CMYK
1 December, 2019 I 3 Rabi-ul-Sani, 1441 I Rs 27.00 I Vol X No 151 I 60 Pages I Islamabad Edition
Imran promIses cleaner, greener pakIstan g
PM SAyS GOvt wIll IMPOrt eurO4-COMPlIAnt fuel, ShIft tOwArdS e-vehICle And helP Steel, brICk kIln InduStrIeS Curb POllutAntS
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Shehbaz takes initiative for appointing new CeC
SAyS lAhOre lOSt 70PC fOreSt COver, PrOMISeS tO PlAnt treeS On 60,000 kAnAlS under urbAn fOreStry InItIAtIve
LAHORE
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STAFF REPORT
he Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has decided to combat smog — that continues to take a toll on people’s health in several Punjab districts, including Lahore — by improving fuel quality to euro-4 and a gradual shift of auto industry towards electric vehicles, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Saturday. Addressing a press conference, the PM blamed the policies of erstwhile rulers of Punjab for disastrous air quality of the province and said Lahore lost 70 per cent of its trees over the past decade. “A 70 per cent drop in tree cover has meant far-reaching consequences,” he said, linking the deforestation to increase in air pollution. he said that with a dense tree cover, pollution particles are absorbed by the leaves. Unlike the statements made by his cabinet members, the PM acknowledged the role of vehicular emissions in the worsening air quality, which are the biggest contributor to air pollution. The premier noted that crop burning in India and Pakistan and smoke from factories and brick kilns also affect the environment drastically. “however, what adds the most to air pollution is the transport sector and we have made certain decisions in this regard [after meeting with PM’s Special Assistant on Petroleum Division, Nadeem Babar],” he said. he said that Pakistan relies on 50-60 percent of import for oil and currently imports oil that meets the european Union’s euro 2 emission standard. “We have decided we will import a cleaner [environmental friendly] oil, [which will meet] the euro 4 standard.” By the end of next year, Pakistan will use the fuel which would be euro-5-compliant, said the PM, adding the government felt that such steps would have a 90 percent impact on the quality of air. Listing further measures, he said the oil refineries will be given a period of three years to improve the quality of oil produced, but if they failed to comply the government would shut them down. “The quality they are currently producing has a lot of pollutants,” he added.
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he also announced that the government had decided to shift the focus of the auto industry towards electric vehicles. “We are holding talks with the car industry to address their certain reservations,” he said, adding an incentive policy will be introduced in 2020 with a special emphasis on buses. “The buses that run across our cities will either be hybrid vehicles or electric. Or, we may insist on CNG, like in Delhi, where they run buses only on CNG,” the PM said. Speaking of the practice whereby farmers burn rice crop after its harvest, the premier said that imported machinery will be brought in which will facilitate the farmers to make use of the post-harvest crop, making it possible for it to be sold. This will ensure that there is no need to burn the crop, drastically reducing the air pollution caused otherwise. he said the government will remove improve duties on scrubbers so that steel factories could purchase them as they are one of the main sources of PM2.5 (fine air particles). Scrubbers are systems that use liquid (typically water) to remove particulates from industrial exhaust streams. Moreover, the government would also help the brick kiln owners to install zigzag technology which will reduce air pollution. Turning to Lahore, he said that an urban forestry initiative will be undertaken in the city.
“We have identified 60,000 kanals of land where we will grow trees so they can clean the city’s air,” said the PM. he lamented the delay in the measures, saying if such steps were taken 20 years ago, the environment would have been much better. “But, no one bothered,” he added. The prime minister recognised that Lahore is not the only city suffering from high levels of pollution. “It is an issue in Karachi, in Peshawar, in Rawalpindi. This issue will greatly affect our future generations if we do not take steps to combat it today.” ‘LAhORe: A GAS ChAMBeR’ Since October, the city of more than 10 million has been engulfed most days by a smoky, chemical haze that is relieved only briefly when it rains. Warmer air layers above the cooler air at ground level act like a lid that keeps the pollutants close to the ground, according to Pakistan’s Meteorological Department. Across the city, many residents now wear disposable anti-pollution masks – but they are a poor fit for the faces of vulnerable young children, residents say. Air quality is so bad that it exceeds even the worst ratings of the World health Organisation, said Attiya Noon, an air quality activist in Lahore and the mother of three young children.
