E-PAPER 13 MARCH 2020 (ISB)

CMYK

Friday, 13 March, 2020 I 18 Rajab, 1441 I Rs 20.00 I Vol X No 254 I 16 Pages I Islamabad Edition

Coronavirus: sindh sChools Closed till June, nsC summoned g

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Pm SummoNS NSC mooT ToDAY AS CoviD-19 CASeS TouCH 21 wiTH FreSH CASe rePorTeD iN SKArDu

SiNDH Cm murAD Ali SHAH SAYS FeDerAl GovT NoT FullY PrePAreD To TACKle ouTBreAK

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PuNjAB imPoSeS HeAlTH emerGeNCY, miNiSTer SAYS SiTuATioN NeeDS To Be TAKeN SeriouSlY

Silence doesn't mean surrender, says Maryam g

Pml-N leADer SAYS DeTeNTioN HAS STreNGTHeNeD Her reSolve To STAND BY CiviliAN SuPremACY AND CoNSTiTuTioN ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

ISLAMABAD

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STAFF REPORT

rime minister imran Khan on Thursday called an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) on Friday to chalk up a strategy in wake of the surge in cases of the deadly coronavirus in Pakistan, as the Sindh government announced that all educational institutions in the province will remain closed till may 30, 2020.

The NSC meeting will be attended by the chief ministers of all four provinces along with the defence, interior and foreign ministers. Pm’s on health Dr Zafar mirza, economic adviser Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, media adviser Firdous Ashiq Awan and national security division aide moeed Yusuf will also be present. All three heads of the armed forces

and the directors-general of inter-Services intelligence (iSi) and intelligence Bureau (iB) will also attend the meeting among other officials.

After the emergence of another case in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) on Thursday, Pakistan has reported 21 confirmed cases of the virus and all of them had travel histories. The latest case was reported in Shigar, Skardu, where the case of a 31year-old man who recently returned from iran was found positive.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 02

Army ready to play its role in containing coronavirus STORY ON PAGE 03

Pakistan muslim league-Nawaz (Pml-N) vice President maryam Nawaz on Thursday made her public appearance after an absence of few months and said she wouldn’t back off from her stance of civilian and constitutional supremacy.

Speaking to journalists during her visit to the residence of former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the former first daughter said that she had remained “silent” over the past few months due to “personal reasons”. She was accompanied by Abbasi, miftah ismail and mariyum Aurangzeb.

“First, if anyone thinks that by putting me in jail without any reason i can be scared or subdued, they should know that my

Bloodbath at PSX, index plummets over 1,700 points

urGeS FATHer To Go ForwArD wiTH TreATmeNT, SAYS Her DeSire To Be wiTH Him DuriNG SurGerY SHoulDN’T Be

resolve to stand by civilian supremacy and constitution has strengthened, not weakened,” Nawaz’s daughter said. “my father went abroad for medical treatment and [when he left] his life was in danger.

Now he is better than before. i don’t want to cause him pain and do not want him to abandon treatment and return because of me. “i am under my party’s discipline. whenever my party leadership, my seniors give me instructions to come forward and play my role, you will not find me lagging behind.”

Speaking about her father’s treatment in london, she refuted the media reports that Nawaz doesn’t want treatment because of her absence. “This is completely false,” she said, adding her father was hospi-

talised twice but the timing of his surgical procedure coincided with her court hearing, which made my father say that he could wait for a day or two to see if maryam can make it to london, otherwise “we’ll see once her hearing is over”.

She said being wanting to be with her father is a valid wish which shouldn’t be politicised and she “wants to be there with him when he is going through a major heart procedure” especially after her mother passed away. “if i get permission [to travel] then it’s fine but if courts don’t allow me to leave then i urge mian sahib to get his procedure done as soon as possible.”

She also thanked her party workers and Abbasi for supporting the party in the hard times.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 02

more inside

PM gives go ahead to five-year trade policy, says Dawood

KARACHI ARIBA SHAHID

investors of the Pakistan Stock exchange (PSX) witnessed bloodbath on Thursday, as the indices nosedived right from the word go, triggering a 45-minute ‘market halt’ (at 2:13p.m.) for the second time this week.

A ‘market halt’ is a standard protocol for risk management purposes which is triggered when the KSe-30 index moves 4 per cent either way and remains there for five consecutive minutes.

Shedding 1,777.48 points, the KSe100 index touched its intraday low at 35,895.77. Amid lack of triggers, it settled lower by 1,716.56 points or -4.56pc at 35,956.69.

Among other indices, the KSe-30 index lost 936.44 points to close at 15,992.37, while the KSe All Share index lost 816.70 points, settling at 25,310.97. of the total traded shares, 42 advanced and 240 declined.

Top losers of the day included The Bank of Punjab (-6.76pc), Fauji Cement Company (-6.93pc), maple leaf Cement Factory (-6.70pc), K-electric limited (-4.28pc) and Pioneer Cement limited declining (-6.50pc). while the market sentiments were on the low, it was interesting to note that the

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Pm aide says new policy will focus on value-added sectors

STORY ON BACK PAGE

NAB arrests Jang Group CEO Mir Shakilur Rehman in land case cement companies were performing strongly on the stock market off late. Analysts believe that this was due to the cyclical benefits that the cement sector will witness due to the global plunge in oil price. Hamza Kamal, an investment analyst from AKD securities, commented that the decline posted by the PSX was in line with global market trends and also due to a strong cool off in cement.

Speaking on the drop, Arsalan Soomro, managing Director KASB noted, “The globalization of coronavirus is belatedly taking a toll on Pakistan stock market as well. The risk-off mode – coupled with PKr depreciation coinciding SCrA outflows – is turning the mood sombre.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 02

CMYK

STORY ON PAGE 03

Trump stops flights from Europe, global alarm over coronavirus spreads STORY ON BACK PAGE

02

Friday, 13 March, 2020

NEWS

SC QuEStioNS PayMENt of SalariES to PSM EMPloyEES dESPitE CloSurE iSLamaBad

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STAFF REPORT

HE Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday, while hearing a case pertaining to privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), questioned the continuous payment of salaries to the employees despite the closure of the country’s largest industrial unit in June 2015.

A three-member bench, led by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed heard the case, directed the federal government to submit its response in the case.

Justice Gulzar said the mills have been closed since 2015 and the employees are still receiving their salaries, adding that the “government is paying billions annually [in terms of salaries]”.

The apex court ordered the secretary of Ministry of Industries to look into the matter immediately.

Privatisation of the Mills is on the cards for quite some time now. Earlier in January this year, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan announced that the govern-

ment is initiating a program to privatise a number of public institutions, including the Mills, to make them profitable. Privitisation Commission Secretary Rizwan Malik, who was also present on the occasion, had said the PSM is “being turned into a prof-

Coronavirus: Sindh schools closed till June, NSC summoned

itable institution once more and the process for its privatisation will be completed by the end of the [current] year”.

During Thursday’s hearing, Justice Gulzar further ordered the government to lay off all employees, and appoint new

Parliamentary panel approves Justice Mazahar Naqvi's elevation to SC

Continued from page 1 On Wednesday, a 14-year-old from Skardu had tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The first confirmed case in GB was of a 45-year-old woman, who arrived from Iran a few days to Gilgit before she was diagnosed. According to data shared by the National Institute of Health (NIH), over 0.8million people were screened, out of which 271 were suspected cases. Upon tests, 21 people were tested positive out of a total of 471.

SINDH SCHOOLS TO REMAIN CLOSED: On the other hand, a meeting of the Sindh provincial cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah decided that summer vacations were being preponed in Sindh and all schools in the province will reopen on June 1. The Sindh government had earlier announced the closure of schools, colleges and universities as well as coaching centres across the province till March 13. Presiding over the meeting, Chief Minister Shah said that the federal government was not serious in the fight against coronavirus. During a meeting with Dr Mirza via video link, CM Shah said that his government was “fighting against the threat of coronavirus alone” and had to take “every decision individually”. The chief minister added that Sindh had detected so many cases because more people were being tested. He pointed out that people at the Taftan border were being kept in groups, adding that it “cannot be called a quarantine”. He urged the federal government to close the borders. Meanwhile, the Sindh government has also decided to hold HBL-Pakistan Super League (PSL) matches in Karachi without spectators. “Sindh government has decided that the remaining matches of PSL in Karachi will take place without any crowd. This decision has been made after consultation with all stakeholders, including the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB),” its spokesperson said in a tweet.

‘HEALTH EMERGENCY IN PUNJAB’: Though the Punjab government claimed there were not any cases of the virus in the province, its health minister declared a medical emergency and urged people to “avoid public gathering”. “All the departments have to work together with the health department,” Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said while speaking to reporters in Lahore.

Silence doesn't mean surrender: Maryam Continued from page 1 Criticising the incumbent government, Maryam Nawaz accused the rulers of victimising the opponents in the country and added that the PMLN leader Ahsan Iqbal and Abbasi, Miftah Ismail and others were detained without any evidence.

Maryam, who had been politically active since 2017 when Nawaz was disqualified as prime minister and was vocal about her opposition to the PTI’s government, has remained silent since her arrest in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills corruption case in August 2019.

people if it wants to keep PSM running. “It seems the entire national budget has been spent on it,” he added.

Earlier this year, the government decided not to include Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, reversing its earlier decision to offer the country’s largest industrial unit, which has remained closed for almost five years, exclusively to Chinese investors.

The decision to sell PSM through international competitive bidding was taken at the prime minister’s level a few weeks ago, sources in the Ministry of Industries said.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, Adviser to the PM on Trade, Commerce and Industries Abdul Razak Dawood, Planning Minister Asad Umar and Privatisation Minister Mohammad Mian Soomro were in favor of including PSM in the CPEC framework, the sources said.

However, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and some other officials wanted that PSM should be privatised through open competition among all investors, they added.

iSLamaBad STAFF REPORT

A parliamentary committee on judges appointment on Thursday unanimously approved the nomination of La-

hore High Court (LHC) Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi for Supreme Court judge.

Earlier, the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) nominated Justice Naqvi for elevation to the SC. Two members of the JCP – Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice (r) Dost Muhammad Khan – opposed his nomination.

The post fell vacant after the retirement of former CJP Asif Saeed Khosa. It was the incumbent CJ Gulzar Ahmed who had earlier proposed Justice Naqvi’s name.

The Supreme Court comprises of the CJ, sixteen justices and two ad-hoc judges. Once appointed, the judges are expected to complete a designated term and then retire at 65 years of age, unless their term is terminated through resignation or impeachment by the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

Currently, Justice Naqvi is the third senior-most LHC judge and is known for his expertise in criminal law. In case of his elevation, he will work as the Supreme Court judge until August 31, 2025.

two MorE Polio CaSES EMErgE iN KP ISLAMABAD: Two more polio cases have been detected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday, raising the total tally of cases across the country to 29. As per details, the cases of the crippling disease were reported from Lakki Marwat and South Waziristan area. A 14-month-old minor has been affected by the crippling disease in Lakki Marwat while another polio case has been diagnosed in a 13-month-old boy from South Waziristan. On Wednesday, a new case of poliovirus was detected in a 2-yearold girl in Balochistan’s region of Zhob. The child, who was diagnosed with the poliovirus had not been exposed to polio vaccination. Five cases of positive polio cases have been reported in the province in the ongoing year. STAFF REPORT

ECP issues notice to Qureshi for violating code of conduct

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday issued a notice to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi for violating the electoral watchdog’s code of conduct. The notice issued by the ECP’s district monitoring officer states that even though election schedule had been announced for PS-52 Umerkot, Qureshi made a telephonic speech in the area on March 10. The ECP has demanded a clarification from the foreign minister within seven days and if the clarification is deemed unsatisfactory, the matter will be forwarded to the election commission for taking appropriate disciplinary action. STAFF REPORT

Govt striving to economically empower youth: Dr Firdous raWaLpindi APP

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan on Thursday said the PTI government has launched the programme to economically empower youth in the country since it was the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Addressing the launching ceremony of National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) ‘Kamyab Jawan programme’, at Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Dr. Firdous said over 38,000 youth including 10,000 females, have been provided skill scholarships under the programme.

She said the government was taking solid steps to provide technical training to the new generation.

The past regimes had been investing in roads, bridges and other projects but, the PTI government was focusing on youth and spending huge amount to provide them best opportunities which would ultimately ensure development of the country, she added.

The foundation of digital Pakistan has been laid and the youth would eventually benefit from this development process, she said adding the government was pursuing the mission of promoting economic activities and facilitating the businesses in the country.

She said the PTI government allocated Rs one hundred billion for the first phase of ‘Kamyab Jawan’ Programme and added the program would provide opportunities to the youth to move forward by setting up their small and medium enterprises.

She said it was the firm belief of Imran

Khan that the society would achieve progress and prosperity by promoting merit.

Firdous Ashiq Awan said this program was a guarantee to put the youth on the successful path. She said the disbursement of loans under the program was a fulfillment of the promise made by the Prime

Bloodbath at PSX, index plummets over 1,700 points Continued from page 1 The rupee witnessed its third successive day of decline on Wednesday to settle at Rs158.42 per dollar after the greenback gained 98 paisas in interbank market. Over the span of the last three days, the value of PKR has gone down by 2.6pc owing to a Rs4.05 rise in the price of the dollar.

Adnaan Sheikh, Assistant Vice President Research at Paki Kuwait Investment Company, however, said this was not an isolated event with regard to Pakistan. “Foreign outflows in India have topped $7 billion over March, while in Pakistan, the outflow during March has

been just over $400 million.”

Soomro further commented, “Although the discount rate cut and oil prices plunge more than off-set the negative impact, it would take time for the dust to settle. We saw massive profit-taking in growth stories along with pressures on blue-chips. Next week should see the index bottoming out.”

OPEC has recently revised its global demand to rise by 60,000 barrels per day in 2020, as opposed to previously expected 920,000 bpd. With the OPEC+ disintegrated and a price war between the two major oil exporters, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, prices are likely to lie low.

CMYK

Today’s bearish trading was in line with Monday’s pattern whereby a market halt was imposed for risk management purposes due to the KSE-100 Index slashing by nearly six per cent during intraday trading.

Monday had marked the largest day slum in PSX’s history.

GLOBAL FIASCO: Financial markets around the globe have been witnessing sharp declines in their stocks. With US President Donald Trump announcing travel bans, global economy is likely to feel the heat in terms of international trade. With the World Health Organization naming the coron-

Minister Imran Khan with the youth.

She said that people, neglected by the past regimes, were now feeling a change and betterment in every sphere of life. The youth were precious national asset and the government was making hectic efforts for development of youth by initiating several programmes including ‘Kamyab Jawan Programme’ for the youth, she added.

She said the program was initiated to make youth self-employed and overcome inflation and joblessness. Addressing the participants, Special Assistant to the PM on Youth Affairs Usman Dar said the government ensuring 100 per cent transparency in issuing soft business loans to the youth under the ‘Kamyab Jawan Programme.’ He said that the program would provide decent employment opportunities to 68 per cent population of the country.

avirus outbreak as a pandemic on Wednesday, the markets have responded accordingly.

US S&P futures nosedived by 4.9pc in Asia following the S&P losing out on 4.89pc a day before. This leaves the market just shy of entering the bear territory.

Umer Farooq, an analyst at AKD noted, “The KSE-100 plunge was in line with the moves in global markets, as the domestic market continued to track global equity indices. Black swans generally lead to convergence of all correlations to +1.”

TECHNICAL SUPPORT LEVEL: Naushad Chamdia, CEO of Standard Capital said, “I see a support zone at 34,500 which is about 61.8pc down on Fibonacci level from its previous gain from 28,500 to 43,500.”

Friday, 13 March, 2020

NAB ArreStS JANg group Ceo Mir ShAkilur rehMAN iN lANd CASe NAB SAYS NAWAZ SHARIF ILLEGALLY LEASED LAND TO REHMAN, LATTER SAYS HE PURCHASED IT FROM PRIVATE PARTY LAHORE

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STAFF REPORT

EO/JANG Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mir Shakilur Rahman was arrested in Lahore by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday in a case pertaining to the purchase of a 54-kanal piece of land, the bureau’s spokesperson Nawazish Ali said in a press release.

The anti-graft watchdog will produce Mir Shakilur Rehman in front of an accountability court on Friday for his physical remand. On March 5, Mir Shakilur Rehman had appeared before the anti-corruption watchdog and had informed the bureau that he purchased the land from a private owner and that he possessed evidence of the same.

According to NAB, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had illegally leased the land to Mir Shakilur Rehman in 1986.

According to a notice issued on February 28, the Jang group CEO had been called to appear before NAB on March 5 to record his statement regarding the land allotted to him in 1986 in Block H, Johar Town Phase 2 “by then chief minister Punjab Mian Nawaz Sharif in violation of the relevant laws and rules”.

According to an official statement issued by the Jang Group, the property “was bought from a private party 34 years ago

and all evidence of this was given to NAB”. The statement maintained that Thursday’s appearance was for the verification of the complaint, yet Mir Shakilur Rehman was arrested. It also accused the anti-graft watchdog of harbouring a vendetta against the publication.

“During the past 18 months, NAB has sent our reporters, producers, and editors […] over a dozen notices threatening to shut down our channels […] due to our reporting, and programmes about the anti-corrupton watchdog.”

“NAB has also, through several means, tried to persuade us to go slow, to stop stories and to do others in its favor at the expense of the full truth.

“We will not stop any reporter, producer or anchor from any story that is on merit, and at the same time will include NAB’s version,” the statement read, adding that the bureau has denied all the allegations and claimed they are independently pursuing all cases. On the other hand, NAB released a press statement alleging that Rehman was allotted the land in 1986 by the then Punjab chief minister Nawaz Sharif by relaxing the relevant rules.

“Illegal allotment of land to Mir Shakilur Rehman had started in 1986, which got transferred in his [Mir Shakil] favour in 2016 under the regime of Sharif’s in relaxation of rules,” the press release said.

Jang Group CEO's arrest condemned LAHORE STAFF REPORT

The arrest of Jang Group CEO Mir Shakilur Rehman by the National Accountability Bureau was condemned by politicians, journalist bodies and civil society, calling it an assault on freedom of expression in the country.

