers came on the back of multiple reasons which included the changed criteria of High net-Worth individuals to a minimum investment of Rs 3 million instead of Rs 1 million previously.

Additionally, according to experts the

price to earnings ratio of the PSX seems farfetched at a per share price of Rs 28, and local investors hesitate in such cases.

Moreover, in order to maintain the fairness of the process, the regulations of the PSX state that no individual from the managing team of this IPO or their relatives, friends etc. can participate in this Book Building process thus resulting in a lower number of investors showing interest in the 120 million shares.

However, analysts and experts believe that in the extended session of the book building process on Thursday, the company will be able to sell out the remaining 43 million shares and complete another phase of the divestment.

PSX has already sold out 40 per cent of its shares to a Chinese consortium at an investment of Rs 85 million (per share price Rs 28) and another 40 per cent were distributed among the original owners, 200 stock brokers, of the PSX. The remaining 160 million shares of the bourse will be sold out by the end of this month.

13 coal-based power projects at various stages of completion: PPIB ISLAMABAD APP

Six power generation projects based on indigenous coal with a cumulative capacity of 4290 megawatts and seven projects based on imported coal with a cumulative capacity of 5201 megawatts are presently under process at various stages and will be completed in near future.

According to an official of Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) Wednesday, the coal development is accorded strategic importance by the federal and provincial governments. The federal and provincial governments are working together to provide an enabling environment and robust infrastructure that is required for Thar coal development, roads, water supply, waste water drainage channel and airport and transmission line. All power generation projects including those based on indigenous and imported coal are dealt by the Ministry of Water and Power, and PPIB. The government of Sindh has established a one-stop organization and dedicated decision-making body namely Thar Coal and Energy Board under the chief executive of the

province with representation from federal and provincial governments to facilitate fast track development of Thar coal.

The government of Sindh has been encouraging projects of open pit mining, coalbased power generation, underground coal gasification, surface gasification, coal to liquid and briquette.

Many blocks of Thar coalfield have al-

punjab government to raise rs25b through govt securities LAHORE: Through the Fiscal Year 2017-18, the Punjab government is expected to raise Rs 25b through government securities with the aid of the State Bank of Pakistan.

The current figure of provincial debt of Punjab stands a touch above 3pc. These government securities have been grouped into two namely Punjab Treasury Bills (PTBs) and Punjab Saving and Investment Bonds (PSIBs).

PSIBs will be interest bearing fixed-rate instruments with maturities of more than a year’s period and PTBs will be discounted instruments with a maximum tenure of a year or less. Both these securities will be tradable in secondary markets as per budgetary documents. Both these securities will be issuable for a range of tenors which will assist the Punjab government in presenting its debt maturity profile in a manner that portrays their creditworthiness and influences positively on its repayment abilities. In order to fund its development expenditures, the Punjab government plans to raise more debt in a sensible manner which would pave the way for the growth rate of its economy. The issuances of these securities will help the provincial government in expanding its Annual Development Plan (ADP), gaining access to prospective investors, provident funds, pension funds, domestic banks, corporate treasuries and mutual funds. STAFF REPoRT

ready been allotted and offered to foreign local investors for integrated mining and power projects. Some of Thar Coal Mining and Power projects are enlisted for ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The commissioning of Thar projects will usher in a new era of energy security for the country and prosperity for the people of Pakistan.

SECP reveals draft regulations under the companies/LLP act KARACHI STAFF REPoRT

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has notified the draft Companies (Incorporation) Regulations, 2017, draft Intermediaries (Registration) Regulations, 2017 and draft Limited Liability Partnership Regulations, 2017, to obtain public opinion. All the regulations have been placed on the SECP’s website.

The draft companies (incorporation) regulations, 2017, specify a simplified procedure for company incorporation process, including the procedure for reservation of name of proposed company, a list of words prohibited for use as company name, criteria for use of certain names by entities undertaking specialized businesses and procedure for company registration.