Government to woo opposition for General Bajwa’s sake g
PMl-n PreSIdent reCOMMendS nASIr MAhMOOd khOSA, JAlIl AbbAS JIlAnI And AkhlAq AhMed tArAr fOr COveted POSt STORY ON PAGE 02
London Bridge attack suspect identified as Usman Khan of Pakistani origin STORY ON BACK PAGE
hafiz Saeed, others to be indicted in terror financing case on dec 7 STORY ON BACK PAGE
Bilawal says govt won't be able to fix Gen Bajwa issue
PM fOrMS COMMIttee tO COnvInCe OPP lAwMAkerS tO vOte fOr IMMInent AMendMent
STORIES ON BACK PAGE & 02
STORY ON BACK PAGE
Govt offending Opp to scuttle legislation on COAS' extension: Iqbal CMYK
CMYK Sunday, 1 December, 2019
02 ISLAMABAD
ShEhBaz takES initiativE For appointinG nEw CEC ISLAMABAD
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Staff RepoRt
S Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (r) Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan is set to retire in the first week of December, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday forwarded three names to Prime Minister Imran Khan for the coveted post. After the retirement of the CEC, the ECP will be left unfunctional, as the government and opposition have failed to reach a consensus on the appointment of Sindh and Balochistan after their term ended earlier this year. The government then unilaterally appointed the members, but the CEC refused to administer them an oath, and the matter was taken to court. The letter, dated November 25, was dispatched to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on Friday night according to a PML-N spokesperson. The Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) president proposed the names of three personalities who are “eminently qualified” for the position that comprised former bureaucrat Nasir Mahmood Khosa, former ambassador to the US Jalil Abbas Jilani and ex-civil servant Akhlaq Ahmed Tarar. “The Prime Minister shall in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, forward three names for ap-
pointment of the Commissioner to a Parliamentary Committee for hearing and confirmation of any one person.” “Consultative process required under the above provision should have been initiated by [the prime minister] much earlier,” it read. “However, in an attempt to avoid possible discontinuity in the functioning of the ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan), which is a constitutional body, I am taking the initiative after a long wait with a hope to hear from you,” Shehbaz said in the letter. “I would strongly urge that this time we must endeavor to avoid any such impasse by making serious, sincere and genuine effort to evolve a consensus,” the letter said. “It is my earnest hope that the merit of these persons will be appreciated for urgent consideration in accordance with the law. Should you require any additional information/clarification, this can be made available forthwith,” the letter read. In another letter, Shehbaz sent recommendations for ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani. The suggestions were sent in response to a letter from Qaiser and Sanjrani, which was sent to Shehbaz on November 5. Shehbaz recommended Nisar Durrani, Justice (r) Abdul Rasul Memon, and Aurangzeb Haq for the post of ECP member from Sindh. Whereas, for ECP Balochistan member, he proposed the
names of Shah Mehmood Jatoi, Muhammad Rauf Atta and Rahila Durrani. Meanwhile, the PM sent his recommendations for the ECP members from Sindh and Balochistan to the NA speaker and the Senate chairman, in response to their letter dated Nov 5. For the post of ECP member from Sindh, the PM proposed the names of Justice (r) Sadiq Bhatti, Justice (r) Noorul Haq Qureshi, and Abdul Jabbar Qureshi, according to a copy of his letter. He recommended Dr Faiz M Kakar, Mir Naveed Jan Baloch, and Amanullah Baloch for the office of the ECP member from Balochistan. ‘ECP RISKS BECOMING INEFFECTIVE’: On Friday, ECP Secretary Babar Yaqoob hoped that the government and opposition would sort out the issue of the appointment of the commission members soon to prevent the body from becoming ineffective next month. “The ECP won’t be able to conduct local government elections [in the absence of the CEC and members],” Yaqoob warned while addressing a conference on election reforms organised by the Free and Fair Elections Network (FAFEN). “The tenure of the elected cantonment boards is also going to expire on December 15,” he added. “In one province, there is a stay order on local government elections for 10 months.” The ECP secretary said the commission is fully prepared to conduct the local government polls. Yaqoob
noted that the ECP was an autonomous body under the Elections Act. However, he added, the commission’s autonomous status was not being recognised. The ECP secretary also stressed the need for a proportionate representation of the population in the elections. “The commission is working with NADRA [National Database and Registration Authority] for the registration of female voters,” he added. Yaqoob noted that all political parties had played a laudable role in the preparation of the Election Act 2017. “However, the Election Act should not be considered the final word as it too has some operational flaws.” The secretary informed the audience that the commission had prepared proposals after consulting with locals and the media about elections in 30 districts noted for irregularities. “In Shangla, elections were rescheduled because less than 10% women voters had cast their votes,” he said. “But there was great participation by women in the elections in tribal districts which was a major success for political parties and the commission.” The ECP secretary urged political parties to further support the commission. “Political parties have a responsibility to ensure women’s registration. Before the 2018 elections, the ECP had registered 43 million female voters. However, we fear that the number of unregistered female voters may increase,” he said.