The media tycoon was arrested in a case pertaining to the purchase of a 54kanal piece of land, said NAB in a statement that didn’t go down well with many in the country. In separate statements, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif,

Vice President Maryam Nawaz condemned the arrest. Shehbaz said media was the fourth pillar of the state which “fascist rulers” were trying to destroy. “We can smell revenge from Mir Shakilur Rehman’s arrest,” he said. Maryam said it was obvious from the Jang Group CEO’s arrest that the government was afraid of the truth. “You [government] are arresting the owner of a media house,” she said. “This may stop the news but it will not stop the truth.”

“There is a ban on airing me on media […] my sympathies are with the media as they have never been in such a bad condition,” she said.

Former prime minister Shahid

The anti-corruption watchdog said Hidayat Ali and others had submitted an application through Rehman, holding General Power of Attorney (GPA) for interim development of their land of 180 kanals and 18 marlas, on June 4, 1986.

“Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Director Land Development (DLD) Mian Bashir Ahmad worked out a summary report which was later submitted to the then Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif on June 7, 1986, informing that the land had already been acquired by the authority for the development of Jauhar Town Scheme, Phase-II. “On July 03, 1986, the then LDA Director General submitted the summary report to the chief minister which was approved by him on July 11 of the same year. The DLD pointed out that since LDA had already acquired the land, therefore, permission for interim development could not be granted. However, the applicants could be offered for the exemption of their land to the extent of 30 per cent developed plots as admissible under the Housing Act, 1973 and Exemption Policy to Jauhar Town.

“As per the above formula, their total entitlement of 180 kanals and 18 marlas was adjusted with 55 kanals and 5 marlas in the Town. Over 180 kanals land was located in three different scattered pockets. Some 33 kanals land was located on the Canal Bank, 124 kanals away from the canal but quite close to the proposed civic center and 23 kanals also away from the Canal Bank. “The DLD noted that the applicant had met him and desired that he might be exempted 30 per cent of his land on the Canal Bank because his holding was situated at an equally good location which was near the

proposed civic center. He then proposed that the applicant might be exempted 54 one-kanal plots in single block, including nine plots facing Canal Bank having 360′ front. “This proposal may be treated as a special case, not to be quoted as a precedent,” the then CM was quoted as directing the LDA in the summary.

“On July 30, 1986, the LDA DLD proposed that plots number 8 to 16, 17 to 25, 74 to 91 and 103-120, each measuring 420 square meters (1 Kanal) in Block- H of M.A. Jauhar Town for allocation against the exempted land. NAB said usually in government housing schemes, plots were allotted through transparent balloting, but in that case “No balloting process had been adopted”. “If balloting process were followed, then 55 plots (one kanal each) should have been allotted to the allotees,” said the bureau.

The press statement stated that on October 02, 1986, the plots were transferred to Shahina Shakil, Mir Muhammad Ibrahim, Ayesha Shakil, Asma Shakil and Ismail Shakil from Hidayat Ali and others through the GPA holder Mir Shakilur Rahman. “Those plots were transferred back to Mir Shakilur Rehman by Mrs Shahina Shakil and others on December 1, 1998,” the statement added. It said that two civil suits had been filed against the allotments which were dismissed by the lower courts in Lahore. Moreover, the LDA also received two complaints from the individuals who claimed that they were the owners of land in Khasra numbers of H Block.

“Both of the complaints were also dismissed by the LDA at that time. Some 10 marlas land were reduced in the decision given by the EDOR,” it concluded.

Khaqan Abbasi said that today was a dark day for freedom of press and democracy in the country. “This attack on journalism will be your last day,” he said. “This does not happen in dictatorships around the world what you have done today.”

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari issued a statement through his spokesperson Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. “We have been pointing out NAB’s attitude of exacting political revenge since day one,” he said. “Imran Khan is using NAB to target people he does not like.”

Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) President Arif Nizami said: “For the NAB to arrest Rehman at this initial stage of the investigation is un-

called for and is another example of what the Islamabad High Court observed last week about NAB’s practice of arresting individuals without enough proof only to cause harm to their reputations.”

“In a media environment where there is rampant self-censorship fueled by the threat of advertisement curtailment coupled with broadcast and circulation disruption, this arrest will be viewed as an extension to the government’s regressive and unconstitutional media policy,” he added. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was deeply concerned over the arrest of the Jang CEO. “There remains a strong suspicion that such actions by NAB are selective, arbitrary and politically motivated,” tweeted the commission.

Petition moved in LHC to declare virginity testing unlawful PETITION ARGUES THAT TESTS SUCH AS ‘TWO-FINGER TEST’ AND EXAMINATION OF THE HYMEN ARE MEDICALLY INCORRECT LAHORE STAFF REPORT

A petition has been moved in the Lahore High Court (LHC) to stop authorities from conducting virginity tests.

The petition, which was filed on Wednesday by a group of women comprising journalists, activists and academics, argues that tests such as the ‘two-finger test’ and examination of the hymen are medically incorrect and should be banned. According to petitioners’ lawyer Sameer Khosa, virginity tests in Pakistan are conducted on rape survivors using two fingers to determine whether a woman has been raped or not

or by assessing the size of the vaginal opening. Such tests are an inaccurate way of testing for rape and they violate a woman’s space and dignity, the petition said. The petition argues that it has now “conclusively established that these so-

called ‘tests’ have no scientific or medical basis.” They are an “extreme invasion of [women’s] privacy and bodily integrity as well as a source of re-traumatisation.” There is “no place for these outdated practices under the Constitution,” says the petition.

The petition has asked for such tests to be declared illegal and discontinue phrases such as “habituated to sex”, “easy virtue” and “loose morals” while referring to women in medical reports.

“The premise of the tests is flawed because of the underlying assumption that only the overt use of force can result in a lack of consent to a sexual encounter and [women] who have suffered as a re-

sult of covert use of force should be presumed to have consented,” the petition states. The World Health Organisation has clearly said that there is no medical basis for such tests, says the petition.

“Neither the size of the vaginal opening, nor the ease with which the fingers can be admitted, or the state of the hymen are medically sound indications of prior sexual activity,” it adds. Such tests are banned in India and Bangladesh.

In Pakistan, the ways through which the authorities get the consent of rape survivors for these tests is also questionable, says the petition.

The survivors are “either completely unaware or not informed in enough detail with sufficient sensitivity,” it says. They are not informed that they have the right to refuse to consent to these tests. They don’t realise that they have “consented to the disclosure of the results of these tests to third parties”.

NEWS

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Army ready to play its role in containing coronavirus RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Thursday urged all concerned parties to “gear up preparations” to counter the coronavirus a few hours after Pakistan reported its 21st case of the pandemic.

The statement was made by the army chief while he was presiding over a Corps Commanders Conference at the General Headquarters (GHQ). The conference discussed the situation at the Line of Control (LoC) and the Afghan Peace Process. “The path to regional stability and peace passes through Afghanistan. Collaborative approach and patience can help overcome all challenges for which Pakistan is ready to play its part with utmost sincerity,” said the army chief. The ISPR said that the forum also discussed emerging situation with regards to COVID-19 and the preventive measures taken by the Pakistan Army. The army chief directed all concerned to gear up preparations in support of national effort to counter this pandemic in case of any eventuality. STAFF REPORT

Shehbaz demands public health emergency to battle coronavirus Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif has demanded the declaration of a public health emergency by the government amid fears of coronavirus. The leader said that the government must show seriousness and maturity in wake of the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations declaring coronavirus a ‘global pandemic’. He asked for the formulation of a country-wide strategy based on measures, arrangements, precautions and awareness. He demanded the immediate resolution of concerns put forward by Chief Minister Sindh and his team despite whose efforts, the Prime Minister has failed to get in contact with.

This is condemnable and criminally negligent as influence of politics over sensitive public health matters is unbecoming of the Prime minister’s oath. NEWS DESK

04 ISLAMABAD

Friday, 13 March, 2020

WEATHER UPDATES FRIDAY

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SC deClareS Cantonment board exeCutive offiCer’S property tax illegal ISLAMABAD

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APP

he Supreme Court on Thursday termed the executive Officer cantonment board's jurisdiction for imposition of property tax as unconstitutional.

A three-member bench of the court headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial and comprising Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed heard the case regarding receiving of property tax by the Cantonment Boards as per its estimate.

The buyers had challenged Property Tax determination authority of executive Officer Cantonment Board. The Lahore high Court and the Peshawar high Court gave the decision in favor of the buyers.

Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Wah and Abbottabad boards had challenged

the LhC and PhC decisions in the apex court.

During the course of proceedings, the court remarked that the executive officer's authority for imposition of property tax was unconstitutional.

The bench stated that it was the Deputy Commissioner's authority to determine the property tax according to Article 177 of the Constitution.

The court remarked that the tax on immoveable property could only be charged according to the price fixed by the DC. The counsel for Cantonment Board said that the executive officer had the authority to determine the tax in the cantonment areas. he pleaded the court to suspend high court's verdict regarding DC's power to determine the property tax. The court said that the provincial government and cantonment boards should resolve conflicts with consensus.

Teachers, students’ attendance in KP schools witness significant increase PESHAWAR APP

The concerted efforts made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to ensure quality of education has started yielding results as the overall teachers and students’ attendance in government schools was noticed 90 percent and 80 respectively with 95 percent operational facilities.A district performance scorecard (DPS) issued by KP elementary and Secondary education Department (e&SeD) with technical assistance from DFID for the month of February 2020 revealed that when it comes to access of the schools, this time, significant improve-

ment was seen in the student attendance rate which was 90.9% in Mansehra (Female) and 90.6% In Buner (Male).

The facts were revealed in a DPS meeting for February was held here at the Directorate of elementary and Secondary education, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and was chaired by Secretary e&SeD Nadeem Aslam and attended by Director e&Se Dr. hafiz Ibrahim, Assistant Project Director Independent Monitoring Unit and all District education Officers. The Secretary e&SeD directed all the DeOs to focus on increasing enrollment in the upcoming enrollment campaign.

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Four killed, 11 injured as van plunges into ravine BATAGRAM: At least four people were

6:23

6:13

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killed and eleven other injured as van they were travelling in plunged into a deep ravine in Alai area here on Thursday, the local police said. APP

Friday, 13 March, 2020

NEWS

05

CII urgES SPECIAl mEASurES for dISPoSAl of CHIld AbuSE CASES COUNCIL SUGGESTS ESTABLISHMENT OF SPECIAL COURTS, POLICE STATION FOR TIMELY DISPOSAL OF SUCH CASES ISLAMABAD

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STAFF REPORT

HE Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) Thursday recommended establishing special courts and police stations for prompt registration and disposal of child abuse cases, changing the name of Zainab Alert Bill and setting up a committee to scrutinize former President General Pervez Musharraf’s academic policies.

Briefing the recommendations of the 218th meeting, CII chief Dr Qibla Ayaz told journalists that the CII also urged for concerted efforts of parents, ulema and other segments of society to check the in-

creasing child abuse cases.

The meeting endorsed the resolution of its last meeting regarding increased incidents of sexual abuse in universities. The CII recommended scrutinizing the policies of General Musharraf in higher education.

The CII recommended establishing a high power committee to conduct academic audit and evaluate the impacts of Musharraf’s academic policies.

Dr Qibla said, the CII had discussed Zainab Alert Bill at length and endorsed the bill, besides appreciating it. The CII has expressed reservations over some clauses of the bill, including determining the age of a child that’s 18 years. The Council observed that due to the age restriction, some punishment

IHC issues notice to PTA for failing to notify PECA section ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday issued a notice to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) over the body’s failure to notify rules contemplated by the legislature under sub-section (2) of Section 37 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016. The petition, filed by the Awami Workers Party (AWP), sought contempt proceedings against the PTA for failing to comply with the September 2019 order issued by the same court. The bench was presided by IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah. STAFF REPORT

of ‘Qisas’ and ‘Hadd’ would be converted into ‘tazeer’ (at judges’ discretion). The council was of the opinion that there was no need to amend in the section of the 364-A Pakistan Penal Code. The death sentence awarded in the PPC section 364-A should be retained.

The council also opposed naming the Bill to Zainab, the victim of rape and kill, in Kasur, and noted that the name would be a continuous nuisance for the family of Zainab. The council discussed ‘Aurat March’ in detail and decided to arrange an exclusive sitting to discuss the issue in detail and prepare solid suggestions in this regard. The council termed dissolving torn pages of the Holy Quran through chemical as correct. However, the council stressed ensuring the sanctity of the Holy Quran.

The council adopted a resolution terming coronavirus a pandemic and it is the duty of every citizen to take measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Cabinet approves Rs1,400 per maund wheat pric LAHORE APP

The Punjab cabinet on Thursday gave approval to wheat procurement campaign 2020-2021 and discussed the coronavirus situation in the province.

It decided to fix the wheat price at Rs1,400 per maund while the wheat procurement target was set at 45 lakh metric tons. The flour mills were allowed to purchase wheat, but there would be a ban on wheat trading for them.

The meeting also decided to do away with the restriction of ‘gardawari’ and farmers would be given gunny bags on ‘First come, first served’ basis. It was decided that wheat procurement campaign in southern Punjab districts would start at the end of March.

Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said that provincial ministers would monitor the wheat procurement campaign while the district administration would ensure achieving the wheat procurement target.

The cabinet committee would also review the procurement campaign and it would be revised if needed.

The chief minister vowed to protect the rights of wheat growers, and said that gunny bags distribution would be very transparent and judicious.

The payment to farmers would be ensured at a fixed price, he added. All facilities would also be provided at the wheat procurement centres.

The cabinet also approved imposition of public health emergency in the wake of coronavirus and vowed to take every possible measure. Usman Buzdar reiterated taking necessary steps, adding that committees should submit their recommendations and the Punjab government would take every possible step in this regard. The Health Department would be provided necessary resources to purchase necessary medical equipment, he added. The meeting decided to launch a public awareness campaign about coronavirus as the chief minister emphasised that the Punjab government took lead in taking steps to deal with coronavirus.

The meeting approved government-to-government (G2G) arrangements with National Radio Communication Corporation for supply of vehicles, retro-reflective number-plats and further decided to create a separate tourism department by bifurcating it from Youth Affairs & Sports Department. Approval of amendment to the Stamp Act 1899 (Act II of 1899), Punjab Police (Special Branch) Intelligence Cadre Service Rules 2012 and schedule of Sub Inspectors and Inspectors (Appointment & Conditions of Service) Rules 2013 was given by the cabinet. Amendment to rules for supply of water to power plants by Irrigation Department was also approved along with the endorsement of minutes of 25th and 26th cabinet meetings.

Similarly, endorsement of decisions made in 25th and 26th Cabinet Standing Committee for Finance & Development and 21st meeting of Cabinet Standing Committee for Legislative Business was also given.

The meeting expressed a deep sense of sorrow over the crash of a PAF plane in Islamabad and offered prayers for Wing Commander Noman Akram.

The meeting also appreciated the efforts of Chief Minister Usman Buzdar for establishment of Southern Punjab Secretariat.

The meeting was told that out of 71 suspected coronavirus patients, the tests of 66 patients were negative while the result of five others was awaited yet. Out of 20 confirmed coronavirus patients, 14 belonged to Sindh, five to Gilgit-Baltistan and one from Balochistan.

Similarly, screening of 3,000 Chinese was completed in Punjab and screening of around 4,000 pilgrims coming from Iran was also conducted.

Along with it, quarantine facility was set up for 800 patients in Dera Ghazi Khan and high dependency unit and isolation wards have been established in DHQ hospitals.

Health secretaries gave briefing about the coronavirus latest situation. Provincial ministers, advisers, special assistants, chief secretary and secretaries concerned attended the meeting.

LHC seeks draft of PMTI bill on plea against doctors LAHORE APP

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday sought a draft of Punjab Medical Teaching Institutions (PMTI)-(Reforms) Bill and other details till March 13 on an application for proceedings against doctors for allegedly violating the court order.

Justice Jawad Hassan passed the orders while hearing a civil miscellaneous application filed by the Judicial Activism Panel (JAP), a public interest litigation firm.

At the start of the proceedings, senior lawyer Abid Saqi on behalf of doctors argued that the court had ordered to take all stakeholders into confidence before the approval of the bill but the government got approved the bill from the assembly while ignoring the court orders. At this, the court noted that the assembly was empowered to carry out legislation under the

rules of the business.

However, the court would review how the bill was approved. Whether the court directions were kept in view or not, it added. The court questioned whether the doctors were observing strike against the approval of the bill.

To which, Pakistan Medical Association President Ashraf Nizami stated that doctors were not observing any strike.

Subsequently, the court issued notices to the Punjab government and sought a draft of the bill while adjourning hearing till March 13. The petitioner had submitted that, during the earlier proceedings, the court had directed doctors to avoid any call for strike and restrained them from staging any protest in any hospital, warning that such an act would be tantamount to contempt. However, doctors and paramedics were again on roads against the bill, it added.

five suspected coronavirus patients admitted to Punjab hospitals LAHORE: The Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Punjab on Thursday confirmed that 81 suspected coronavirus patients have been reported in Punjab but none of them has been tested positive. The spokesperson said that 81 suspected cases of coronavirus have been reported in Punjab province, out of them 71 have been discharged and declared clear from coronavirus. “No confirmed coronavirus case in Punjab. Five suspected coronavirus patients have been admitted to Punjab hospitals and were currently in isolation wards,” he added. He further said that over 4500 passengers have been screened in the last 15 days and no confirmed case has been reported thus far. Earlier in the day, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Zafar Mirza has said that Facebook will run a public awareness campaign on its platform for Pakistani users to combat the spread of coronavirus in the country. STAFF REPORT

PPP rejects South Punjab Secretariat, wants full province LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) parliamentary party leader in Punjab Assembly, Syed Hassan Murtaza has said that PPP rejects the South Punjab Secretariat and wants full province and provincial autonomy. Talking to media after the parliamentary party meeting here on Thursday, Hassan Murtaza said that the South Punjab Secretariat as announced by Federal Ministers Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Firdous Ashiq Awan was mere a lollipop and not acceptable for PPP. He said that the parliamentary party meeting has expressed full confidences in the leadership of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. The parliamentary party leader said the PPP’s demand is that South Punjab should have full province and provincial sovereignty. Our issue is not that of the capital of southern Punjab, but we want that people should have their own government, and they should have their equal representation in the Senate and the National Assembly, he outlined. PM Imran Khan lied and made false promise to the people of southern Punjab province during election campaign, and we would not allow him to escape from his promise, he claimed. Hassan Murtaza reminded that the PPP has approved the bill of southern province from the Senate, and now the bill still exists in the National Assembly. He blamed that the selected government is screaming to divert attention from its failure; he warned that ministers should mind their language and don't use non-parliamentary language against the PPP leadership.STAFF REPORT

Friday, 13 March, 2020

06 WORLD VIEW

A fumbled globAl response to the vIrus In A leAdershIp voId WHILE WORLD LEADERS ARE AT LAST SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THE GRAVITY OF THE PANDEMIC, THEIR VOICES ARE LESS A CHOIR THAN A CACOPHONY, WITH THE UNITED STATES ABSENT FROM ITS TRADITIONAL CONDUCTOR ROLE

New York Times

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Mark LandLer

n Frankfurt, the president of the European Central Bank warned that the coronavirus could trigger an economic crash as dire as that of 2008. In Berlin, the German chancellor warned the virus could infect two-thirds of her country’s population. In London, the British prime minister rolled out a nearly $40 billion rescue package to cushion his economy from the shock.