The draft intermediaries (regis-

tration) regulations, 2017 specify requirements for intermediaries, who will be authorized to file statutory returns/documents/reports to the registrar or the SECP on behalf of companies. The salient features of regulations include eligibility requirements for registration, the procedure to obtain registration, renewal and cancellation of registration, a mechanism for appointment and removal of authorized intermediary by the company and duties and responsibilities of authorized intermediary.

The existing intermediaries shall be required to obtain registration with the SECP within 90 days of notification of regulations.

The Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) is an alternative form of business establishment, which has the flexibility of a general partnership and will avail all the advantages of a limited liability company.

18 SPORTS

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

MancHester is united against terrOrisM says rasHFOrd

M

SPORTS DESK

ANCHESTER United youngster Marcus Rashford says his recent hospital visit to see victims of the Manchester terror attack was motivated by a desire to show the city remains united.

Manchester native Rashford, 19, and his United team-mate Jesse Lingard, 24, went to Manchester Children’s Hospital on Monday and spent time with children hurt in the May 22 attack, which left 22 dead and 119 injured.

American pop star Ariana Grande, whose show was targeted in the suicide attack, put on a star-studded benefit concert in Manchester on Sunday and Rashford said it was vital for the city to pull together.

“We’re with all the families as much as we can be and it’s important that the

families know that,” he told reporters at England’s St George’s Park training base in Burton-on-Trent.

Pliskova, Halep have double objectives at French Open

SPORTS DESK: The women’s tournament will have a first time Grand Slam champion on Saturday. Two of the favourites, Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova, are in quarter-final action on Wednesday as a maiden major and the world top ranking come into view. Simona Halep arrived in Paris billed as a leading title contender and she hasn’t disappointed through four rounds. The Romanian third seed is yet to surrender a set, shaking off an ankle injury that cast serious doubt on her participation in Paris. After crashing out of the Australian Open in round one, Halep’s form steadily improved and she won on clay in Madrid before finishing runner-up to Elina Svitolina in Rome. The Ukrainian leads the women’s game with 35 wins this season, lifting an impressive four titles — her other triumphs coming at Taipei City, Dubai and Istanbul.

Svitolina has matched her best run at a Grand Slam after making the last eight at the French Open for the second time in three years, but she needed to rally from 5-2 down in the final set to overcome world 290 Petra Martic in round four.

A first-time Grand Slam champion will be crowned on Saturday and the winner could well be the one who survives this match. Halep says: “I need to play again, because I lost that final in Rome with the injury. I was not happy about that. Now I have another chance, another challenge.”

“That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to go and visit the hospitals.

We’re doing as much as we can to support

all the families and the victims of the attack.

“Things like the concert and going to the hospitals, it just shows the families and people around the city that everyone’s together and we have to fight it together.”

After a season that culminated in United’s Europa League triumph against Ajax in Stockholm, Rashford has joined up with the England squad for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Scotland and next week’s friendly against France.

With Wayne Rooney having again been overlooked by England manager Gareth Southgate, Rashford is the only United forward in the squad, but he does not believe Rooney’s international career has run its course.

“Knowing Wayne, it’s nowhere near over,” Rashford said.

“The abilities he has and the things he

can do on and off the pitch and the effect he has on all the players, he’s still got a lot to do in his career and there’s still a lot of trophies that England hope to be playing for.”

An injury to Zlatan Ibrahimovic meant Rashford finished the season as United’s main striker and he chipped in with crucial goals against Chelsea, Anderlecht and Celta Vigo.

Though Rashford does not turn 20 until October 31, he says the pace of his progress has come as no surprise to him.

“All that it’s proved, to everybody else, is that the development is happening,” he said.

“I already know it’s happening. I know that I’m working hard in training every day and I can see the development in myself.

“For me to be playing the games and scoring some goals, it’s just proof of my development.”

He is not phased by the prospect of a white-hot atmosphere at Glasgow’s Hampden Park either.

“It’s just another experience,” Rashford said.

“It possibly will be one of the toughest (atmospheres) I’ve faced so far and I’m hoping so, because it’s another experience I can tick off the list and then I can keep moving forwards.”