Pakistan welcomes OIC’s principled stance on Kashmir issue ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt
Pakistan has welcomed reaffirmation of principled stance of OIC Human Rights Commission in support of self-determination of Kashmiris and call for end to the ongoing human rights violations in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. “Pakistan welcomes the holding of OIC’s Human Rights Commission’s first-ever ‘Open Discussion’ on the worsening human situation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, as part of its 16th Regular Session held in Jeddah on November 25-28,” said a statement issued by the Foreign Office. The session, held under IPHRC’s “Standing Mechanism to Monitor Human Rights Situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir”, was attended by all the commission members and a large number of the representatives of the OIC member and observer states. Addressing the situation in IOK in all its dimensions, the commission strongly condemned the blatant violation of human rights in the territory. “There are credible reports of inflicting collective punishment. The systematic and systemic human rights violations have a well-defined pattern tantamount to ethnic cleansing and genocide of Kashmiris.” The commission reaffirmed the right of self-determination of the people of occupied valley under the relevant UN Security Council reso-
CMYK
lutions. It reiterated that India’s steps of August 5 were illegal and void. It condemned the continued use of pellet guns that killed and maimed innocent and unarmed civilians. The commission also reiterated its endorsement of the recommendation of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a Commission of Inquiry under the UN auspices to comprehensively investigate all the allegations of human rights violations. The commission assailed India for not allowing a fact finding visit to the IOK despite repeated requests by the IPHRC, OIC and UNOHCHR. It agreed to undertake a visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to meet the refugees, political parties and other civil society representatives from Indian Occupied Kashmir, after India’s repeated denial of allowing a fact-finding mission to the occupied territory. The commission demanded India to allow the OIC and ICRC to establish a ‘humanitarian corridor’ in IOK to reach out to the besieged population for provision of basic food and medical supplies.
Bilawal says govt won't be able to fix Gen Bajwa issue LONDON Staff RepoRt
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Saturday took a jibe at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inasf (PTI) government for its inability to legislate over the past one year, saying the army chief’s extension would also remain in limbo due to such incompetence. The Supreme Court had allowed the government conditional permission to extend Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s tenure by six months, provided that it made a law on the matter during the given time period. Speaking during his speech at PPP’s 52nd Youm-e-Tasees in Muzaffarabad, Bilawal questioned how the government would be able to legislate on such an important matter when it was not able to pass any laws during its first year in power. “The entire government, its ministers and the prime minister could not draft a single notification in three months,” “Now the matter of the army chief’s extension will be brought to the parliament,” he said. “The people who were not able to get even a single law passed during their one year … how will they be able to create consensus on such an important piece of legislation within six months?” he asked. Furthermore, Bilawal assailed the government on a variety of issues, ranging from inflation to targeting of opposition parties and suppression of media. Bilawal also credited his father and former president Asif Ali Zardari for initiating the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and warned the government that his party would not allow them to make the multibillion project “controversial”.
Elections to be held on due time, says Firdous ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt
Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that elections will be held in the country after the completion of five years constitutional period of the present government. In a tweet on Saturday, she pointed out that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman in his addresses to the parliament also used to stress that parliament should complete its constitutional tenure. She said that Fazl’s son and his other party members are also sitting in this parliament. “New elections will be held but only after completion of PTI government’s tenure. We are simply following Maulana’s advice as he used to say in the past that every government should complete its tenure,” she wrote. Regarding the foreign funding case of PML-N, Firdous Ashiq Awan said the party furnished only a single page reply before the Election Commission. “Right after the departure of Mian Nawaz the chaotic state created by PML-N spokesperson is mitigating. The one page that they have submitted in election commission also seems of Qatari origin,” she further wrote.