As the toll of those afflicted by the virus continued to soar and financial markets from Tokyo to new York continued to swoon, world leaders are finally starting to find their voices about the gravity of what is now officially a pandemic.

Yet it remains less a choir than a cacophony — a dissonant babble of politicians all struggling, in their own way, to cope with the manifold challenges posed by the virus, from its crushing burden on hospitals and health care workers to its economic devastation and rising death toll.

In an Oval Office address on Wednesday night, he imposed a 30-day ban on travel from Europe to the United States, claiming, without evidence, that the European Union’s lax initial response had brought more cases of the virus across the Atlantic, with “a large number of new clusters” seeded by travelers from the Continent.

Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has taken to calling the contagion the “Wuhan virus,” vilifying the country where it originated and complicating efforts to coordinate a global response.

The same denigration of science and urge to block outsiders has characterized leaders from China to Iran, as well as right-

wing populists in Europe, which is sowing cynicism and leaving people uncertain of whom to believe. Far from trying to stamp out the virus, strongmen like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia have seized on the upheaval it is causing as cover for steps to consolidate their power.

Yet it is too simple to lay all this at Mr. Trump’s door, or on world leaders collectively. Part of the problem is simply the fiendish nature of the pathogen.

Coronavirus has resisted the tools that countries have brought to bear against previous global scourges. Mysterious in its transmission and relentless in its spread, it has led countries to try wildly divergent responses. The lack of common standards on testing, on the cancellation of public gatherings and on quarantines have deepened the anxiety of people and eroded confidence in their leaders.

The simultaneous shocks to supply and demand — shuttered iPhone factories in China; empty gondolas in Venice; and passengers abandoning cruises, hotels and airlines everywhere else — is a new phenomenon that may not respond to the weapons that governments wielded against the dislocation that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the financial crisis of 2008.

“The nature of this crisis is qualitatively different than the one in 2008 because the traditional tools are not as effective,” said Richard n. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Even if the U.S. took a leadership role, the traditional playbook would not be all that relevant here.”

Britain, for example, won praise for its robust economic response, which, in addition to billions of pounds for hospitals and workers sidelined by illness, included a sharp in-

terest rate cut by the Bank of England.

Yet stocks in London still tumbled, if not as steeply as on Wall Street, where investors brushed off Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s proposal to allow Americans to delay paying their income taxes, which he claimed would pump $200 billion into the economy.

Mr. Trump’s other big idea, a cut in the payroll tax, was pronounced a “nonstarter”

by House Democrats, who scrambled instead to introduce legislation to provide financial help to patients, workers and families affected by the fast-moving epidemic and speed it to a House vote on Thursday.

To Mr. Haass, the intense focus on limiting the economic blow was understandable, given the carnage in the markets, but premature. He said countries needed to put their energy into slowing and mitigating the spread of the virus before they embarked on fiscal programs to repair the economic damage.

The trouble is that, with few exceptions, their efforts have been hapless. In the United States, the delay in developing coronavirus test kits and the scarcity of tests have made it impossible for officials, even weeks after the first cases appeared in the country, to get a true picture of the scale of the outbreak.

In hard-hit Italy, quarrels broke out between politicians and medical experts over whether the authorities were testing too many people in Lombardy, inflating the infection figures and fueling panic in the public. Italy’s response could be weakened further by the anti-vaccination movement that was once embraced by the populist Five Star Movement, which took power in the last government.

Even comparing one country’s case count with another’s is almost impossible, given the different testing procedures and di-

agnostic criteria around the world, said Dr. Chris Smith, a specialist in virology at the University of Cambridge.

In the most extreme example, China’s case count skyrocketed when it began recording positives based on people’s symptoms, rather than a lab test, the method most countries are still using. But even lab tests might yield different results in different places, depending on the targets labs are using and the ways health workers collect and process specimens.

“Different countries are doing different things,” Dr. Smith said of the testing programs.

“You’re not comparing apples to apples.”

The rise of populism has exacerbated the problem by reducing the incentives of countries to cooperate. European leaders, in a three-hour teleconference on Tuesday night, agreed to set up a 25 billion euro investment fund, or $28.1 billion, and to relax rules governing airlines to curb the economic fallout.

But they failed to overcome national objections to sharing medical equipment like face masks and respirators, given that health issues are the responsibility of national governments.

Germany, the Czech Republic and other countries have tightened export restrictions on this gear to keep it for their own citizens.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s warning that the virus would infect 60 percent to 70 percent of people in Germany — a figure she attributed to the “consensus among experts” — was the most forthright admission of the scale of the problem by any world leader. It was fully in character for a physicist-turnedpolitician, reinforcing her status as the liberal West’s foil to Mr. Trump.

“We will do whatever is needed,” she said. “We won’t ask every day, ‘What does this mean for our deficit?’”

Yet even Ms. Merkel’s position has been

weakened by the resurgence of the far right in Germany. Germany rebuffed a request for medical equipment from Italy, only to see China offer the Italians an aid package that includes two million face masks and 100,000 respirators. In Britain, which left the European Union in January and was exempted from Mr. Trump’s travel ban, there are already concerns the country will not have access to a vaccine, or will have to pay more for it than other European countries.

Mr. Johnson’s government, which won its recent election on a populist-inflected platform of “Get Brexit Done,” is now struggling with how to communicate the risks of the outbreak to its public.

The Johnson government has put a lot of stock in a so-called nudge unit in Downing Street that specializes in behavioral psychology.

But in trying to calibrate its response to what it deemed people capable of processing, the government risked condescending to Britons, said John Ashton, a former regional director of public health for the northwest of England.

Britain has only recently started publishing broad breakdowns of where people are contracting the virus. Mr. Ashton said Britain should be giving much more detailed information, as in Hong Kong, which has published building-level maps of patients who have gotten sick, when they were there and how they contracted the virus.

“I think it’s patronizing — they need to keep the public fully in the picture,” Mr. Ashton said. “You have to treat the public as adults, instead of keeping them in the dark.

That’s where you get rumor and hysteria.

They actually create panic by not being open with people.”

Benjamin Mueller contributed reporting from London, Steven Erlanger from Brussels and Alan Rappeport from Washington.

The virus and the economy ON THE DIAMOND PRINCESS, THE CRUISE SHIP THAT WAS QUARANTINED, 705 PEOPLE TESTED POSITIVE FOR THE VIRUS, AND SIX DIED—ALL WERE OVER 70. THESE RATES ARE CONSISTENT WITH WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE FLU. EVERY YEAR, AS MANY AS 80 PER CENT TO 90 PER CENT OF THOSE WHO DIE FROM SEASONAL INFLUENZA ARE ELDERLY CiTY JourNal Steven MaLanga

HE spread of the coronavirus has led to fears of a worldwide economic slowdown. China, where the virus first leaped into the human population, has quarantined large sections of the country, virtually shutting down economic activity. In South Korea, several companies— including the automaker Hyundai—closed facilities when workers there tested positive for the virus. The Italian government, meantime, has shuttered schools and universities and banned public attendance at sporting events— including the nation’s popular soccer league—for 30 days. Such responses, likely to spread to other countries as the virus itself travels, have led to estimates that containment efforts could cut worldwide economic growth in half this year. Whether that prediction proves accurate, or whether the toll proves even worse, may depend on how the economic impact of the virus plays out in the United States, the world’s largest and most consequential economy.

The U.S. has already taken several basic steps to stem the spread of the virus, including suspending flights from China and quarantining those returning from areas of the world where the infection is most intense.

But as the virus spreads, officials contemplate stricter measures. These include banning public gatherings such as concerts, movies, and sports events; advising businesses to keep workers home; or even shutting down firms where the virus is detected.

It might be easy to justify such draconian measures based on the toll that the coronavirus can take on society. But what’s also worth contemplating is the human toll that a potentially sharp decline in economic activity would exact. While the simplest way to measure an economy may be in dollars and cents, economic activity also produces well-being.

A decline in the economy sparks deterioration

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in public welfare. Those are human costs that must be measured against the inevitable cost of the virus itself. Extended school closures, for example, place a burden on employed parents, who must miss long periods of work; on households living paycheck-to-paycheck; and on the self-employed.

The current economic expansion, more than a decade old, demonstrates the salutary impact of good times. U.S. unemployment rates have plunged to such low levels that the demand for workers has started luring back the chronically unemployed—people who drop out of the workforce—into the labor market. One result is that the labor-participation rate, which had slid by several percentage points over 15 years, has sharply rebounded in the past four years. Companies now desperate for employees have extended their employment search to new markets, hiring the disabled and the long-term unemployed, and investing heavily in retraining out-of-work, but willing, job seekers.

This robust employment picture makes a sharp contrast with the American labor situation after the financial meltdown and recession of 2008 and 2009. As unemployment rates soared into double digits, businesses failed, individual finances deteriorated, and associated health problems began to proliferate. Research published last year in Clinical Psychological Science found that people who lost their jobs, watched their savings evaporate, or struggled to keep their homes suffered long-term psychological effects, including debilitating periods of anxiety and depression. Unemployment, the most human measure of economic failure, carries especially harsh consequences. According to a 2014 Gallup poll, the unemployed were twice as likely to say that they were depressed as those with jobs. Those without a job for a year were in even worse shape; they were twice as likely as those unemployed for only a month to say that they were depressed. Suicide rates also track with economic decline:

as unemployment rises, so do suicides. Those out of work are also twice as likely to abuse drugs as those employed full-time. Divorce rates for the unemployed are similarly double the average for those with jobs. Economic decline doesn’t paint a happy human picture.

The problem: no easy ways exist to balance the economic cost of efforts to contain the virus with the toll that the virus itself takes on society. We still don’t know enough about the virus because we lack adequate information, including about such crucial factors as how deadly it really is and who it affects.

Even the experts have disagreed. In recent days, growing evidence suggests that our approach should be surgical, rather than broadbased. Widespread quarantines and wholesale shutdowns of communities, for example, inevitably suppress the economy. Instead, we should focus our efforts on helping those overwhelmingly more vulnerable to the virus.

Harvard Medical School professor Jeremy Samuel Faust, writing recently in Slate, argues that the latest data suggest the coronavirus is far less deadly than previously thought—something we have discovered in the aftermath of previous epidemics, such as the 2009 H1n1 flu outbreak, where the actual mortality rate turned out to be one-tenth what

was first reported. Increasingly, it seems that the coronavirus commonly takes a mild form, and that severe cases are especially rare among the young. The most vulnerable population is the elderly. One recent report in Italy found that the average age of those who had died in the country was 80. On the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that was quarantined, 705 people tested positive for the virus, and six died—all were over 70. These rates are consistent with what we know about the flu. Every year, as many as 80 percent to 90 percent of those who die from seasonal influenza are elderly, many with health problems that the infection worsens.

“This all suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people, and a potentially devastating one for the old and chronically ill, albeit not nearly as risky as reported,” Faust writes. “In particular, we need to focus on the right people and the right places. nursing homes, not schools. Hospitals, not planes.”

The biggest worry is that, in the general panic over the coronavirus—as healthy young people rush out to stockpile supplies and governments shut down soccer games— we’ll fail to direct our efforts where they are most needed. “What worries me the most is

that people are going to be so panicked they will overwhelm the health-care system and push to the side people who really do need medical attention,” said Paul Offitt, a physician and infectious-disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania, in a recent interview.

He noted that we’ve already seen probably 18,000 deaths this year in America from the flu, yet we’re far more terrified of coronavirus. “Maybe we need to give influenza virus a scarier name.” Many of those who die of flu reside in nursing homes, yet our efforts to protect them are sometimes wanting. Key personnel can be untrained in how to recognize or handle infectious diseases among the elderly. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 30 percent of staff who work in nursing homes don’t get vaccinated themselves, making them potential transmitters of the flu. Five patients have already died of coronavirus at a long-term-care facility in Seattle that previously had been cited for inadequate infection-control measures—suggesting that we’re making the same mistakes with coronavirus that we make with the flu.

It can be hard making good public policy when accurate information is so scarce. In the U.S., we’ve been fortunate so far, in part because of our distance from the initial outbreak and in part because of how early measures, like banning flights from China, have slowed the progress of the virus here. But we should pay close attention to how some of the more extreme measures to shut down public activity in places like Italy play out.

It’s tempting to see such bans as the safest route to take in an emergency—and in some circumstances, they may be—but we can’t ignore the human cost of a widespread economic shutdown.

Steven Malanga is the senior editor of City Journal, the George M. Yeager Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the author of Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

FOREIGN NEWS 07

Turkey says iT has largely agreed idlib ceasefire deTails wiTh russia

ANKARA

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AGENCIES

urkish and russian officials have largely agreed details of a ceasefire deal in syria’s idlib region, Turkish Defence Minister hulusi Akar said on Thursday, the third day of discussions between the two countries.

Last week Turkey and russia, which back opposing sides in

syria’s war, agreed on the ceasefire to halt an escalation of violence in idlib that displaced nearly a million people and brought the two countries close to direct confrontation. under the agreement, Turkish and russian forces will carry out joint patrols along the M4 highway linking syria’s east and west, and establish a security corridor either side of it. A russian delegation arrived in Ankara this week to discuss the details of the agreement.

russia supports syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey backs rebels who have fought him for nearly nine years. “We have largely reached an agreement. At the moment, the attacks have stopped, the ceasefire is holding,” Akar was cited as saying by his office. “The joint patrols will start along the M4 on March 15. Our colleagues are discussing the details of that,” he said.

A senior Turkish official told reuters that concrete results were expected from the discussions in Ankara. Turkey was prepared to retaliate against violations by the syrian government, he added. “The fact that we are moving in line with the agreements brings hope for the future. We are moving forward,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Turkey will not shy away from even stronger military action in idlib if the ceasefire is broken. Akar also said on Thursday that all Turkish forces remained at their positions in idlib.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

08 COMMENT

Between two elections

Dreams don’t sell in stock markets

Smoke and mirrors won’t help either

Pakistan will suffer if the USA pulls out without a political settlement

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Ne can understand the need to boost the morale of the nation during hard times. But the slogans used have to be realistic or they would add to the prevailing frustration. In his speech while inaugurating self-financed housing projects for the federal government employees. the Prime Minister again got lost in the dream world of building five million houses for the poor. he said he would lower the interest rate to enable the common man to borrow money from the banks to buy a house from private sector housing schemes. The bank rate is expected to come down one point to 12.25 percent as a result of the reduction in petrol prices. It would however be unsafe to make long-term plans on the basis of unpredictable factors like the current price of petrol.

Let us hope that the economy is stabilising, as the PM says. There are however a number of uncertainties that must not be lost sight of. The foremost question is whether the government will be able to contain the spread of coronavirus as the number of the affected continues to increase. For this the laxity being shown in monitoring those arriving from other countries through airports, and land and sea routes, needs to be brought to an end. Any shortcomings will upset the government’s calculations and foil its economic plans.

What about exports that the government wanted to turn into the mainstay of the economy? Presently all the three major destinations of Pakistan’s exports are affected by coronavirus to various degrees. The pandemic is squeezing economies around the globe. europe is facing recession. The markets in the Middle east too are shrinking. But there are also new windows of opportunity.

Can our exporters occupy the space in textile products surrendered by China in the USA? It needs to be understood that he PTI government can neither build 5 million houses nor provide 10 million jobs under the prevailing circumstances. As carving out a new South Punjab province will require billions to build the infrastructure, that project too is no more than a pie in the sky. What the PM needs to do is to fully concentrate on building a sound basis for the national economy.

at Penpoint M.a. NiaZi

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he USA-Taliban peace agreement was heralded as the agreement that would lead to the end of the USA’s longest war, one that had begun in 1999, and which would allow US President Donald Trump to claim that he brought home the troops in his re-election campaign this year. It was a long time in the making, and involved several arduous rounds of talks since 2018 between US negotiators headed by Special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban negotiators headed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Bradar. There was an earlier blip last September, when President Trump called a deal reached between the two teams after a US soldier was killed before the signing ceremony, which was supposed to take place in Camp David. however, the signing ceremony of the later agreement, which took place in Qatar on March 1, also could not hold. This time, while the Taliban showed that they could deliver, the USA showed the kind of duplicity which the Taliban seemed to the last time around. But perhaps it was different in that the USA was promising something it could not. The agreement included a provision for a prisoner exchange: 5000 Taliban fighters to be released from Kabul’s custody in exchange for 1000 personnel of the Afghan Security Forces. The Kabul government nearly tore down the agreement on this, only releasing the Taliban prisoners it holds after the Americans put its foot down.

Perhaps one should not really blame the Kabul government. The general assumption is that it will collapse if the USA stops supporting it. The Kabul government is directly elected, but it depends on the US and NATO troops to remain in office, as the Afghan National Security Forces have not yet developed the ability to fight on their own. The recent presidential election saw Ashraf Ghani re-elected, but only after a delay in the result and allegations of cheating by Abdullah Abdullah, whose third bid it was, and who had himself sworn in to parallel Ghani’s re-inauguration.

There is concern on the US side too, and not just among negotiators, that the Taliban will not stick to their agreement on the Afghan constitution. Both they and the regime seem to be assuming the Taliban will

Controlling cyberspace RSF report on digital predators sounds like what the government does

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hOUGh the Reporters Sans Frontiers has not named any Pakistani person or organisation in its list of 20 digital predators, released on Wednesday ahead of World Freedom Day on Thursday, the methods it details in the accompanying commentary sounds depressingly familiar. It should be no consolation that two Indians groups that are named in the list, the only country named twice. The methods used by the group ‘Modi’s Yudhas’, the Internet trolls who volunteer for, or are paid by, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and who specialise in threats and insults against BJP opponents; and the Indian home Affairs Ministry, which shut down the Internet in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, engages in censorship. Pakistan is familiar with the tactic of organised trolling, with the circulation on social media of threats against certain media persons.