Sponsors want FIFA World Cup to be played in China SPORTS DESK China's footballers may be struggling on the pitch but its companies are proving to be a big player, signing sponsorship deals with FIFA as the giant Asian nation looks to boost its chances of hosting the World Cup. In the space of a year, football governing body FIFA has gained three major Chinese sponsors in conglomerate Wanda, Hisense -- the world's number three television manufacturer - and smartphone maker Vivo, who concluded a deal just a week ago.

The new partnerships came as a welcome relief to football's governing body after FIFA's image and reputation was battered in recent years by a slew of corruption allegations involv-

ing former president Sepp Blatter.

Sony, Emirates, Castrol, Continental and Johnson & Johnson all declined to renew their sponsorship deals, leaving FIFA struggling to find new backers.

"Vivo was very well received by FIFA, which was why (the deal) was concluded very quickly," said Mark Gao, CEO of the agency Momentum Sports, which brokered the sponsorship agreement. "Negotiations were tough on the amount, but lasted less than 100 days."The Vivo deal comes 18 months after e-commerce world leader Alibaba signed a partnership with the FIFA Club World Cup, lending further ammunition to those who believe China will bid for the 2030 World Cup. When Wanda became a sponsor of FIFA at

the beginning of 2016, its chief Wang Jianlin, known to have Beijing's ear, said the partnership "would increase the chances" of a Chinese World Cup. Gao says he too is now "convinced that the arrival of Chinese sponsors will promote and accelerate a Chinese bid for a World Cup".

'RulES cannOT changE' The Chinese national team currently ranks 82nd in the FIFA world ranking, just behind the tiny Faroe Islands and Benin.

But that has not stopped the Asian giant's president Xi Jinping, a devoted football fan, from dreaming of glory and pushing for his country to host a World Cup in the future.

Next year's World Cup is in Russia, who are part of UEFA, and 2022 will be in Qatar, part of the Asian Football Confederation, making China ineligible to be a host until at least 2030 under FIFA rules that stipulate tournaments must alternate between continents. Chinese Football Association Vice President Zhang Jian, a member of the FIFA Council which devises the institution's global strategy, said last year he would back a Chinese World Cup in 2030.

However, not everyone shares China's enthusiasm to play host at the first opportunity.

Last week UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin told the BBC that "the World Cup should go to the country that has the best bid", adding that he favoured a European host for 2030.

"We cannot just sell the World Cup to the ones who want to pay the most... Rules cannot change just because we have some big sponsors," he added. Sebastian Chiappero, Genevabased director of sponsor consulting firm Sponsorize, does not believe there is a link between sponsorship and World Cup hosts.

Djokovic insists not in freefall after French Open shock PARIS AGENCIES

Novak Djokovic insisted Wednesday that he still has the hunger to regain his status as the best player in the world, but did not rule out taking a break from the sport.

The 30-year-old Serb crashed out of the French Open where he was the defending champion in a stunning 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, 6-0 quarter-final loss to Dominic Thiem.

Djokovic hinted he may step back from the sport to regroup even with Wimbledon fast approaching.

“Trust me, I’m thinking about many things, especially in the last couple months,” he said.

“At the same time, I have responsibility to the game itself, towards others.

We’ll see. Obviously it’s not an easy decision to make, but I will see how I feel after Roland Garros and then decide what to do next.”

The defeat was Djokovic’s first straight-sets loss at a major in four years and comes just 12 months after he completed the career Grand Slam in Paris.

He then also held all four majors and became the first man to break the $100

million prize money barrier.

Wednesday saw him suffer a first 6-0 ‘bagel’ at a Slam since the 2005 US Open while the defeat will see him slip out of the world’s top two for the first time in six years.

“All the top players go through this.

I have to get through it and learn the lessons and come back stronger. It’s a big challenge but I am up for it,” said Djokovic.

“I always expect a lot from myself. I am not playing anywhere close to my best and I know that.

“But I am trying to work on things.

It’s a whole new situation that I am facing by not winning any big tournaments in the last seven or eight months.”

Since Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in the Roland Garros final last year, he suffered a third round loss at Wimbledon.