CMYK Sunday, 1 December, 2019
NEWS
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pM SayS CJp khoSa did not CritiCiSE lEGal tEaM in rulinG
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RIME Minister Imran Khan said on Saturday that Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa did not criticise the government’s legal team in the order issued by the court in the General Bajwa extension case.
The prime minister was addressing a signing ceremony of Service Level Agreement between Punjab Land Record Authority and major private commercial banks for rapid agriculture loans in Lahore. However, Imran avoided speaking more on the matter. “The matter has been solved now, I don’t want to talk on it further,” he said.
The prime minister heaped praise once again on Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. “Usman Buzdar does work quietly and people don’t even get to know about it,” he said. “He should publicise his work a bit so people get to know about it.” The development comes a day after the Punjab government shuffled the police and bureaucracy.
During his speech, Prime Minister Imran also lashed out at Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. “Fazlur Rehman came to Islamabad to win diesel permits,” he said. The prime minister said that there was a mafia in the country which was afraid that their corruption would be exposed and they will be thrown in jail.
CPEC criticism conspiracy against Pak-China friendship: Rasheed LAHORE app
Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said on Saturday that criticism on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was a conspiracy against the friendship between Pakistan and China. Addressing a press conference here at PR headquarters, he said that anti-Pakistan elements wanted to create differences between Pakistan and China, however, Pakistani nation was standing with the CPEC. He said that conspiracies had been hatched in several countries like Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Libya and several other countries and the same enemy wanted to destabilize Pakistan through any conspiracy. Talking about the recent situation about extension in the service of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Qamar Javaid Bajwa, the minister said the government would successfully amend the law about the extension within six weeks instead of given six months. He said the COAS deserved the extension as he strongly hit India by supporting the opening of Kartarpur Corridor and turned the positive sentiments of Sikh community towards Pakistan.
“Credit of peace in neighbouring country Afghanistan also goes to Bajwa as well the installation of fence along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the security of country and region,” he added. The minister said the COAS also supported in developing relations with China, Iran, UAE and Saudi Arabia. He said that Bajwa was also standing with the democratic government. To a question, he said the PTI could easily amend the law about extension through simple majority, however, he added no political party would oppose the amendment even if it was required in the constitution for extension in the services of COAS. “We did mistakes in this regard but our will was pure,” he added. He said that Federal Minister Farogh Naseem was a competent lawyer and the mistake made in the draft of extension, was not made by him. To another question, he expressed his reservations about the law and order situation in Punjab, however, he expressed the hope that Chief Minister Usman Buzdar would correct the matters successfully. About Kashmir issue, the minister said that Kashmir was life line for Pakistan and the
narrative about Kashmir could never be changed. To another question about student unions and politics, he said that he was the big supporter of student unions so that young talented and educated leadership could be produced. Criticising the opposition leaders, he said that Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif wanted to remain in the news so why they connected the terrorist incident and London Bridge with their presence in the city which was their foolish attitude. He said that PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari would also be released through plea-bargain. “Fazalur Rehman should also understand that he could get nothing through his sit-in in Islamabad,” he added. Rasheed said that it was a commitment of Prime Minister Imran Khan that he would not give NRO to anyone. He said that some conspirators were designing against the country by raising the prices of commodities, wheat and sugar and sometimes these elements support Fazlur Rehman type politicians to destabilize the government, adding that they could never be succeeded.
one earns respect through character, not position, says CJp NEwS DESK Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa said on Saturday that a person earns respect through his character, not the post he holds. The chief justice said so while addressing the Dera Ghazi Khan Bar Association. He urged judges and lawyers to not let their personal interests affect their professional duties. CJP Khosa said the dignity of their profession lies in strong characters. “One should never make a compromise on their self-respect,” he said, urging lawyers to seek knowledge and work hard. “Practicing law is a dignified profession,” the chief justice said. “Lawyers should heed on their character building.”