Within an atmosphere of violence threatening those who criticise the regime, there is also a drive to impose censorship, either in the form of restriction on circulation in certain areas, or attacks on offices, which seems designed to make media persons and media houses impose self-censorship. The social media rules attempted to extend this censorship to social media, as they made it compulsory for social media companies to give the addresses of posters of objectionable material. They balked at the demand for them to have offices in Pakistan, and threatened to pull out if needed. The implementation of the rules was suspended on the Prime Minister’s intervention, but the kind of mindset revealed in the whole episode has not gone away.

The possibility of inclusion on the RSF list will probably not stop future attempts at controlling social media, but it should act to retard them. The attempt to control information is ancient, mostly practised by those who want embarrassing facts concealed. But it does not seem that social media is amenable to tactics that were developed for print and broadcast media. Those tempted to use such tactics should be aware that it makes for less effort to stop doing things that will cause embarrassment, because effort at a cover-up will prove ineffective, as has been shown in this new digital reality. however, digital predators can cause a lot of human suffering, especially when they have the backing of the state.

How states in the region benefit Maira Hilal

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he Global War on Terror, is a global American- led world counterterrorism marketing campaign launched in response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In its scope, expenditure, and effect on worldwide relations, the contest with terrorism used to be related to the Cold War; and used to be meant to signify a new segment in the actors in the global political society and has had necessary consequences for security, human rights, international law, cooperation, and governance. Its military dimension concerned foremost the war in Afghanistan that has continued since 2001, but is now coming to an end after a peace settlement signed between the USA and the Taliban.

The diplomatic dimension of the Global War on Terror covered persevering with efforts to construct and maintain a world coalition of companion states and corporations as well as a significant public diplomacy marketing campaign to counter anti-Americanism in the Middle east. Anyhow a study grants an insight about what advantages states such as Iran, China, India and the USA are probably pursuing in the future through Afghanistan.

China: The first most compelling motivation for China in pursuing a larger engagement with Afghanistan is its unease concerning the geographical proximity between Afghanistan, and its own Uighur Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province. Afghanistan is the base for many transnational terrorist outfits, and the restive Xinjiang area is claimed by the Chinese authorities to be the breeding ground for the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism and non secular extremism, plaguing their country.

Aside from national protection concerns, China’s deepening involvement in Afghanistan can additionally be attributed to the country’s financial ambitions.

Afghanistan lies at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia, in terms of being a regional hub for alternate and transit routes. It has tremendous potential to link the markets of Central Asia, West Asia and China, and leverage its central position to force improvement and increased profits at home. China realizes that an unstable Afghanistan will have dire

Arif Nizami Editor Umar Aziz

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Executive Editor

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That might indicate that while the USA will withdraw its troops, the fighting will most likely not be over. The USSR withdrew without making a political settlement. That meant that the Karmal regime had to do what it had not been able to do with Soviet support, and beat the Mujahideen in the ensuing fight. It lost, and Karmal was hanged. The Mujahideen came in, but the ensuing chaos made the rise of the Taliban possible. These were initially those who had fought in the Jihad, but had returned to private life. They came back to fight against lawlessness and ended up being ousted in their turn. Ousted leader Mullah Umar died in exile, but his party survived.

The USA seems to be repeating a combination of the egypt-Israel and the Palestine-Israel experiences.

While there was an egypt-Israel deal at Camp David in 1978, there was a Palestine-Israel deal through the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995. While the initial agreement was signed at Doha rather than Camp David (which was the location originally chosen before Trump shot down the deal the first time), the Taliban-government talks were scheduled for Oslo; the prisoner swap was to precede them.

They were endangered until the USA ‘persuaded’ the Afghan government. It was pressed hard enough on Pakistan to make the Taliban negotiate. Now it is its turn. The Afghan government may not object to talks as such, and in fact has supported them in the past, but it had a presidential election last year, which made hamid Ghani a president with a four-year term ahead of him, rather than a lame-duck without a future, though there is still the Abdullah wild card. he needs assurances about his future before he dickers. The alternative will be to leave Afghanistan without an agreement, which will tempt the USA, because President Trump wants to ‘bring the troops home’ before his own re-election, as the Taliban well know. That may take the USA out of its longest war, and though it has been fighting since 1999 with over 3000 dead, Afghanistan has been fighting continuously since 1979.

The cost to Afghanistan will be drastic enough, but Pakistan too will suffer, as it has since then.

Afghanistan is said to be the graveyard of empires, but Pakistan is not an empire, and has no reason to suffer for imperial ambitions of others. Ghani’s election may now be out of the way, but Trump’s is still to happen. These two elections will determine the trajectory of the peace process.

The writer is a member of staff.

The settlement of Afghanistan

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

regain power, which shows the USA did not do a good job of cementing the constitution they handed down.

More important, it seems that things they introduced, like democratic government and women’s rights, are not owned by the Afghan people. In short, they are not willing to fight, even peacefully, for these changes.

On the other hand, the Taliban’s issues still seem to exist. The first is lawlessness. It should not be forgotten that the rise of the Taliban back in the last quarter of the 20th century was because of the chaos of the country after the USSR left. The second is religion. The Taliban may have horrified the rest of the world by their interpretation of Islam, and the measures they took to enforce it, but that did not seem to cause revulsion against them among the populace. It did not seem to create enough support for them to resist the US invasion, but it enable them to sustain over 20 years of guerrilla warfare.

It would be wrong to see the US-Taliban agreement as a repeat of the USSR’s retreat in 1988. The government the USSR overthrew in 1979, that of Noor Muhammad Tarakai, was not involved. even the government it had itself overthrown in 1978, that of Sardar Daud, had no claimant left behind. The USSR was not chased out by anyone it had ousted, but by mujahideen who had risen up. Indeed, the USSR made no agreement with any mujahideen, but with another government, Pakistan’s.

The USA is looking surreptitiously over its shoulder at the Vietnam experience, when it withdrew after 58,000 personnel died trying to shore up the South Vietnamese government against a communist takeover. When the USA withdrew its troops, the South caved in, and an image seared into the US collective memory is the last US helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon, in an evacuation barely ahead of the North Vietnamese advance. That Cold War disgrace partly fuelled its support for the Mujahideen in the 1980s, and there was talk of ‘revenge’ for Vietnam when Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan.

Ashraf Ghani is probably deeply aware of the fate of his predecessor, whom the Soviets left behind, Babrak Karmal. he was strung up from a lamp-post in his capital when it fell. That hanging might be behind Ghani’s hesitance to release the Taliban prisoners. he probably sees no reason to set free men who will merely fight against him, which explains his emphasis on the undertaking not to fight, even though it is probably not worth the paper it is written on.

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cosequences for the protection of western Chinese that flows in the southwest of Afghanistan, draining provinces, and will turn out to be a roadblock for its in a bordering area, in the Sistan basin.

The USA: The principal US goal in Afghanistan financial ambitions, as the success of the Belt and Road Initiative and other projects, hinges on a peace- stays minimizing the chance that Afghan territory able neighbourhood. If foreign troops are indeed would once more be used for assaults on the US withdrawn from Afghanistan, in particular in the ab- homeland, people, and assets. Moreover, A very essence of a sustainable political settlement amongst sential US interest is to make sure that instability in the more than a few Afghan stakeholders, it will Afghanistan does not jeopardize nuclear steadiness in South Asia in any of the following ways: by means solely perpetuate the instability in the country.

India: India has had to contend with many giant of spilling over into Pakistan in a way that threatens security challenges that stem from the Taliban regime the protection of its nuclear weapons; through enin Afghanistan in the 1990s. Pakistan has supported snarling Pakistan in Afghanistan’s insecurity in a way numerous militant organisations such as Lashkar-e- that distracts Pakistan from the necessary need to enhance its internal stability; or Taiba, harkat-ul-Muby drawing India and Pakjahideen/ harkat-ul-Ansar, istan into a proxy struggle in and harkat-ul-Jihad-al-IsAfghanistan that might exlami. however, all of these pand into a serious army war organisations have trained in Aghanistan is like a golden of words between the two Afghanistan, with various countries. Afghanistan is the degrees of proximity to the sparrow.

It is due to particular home to many ethnic groups, Taliban and by extension alQaeda. Thus India is without motives being in the interests of and that diversity is awesome in peacetime, but with a doubt adamant that many regional or even Western looming hostilities will be a Afghanistan ought to no possibility for backyard longer again become a terstates, such as Iran, the USA powers to guide “local partrorist haven. In addition, India would want and China. Every nation has its ners,” that is, warlords. If the warlord scenario comes to Afghanistan to be a friendly very own benefits pass, and as the US presence country from which it has the diminishes, it will locate itability to discomfort Pakistan self by necessity in closer and even, where possible, do contact with Russian officers things in Pakistan. Furthermore, developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan have and army personnel as it coordinates operations and vital and typically deleterious results upon India’s so- the final useful resource operations.

Finally, keeping in view the information above, it ciety as well as its internal security, apart from the regularly occurring issues arising out of its illegal is worth saying presently Afghanistan is like a golden sparrow. It is due to particular motives being in the inoccupation of Kashmir. hindu nationalists and their militant counterparts terests of many regional or even Western states, such live in a violent symbiosis with Islamist militant or- as Iran, the USA and China. every nation has its very ganizations running in and around India. Islamist ter- own benefits, political, social or economic. For examrorism in India and the place provides grist for the ple, Iran’s fundamental goal is to prevent the return of the Taliban and other Islamist militants, whereas mill of hindu nationalism and its violent offshoots.

Iran: Iran has a large set of interests in China’s dreams are chiefly monetary and securityAfghanistan. economic and cultural domination of based. India’s foremost desires encompass ending the the vicinity have been the long-standing goals of Iran- Taliban’s presence in the region, stopping terrorist asian regimes. It is more so now than ever. Opening a saults in India, increasing its economic system and to natural gasoline market to the Subcontinent has been enhance its ability to strike at Pakistan. a sturdy incentive. Supporting the Shi‘ites of Maira Hilal can be reached at: Afghanistan is another. Iran additionally has a longstanding interest in the waters of the River helmand mairahilal@yahoo.com

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Friday, 13 March, 2020

COMMENT 09 Editor’s mail Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

Threat to Aurat March HoW sardonic it is that this march which has been an advocate for the rights of women all across the country is not supported by the right wing which constitutes the majority of Pakistan. it is undoubtedly a lawful act by every means to raise the voice against the violation of women rights and should never be opposed and stopped at any cost but the conservatively confined mindset has prevailed outrageously in our society and this is the threat to aurat march. However, the opposition regarding some of the posters which were being displayed in last year’s aurat march is acceptable and i believe that it was something dispensable and obviously not required for the protests. Some of the banners also displayed the unethical use of linguistics in order to malign and disrespect which was beside the whole point. Many social activists supporting this march have been threatened by the some of the extremist’s groups to stop promoting this march. We are living in a male dominant society where patriarchy is a norm destructive acumen about gender roles left women in Pakistan at risk of disruptive behaviour.

WariSHa QaiSEr aLi Karachi

Point issue

COVID-19 under control in China While the virus goes global, China pays attention to Pakistan

sultan m hali

A

ccording to the latest update on coVid-19 by the chinese national Health commission, 1,535 patients were cured and discharged from a hospital in china’s mainland, bringing the tally to 58,600. Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak in central china’s Hubei Province, suspended another public-facility-turned-temporary-hospital as the number of coVid-19 patients continued to drop in the city.

The last batch of 34 patients walked out of the temporary hospital of Jianghan at 3 pm, waving farewell to the medics. The closure of the temporary hospital of Jianghan, which was converted from the existing international exhibition centre of Wuhan, has brought the number of closed temporary hospitals in the city to 14.

To treat patients with mild symptoms and isolate the source of infection, Wuhan converted public venues such as exhibition centres and gymnasiums into 16 temporary hospitals. Some 12,000 patients were treated in these temporary hospitals, according to the city’s coVid-19 control headquarters. over the past 34 days, the temporary hospital of Jianghan received a total of 1,848 patients, saw 521 patients being transferred to other hospitals and 1,327 patients discharged. it had the most available beds, admitted the most patients and saw the most discharged patients among all the temporary hospitals in Wuhan, according to sources with the Wuhan Union Hospital. The other two temporary hospitals remaining in operation are expected to close later this week, the headquarters said.

The temporary hospitals have almost achieved their initial goals to “accept all patients who need to be admitted to hospitals and treat all those who need to be treated” while severing sources of infection. it is an innovative and effective move that will provide guidance for future such situations.

The outbreak of novel coronavirus has been controlled but not eliminated totally. Wuhan reported 36 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 18 deaths on March 8. despite being overwhelmed by its own crisis, china is lending a helping hand to WHo countries to control the pandemic. 115 countries of the world have been affected by the outbreak wherein over 40000 deaths have occurred. Pakistan has received thousands of coVid-19 testing kits. Since the epidemic broke out, china has been providing timely updates to the WHo and countries and regions. china has shared with

them the genetic sequence of the virus, re- low severity to high severity. Four of the seven sponded to their concerns and strengthened in- scenarios in the paper examine the impact of ternational cooperation. The world has already coVid-19 spreading outside china, ranging reached the clear, fair consensus that china’s from low to high severity. A seventh scenario excontribution bought precious time for the inter- amines a global impact in which a mild pandemic occurs each year indefinitely. national community to enhance preparedness.

But even in the low-severity model— or bestTo support the republic of Korea (roK) government and people’s fight against the case scenario of the seven, which the paper accoVid-19 outbreak, the chinese government knowledged were not definitive— AnU has decided to send a batch of medical supplies researchers estimate a global gdP loss of $2.4 trilincluding 100,000 n95 respirators, one million lion, with an estimated death toll of 15 million. surgical masks and 10,000 protective gowns. it They modeled their estimates on the Hong Kong is also offering to provide testing reagents flu pandemic, an outbreak in 1968-1969 that is esenough to test 50,000 people. Apart from the timated to have killed about one million people. in the high-severity model— modeled after central government, local governments and businesses in china have also expressed sympathy the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estiand support to the roK and offered assistance to mated 17 million to 50 million globally from 1918 the best of their capabilities. As of March 8, local to 1920— the global gdP loss could be as high as governments in Shanghai, Shandong, Zhejiang, $9 trillion. in that model, the death toll is estimated Jiangxi and Jilin have donated supplies through to surpass 68 million. The research aims to help their sister cities in the roK. Localities like policymakers respond to the economic impact of Anhui, Jiangsu and Henan are also planning to coVid-19 as the disease continues to spread.

While china has been engrossed in combatmake donations. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the roK government and people from all ing the outbreak of coVid-19, it is not oblivious walks of life have offered china strong support to the trials and tribulations Pakistan is facing, such as the challenge from a severe plague of loand assistance, for which it is deeply grateful. if that were not enough, on March 7, Ambas- custs. To help it deal with the problem, a chinese sador chen Xu, Permanent representative of the working group led by china’s Ministry of AgriPeople’s republic of china to the United nations culture and rural Affairs visited many stricken office at geneva and other international organ- areas in Pakistan from February 23 to March 5.

They had an in-depth izations in Switzerland exchange with local auconveyed to WHo dithorities and proposed rector-general Tedros targeted and compreAdhanom ghebreyesus China’s policy of “live and let hensive solutions which that the chinese govwere highly appreciated ernment has decided to live” is most welcome. If any and recognized by the contribute $20 million Pakistani side. in the to WHo’s international country can overcome COVIDmeantime, considering cooperation against 19, and negate the horrifying the urgency to tackle the coVid-19. plague, china decided The epidemic has predictions that are being to immediately provide broken out in multiple prevention and control localities around the made, it is China supplies to Pakistan, inworld and is still spreadcluding 50,000 litres of ing, giving greater urmalathion and 14 pestigency to a coordinated cide sprayers, which response at the global level. By donating this money, china is respond- have already arrived in Pakistan.

As all-weather strategic cooperative partners ing to WHo’s call with a concrete action. This will help give full play to its professional and coordi- and iron-clad friends, china and Pakistan share nating role in the global response against the epi- the fine tradition of mutual assistance. china bedemic, especially in helping small and lieves that the Pakistani government and people medium-sized countries with vulnerable public will surely overcome the plague. Based on Pakhealth systems to shore up lines of defence. The istan’s needs, china has assured that it will condonation is meant for designated purposes like tinue providing as much support and assistance coVid-19 prevention and control and improve- as possible, strengthen cooperation in personnel ment of public health systems in developing coun- training, experience sharing and technical suptries. china is sharing experience and information port, and help it establish and improve a comthrough video conferencing with government of- prehensive system for pest prevention and ficials and medical specialists from 10 Pacific is- control to enhance its capabilities to deal with land countries, namely, the cook islands, Fiji, biological disasters. coVid-19 was first deKiribati, Micronesia, niue, Papua new guinea, tected in china but numerous confirmed cases were found in many other countries. Virologists Samoa, Solomon islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The virus respects no borders. it is hearten- opine that that the strain of the virus found in ing that in the spirit of solidarity and mutual as- other countries is not the same as that found in sistance, china continues to actively support and china. This opinion casts doubts on coVid-19 participate in the international cooperation to being transported from china. china’s policy of “live and let live” is most fight against the epidemic, contribute its strength to regional and global public health security, and welcome. if any country can overcome coVidpromote the building of a community with a 19, and negate horrifying predictions like that made by AnU, it is china. shared future for mankind. researchers have been busy predicting the Sultan M Hali is a retired Group Captain extent of damage through coVid-19. The Australian national University (AnU) has examined and author of the book Defence & Diplomacy. seven scenarios of how the coVid-19 outbreak Currently he is a columnist, analyst and TV talk might affect the world’s wealth, ranging from show host.

UniVerSiTy of Karachi (UoK) is the biggest institute of Karachi which provides education to more than 24,000 students. The point facility is being provided by the university to the students to come easily from any area. However, there are just 28 points available. Many students’ especially middle class travel to these points, some of them use private vans which can be costly. The issue is, due to a huge number of students these buses get overloaded which can be dangerous and can lead to accidents. Students can be seen hanging out from the doors which is unsafe and high risk. The other thing is, the condition of these buses are worse. They are badly damaged and are being totally ignored.i want the authorities to look into this matter and take action. And should provide good transportation to the students who come from different areas of the city. The other point is that those students who cannot afford a van or personal pick and drop so the government should provide the point service in the evening after the off.