He hinted at issues in his private life at the time before a runners-up spot at the US Open suggested the All England Club defeat was just a temporary blip.

However, a shock second round loss at the Australian Open to world number 117 Denis Istomin illustrated all the old

failings. In 2017, he has won only one title in Qatar.

At the Masters, he lost in the fourth round at Indian Wells, made the quarters at Monte Carlo, semi-finals in Madrid before being swept aside by Alexander Zverev in the Rome final.

- Next chapter? His defeat to Thiem, who he defeated in Rome for the loss of one game as well as the semi-finals in Paris last year, was his first in six meetings with the young Austrian.

The result robbed the tournament of a mouth-watering semi-final match-up against nine-time champion Rafael Nadal.

“I know I have achieved the biggest heights in the sport. I have the belief that I can reach them again,” added Djokovic.

Djokovic arrived in Paris with Andre Agassi as his new coach but the American legend wasn’t on hand to witness Wednesday’s painful exit on Suzanne Lenglen court.

The Serb said it is too early to consider his partnership with the American legend a success or failure.

“His impact will take time, it won’t

CMYK

happen in the first week. We only spent seven days together so we will see where it takes us,” he said.

Djokovic admitted that Thiem was a worthy winner.

The last set ‘bagel’ lasted just 20 minutes where he managed only eight points.

It was only the ninth match in his ca-

reer in which he had suffered the indignity of not getting on the scoreboard.

“He deserved to win. He was definitely the better player on the court today,” said Djokovic who had two set points in the 10th game of the opening set.

Once they were gone, it was all downhill.

SPORTS 19

Thursday, 8 June, 2017

KOHli wants Players tO Play liKe tHey Played against PaKistan real reject united’s offer for Morata MaDRID: Real Madrid has vetoed a £52.4m (€60m) bid for striker Alvaro Morata from Manchester United. United goalkeeper David de Gea was not comprised in the offer, while Real Madrid is thought to want in the region of £78m for the forward. The Spain international scored 20 goals in all contests for Real last season, as the club clinched La Liga and the Champions League. If Manchester United fail to agree a deal for Morata, it is understood they will try to sign Andrea Belotti from Torino, who has a €100m (£87.3m) release clause in his contract. Born in Madrid, Morata progressed through the Real Madrid academy to make his first team debut in December 2010, before exiting for Juventus in the summer of 2014 for £17.5m. In two seasons with Juventus, Morata won two Serie A titles, two Coppa Italia titles and was part of a run to the 2015 Champions League final, scoring as Juve lost 3-1 to Barcelona. In June 2016, Real Madrid exercised a buy-back clause to bring Morata back from Juventus for £26.2m, and the forward has emerged as a key member of Zinedine Zidane’s squad. AGENCIES

allegri extends deal with Juventus JuVEnTuS: Massimiliano Allegri has signed a two-year contract extension as coach of Juventus, less than a week after the Turin giants lost the Champions League final for the second time in three years. Allegri’s deal with the club was set to expire in June 2018, but on Wednesday he agreed the two-year extension that will see him remain at the helm until 2020. Although Juventus gave no financial details, media reports said Allegri is set to earn up to 6.5 million euros ($7.3 million, £5.6 million) a year plus 1.5 million in bonuses.

“Now, it’s official: Massimiliano Allegri will continue collaborating with Juventus until June 30, 2020,” said a Juventus statement.

“Since he arrived in July 2014, the team has gone from strength to strength in Italy and consolidated it’s status as one of Europe’s top sides.”

Allegri was left distraught after a 4-1 Champions League final defeat by Real Madrid in Cardiff last weekend that came two years after Barcelona beat the Old Lady to the 2015 trophy in Berlin. But the 49-year-old’s impressive success rate, and reported interest from several English Premier League clubs in recent months, prompted an improved offer from club bosses. Allegri, who steered AC Milan to their last league title in 2011, joined Juventus in 2014 after predecessor Antonio Conte, now manager of Chelsea, quit to take up a post as Italy coach. AGENCIES

V

SPORTS DESK IRAT Kohli has urged India to produce a repeat of their Pakistan demolition when they face Sri Lanka in the Champions Trophy today.