Because of parents are not allowed to their children to study in the evening shift because they can’t afford the vans, and also government are not provide the service of point after the off that’s why stop studies of their children, especially women are faced these problems hardly. i want the authorities to look at this matter and take action and provide good transportation to the students who come from different areas of the city. arEEba Karachi

Tragic crash PAKiSTAn Air Force (PAF) F-16 fighter aircraft crashed near the Shakarparian area of the federal capital on Wednesday, said a statement by the armed service.

The fighter aircraft was rehearsing the upcoming March 23 parade flypast at the time of the incident. The PAF statement added that rescue teams were dispatched towards the site of the crash and Air Headquarters has ordered a board of inquiry has been established to determine the cause of the incident.“Wing commander nauman Akram embraced martyrdom in the crash,” an air force spokesman told reuters by telephone. He was the only pilot in the aircraft, the spokesman added.A district administration official said there was little chance of any casualties on the ground as the plane had crashed in the parade ground, which is largely deserted despite being in the heart of the capital.“Laying one’s life is the ultimate sacrifice one can make for defence of the motherland.“Laying one’s life is the ultimate sacrifice one can make for defence of the motherland.

Mian MuHaMMaD DaWooD MEHMooD Wah

Reckless driving For the last two or three years, there has not been a single day when road accidents didn’t occur in Karachi. Most of the accidents were caused by reckless driving. Mostly in highways truck drives and those who drink and drive are notorious for rash driving.

The other day i was horrified to witness a dreadful accident. A young biker and his wife were crushed to death when a speeding truck that came from behind ran over them. They died on the spot itself. i am sure that it was not an isolated incident. countless innocent lives are lost on the roads, thanks to rash driving and it is due to because there is no proper check and balance of our traffic police, even the drivers have no license and some of the drivers are underage so they don’t know how to drive on the highways or even on the road. The concern with reckless driving is that it poses a significant risk to the people in the surrounding area as well as the driver. reckless drivers could kill children, animals and pedestrians. A car that spins out of control can harm other vehicles on the road. in addition, reckless driving can cause significant damage to property. Thus, it goes without saying that reckless driving is a public safety issue that must be properly addressed.

SHaHzaib SHaiKH Karachi

Corona fears gLoBALLy, more than 80,000 people in nearly 50 countries have been infected.nearly 2,800 have died worldwide.The overall countries have closed their schools, colleges,universities to keep them safe from the most dangerous virus as well as all countries’ economy is going down due to the coronavirus.

Painfully,Saudi Arabia is stopping foreign pilgrims from entering the country. it is well clear if the Hajj pilgrimage begins in July or will be affected and Australia is extending a ban on foreign visitors from mainland in china.

Furthermore, our country Pakistan has also been affected so for two reasons founded in Pakistan, one from Karachi and second in islamabad actually a huge number of illegal roads exist for traveling to iran. Many people have been exporting and importing oil from those roads, therefore this reveals in all Pakistan. Finally, it is a humble request to the government of Pakistan to take serious actions against the illegal roads of iran. inayaT barKaT Turbat

Friday, 13 March, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

In mIgrant crIsIs, greece caught between eu job descrIptIons ATHENS

w

AGENCIES

HEN the current European Commission took office in December, its president, Ursula von der Leyen, created the role of a commissioner for ‘Promoting our European Way of Life’ and handed the job to a Greek politician.

The job title was originally ‘Protecting our European Way of Life’, but it was criticized for sounding xenophobic. Ironically, it is Greece that now finds itself caught between promoting and protecting what the EU stands for.

Since Feb. 28, when Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was opening the border and invited migrants and refugees based in Turkey – estimated at nearly four million – to cross into the EU, Greece has become Europe’s bulwark against mass migration. Erdogan made the move because he said the EU was no longer abiding by a 2016 deal under which Brussels offered 6 billion euros of aid to Ankara, provided it kept the refugees in Turkey.

Thousands of men, women and children from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and as far afield as Morocco and Pakistan are now camped on the Turkish border, hoping to cross the Evros river and a steeland-barbed-wire fence into Greece.

On March 1, Athens announced it was

suspending asylum applications for a month, allowing for the immediate deportation of any migrants seized. Security forces say they have stopped nearly 45,000 people entering Greece in the past two weeks, with hundreds arrested and sent back. EU leaders are desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2015/16 migrant crisis, when around one million people flooded into the bloc from Turkey, putting huge strain on national social services and straining relations among member states.

But in taking such a hard line, Greece has opened itself to criticism that it is flouting international humanitarian law and that the EU, which presents itself as a bastion of human rights and democracy, is an unwelcoming fortress.

NAZIS OR EUROPE’S SHIELD? In the Turkish parliament on Wednesday, Erdogan showed members of his AK Party video footage of Greek security forces driving migrants back from the border and he compared them to Nazis.

“Opening fire on innocent people, exposing them to all kinds of inhumane treatment… is barbarism in the full sense of the word,” he said, repeating a call for Greece to let the migrants cross and reach richer western European countries.

Greece, which denies that its forces are shooting at migrants, will find it especially galling to hear such criticism from Erdogan, long under fire from the EU over

Turkey’s own human rights record.

As well as wanting the EU to offer more cash and to fulfill other parts of the 2016 deal on customs rules and visas for Turks, Erdogan wants explicit European backing for his military engagement in Syria. As a core member of NATO, to which most EU countries also belong, Turkey is sending the message that allies should be more grateful for what it is doing to check Russian influence in Syria and to try to bring order to warring Libya.

For Greece, which has endured a financial meltdown and one migration crisis already in the past decade and is now bracing for the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the first priority is stability and defending its borders.

The European Commission has thus far given Athens full backing. Von der Leyen has described Greece as Europe’s ‘aspida’, the Greek for shield. “Our first priority is to ensure order is maintained at the Greek external border, which is also a European border,” she said last week.

But after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that Greece was running a secret “black site” close to the border, holding migrants without access to lawyers or the ability to make asylum claims, – a claim denied by Athens – von der Leyen may have to find words that refer to the need to promote Europe’s way of life, not just protect it.

Trump's travel ban sows panic in European airports MADRID/PARIS AGENCIES

Weary and confused travelers, many wearing face masks, rushed to board flights from European airports to the United States on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping travel restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus.

His 30-day travel order applies to citizens of 26 European countries but excludes Britain and Ireland as well as American citizens. It takes effect from midnight on Friday.

“It caused a mass panic,” said 20-year-old Anna Grace, a U.S. student on her first trip to Europe who changed her booking to fly home from Madrid’s Barajas airport instead of going on to France. U.S. backpacker Keasy, from San Francisco, said: “It kind of ruined my travel plans. I arrived here yesterday and so in 24 hours everything has changed.”

Though American citizens are exempt from the travel ban, she and many others said they preferred to return home in case the restrictions are expanded or for fear of contracting coronavirus while in Europe.

Cristina Elvira, a pensioner traveling to Miami, felt relieved to leave Spain, where new cases have increased exponentially over the past days. “We are lucky to be able to leave Europe,” Elvira said as she checked in for her flight, one of around 20 from Spain to the United States scheduled for Thursday. Paola Mesa, 29, a Spanish woman flying from Barcelona to San Francisco, said she backed Trump’s ban on travel from Europe. “It’s what Spain should have done before,” she said.

‘A BIG MESS’: Many travelers, however, were critical of Trump’s decision and his lack of coordination with European authorities.

“It’s ridiculous. Why do we impose a ban now when the virus is already in the United States?” said Leo Mota, 24, who had just ar-

rived at Paris’s main international airport, Roissy Charles de Gaulle, from Los Angeles.

Trump has said he had to act because the European Union had failed to take adequate measures to stop the coronavirus. The EU dismissed his comments and criticized the lack of consultation from the U.S. side. Miguel Paracuellos, a Spaniard who works in the United States, said Trump was trying to compensate for his failure to expand testing and screening programs at home. “He is blaming an external enemy, in this case Europe,” he said. Jon Lindfors, an American traveler in Paris, was equally scathing about Trump, who will seek re-election in November.

“Trump said it’s not a health crisis but it is, that it’s not an economic crisis but it is. We don’t believe what Trump says anymore,” Lindfors said. A Delta crew member, who asked not to be named, said Trump’s travel ban had caught the airline off-guard.

“It’s going to be a big mess… We were not expecting something like that. We don’t have all the details to know what it means for us and for the company,” the crew member said.

At Rome’s Fiumicino airport, largely empty due to draconian measures taken by Italy to combat coronavirus, one Italian traveler just back from New York said the United States would soon face the disruption Europe is now experiencing. “(In New York)… there were only a few flights canceled or delayed… They don’t understand the situation yet,” said Giuseppe Riccio, who wore a face mask. “There are no controls in place, shops are full of people.”

Gregory and Ada Goldberg, an American couple from San Francisco, were trying to bring forward their flight home from Barcelona but were not getting much help at the airport. “This was meant to be two weeks of pleasant vacation but it has become a nightmare,” said 69-year-old Ada.

Syrian fighter's nine-year journey from school protests to armed conflict BINNISH AGENCIES

Ahmed Mansour was a schoolboy with dreams of becoming a lawyer when he joined the first protests at his secondary school in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo.

Nine years and a failed revolution later, his studies halted by a war which has ravaged the country his whole adult life, Mansour and fellow fighters are stuck in a shrinking corner of rebel territory which still defies President Bashar al-Assad.

His journey from schoolboy demonstrator to veteran fighter, from early optimism to last-ditch defense in the towns and farmlands of Idlib province, echoes the dashed hopes of many Syrians who took to the streets to challenge authorities. “I expected the regime to fall,” Mansour said, recalling the early protests inspired by uprisings in North Africa which rapidly toppled autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt and then overthrew Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi after Western intervention.

“It was a corrupt sectarian regime and we had to change it,” he said, flanked by fellow fighters under a canopy of olive trees, hiding them from hostile warplanes and drones in the skies of Idlib.

Starting in Damascus on March 15, 2011, and then in the southern city of Deraa a few days later, unprecedented protests against decades of rule by Assad and his father before him spread across the country.

Mansour, then 16 and studying at secondary school in Aleppo, joined 30 other students in a demonstration at their school. “We shouted ‘Freedom, Freedom, Freedom’,” he said. “Security forces came the next day and arrested 11 of my friends.” The students were released after mediation. They continued to protest, but in small numbers and in short 15-minute bursts. “We couldn’t do it for longer because security forces came immediately

and stormed the demonstration with tear gas and opened fire,” he told Reuters.

The Syrian government, arguing that protesters were infiltrated by armed elements from the very start, cracked down with a determination unmatched in other countries caught up in what was briefly labeled the Arab Spring.

Despite growing casualties, protests persisted. As demonstrations became funeral marches, confrontation escalated. Mansour joined a group to defend the demonstrators, but they could not match the strength of Assad’s security forces. After several months a new force of military defectors and armed rebels was formed, the Free Syrian Army. “I joined the Free Army with great pride because I was taking part in protecting civilians, our peo-

ple, our brothers,” he said. “People who were calling for the most basic rights from a tyrannical, repressive, dictatorial regime.”

‘THE WORLD WATCHED’: Syria was on the way to becoming the bloodiest and most protracted of the Arab uprisings, but in the first years of conflict rebel confidence was high. Assad’s foreign critics said his remaining days in power were numbered, and a senior U.S. State Department official described him as “a dead man walking”. Mansour and the rebels swept into Aleppo in the late summer of 2012, a city they would hold in part for another four years.

Then he was based in towns around Aleppo, surviving a stomach injury from shelling, and fighting for a va-

riety of rebel factions which jostled for power on Syria’s chaotic battlefield.

Riven by division – which worsened dramatically with the emergence of the jihadist Islamic State group in 2013 – and lacking the international support they sought, the rebels failed to capitalize on the early gains.

Islamic State “turned public opinion against us”, leading the outside world to equate the rebel fighters with terrorists.

“Then the Russians came, and changed the balance,” Mansour said, referring to Moscow’s decisive 2015 intervention which turned the war in Assad’s favor.

“They put pressure on us in Aleppo, and then they took control,” he said. “They broke us in Ghouta (around Damascus) and in many areas until at last we ended up in Idlib,” he said, the sound of bombardment occasionally punctuating his comments.

In some of the worst of the fighting in Aleppo’s Khaldiya district, Mansour said one or two fighters died alongside him every day. Another bleak memory was an air strike which killed around 20 of his comrades sheltering in a cave in 2016. The last few months, as Assad’s Russia-backed forces launched an offensive across southern Idlib, marked the lowest point yet for rebels who once controlled large parts of Syria and almost encircled Damascus. Three days before speaking to Reuters, Mansour’s forces were driven from his hometown of Kafr Nabl by the advance of Syrian government forces, halted only by Turkish air strikes, artillery and a ceasefire deal agreed by Turkey and Russia last week.

Turkey’s robust support for the rebels this month has sustained his optimism, despite the string of past military defeats, but also reinforced a sense of betrayal by other international powers. “The world watched us and no one helped,” Mansour said. “If the world had helped us, we would have toppled the regime”.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

BUSINESS 11

FarmerS urGe Govt to iNcreaSe wheat SuPPort Price to rS1,600

CORPORATE CORNER

‘INSTEAD OF PROVIDING RELIEF TO RAIN-AFFECTED FARMERS, GOVT ANNOUNCED RS20BN SUBSIDY FOR RICH MILLERS’ KARACHI: BlueEx Courier has signed a memorandum of understanding with Pakistan Cables Limited to become the exclusive courier company for Pakistan’s first wires and cables estore, recently launched by Pakistan Cables.

­ISLAMABAD: Jubilee Life Insurance Company Limited CFO Lilly R Dossabhoy receives an award from Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Minister Asad Umar during the Marketing Association of Pakistan’s 35th Corporate Excellence Awards.

LAHORE HASSAN NAQVI

w

HEAT farmers on Thursday urged the government to increase the support price to at least Rs1,600 per 40kg.

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Wednesday had increased wheat support price by Rs35, from 1,365 per 40kg to Rs1,400 per 40kg. Although the farmers appreciated the government for increasing the support price despite economic hardships, they maintained the said hike in support was "insufficient" for them.

"The March spell of rain has

wreaked havoc on wheat farms in Punjab and Sindh, leaving the farmers in trouble," said Ahsan Malik, a farmer from Muzaffargarh. "Their [farmers] losses are enormous but the government [ECC], instead of giving relief for them, announced Rs20 billion subsidy [on electricity] for filthy rich millers."

He said the government should fix wheat support price at Rs1,600 per 40kg, besides ensuring that the commodity was only bought at official rates. A farmer's plight starts with the distribution of bardana or jute bags at official procurement centres, he added.

Agreeing with Malik, Syed Aqeel Haider, a wheat farmer from Chiniot, said this Rs35 per 40kg increase in

wheat support price was "peanuts" for farmers as this would hardly cover the costs they incurred during the wheat production process. He informed that wheat prices all over the world stood between Rs1,575-Rs1,600 per 40kg but in Pakistan, the same was not in line with inflation and production costs.

'PARADOXICAL AGRICULTURE': Haider said that it was about time for Pakistan to shift towards paradoxical agriculture, which was a conclusive sustainable agriculture production system developed on natural processes of soil fertility and vegetation. Adoption of this system would mitigate most of the challenges being faced by the country's crops, he added.

"In paradoxical farming, the farmers' costs decrease by at least 70pc; it reduces the use of fertilizer by 70pc in the first year and gradually diminishes it completely."

He said that the current crop production system evolved without the un-

Foreign divestment in T-bills reaches $607m KARACHI MEIRYUM ALI ­KARACHI: Pak-Qatar General Takaful Limited has signed an agreement with Machinesells.com, Pakistan’s first and largest industrial machinery trading platform. Through this strategic alliance, the customers of Machinesells.com will have an opportunity to get need based Takaful coverage for their machines instantly.

­ ARACHI: An intensive Export Managers Advanced K Training programme was organized by the House of Habib in partnership with the Habib University Foundation (HUF) and the University of Leipzig. The programme was attended by 25 participants representing leading export segments.

Total gross divestment during March 2020 reached $606.5 million, according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

Foreign investors divested $251 million net worth of treasury bills (T-bills) on March 11, as per the Special Convertible Rupee Account, which tracks inflows and outflows from foreign countries.

The net investment in T-bills from July 2019 to date amounts to $2.493 billion.

Previously, foreign investors divested $136 million of T-bills on March 10, with total gross divestment in March up until that point, reaching $356 million.

It is expected that by the end of this week, T-Bills outflows from the SCRA will reach anywhere from $700 million to $800 million during March to date.

This is part of a general pattern of divestment that started in late February. Foreign investors divested $67 million of T-bills on February 28 and divested $103 million net worth of T-Bills on March 3.

The divestment on March 3 was particularly significant, because it represented the first time there had been net selling in eight months.

According to analysts, the hot money outflows are likely to cause another round of rupee depreciation and is likely to cause another round of inflationary pressure.

Railways suffer Rs410m loss

­LAHORE: Kashf Foundation, with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), hosted the ‘Kashf Entrepreneurship Awards 2020’.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways had suffered over Rs410 million in terms of losses in various train accidents between August 2018 and December 2019.

About the casualties and injured persons, a spokesperson said that five major train accidents of passenger and good trains occurred from August 2018 to December 2019 in which 110 persons died while 123 received injuries.

Pakistan Railways was going to revamp and upgrade the existing railway infrastructure through the

The outflows are connected to the ongoing oil war between Saudi Arabia and Russia due to the COVID19, or coronavirus outbreak. Previously, Samiullah Tariq, director at Arif Habib Ltd, said that there has been a general flight towards safety out of fears of a recession linked to COVID-19.

“Foreigners are selling their T-bills from places like Pakistan and India, and instead are investing in Japan or the US,” he said Main Line-I project of China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) which would transform the overall organization and ensure the safety of the travelling public, he said. Besides, he added, the department was taking several measures to prevent accidents in the future including up-gradation of 550 vulnerable unmanned level crossings throughout Pakistan Railways network in collaboration with the respective provincial governments.

He said the Directorate of Public Relations has circulated different video messages over social media for the awareness and information of the general public regarding crossing the railway crossings in a safe way. APP

derstanding of the natural algorithm of soil fertility and vegetation.

"In developed countries where farmers moved to paradoxical farming, they are getting more than 100 mounds per acre yield from wheat crop but unfortunately in Pakistan, our per acre yield is between 20-25 mounds per acre," he deplored. However, Pakistan Kissan Ittehad Chairman Khalid Maqbool told this scribe that the farmers were ready to provide wheat at the rate of Rs1,400 per 40kg keeping in view the purchasing power of the population.

"But the government should ensure that flour is available for consumers at Rs40 per kg and not Rs80 per kg like previous year/months." He urged the government to take strict action against hoarders and profiteers so that maximum facilitation could be extended to the consumers.

"Instead of increasing the wheat support price, the government should take measures to curtail the production cost of wheat farmers," he opined.

SNGPL seeks 100pc hike in gas tariff INP ISLAMABAD

The state-owned gas companies have proposed up to 100pc hike in gas price for the next fiscal year (applicable from July 1).

The surge is expected to collectively put an additional burden of Rs347 billion on consumers. According to a report, the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has proposed a 20pc increase in the basic price of gas, which will make it Rs153 per MBTU (million British thermal units) costlier. Resultantly, SSGC consumers will bear an additional amount of Rs57 billion. On the other hand, the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has proposed a 100pc hike in basic price of gas, making it Rs670 per MBTU more expensive. As a result, SNGPL consumers will bear an additional amount of Rs290 billion. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has asked the concerned stakeholders to give their opinions in 14 days so that the right decision could be made in this regard.

Finance Division denies any cut in PSDP The Ministry of Finance on Thursday denied a news report published in a section of the press suggesting and insinuating a “Rs100 billion cut in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the current fiscal year” as per briefing by the finance secretary to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue the other day. “The Finance Division strongly denies and rebuts this news report as the Finance Secretary never stated at any point during his presentation to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue that there could be cut in the federal development programme this year,” said an official statement issued by the Finance Division. BUSINESS DESK

NA body directs FBR to expedite payment of refund claims ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The National Assembly's Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs on Thursday directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to expedite the payment of refund claims of exporters and traders.

The meeting, which met under the chairmanship of MNA Faizullah, pointed out that refund payments were not being made for several months, causing severe liquidity problems, especially among the exporters.

Discussing the agenda regarding issues being faced by the textile exporters/importers, textile industries and traders regarding refunds and CNIC conditions, MNA Ali Pervaiz demanded that the refund payment system must be made effective and transparent by eliminating discrimination in the processing system.

He also demanded the restoration of the

EXPORTERS SAY 'WON'T BE ABLE TO CONTINUE THEIR BUSINESSES OWING TO REFUND PAYMENTS STUCK WITH FBR' FBR OFFICIAL CLAIMS 'ONLY THOSE CASES ARE PENDING WHERE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT BEING MET PROPERLY' zero-rating facility for five export-oriented sectors, saying that this facility would help boost the country's exports.

MNA Qaisar Ahmed Shaikh said the condition of CNIC and revoking of the zerorating facility were not practical as there were numerous complications in the procedures.

FBR Member Seema Shakeel in response said that maximum cases of refunds had been accommodated, however, only

those cases were pending where requirements were not met properly. She also presented the month-wise data regarding the release of refunds up to December 2019.

She informed that the FBR had cleared 97.7pc refunds of July 2019, 95pc of August and 90pc each of September, October, November and December 2019.

She informed that a committee, comprising of exporters and senior FBR officers, was appointed to resolve the technical prob-

lems of Form "H" and they have completed their assignment.

However, the exporters were of the stance that they would not be able to continue their business due to refunds stuck with FBR for the last six months.

They also highlighted the weaknesses of FBR's Faster Refunds System and requested the board to address the same at the earliest for the smooth functioning of export industries in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the committee also discussed matters regarding encashment of security of Reliance Petroleum Industries (Pvt) Limited by the customs authorities. The committee advised collector customs (Karachi) to resolve the matter amicably before the meeting of the Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Finance, scheduled to be held on March 17.

Moreover, the NA boy considered the problems being faced by the real estate

sector due to anomalies created by the FBR in the valuation table on immovable properties.

Pakistan Real Estate Investment Forum (PREIF) President Shaban Elahi informed the committee that FBR should focus on the problems raised due to unrealistic valuations of properties in different areas of Karachi, as well as all over the country.

He also suggested that law might be enacted to protect the end consumer from the Builders.

He deplored that builders were exceeding their limits by selling more flats or plots as per the approved plan. "The government should immediately intervene in such kind of issues."

FBR Member Dr Hamid Ateeq informed that different committees at commissioner levels in 21 cities had been appointed to address the problems of valuation to the stakeholders.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

12 BUSINESS NA committee defers five bills to protest finance adviser’s absence ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue had recently deferred five government’s bills to protest the absence of Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Abdul Hafeez Shaikh from the meeting. Earlier on February 27, the committee had decided that it would not consider the government’s bills in the absence of Shaikh, who normally does not attend the parliamentary committee meetings. As the adviser was once again absent from the March 11 meeting, the committee, which met under the chairmanship of MNA Faizullah, had decided to defer the discussion on the government’s five bills. The bills included The Tax Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, The SBP Banking Services Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2019, The Post Office Cash Certificate (Amendment) Bill, 2020, The Post Office National Savings Certificate (Amendment) Bill and The Government Savings Bank (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

The committee also recommended that The Controller General of Accounts (Appointment, Functions and Powers) (Amendment) Bill, 2019, and The Islamic Development Bank (Amendment) Bill should not be passed by the lower house. The finance secretary appraised the committee about the draft strategy of the upcoming budget for the financial year 2020-2021. He also briefed the committee regarding the staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made by the government during an in-camera meeting.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Faheem Khan, Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Ali Perviz, Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Nafisa Shah, Syed Naveed Qamar, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, besides senior officers from the Ministry of Finance, Revenue & Economic Affairs and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). GHULAM ABBAS

SBP reserves up $32m to $12.8bn KARACHI: Foreign exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) increased by $32 million to $12,789.9 million during the week ending March 6, 2020, according to data released by the central bank on Thursday. The total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at $18,904.6 million. Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks increased marginally, from $6111.5 million in the week ending February 28, to $6114.7 million in the succeeding week. The central bank did not cite a reason for the increase in state bank reserves, or slight increase in net foreign reserves held by commercial banks. The total liquid foreign reserves have consistently been on the rise for the past eight months. The total reserves initially crossed the $15 billion mark in July 2019, crossed the $16 billion mark in November 2019, and finally crossed the $18 billion mark in January 2020. STAFF REPORT

EStABliShmENt of NAtioNAl tAx CouNCil APProvEd to hArmoNiSE GSt iSLamaBad

A

GHULAM ABBAS

S suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the centre and provinces have finally agreed to establish a National Tax Council (NTC) to resolve all tax-related issues, especially for the harmonisation of general sales tax (GST) across the country. The agreement was made during a meeting of the National Finance Commission's Monitoring Committee on Thursday. The Terms of Reference (ToR) of the tax council were also approved on the occasion.

The NTC, which would have technical level representations from the federation and federating units, would resolve tax-related issues without the need to amend the constitution.

The commission, to be headed by Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, would also be represented by four finance ministers of the provinces (as members).

In addition, there would be an NTC executive committee, comprising finance secretary, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman, provincial finance secretaries and heads of the provincial revenue boards -- Sindh Revenue Board, Punjab Revenue Authority, KP Revenue Authority and Balochistan Revenue Authority.

According to officials, the executive committee would forward its suggestions/proposals for necessary

approvals. It is pertinent to mention that the IMF, in its recent report, had recommended Pakistan to establish a joint working group, comprising centre and provinces, to provide recommendations on GST harmonisation, to be approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) by end-March 2020.

According to officials at the finance ministry, during the meeting of the NFC Monitoring Committee, the composition of NTC and its proposed

ToRs were approved.

“The provinces are represented in the council and it shall enable them to collectively decide the rate of sales tax for both goods and services,” an official informed this scribe.

It was proposed during the meeting that the National Tax Council shall meet at least once every quarter and that the NTC recommendations shall be expressed in terms of majority and shall be placed before NFC Monitoring Committee. According to sources, during a previous meeting of the monitoring committee, four options were discussed; GST collection on goods and services by FBR, unified tax collection by an independent agency, collection of taxes on the basis of territory, and GST collection by both federal and provincial government through a harmonised system.

Since the first three options needed constitutional amendments and legislation, the centre and provinces, after due deliberation, principally agreed on the last option of setting up a harmonised GST rate to be applicable across the country.

Oil falls, Brent crude drops 8pc after Trump surprises with travel curbs NEW YORK AGENCIES

Oil prices fell, with Brent crude sliding 8pc on Thursday after US President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced restrictions on travel from Europe in an attempt to halt the spread of coronavirus after the World Health Organization described the outbreak as a pandemic.

The slump in oil is being compounded by the threat of a flood of cheap supply after Saudi Arabia

and the United Arab Emirates said they would raise output in a stand-off with Russia.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down $3.02, or 8.4pc, at $32.77 a barrel by 12:19 p.m. ET (1619 GMT). US crude CLc1 was down $2.02, or 6.1pc, at $30.96.

Global equities plunged into a bear market after President Trump said the United States would suspend all travel from Europe, except Britain and Ireland, as he unveiled measures to contain the coronavirus.

“Global market carnage continues as Wall Street struggles to grasp how long the global pan-

demic will disrupt travel, trade and daily life,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA in New York. “The initial shock of Trump’s EU travel ban will deliver another blow to demand forecasts. Brent crude seems poised to selloff another 10% here as the demand outlook seems like it will only get worse.”

Global oil demand is set to contract in 2020 for the first time in more than a decade, with the International Energy Agency this week lowering its annual forecast by almost 1 million bpd.

Pakistan’s 2020 real estate prospects and challenges

BY SYEd KhuRRam atiq Real estate is one of the pillars of any economy. Land, who owns it, where it is located all end up being critical factors in where wealth is concentrated and where human society will organize itself. According to the World Bank, nearly 60-70pc of a country’s total wealth is stored in its real estate assets.

Apply these estimates to Pakistan, and you’re looking at a real estate sector worth anywhere between $300 to $400 billion.

With any number in the billions, let alone the hundreds of billions, it is wont to gain attention and importance. But for a bevy of financial, economic and political challenges, real estate has been a disaster all through the last year and isn’t looking any brighter in 2020.

The positive, however, is that things are stagnant for now, and that means possibility of growth.

The current rut that the real estate sector in Pakistan finds itself in can be traced back to 2017, where a strange mix of political instability, tax policy confusion and an uncertainty in economic and financial policies first caused the once vibrant sector to develop anxious breaks and finally come to a resounding halt.

A near complete absence of incentives for the investors was imposed as the government tried to somehow wrangle a tax net together. Bans were imposed on non-filers from buying property worth more than Rs 5 million unless they registered with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). This was followed by the board placing strict checks on the banking transactions of non-filers, levying higher taxes on transfers of property, and actively discouraging investors to put their money in the sector in 2018-19. What any of this achieved, no one can still quite tell.

What is clear is that it managed to make things messier.

Another factor that contributed to the slowdown of the real estate sector was the non-utilisation of developmental budget that led to contraction of the construction sector and consequently, the real estate sector.

Just thinking (and writing) about the last

PAKISTAN HAS BEEN IN A REAL ESTATE RUT SINCE 2017.

2020 MAY BE THE YEAR WE BREAK OUT OF IT, BUT THE GOVERNMENT WILL HAVE TO PLAY ITS CARDS RIGHT. few years in Pakistani real estate is a hope robbing activity. Where could it possibly go from here? Don’t be surprised if it’s up, even though this isn’t even bottom yet. Despite the gloomy outlook and the bruising in the last few years, there is compelling evidence that 2020 will be an exciting time for investors, especially Prime Minister Imran Khan’s blue-eyed demographic: overseas Pakistanis.

To start with, and this is no lightweight factor, there has been a serious boom in the tourism industry. Inbound tourism in Pakistan has witnessed a marked increase of over 70 percent during the year 2019, mainly due to multiple government initiatives, and the improved security situation in particular.

The number of foreigners who visited Pakistan in 2018 on tourist visas stands at 17,823, which was 10,476 in 2017, according to one report.

This significant growth in the tourism industry will definitely compel foreigners to purchase properties in Pakistan, especially in Lahore, which is a historic, central and tropical location. Similarly, Pakistan is treading on the right path by creating favourable environment for businesses, with the World Bank ranking Pakistan 108th in the global ranking of its "Doing Business 2020” report.

This is a jump nearly 30 places, with Pakistan placed at 138th just a year before this.

The improved business environment will attract foreign direct investment into the country and create employment opportunities for the youth. According to a world bank report, an increase in foreign investment and an expansion of the market has a direct impact on the worth of real estate. Improved indicators of economy point towards 2020 being a year that will increase the demand of commercial and luxury housing societies in

metropolitan cities like Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Karachi.

Digital vision Pakistan is also a muchneeded project to modernize the governance system and bodes well for the investors, especially for the overseas Pakistanis who were eagerly waiting for the digital revolution in governance and taxation. E-governance offers platforms to report corruption, comfort for citizens, and minimal interaction with government functionaries. Moreover, The federal government has also authorized relevant authorities to carry out a digital survey of the sale and purchase of the real estate in Pakistan which will provide citizens easy access to the information of all real estate.

There is also the CPEC factor. It has been a buzzword and now it is treated as just that, but that does not do much to end its on the ground reality and the impact it has on possible investors. Special economic zones of CPEC are yet to be completed, but the positive impacts of CPEC can be seen in the form of improved situation of the power sector and partial completion of Lahore-Karachi motorway. The distance between Lahore and Multan has been cut short to 3 and a half hours from an earlier 5 hour distance. Business and investors are now looking towards Multan as the new economic hub of Pakistan. Development of DHA Multan, DHA Bahawalpur are some of the examples that are proof of CPEC’s boons, and its eventual positive impact on real estate in the country.

However, there remain certain challenges. Withholding tax on non-filers on banking transactions, FBR notices to banking customers to authenticate their money sources are all still haunting customer confidence. Up to 37 per cent of the banking transactions are in cash which reduce the financial industry’s lending ability, says Asad

Umar, former Finance Minister. This needs to be brought down to at least 25pc if we are to have a prayer.

Likewise, diaspora Pakistanis still need to be properly wooed. According to the State Bank, Pakistan received a record $21.84 billion remittances in 2019-20. The only way that expats can invest in Pakistan is in real estate, since they can’t possibly run businesses in the country. For this purpose, they must be facilitated in every possible way. Cumbersome procedures, imposition of high taxes on non-filer overseas Pakistanis, and requirement of visiting Pakistan for the completion of property acquiring process are some of the many reasons that have discouraged overseas Pakistanis to invest their money in the real estate sector.

Asking for remittances is never going to be enough, the government will have to win them over now.

The state of affairs is that the real estate market has been overtaken by uneducated agents and dealers who don’t have the necessary skills to guide people, and in most cases leads to frauds and ruination - which further gives the sector a bad name and keeps local and foreign investors away.

There is a serious need for a Federal and Provincial Real Estate Authority in the country that could help regulate the profession and protect the rights of land allottees.

Moreover, there is a dire need to oversee the development of societies by the developers and builders as it takes many years to complete the land consolidation process.

Oversight by a real estate regulatory authority will lend the business some legitimacy and more importantly some accountability.

Those overseas will also not have to worry about being scammed.

All over the world, real estate and stock markets play key roles in the economic growth of a country. But real estate in Pakistan is unable to reach its maximum potential because of the over-regulation by the FBR. At present, there is no tax on property that is held for more than four years. But a five per cent tax will be imposed if the property of worth Rs 5 million is sold within four

years and a 15 per cent tax will be imposed on property sold within ten years of ownership.

Increasing the tax rate and banning the non-filer is no solution and serves no real purpose other than the government feeling more in control of the sector. Only well-articulated research is required to broaden the tax net by incentivizing the non-filers to become filers. The government seems to be doing the opposite by punishing people that want to invest and circulate wealth.

Somebody needs to tell the government that its two projects of 5 million housing schemes and 10 million jobs scheme will only get success when the real estate sector grows, because there are more than 100 industries directly and indirectly related to it.

The boom in real estate will fuel growth in other industries such as the construction industry, which accounts for 2 % of GDP of Pakistan. It will not only help overcome shortages of houses, but also will provide employment opportunities for our burgeoning youth, which accounts for 60 % of the total population of 220 million. The government also needs to build new cities along with big metropolitan cities to overcome the urbanisation crisis.

At present, the market is contracted and confidence of investors is shattered because of restrictions on non-filers and impositions of huge taxes on already tax paying citizens.

Government needs to devise long-term strategies to broaden the tax base. Taxing existing taxpayers more will only inflict more harm, first by squeezing the tax base, as people will start using cash transactions instead of banking transactions and will hide their wealth, and secondly by forcing investors to park their wealth outside Pakistan by purchasing properties in Britain, Dubai, and investing money in offshore companies. There is a need to follow an incremental approach in reforming the system as fast track reforms can have negative implications for the economy, especially real estate.

Syed Khurram Atiq is the CEO of the Premium Group.

Tom Hanks and RiTa Wilson TesT posiTive foR coRonaviRus

o

AGENCIES

SCAr-WINNING actor Tom Hanks and his wife, actress rita Wilson, have tested positive for coronavirus in Australia, the actor said on Twitter.

Hanks said he and Wilson, both 63, were tested in Australia, where he is working on a film after they felt tired and achy with slight fevers.

"To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested

for the coronavirus and were found to be positive," Hanks said in the tweet.

The film star said he and Wilson would be "tested, observed and isolated" for as long as required.

The couple are the first major US celebrities known to have contracted COVID-19. The coronavirus has infected more than 1,000 people in the US. "Not much more to it than a oneday-at-a-time approach, no? We'll keep the world posted and updated," Hanks tweeted.

Hanks had travelled to Australia to

begin filming an upcoming movie about Elvis Presley. He is set to play Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, in the Warner Bros production.

"We have been made aware that a company member from our Elvis feature film, which is currently in pre-production in The Gold Coast, Australia, has tested positive for COVID-19," Warner Bros said in a statement.

"We are working closely with the appropriate Australian health agencies to identify and contact anyone who may have come in direct contact with

the individual.

"The health and safety of our company members is always our top priority, and we are taking precautions to protect everyone who works on our productions around the world," the studio said. The Warner Bros statement did not mention Hanks.

The actor is staying on the Gold Coast, in eastern Australia, which has one of the country's main Hollywood studios and where filming was to take place."The Elvis biopic filming has been closed down. I understand it will be 14 days quarantine and testing ... our heart goes out to Tom and his wife," Tom Tate, mayor of the Gold Coast, said in a press conference.