Kohli’s side made a memorable start to the tournament as the defending champions crushed arch rivals Pakistan by 124 runs in Birmingham on Sunday.

After India piled up 319 for three in 48 overs, they turned the screw on Pakistan, dismissing them for 164 as they failed to chase down a rain-reduced target of 289.

It was the perfect response to reports of a rift between India captain Kohli and the team’s coach Anil Kumble.

Kohli knows momentum can change quickly in one-day competitions, especially against a desperate Sri Lanka team looking to bounce back from defeat to South Africa in their opener.

But Kohli hopes the confidence boost from beating Pakistan will help India secure another victory in their second Group B match.

“Every game in this tournament is big, but we have a side with a few youngsters coming in and gradually getting towards strengthening their careers for India,” he said.

“So I think from that, from the team’s point of view, it’s a massive win for us.

“Just the way we played and the confidence we showed throughout the game was something that was very pleasing to see as a captain.

“Even though we lost the toss, guys were raring and ready to go, willing to take up the pressure.

“That gave all of us the confidence to start striking the ball well, but initially the openers gave us a good start as well.

“As I said, it’s a clinical performance from

us, from the team’s point of view, yes, it is indeed a very big win.”

- Deflated Kohli, with 81 not out off 68 balls, and Yuvraj Singh, named man-of-the-match for a rapid 53, both battered the Pakistan attack after Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan laid the platform for a big total with an opening stand of 136.

A repeat of that batting blitz against Sri Lanka at The Oval would put India on course for the semi-finals and Kohli expect Yuvraj to lead the charge again.

“After I got to 50, I wasn’t able to freely play. And Yuvraj came in and just took all the pressure off me,” he said.

“The way he batted was the way only he can strike the ball.

“I think that really deflated the opposition.

His innings was a difference in the game.”

Beaten by 96 runs by South Africa, there is

no margin for error for Sri Lanka as they try to avoid elimination.

Adding insult to injury, Sri Lanka were later found guilty of a slow over-rate offence by the ICC, with their stand-in captain Upul Tharanga banned for their next two matches, and players fined. Angelo Mathews is set to resume captaincy duties after returning to fitness from the calf muscle injury that ruled him out of the South Africa match.

“The whole team is responsible. Whoever the captain is, we have to back him and try to support him in the field,” Mathews said.

“The captain has to do so many other things and stuff to work on. We have addressed in the past as well, but it cropped up again.

“It’s so unfortunate to see Upul going out as he is a crucial player in our set up.

“He batted well against South Africa and it’s so disappointing. This cannot happen again.”

Beckham Miami team edges closer after land deal LONDON AGENCIES

David Beckham’s hopes of launching a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami took a giant step towards becoming reality Tuesday after city officials approved the sale of land crucial to a proposed stadium project.

Miami-Dade County commissioners voted by 9-4 to approve the transfer of a three-acre parcel of land worth $9 million to Beckham’s consortium, which reportedly hopes to launch its MLS team by 2021.

Beckham’s group had already purchased six acres of land next to the site for some $19 million in Miami’s Overtown district.

The group hopes to build a 25,000-seat stadium on the site.

Beckham’s group has said the cost of the stadium, which still needs to be approved by city planners, will be met by private investors with no

public funds being used in its construction.

Beckham announced in 2014 that he intended to bring a team to the South Florida city, exercising an option he was granted when he joined the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007.

Under that deal, Beckham was granted the right to launch an expansion team for $25 million instead of the typical fee estimated at more than $100 million.

But the former England, Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder ran into a series of prob-

lems finding a stadium site, failing with bids for three other potential locations amid local opposition.

Major League Soccer chiefs, meanwhile, have repeatedly warned Beckham’s group that the clock was ticking on their franchise plans and that the league will not grant an open-ended time-frame to get the expansion team off the ground.

Members of the Beckham consortium made a presentation to residents of Overtown last month to outline their plans for the site.

Tim Leiweke, who is handling negotiations for the group, admitted the consortium had faced “issues.”

“We have had bumps in the road,” he said.

Although the proposed stadium would not open until 2021, Leiweke told the meeting the new team could launch before that by playing at the Marlins Park baseball ground or the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium.

Haven’t seen a bowler as good as Wasim Akram: AB de Villiers BIRMINGHAM AGENCIES

The cricket world in the last few years has produced some really good fast bowlers, but South African ODI captain AB de Villiers believes no one was close to Pakistani legend Wasim Akram.

AB de Villiers was talking to media ahead of his team’s ICC Champions Trophy match against Pakistan and a journalist questioned him about his tweet in which he mentioned watching one of the videos of Wasim Akram on a TV channel.

“Amazing footage on Skysports2! @wasimakramlive was one seriously talented bowler. Crazy skill!” the South African captain had tweeted.

His tweet became the reference to one of the questions during the pre-match press conference where he also spoke about his team’s preparation for the match against Pakistan.

“Last night [Tuesday night] you tweeted something about Wasim Akram’s skills. How do you compare Pakistan’s bowling attack? Do you think there is any bowler who can be as threatening or as

skillful as him,” asked a journalist during the press conference.

The South African captain didn’t take much time in saying “No, no one. I haven’t seen a bowler as good.”

CMYK

“It was just nice to watch the programme, and I felt that I needed to just get it out there. I get along with him well.

He’s at Calcutta with the IPL every year, and we always have nice chats. And to actually get a bit of insight in the programme on how he used to bowl and what he was thinking while he was bowling is really nice,” said AB de Villiers.

“Obviously, he shared all of that with a lot of players in the past, not only with Pakistan players, but a lot of players at the IPL. But that’s something you’re born with. It’s a natural skill that he was born with,” he said.

The South African captain said that he is not worried about Pakistan’s spin attack and his team is ready for Pakistani spinners.

“Yeah, two of the four are part-time spinners,” AB de Villiers said when a journalist referred to Pakistan’s spin strength.

“We’ve played against a lot of opposition in the last, two, three years with two spinners in it. We just played a series against England now with a couple of spinners in at wrist spinner, also finger spinner,” he added.

When a journalist reminded the South African captain about the last encounter between the two in an ICC event - the World Cup 2015- Pakistan got better of the Proteas, AB de Villiers recalled that South Africa was better when both met at the same venue (Edgbaston) in the previous edition of ICC Champions Trophy.

“The last time we played them in Champions Trophy, we got the better of them at the same ground. So we are confident going into this game, without being arrogant or overconfident. We played really good, won our first game in the tournament. We did all the basics really well, so we’ll be focusing on that,” he said.

spOrTs Thursday, 8 June, 2017

SpinnerS, HaSan reStrict SoutH africa to 219 EDgbaSTOn

p

AGENCIES

AKISTAN put on a vastly improved bowling display as they shackled South Africa’s batsmen to restrict them to 219. It might have been nearer 150 when Pakistan got rid of six South African batsmen inside the first 30 overs for 118, but David Miller, so often required only to provide late firepower, showed his allround batting credentials. He anchored the innings with an unbeaten 75 off 104 balls. Hasan Ali finished with 3 for 24.

It turns out you can open the bowling with two quality fast bowlers in England conditions, after all. Mohammad Amir and Junaid Khan were tight and disciplined, bowling to a plan, meticulous in ensuring South Africa’s openers were not allowed width. Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock had to shuffle around to manipulate the ball past the inner circle, never quite looking as comfortable as they so often do.

A superb opportunity to get a wicket was missed as early as the second over, with de Kock setting off for a suicidal single, and only Shoaib Malik’s inability to hit the stumps spared him.

The seamers might have started well,

SOUTH AFRICA 219 FOR 8 (MILLER 75*, DE KOCK 33, HASAN 3-24)

PAKISTAN AHEAD OF D/L AS RAIN ARRIVES but the spinners wounded South Africa.

Imad Wasim - brought on inside the first Powerplay - removed Amla off his second delivery, the batsman missing his nudge off a straight ball.