The couple's son Chet took to Instagram to say he had spoken with his parents on the phone and that both were fine and there was no cause for major concern.

"Yeah, it's true, my parents got coronavirus. Crazy," he said in a video message. "They're not even that sick. They're not worried about it, they're not trippin', but they're going through the necessary health precautions obviously."

Wilson appeared on Monday on a chat show on free-to-air broadcaster Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd. The network said employees who had been in contact with her would be tested for the coronavirus and quarantined for 14 days.

Hanks won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in 1994's Philadelphia, in which he plays a man stricken with AIDS, and Forrest Gump the following year. Wilson has appeared in such films as Sleepless in Seattle and runaway Bride.

The coronavirus has infected more than 121,000 people in 118 countries while over 4,300 people have died due to the virus, a reuters tally shows. In the US, at least 37 people have died from the respiratory illness.

The Who cancel uk rock tour on coronavirus worries British rock band The Who have canceled their UK tour due to coronavirus, just four days before they were due to take to the stage in Manchester. The group, famous for tracks like “My Generation” and “Substitute”, said the three-week tour would go ahead later in the year. “Haven’t reached this decision easily, but given the concerns about public gatherings, we couldn’t go ahead,” guitarist and singer Pete Townshend said in a statement on Thursday. Fears over the rapid spread of the virus have led to the cancellation of concerts and sports events across the globe, such as the Indian Wells tennis tournament and the Coachella music festival, and have raised questions about whether the Tokyo Olympic Games should go ahead. AGENCIES

Broadway braces for worst as travel ban, coronavirus threatens theater Broadway theater, one of New York’s biggest tourist attractions, could be the next victim of the coronavirus after an usher tested positive for the disease and President Donald Trump banned European travel to the United States. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that he planned to issue guidance for Broadway in the next 24-48 hours amid a raft of other likely restrictions for New Yorkers. He said there were 62 cases of coronavirus in the city.

“I don’t want to see Broadway go dark if we can avoid it. I want to see if we can strike some kind of balance,” De Blasio told CNN, mentioning the possibility of putting more spaces between theater goers. The industry was spooked on Wednesday when it was announced that an usher who had worked at two New York theaters had tested positive for coronavirus. Owners of the two venues said they had ordered deep cleanings and their shows went ahead. However, television talk shows “The Late Show,”, “The Tonight Show” and “Last Week Tonight” said they would tape their broadcasts in New York venues without audiences going forward. Several Broadway plays and musicals have already put a halt to cast members greeting fans and signing programs at stage doors. AGENCIES

Fear and panic grip Hollywood as coronavirus looms IN A TOWN WHERE CROWDS ARE THE BUSINESS, NOBODY KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO PROCEED AS COVID-19 GROWS—OR WHAT TO DO IF THE DISEASE GRINDS THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY TO A HALT AGENCIES No one knows what to do. In Hollywood, a business built on meet and greets and gathering crowds, reaction to the coronavirus pandemic has been halting and disorienting.

It can’t be that bad, can it? Can it?

Sources who spoke anonymously to protect their businesses and clients told Vanity Fair that although the virus hasn’t yet infected widespread segments of the industry, fear and uncertainty has. The financial impact is already bad, and the spread of Covid19 could make it catastrophic.

“Yes, of course people are concerned,” one veteran publicist with a roster of A-list talent said. “There are health concerns, and then there are also business concerns. And it depends where you are living within all of that to determine what’s going to outweigh the other.”

Premieres still went on as scheduled this week and last, with thousands gathering for the red-carpet events to showcase Mulan,

Bloodshot, and Westworld. Film and TV productions are still underway for the most part, though Mission: Impossible 7 was halted in Italy—where nationwide travel restrictions have been imposed—and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ceased work in Prague.

In Los Angeles, some screening events are still planned—but film festivals and other massive annual gatherings are closing down one by one, and the trend now is toward everything grinding to a stop as the news of infectious spread becomes ever more dire.

People the world over are grappling with how to proceed, but the entertainment industry is uniquely about the business of gathering crowds. Last week’s cancelation of South by Southwest, one of the most important cross-platform entertainment gatherings of the year, was a shocking wake-up call.

Now, actors are asking if they absolutely have to travel for CinemaCon, the Las Vegas convention for theater owners. Will the

Tribeca Film Festival still go on as planned?

(Will it if talent begins canceling their travel to it?) Is it absolutely vital to appear at the PaleyFest television Q&As in Los Angeles this week and next? Can that upcoming photo shoot be postponed—indefinitely?

“I think everyone was concerned about South by, and then obviously South by got canceled. From the talent perspective, there are two different ways to approach it,” the veteran publicist said. “A lot of people are

relieved when all of a sudden something like that is canceled. So the decision is made for them, and they don’t have to worry about it.

However, if you’re a filmmaker, it may be a very different situation.

“If your movie’s about to open, maybe you’re more concerned for the business ramifications. You want to promote your movie and you’re being prohibited in some instances from doing so,” the publicist added.

“If you are a filmmaker and you need to sell

your movie at a film festival, you’re freaking out because of course you’re concerned about your health—but for people that have spent years making a movie, they’re also concerned about the business of their film and finding a home for it.”

It would help to have guidance. But no one knows who to trust or turn to, and the reluctance to overreact is clashing with the dread of forging ahead.

A clear warning from the Centers for Disease Control to halt all gatherings would be obeyed without question, most sources say. But right now, people at all levels of the industry are struggling with whether the show must go on. Hollywood, in a darkly ironic way, needs some direction. They’re not getting it.

Instead, talent deciding to drop out of appearances is forcing the hands of networks and studios, who in turn are withdrawing— or considering withdrawing—from some of these events. Amazon Studios, Facebook, and TikTok had dropped out of South by Southwest as tens of thousands of people signed a petition pleading with organizers to cancel. Then Netflix pulled its screenings.

The next day, the Austin mayor, under a declaration of local disaster, announced that the March 13-22 event was canceled—but with the festival hemorrhaging participants, that decision had essentially already been made for the organizers and city officials.

As talent—the engine of the entertainment industrial complex—disappears, the effects have already been profound.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

14 SPORTS

NBA suspeNds All gAmes As coRoNAviRus spReAds

T

HE NBA suspended all games starting Thursday after a player for the Utah Jazz preliminarily tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. The league said play would be suspended until further notice The test result was reported shortly before tipoff of Wednesday night's game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder in Oklahoma City, according to a statement from the NBA. The game was canceled immediately.

The affected player was not in the arena at the time of cancellation. The NBA also announced that it would use the hiatus to determine its next steps.

A game between the Sacramento Kings and the New Orleans Pelicans in New Orleans was also suspended because one of the referees at the game had worked a Jazz game earlier in the week, according to NBC Sports.

Wednesday night's other games were allowed to go ahead.

The move by the NBA is the biggest in the U.S. to date in response to concerns about the spreading coronavirus. Earlier Wednesday, the NCAA said it would restrict attendance at its coming Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments to staff and family.

Reporters at the Jazz-Thunder game tweeted that the entire arena was emptied and that both teams were still in their locker rooms while the Jazz bench area was cleaned.

The suspension follows an announcement by the Golden State Warriors that

Fans leave after an announcement that the Oklahoma City Thunder vs Utah Jazz game is canceled just before the tip off at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

they would play a game Thursday night without fans. The Warriors said they "completely support" the league's move to suspend games.

"As we noted earlier today, with the escalating situation surrounding COVID-19, we find ourselves in a rap-

Romanian matches to be played without spectators due to coronavirus All Romanian league matches will be played without spectators attending until further notice because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) said. The FRF also said in a statement it has suspended ticket sales for the 2021 European Under-21 Championship qualifier between Romania and Denmark on March 31. Romania confirmed last month its first case of coronavirus in a man from the southern county of Gorj and more than a dozen other cases have been reported since.

Bulgaria, Romania’s southern neighbor, said on Sunday that all league matches in the next two rounds will be played behind closed doors because of the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement came a few hours after the Balkan country confirmed its first cases of coronavirus.

A raft of sports events globally have been called off due to the coronavirus. European soccer’s ruling body UEFA has banned players and match officials from shaking hands in line with recommendations made by the World Health Organization. AGENCIES

idly-changing environment by the day, if not the hour," the team said in a statement.

The NBA playoffs are set to start in mid-April. Most teams have fewer than 20 games left in the regular season.

The NHL said in a statement that it is

"aware of the NBA's decision tonight to indefinitely suspend its season due to a player testing positive for the coronavirus."

"The NHL is continuing to consult with medical experts and is evaluating the options. We expect to have a further update tomorrow," the league said. AGENCIES

Chile to quarantine returning soccer stars Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal Chilean soccer stars Alexis Sanchez and Arturo Vidal will be quarantined when they return to their home country from Europe to play in a World Cup qualifier this month, Chile’s health minister said on Tuesday.

The players - who are signed to European clubs - are due to fly first to Uruguay for a World Cup qualifier on March 26 and then to Chile to face Colombia.

Italy announced a quarantine and advised against all but non-essential travel until April 3 after its death toll from coronavirus jumped by 168 to 631 this week.

“We do not make any distinction by people’s profession because nobody is immune to this virus and indeed the quarantine determined today for Italy applies to everyone,” said

Health Minister Jaime Mañalich, according to local news website Emol.

“Of course, if these players want to work out on a machine in their homes, or all be quarantined together at Juan Pinto Duran (the national football stadium), then that’s their call.”

A source at the Football Federation of Chile told Emol it had been told nothing about quarantine plans for the players.

“So far there are no changes to our plans,” a source said. “What the minister says comes as a surprise.”

Spain has suspended flights from Italy and also advised against all nonessential travel. It has so far reported 36 deaths and 1,639 confirmed cases.

Italy has at least 10,149.

Alexis Sánchez plays for Inter

Milan and Vidal plays for FC Barcelona. Another Chilean player likely to be impacted is Gary Medel, who plays for the Italian club Bologna.

Sanchez’s team has been playing Serie A matches in empty stadiums after the Italian government banned large gatherings last week. At around the same time, there was a flurry of claims on social media that Sanchez himself may have contracted the coronavirus - reports later explained by a poor translation of a story about Sanchez’s team being impacted by the games ban.

Chile is tracking people returning from countries affected by coronavirus in a bid to contain its spread. So far, 17 cases have been confirmed in the South American country. AGENCIES

ATp suspends men’s tennis tour for six weeks over coronavirus The ATP suspended its professional men’s tennis tour for six weeks on Thursday, citing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, which has upended major sporting events across the globe. The announcement came moments after Miami-Dade County said it would suspend the Miami Open and on the heels of Sunday’s lastminute cancellation of the Indian Wells tournament in Southern California. The decision was not taken lightly, ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said in a statement, adding that the suspension represents a great loss for players and fans. “We believe this is the responsible action needed at this time in order to protect the health and safety of our players, staff, the wider tennis community and general public health in the face of this global pandemic,” he said. Impacted events include the Clay Court Championships in Houston, the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, the Monte-Carlo Masters, the Barcelona Open and the Hungarian Open.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the coronavirus crisis as a pandemic, meaning it is spreading fast across the globe, as countries scramble to contain the outbreak. AGENCIES

miami open tennis tournament suspended over coronavirus The Miami Open, which brings together the top men’s and women’s tennis players in the world, has been suspended due to growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, the Miami-Dade County mayor said on Thursday. “Although we do not have community spread at this time, we want to take the preemptive steps to keep it that way,” Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez said in a written statement cancelling mass gatherings in the area. A March 22 NASCAR race at the Homestead Miami Speedway was also postponed, Gimenez said, adding that the racing association would decide whether or not to hold the race without fans. Last year’s Miami Open featured players from over 40 countries and attracted nearly 400,000 spectators. The inaugural edition of the multi-nation Fed Cup finals that were scheduled to be held in Budapest next month was postponed on Wednesday due to the outbreak. The cancellation of the twoweek annual event, which was set to start on March 23, comes on the heels of Sunday’s last-minute cancellation of the Indian Wells tournament in Southern California due to similar concerns about the pandemic. AGEN C IE S

McLaren withdraws from Australian GP after virus positive McLaren withdrew from the seasonopening Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne on Thursday after a team member tested positive for coronavirus, fuelling concerns about the race going ahead.

The British-based team, whose drivers are Spaniard Carlos Sainz and Briton Lando Norris, did not reveal details about the employee.

"The team member was tested and self-isolated as soon as they started to show symptoms and will now be treated by local healthcare authorities," the former champions said in a statement here “The team has prepared for this eventuality and has ongoing support in place for its employee who will now enter a period of quarantine. The team is cooperating with the relevant local authorities to assist their investigations and analysis.”

McLaren said they had made the decision “based on a duty of care not only to McLaren F1 employees and partners, but also to the team’s competitors, Formula One fans and wider

F1 stakeholders.” There was no immediate comment on McLaren’s participation in the March 22 Bahrain Grand Prix, something of a home race for a team majority-owned by that country’s Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund.

Tests on four Haas team members who had been quarantined due to the outbreak came back negative, a spokesman said.

U.S.-owned Haas are also Britishbased but have close ties to Ferrari, the Italian team whose engines they use.

Victoria state’s top health official had warned earlier that positive tests in the paddock could lead to the race being scrapped.

“If (the tests) turn up positive, we need to consider what it means for their close contacts and if they have a number of close contacts across a number of crews, then those individuals need to be quarantined,” Brett Sutton told Melbourne radio station 3AW. “If that effectively shuts down the race, then so be it, we’ll make that call.”

NINTH TEST: The Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) said in a

statement that the McLaren employee was the only positive result from tests on eight paddock personnel.

“The AGPC is currently in discussions with Formula One, the (governing) FIA and the department of health and human services in relation to the broader implications of this test result,” it added.

A ninth individual “not associated with any Formula One team, the FIA or associated suppliers” had also been assessed and that result was pending.

Mercedes’ six times world champion Lewis Hamilton told reporters earlier that it was “shocking” the race could go ahead and suggested organisers had put financial concerns ahead of people’s health.

There was also criticism and concern on social media from F1 media at the lack of information and advice being provided by the sport.

“Tonight I’m so angry and disappointed in #F1. This was a scenario that many feared, and it was totally avoidable. It’s a sad day for the sport,” said motorsport.com’s F1 editor Jon Noble on Twitter.AGENCIES

Friday, 13 March, 2020

SPORTS 15

HBL-PSL 5: KaraCHI KIngS defeat LaHore QaLandarS By 10 wICKetS

HBL SCORECARD LAHORE QALANDARS BATSMEN Sohail Akhtar (c) lbw b Arshad Iqbal ...................................................................................................68 Fakhar Zaman b Umaid Asif ....................................................................................................................17 CA Lynn c Iftikhar Ahmed b Arshad Iqbal .........................................................................................5 BR Dunk † c Usama Mir b Umaid Asif ................................................................................................9 Mohammad Hafeez not out ....................................................................................................................35 SR Patel c Babar Azam b Jordan ...........................................................................................................5 D Wiese not out ...........................................................................................................................................5 EXTRAS 6 (lb 3, w 3) TOTAL 150/5 (20 Overs, RR: 7.5) DID NOT BAT: Dilbar Hussain, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Muhammad Faizan FALL OF WICKETS: 1-49 (Fakhar Zaman, 5.6 ov), 2-72 (Chris Lynn, 8.5 ov), 3-90 (Ben Dunk, 12.2 ov), 4-108 (Sohail Akhtar, 14.1 ov), 5-133 (Samit Patel, 17.2 ov) BOWLING Mohammad Amir 4-0-30-0 Imad Wasim 2-0-21-0 Umaid Asif 4-0-34-2 CJ Jodan 3-0-23-0 Usama Mir 3-0-23-0 Arshad Iqbal 3-0-15-2 KARACHI KINGS BATSMEN Sharjeel Khan not out ................................................................................................................................74 Babar Azam ....................................................................................................................................................69 EXTRAS: 8 (lb 5, nb 2, w 1) TOTAL: 151/0 (17.1 Overs, RR: 8.79) YET TO BAT: AD Hales, Umaid Asif, Iftikhar Ahmed, CAK Walton †, Imad Wasim (c), Mohammad Amir, CJ Jordan, Usama Mir, Arshad Iqbal BOWLING Shaheen Shah Afridi 4-0-37-0 SR Patel 2-0-18-0 D Wiese 4-0-38-0 Mohammad Hafeez 1-0-10-0 Muhammad Faizan 0.1-0-2-0

KARACHI

K

AGENCIES

ARACHI Kings snuffed out Lahore Qalandars' resurgence with a clinical performance to put themselves back in consideration for the playoffs of PSL 2020.

Following a washed-out game against the Multan Sultans and a Ben Dunk-inspired defeat at Lahore's hands last week, Karachi bounced back thanks to a disciplined bowling performance that strangled Lahore's ability before cruising to the total without losing a single wicket - just the second ten-wicket win in PSL history. Openers Babar Azam and Sharjeel Khan barely appeared to get out of the third gear, but that didn't stop them from overwhelming the Lahore bowlers completely. They scored 69 and 74 respectively and took the side to victory inside 17 overs.

Put in to bat, Lahore did get off to a solid start thanks to their ever-improving captain Sohail Akhtar, whose 49-ball 68 held together an innings that appeared to be gearing up for a big finish.

But the middle order let him down, while Karachi's accuracy and intelligence following the halfway mark ensured Lahore never really attained the fluency they required to put up a challenging total. Umaid Asif took the key wickets of Fakhar

Zaman and Dunk kneecapping Lahore's big-hitting prowess, while Chirs Jordan's accuracy at the death ensured Lahore managed only 150.

Enter Azam And Sharjeel. It seemed Sharjeel might have been going too slow to start off, but seeing off the dangerous Shaheen Afridi proved a tactical masterstroke. The only way for Lahore to get into the match was to take wickets, depriving them that saw the pressure lift quickly, and the run-scoring increased exponentially. Azam was supremely untroubled, and before long, Sharjeel unleashed the big hits. It might have been billed as the contest of the season, but ended up being a cakewalk.

Star of the day Arshad Iqbal had struggled during the early stages of the PSL, but thrust into the big game today, he repaid his franchise's faith with his best performance of the season. When he was called upon for the ninth over, Lahore were going steadily at 65 for 1, with Chris Lynn having just arrived at the crease. Iqbal was greeted by a slice behind backward point for four by Akhtar but came back strongly in the over conceding just three more while also getting rid of Lynn, who was deceived in the air and holed out to deep midwicket. Iqbal was unlucky not to have sent Akhtar back off the first ball of his next over, with Alex Hales dropping a skier.