De Kock joined him soon after he had survived an lbw shout off Mohammad Hafeez only by dint of Pakistan’s failure to review an lbw call that would have been overturned. De Kock, though, hadn’t learned his lesson, and missed a sweep off

Hafeez to square leg. South Africa’s innings went from shaky to all-out panic just an over later, when skipper AB de Villiers slashed Imad Wasim off his first ball through the offside. He hadn’t managed to keep it down, and only ended up guiding the ball straight to backward point.

Pakistan suddenly had complete control of the game.

When du Plessis and Miller began to look like they were settling down against

the spinners, Sarfraz brought Hasan on.

He, too, didn’t need more than two balls to make an impact, crossing du Plessis into cutting a ball too close to the body.

All the batsman could manage was to drag the ball onto his stumps.

Miller tried to take some control of the South African innings, stepping out to hit two sixes, but South Africa simply could not get partnerships going. Duminy and Parnell were victims of contenders for ball of the tournament, each pitching around off stump and tailing away. Duminy got an outside edge that carried to first slip, while Parnell could put up no barrier between ball and off stump. South Africa were 118 for 6, and Pakistan were running through them.

Chris Morris gave Miller some company as South Africa looked to get as close to 200 as possible, but there were no signs of the ragged death bowling that had been a feature of Pakistan’s performance against India. Mohammad Amir and Junaid Khan were unplayable at times, bowling reverse swinging yorkers almost on demand.

Miller was able to hold his side’s innings together though. It was a small win in an innings where Pakistan had the upper hand almost from start to finish, but if it can help South Africa keep Pakistan’s shaky batting out of reach, it could yet turn into a very big win indeed.

At the time of filing this report, Pakistan had made 119 for the loss of wickets and were ahead of the DLS par score of 100.

Hockey team should focus on World Cup qualifiers: former Olympian SPORTS DESK

Lara feels comfortable in pakistan ISLAMABAD: Former West-Indies captain and legendary Batsman Brian Lara, who is in Pakistan for his expert opinion on ICC Champions Trophy 2017, finds his time in Pakistan very peaceful. While being one of the pundits at the PTV Sports’ special transmission for ICC Champions Trophy 2017, Lara said staying in Pakistan is a healthy opportunity for him as the environment here is comfortable. Legendary batsman said he has always enjoyed his time in Pakistan and he will be back again. He said the world is a serious place today as there are lots of threats going around. He said Pakistan has suffered a lot over the years due to certain little incidents. APP

Former Olympian Tahir Zaman said Pakistan team should be attentive on qualifying for the next year’s World Cup instead of particularly focusing on its clash against India on June 18 in the World Hockey League (WHL) semifinal.

Though Pakistan cricket team lost to India in the Champions Trophy clash, but both the traditional rivals will be seen in action on June 18 in the in Hockey World Cup qualifier in London.

Talking to reporters, Zaman said the green-shirts should take each and every match seriously as last time our team failed to qualify for the World Cup. “Though Pakistan did not play well in the series against Ireland but I am hopeful our team would do well in WHL semifinal and would qualify for the World Cup,” he said.

He said Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is doing all-out efforts for the encouragement and promotion of the game.

“PHF has revived departments like Fauji Fertilizers and ZTBL who are providing jobs to the players,” he said.

He said in the past players were not provided with jobs therefore their passion for the game was lessening.

“But now with the current management of PHF’s efforts the players are fully focusing on the game as they know

Wahab riaz says he ‘let down nation’ BIRMINGHAM: Pakistan paceman Wahab Riaz took to Twitter on Wednesday to apologise for his lacklustre showing against archrivals India in the Champions Trophy, saying he had "let down his nation". The 31year-old left-arm quick was smashed for 87 runs in just 8.4 wicketless overs when the Asian giants met in their Champions Trophy opener at Birmingham’s Edgbaston ground on Sunday. Title-holders India won by the huge margin of 124 runs in a tournament featuring the world’s top eight one-day international sides. As well as repeatedly bowling too short and too wide, Wahab, a veteran of 79 ODIs, was unable to complete his allocation of overs after suffering an ankle injury while falling over in his delivery stride and was unable to bat in the match.