HBL PSL TODAY’S MATCH VS 7:00 PM MuLtan SuLtanS

KARACHI

PeSHawar zaLMI

Coronavirus outbreak forces India to hold cricket matches in empty stadiums India on Thursday ordered upcoming international cricket matches to be played in empty stadiums in a bid to combat the spread of coronavirus. With just 68 confirmed cases and no deaths, India has so far been relatively unscathed by the virus compared to elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America. But experts fear that its overstretched medical systems may not be able to handle the type of intensive care required to handle a spike in infections. On Thursday, the country's sports secretary said it wanted the national cricket team's upcoming matches to be played in empty stadiums — an unheard-of occurrence for one of India's national obsessions. The chief ministers of two states where India is due to play matches against South Africa this month "have been advised to avoid gathering of people," RS Jhulaniya told Reuters. "Matches may go on without spectator crowd". Brijesh Patel, governing council chairman of the Indian Premier League, the country's premier domestic cricket tournament due to start later this month, said the organisation would meet on Saturday to discuss "all possibilities" regarding the tournament, including visas issues for overseas players and the possibility of playing matches in empty stadiums. New Delhi said late on Wednesday it will cancel almost all visas issued for travel to the country until April 15, in one of the most farreaching attempts to prevent the spread of the virus. AGENCIES

How the coronavirus has hit global sport AFP looks at the effects on sport of the coronavirus, which by Wednesday had killed over 4,500 people while infecting more than 124,000 in 113 countries and territories.

FOOTBALL: In Italy, the hardest-hit European country with 827 deaths from COVID19, all sporting events including Serie A have been suspended until April 3.

The suspension amounts to the postponement of two rounds of matches, in a league which has already been hit by delays, with four previous matches yet to be played.

Juventus defender Daniele Rugani became the first Serie A footballer to test positive for the virus on Wednesday.

Games in Spain´s La Liga and France´s Ligue 1 and the second divisions in each country will have no fans for at least the next two weeks.

Arsenal´s game at Manchester City on Wednesday became the first Premier League fixture to be called off due to the outbreak, with the Gunners´ players put in quarantine after coming into contact with the owner of Greek club Olympiakos.

German Bundesliga teams have begun to close their stadiums to fans, with this weekend´s matches set to be played in front of empty stands.

The virus has also hit the UEFA Champions League, with Italian side Atalanta qualifying for the quarter-finals at Valencia on Tuesday in an empty stadium, while Paris Saint-Germain´s win over Borussia Dortmund was also played without spectators.

Barcelona v Napoli, Bayern Munich v Chelsea and Juventus v Lyon will also be played behind closed doors.

Three UEFA Europa League games on Thursday including Manchester United away to LASK Linz will have no fans, while the ties between Inter Milan and Getafe and Roma and Sevilla have been postponed.

International friendlies to be played behind closed doors include France v Ukraine and Germany v Italy.

The start of Japan´s J-League was postponed till mid-March while China suspended all domestic football and shelved indefinitely the top-flight Super League season.

The French League Cup final between Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon has been called off, with no new date yet fixed, as has the Spanish Copa del Rey final between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao.

Euro 2020 warm-up tournament in Qatar, featuring Portugal, Belgium, Croatia and Switzerland, cancelled.

FIFA Congress, due to take place in Addis Ababa on June 5, was delayed until September 18.

TENNIS: The prestigious ATP and WTA Indian Wells tournament was cancelled as California health officials declared a public health emergency in the Indian Wells-Palm Springs area after there was a confirmed case of the coronavirus, the first major sports event in the US to be shelved because of the outbreak.

The inaugural Fed Cup Finals scheduled for next month in Budapest were postponed.

RUGBY UNION: The Six Nations match between Italy and England in Rome on March 14 as well as the Ireland v Italy duel in Dublin on March 7 were postponed.

Title challengers France´s final game against Ireland, also scheduled for March 14,

was also put off until October.

Scotland´s women´s Six Nations match against France last Saturday was postponed after a Scottish player tested positive for the coronavirus.

Sevens World Series tournaments in Hong Kong on April 3-5 and Singapore the following weekend will now be played in October.

MOTORSPORT: Bahrain´s Formula One Grand Prix on March 20-22 will be held without spectators. The Chinese Grand Prix, which was set for April 19 in Shanghai, has been postponed.

In motorcycling, the season-opening Qatar MotoGP was cancelled, along with the Thailand MotoGP on March 22 (postponed until October 4). On Tuesday the Grand Prix

CMYK

of the Americas at Austin was rescheduled from April to November, while the MotoGP race in Argentina was also put on hold. Formula E indefinitely postponed the Rome EPrix, which was due to be held on April 4.

BASKETBALL: The Golden State Warriors will play behind closed doors at their Chase Center home on Thursday when they take on the Brooklyn Nets -- the first NBA game to be directly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.

NCAA ´March Madness´ to also be closed to general public.

CYCLING: The spring classic Milan-San Remo, scheduled for March 21, was postponed, having only previously been cancelled three times since the inaugural edition in 1907.

The Strade Bianchi, the first big race of

the Italian cycling season set for last Saturday, was also cancelled along with the multi-day Tirreno-Adriatico.

TOKYO OLYMPICS: International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said last week that the nightmare scenario of either cancelling or postponing this year's Tokyo Olympics was not discussed at a key meeting.

"Neither the word cancellation nor postponement was mentioned today during the Executive Board meeting," Bach told reporters in Lausanne.

The Olympics take place from July 24August 9.

GOLF: European Tour chiefs postponed the Maybank Championship in Malaysia and the China Open in Shenzhen -- both set for April.

The US LPGA Tour cancelled all three of its lucrative early-season events in Asia with a combined prize purse of more than $5 million.

The Indian Open in New Delhi, set for March 19-22, was postponed on Wednesday.

ATHLETICS: The World Indoor Championships, scheduled for Nanjing from March 13-15, were postponed until next year.

The Paris Marathon, scheduled for April 5 with 60,000 registered runners, was postponed until October 18.

The Barcelona Marathon, which was scheduled for March 15 with 17,000 runners, was postponed until October.

ALPINE SKIING: The World Cup finals, scheduled for Cortina d´Ampezzo in Italy between March 16-22, were cancelled.

This weekend´s three women´s races in Are were scrapped, crowning Federica Brignone as the overall champion.

Friday, 13 March, 2020

NEWS

TruMp sTops flIghTs froM EuropE, global alarM ovEr coroNavIrus sprEaDs IRAN ASKS IMF FOR EMERGENCY FUNDING TO FIGHT CORONAVIRUS AS DEATH TOLL REACHES 429 BEIJING/WASHINGTON

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AGENCIES

RAveLeRS scrambled to rebook flights and markets reeled on Thursday after United States President Donald Trump imposed sweeping restrictions on travel from europe, hitting battered airlines and heightening global alarm over the coronavirus.

But China, where the disease originated, said its epidemic had peaked and the global spread could be over by June if other nations applied similarly aggressive containment measures as Beijing’s communist government. Trump had downplayed risks to the US during the crisis, but with epidemics ballooning from Iran to Italy and Spain, he limited travel from continental europe for 30 days.

"This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," he said in a prime-time televised address from the Oval Office on Wednesday.

Markets went into a tailspin, with euro-

CANADA'S TRUDEAU IS SELFISOLATING WHILE HIS WIFE WAITS ON CORONAVIRUS TEST RESULTS pean shares plunging to their lowest in almost four years and oil slumping. US stock indexes lost another 7 per cent and triggered an automatic cutout shortly after the opening bell.

The european Central Bank approved fresh stimulus measures, including ultra-cheap loans, to help the ailing eurozone economy but unexpectedly kept interest rates on hold.

Trump’s move also sent weary and confused travelers rushing to airports to board the last flights back to the US. "It caused a mass panic," said 20-year-old Anna Grace, a US student at Suffolk University on her first trip to europe, who rushed to Madrid’s Barajas airport at 5 am to get home.

The outbreak has disrupted industry, travel, entertainment and sports worldwide, even throwing the Tokyo Summer Olympics into question. But its progress in the epicentre of China’s Hubei province has slowed markedly amid strict curbs on movement, including the lockdown of its capital Wuhan.

Hubei logged just eight new infections on Wednesday, the first time in the outbreak it has recorded a daily tally of less than 10. Be-

yond Hubei, mainland China had just seven new cases, six of them imported from abroad.

"The peak of the epidemic has passed for China," said Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission.

DEATH TOLL IN IRAN FROM CORONAVIRUS REACHES 429: Iran’s Health Ministry on Thursday reported 75 new deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 429 in the worst-hit country in the Middle east.

"We have identified 1,075 new confirmed cases of COvID-19 in the last 24 hours, meaning that there are 10,075 infected people in the country. The death toll is 429," Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that he has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency funding to help it fight the coronavirus outbreak.

He said that IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has stated that countries affected by COvID19 will be supported via Rapid Financial Instrument. "Our Central Bank requested access to this facility immediately," he added.

Iranian Central Bank chief Abdolnaser Hemmati wrote on his Instagram page that "in a letter addressed to the head of IMF, I have requested five billion US dollars from the RFI emergency fund to help our fight against the coronavirus".

SAUDI ARABIA SUSPENDS FLIGHTS

TO 40 COUNTRIES: Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced to suspend flights to several countries including Pakistan and India to prevent coronavirus spread, after announcing 24 new cases overnight to bring its total to 45.

The decision includes the european Union (eU), Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Sudan, ethiopia, South Sudan, eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia. The kingdom also suspended entry to those coming from these countries. Citizens and residents in the affected jurisdictions were given 72 hours to return to the kingdom.

CANADIAN PM, FIRST LADY IN SELFISOLATION: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie are in selfisolation as she awaits COvID-19 test results.

Meanwhile, a meeting between Trudeau, the premiers and Indigenous leaders that was scheduled to begin in Ottawa today has been postponed indefinitely in response to the COvID-19 outbreak.

“Having recently returned from a speaking engagement in London, U.K., the Prime Minister's wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau began exhibiting mild flu-like symptoms including a low fever late last night," said a PMO press release.

"She is self-isolating at home awaiting test results, and her symptoms have since subsided. The doctor's advice to the prime minister is to continue daily activities while self-monitoring, given he is exhibiting no

symptoms himself. However, out of an abundance of caution, the prime minister is opting to self-isolate and work from home until receiving Sophie's results,” the statement added. The PMO further said that Trudeau is not planning to be tested at this time.

INDIA REPORTS FIRST COVID-19 DEATH: A 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi in Karnataka who died on Wednesday turned out to be India's first coronovirus death, the state government announced on Thursday. "Tests of samples taken earlier confirmed that the person was infected with COvID-19," it said. Telangana government has also been informed as he went to a hospital there. State Health Minister B Sriramulu in a tweet said the necessary contact tracing, isolation and other measures as per protocol were being taken.

TOM HANKS AND RITA WILSON TEST POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS: Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and his wife, actress Rita Wilson, have tested positive for coronavirus in Australia, the actor said on Twitter.

Hanks said he and Wilson, both 63, were tested in Australia, where he is working on a film after they felt tired and achy with slight fevers. "To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the coronavirus and were found to be positive," Hanks said in the tweet. The film star said he and Wilson would be "tested, observed and isolated" for as long as required.

PM gives go ahead to five-year trade policy, says Dawood Indian police 'took part' in anti-Muslim violence during Delhi riots: NYT NEW YORK/NEW DELHI STAFF REPORT

A report published by the New York Times on Thursday said that recent evidence suggests that New Delhi police “concertedly moved against Muslims” and “actively helped Hindu mobs” that targeted Muslims and their homes during the deadly riots that gripped the Indian capital last month. At least 50 people were killed in Delhi’s worst communal violence in decades, over two-thirds of them from India’s Muslim minority, according to hospital lists.

Mosques were burnt and vandalised along with Hindu-owned shops and at least 15 Hindus were killed. According to the publication, several videos have surfaced of Delhi police assaulting Muslims protesters, and urging Hindu mobs to join. The report also quoted a police commander as saying that as the violence erupted — attributed to mostly Hindu mobs — officials were told to deposit their guns at the police station; NYT journalists later heard officials yelling to one another that they needed guns, not sticks, to confront the growing mobs. It also highlighted that the majority of those that were killed in the violent clashes were Muslims. The report also accuses India’s police force of being “politicised” by Modi’s ruling Hindunationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), citing the example of a school principal who was jailed on sedition charges for staging a play about the country’s new citizenship law.

“There’s a method to this madness,” the report quoted Umar Khalid, a Muslim activist, as saying. “The government wants to bring the entire Muslim community to their knees, to beg for their lives, and beg for their livelihoods.” “You can read it in their books,” he said. “They believe India’s Muslims should live in perpetual fear.” Shahid Siddiqui, a former member of Parliament, was also quoted in the report as saying: “Indian police are extremely colonial and caste-ist.” Police behavior, he said, is always “more violent and aggressive toward the weak”.

PM AIDE SAYS NEW POLICY WILL FOCUS ON VALUE-ADDED SECTORS

SAYS GOVT TO FOCUS ON ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL SECTORS INSTEAD OF TEXTILES

ISLAMABAD

$35bn in 2023, $40bn in 2024, and $46bn in 2025.

Speaking about the backlog of 17 per cent sales tax refunds, he said the government cleared a backlog of tax refunds that was pending since 2009 and it would also take measures to address the issue of pending dues soon.

He said Finance Adviser Hafeez Sheikh, State Bank of Pakistan Governor Reza Baqir and himself will meet on Friday to chalk out a mechanism to transfer sales tax refunds subject to the State Bank of Pakistan in order to ensure speedy payment of refunds to the exporters.

At present, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) deals with duty drawback and sales tax refunds whereas the Ministry of Commerce deals with Drawback of Local Taxes and Levies (DLTL). However, these subjects will be transferred to the State Bank of Pakistan under the new trade policy framework.

He said that there was anti-export bias in the country,

STAFF REPORT

The federal government is going to make fundamental changes in trade policies following the approval of the five-year Strategic Trade Policy Framework (STPF) by Prime Minister Imran Khan, said PM’s Adviser on Commerce Razak Dawood.

The PM aide said the new policy will cover 26 sectors and the government will provide an incentive to the valueadded sectors. He said the current average duty drawback is 3 per cent which will be modified for some traditional sectors, such as engineering, pharmaceutical, auto parts, processed food and beverages, footwear, gems, chemicals, meat and poultry, fruits and vegetables, seafood and marble.

Under the new framework, the government has fixed the export target at $26 billion in 2021, $31bn in 2022,

adding that there was no culture of taxes, levies and surcharges where export culture existed. The drawback has not been revised for the last eight years, he added.

He mentioned that the incentives on duty drawback will not be available for the textile sector. “We have not witnessed growth in the textile sector,” he said, adding that the government will have to move away from the textile sector. The global textile volume amounted to $837bn whereas engineering and chemicals had $2 trillion volume each, he added.

Private hospitals and labs charging exorbitant rates for coronavirus tests LAHORE SHAHAB OMER

Private hospitals and labs across the country are charging about Rs7,900 for coronavirus tests while the government has urged citizens to avoid panicking and to adopt precautionary measures instead.

Previously, the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad was the only facility performing coronavirus tests but now other provinces too have government and private hospitals doing the same. Agha Khan Laboratories, Chughtai Lab, National Hospital and many other private labs and hospitals are conducting coronavirus tests in Punjab.

A representative of Agha Khan Laboratory in Lahore informed this scribe that the lab has the facility to test for coronavirus.

“Yes, the lab is performing coronavirus tests and the fee of the test is 7,900 rupees but only the people who are suspected of being infected can utilize this facility on the prescription of a doctor. We send all the samples to Karachi and within 48 hours the lab gives the results,” he added.

Similarly, a representative of Chughtai

HEALTHCARE OFFICIALS URGE PATIENTS TO ONLY GET TESTED IF THEY HAVE CORONAVIRUS SYMPTOMS OR HAVE RECENTLY TRAVELLED TO AN AREA WITH HIGH INFECTION RATES Lab said, “We are also performing coronavirus tests and for 7,900 rupees. The lab generates the report within 24 hours.”

A representative of National Hospital, DHA, Lahore, said that they are also conducting coronavirus tests for Rs7,900.

On the other hand, Shaukat Khanam Labs, Alnoor Diagnostic Centre and many others have not started conducting coronavirus tests.

WHO SHOULD GET TESTED? Punjab Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department Spokesperson Hafiz Qaisar Abbas said that only those suspected of being infected should get tested. “There is no case of coronavirus in Punjab and only those who have symptoms of the infection should go ahead with the tests. Coronavirus symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat and headache.”

“Moreover, those who have recently

travelled to countries with high infestation rates should get tested,” he added.

WHERE TO GET TESTED? Another official of the health department informed this scribe that following the confirmation of coronavirus cases in Islamabad and Karachi, different centres had been designated for conducting tests.

Services Hospital in Lahore, Nishtar Hospital in Multan, Benazir Hospital in Rawalpindi, and Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan Hospital in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, and Rawlakot are conducting diagnostic tests. Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences is performing the coronavirus test in Muzaffarabad.

Similarly, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) the Police Services Hospital is testing and dealing with coronavirus cases. In Sindh, the Chandka Medical College Hospital in Larkana, Ghulam Muhammad

Published by Arif Nizami at Plot # 7, Al-Baber Centre, F/8 Markaz, Islamabad. Ph: 051-2204545. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk

CMYK

Mahar Medical College in Sukkur and People’s Medical University Hospital in Nawabshah is doing the same.

Moreover, five hospitals, including Civil Hospital, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Lyari General Hospital, Indus Hospital, Aga Khan Hospital and Dow University of Health Sciences are testing for coronavirus cases. In Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), citizens can contact district health authorities who will come to their homes to collect samples. Furthermore, citizens can also visit their near district headquarter hospital for screening and all these test centres are also sharing the data of coronavirus patients with NIH. Mayo Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Tahir Khalil also informed this scribe that when a patient with coronavirus symptoms with travel history to a high-infection territory comes to the hospital, they collect their sample and send it to Punjab Health Department director general’s office in Lahore. “Most of the samples are sent to Islamabad for testing and we have tested almost seven to nine suspects during the past six weeks and all the reports have come out negative,” he added.