Wahab, who has now been ruled out of the rest of the tournament, tweeted Wednesday: "My performance has let down my nation n team. "I tried my best but it was not good enough. I’m heartbroken as well." Pakistan’s performance was widely castigated, with former captain Shahid Afridi singling out Wahab for criticism.

"Wahab Riaz was once the spearhead of this bowling attack but his performance was a major let down on such an important occasion," Afridi wrote in a column for the ICC website. Rumman Raes, a fellow left-arm fast bowler, has been summoned as a replacement for Wahab but Junaid Khan is set to take his place against the Proteas. AGENCIES

pcB forms committee to investigate defeat against india

they would be provided with jobs,” he said.

He said Pakistan Hockey League (PHL) is the need of the hour to groom and promote our players. “PHF will hopefully be organizing the league soon,” he said.

Speaking about the Pak-India clash on June 18, he said Pak-India matches, in hockey or in cricket are one of the most profit-making showdowns in the world of sports.

“It will be a game of nerves but I am optimistic that Pakistan would come out victorious in the match,” he said.

SPORTS DESK: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has taken strict notice of the team’s humiliating defeat against India in their opening match, and formed a three-member committee to investigate into the matter. The committee includes PCB Chief Operating Officer (COO) Subhan Ahmad, and former Test cricketers Mudassar Nazar and Haroon Rasheed that will submit its report to chairman of the board after holding dialogues with team management and players, and action will be taken accordingly. India had scrubbed aside Pakistan in their tournament opener on Sunday by 124 runs.

England on mission to knock Australia out lOnDOn AGENCIES

England effectively have nothing to play for against Australia at Edgbaston on Saturday after victory against New Zealand not only secured their Champions Trophy semi-final spot but also top place in Group A. Yet the prospect of knocking their arch-rivals out of the tournament in an Ashes year is proving not only a tantalising prospect for English fans but also for captain Eoin Morgan as well. Morgan, of course, won’t be taking part in the Ashes given he has not played Test cricket for five years.

He can do his bit to land an early psychological blow, though, with the help of Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Mark Wood, Jos Buttler and the others in this one-day squad who will form the nucleus of the team who will face down Steve Smith’s

men in the opening Ashes Test at The Gabba in November. England know victory in Birmingham will eliminate the 2015 World Cup winners. And for Morgan that would be a huge statement. "We will have a very serious attitude,” he said of Saturday’s Edgbaston encounter against the Baggy Green. “We never take any position that we’ve ever been in for granted. "I think if we’re truly going to be contenders for this tournament, we need to beat the best teams. And Australia are one of the best teams. "They always are going into a white-ball tournament.

They seem to produce limited overs cricketers at will. "So to go in to a game like that with no other attitude than winning is very important to us."

England will not be an easy proposition for Australia, especially as now they have their confidence sky high after partly justifying their pre-tournament

favourite’s tag by becoming the first team to reach the semi-finals. The hosts would be guaranteed top place in Group A even if Australia won Saturday’s Edgbaston match to move level with them on four points because of their number of wins, two, cannot be bettered by Smith’s team.

However, in perhaps another ominous sign for Australia, Morgan is in no mood to contemplate defeat or sit back and be satisfied with a place in the last four of the tournament. "It feels good to be in the semis but we are not satisfied," he said.

"We want to fulfil our potential. We have a lot of work to do." Much of that work will be on the batting after England threw away a golden opportunity to rack up a genuinely huge total against New Zealand and instead posted what felt an under-par 310. In the end that proved more than enough as the Black Caps were defeated by 87 runs.

But Morgan admitted: "We weren’t that pleased at halfway, we were maybe 20 or 30 short of par. I thought we would have got more. "We fell away towards the end, which is disappointing but the fact that we’re still trying to win games with the bat, regardless of the situation that we’re in, I think is testament to the team. "We’re stay-

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CMYK

ing true to what we believe in and what we’ve achieved over the last couple of years." For Australia that can be seen as another warning. If this England side play with that kind of freedom when under pressure, just how destructive can they be when there is none on their shoulders at Edgbaston? We’ll find out at the weekend.