ihC hears ailing death row prisoner’s plea for medical treatment
Google’s faux pas brings Kartarpur Corridor into limelight KK SHAHID The latest faux pas by leading Internet search engine Google has brought the recently inaugurated Kartarpur Corridor into limelight. It was observed earlier this week that when keywords related to the ‘capital of Khalistan’ were entered in the Google search bar, the result was ‘Lahore’. Indeed, where the historic city remains the undisputed capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab, Google’s latest algorithmic mishap has led to a debate on the controversial Khalistan movement on both sides of the Indo-Pak divide. And with the movement been linked by some to the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, Google’s gaffe will only add to the controversy surrounding the corridor, and indeed the Khalistan movement, especially given the current state of Indo-Pak relations. The Kartarpur Corridor, a segment connecting Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab province with India, was inaugurated on November 12 to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The 4.7 km corridor allows Indian citizens, including pilgrims to visit visa Gurdwara Darbar Sahib visa-free. Hyper-nationalist groups in India accuse the Kartarpur Corridor of being Pakistan’s strategy to rekindle the Khalistan Movement, which envisions an independent Sikh country that encompasses the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Many feel that the Kartarpur Corridor’s inauguration on November 12, the day the Indian Supreme Court gave its verdict on the Ayodhya dispute, underlines the two contrasting directions Pakistan and India are undertaking. Even so, the sympathy historically shown by some sections in Pakistan with the Khalistan movement, coupled with the movement representatives overseas being vocal in their support for Pakistan, has generated allegations of collaborations between the two, which have resurfaced following the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor. However, where Google’s faux pas on Lahore might be shelved as an algorithm glitch –
especially since it has been rectified over the past week – it still remains a firm reminder that the roots of the Khalistan movement lie in uniting the historical Punjab, which includes the current province of Punjab in Pakistan. “In the past, Pakistan has apparently supported the Khalistan Movement. They haven’t done it formally, and there is no evidence of any material support, but when Rajiv Gandhi came here in 1989 for the SAARC conference, the then interior minister Aitzaz Ahsan was accused of providing lists of Sikhs [linked with the Khalistan Movement] to him,” says Lahore-based columnist and academic Wajahat Masood, the author of Mahaasray Ka Roznaamcha. “There were no such lists, but this just goes to show how those close to the establishment – then the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) – included the Khalistan Movement in its politics. But those were different times. India had launched a ruthless crackdown on its Sikh community. Times have changed now,” he adds. Masood maintains that linking then Khalistan Movement to the Khalistan Movement in 2019 doesn’t make any sense. “When Indian pilgrims come through the corridor and go back, they can only create goodwill. So it’s just a conspiracy theory because those days are gone. Anyone who believes in this conspiracy theory lives in fools’ paradise. I’ve lived in my country for half a century now. And since I was a kid I’ve been hearing about India disintegrating into sometimes 18 states, sometimes 22,” he adds. Kashif Baloch, the editor of Sujag, an alternative media outlet, says that Lahore showing up as the capital of Khalistan on Google is a reminder of how Pakistani narrative builders often get carried away in their religionist rallying. “It’s a funny situation. Funny because it’s similar to the dreams of ‘Neel ke sahil se le kar ta ba Khaak-i-Kashgar’ [the envisioned unity of Muslims ‘from the shores of the Nile to the sands of Kashgar’]. It’s just the latest example of how we ignore ground realities in our religionist narratives against India,” he says. “Given the rise of India’s right-wing and the
state violence, one can understand the concern of Sikhs and even their dream of Khalistan. And in this regard, their affiliation with their religious identity is also understandable, but our support [to the movement] makes no sense. Unfortunately, the roots of Pakistan’s obsession is rooted in the Two-Nation Theory,” adds, Baloch who hails from the southern Punjab city of Multan. Baloch also questions why other border regions aren’t being united through corridors like the eastern and western Punjab. “It just shows the strength of the Punjabi elite in Pakistan. But while we support those on the other side of Punjab, unfortunately, we won’t learn from their creation of separate provinces within original East Punjab,” he adds. International relations analyst and author of Humanity Amidst Insanity: Hope During and After the Indo-Pak Partition Tridivesh Singh Maini says looking at Kartarpur Corridor merely from the lens of security and thinking that it will lead to the revival of the Khalistan movement is over-the-top and simplistic. “Sikh Jathas visit Pakistan every year, there are banners in favour of Khalistan even during their visits whether for the Gurpurab of Guru Nanak Sahib or Baisakhi. The Kartarpur Corridor will be used by Sikhs and other followers of Guru Nanak Sahib, from Panjab (India). Most of them are interested in paying obeisance, interacting with their Punjabi brethren from across the border – if they get an opportunity. Punjab (India) apart from religious and cultural links would also welcome closer trade ties which would benefit the economy of the state and create new opportunities,” he says. “To believe that the corridor will lead to the revival militancy is unfair not just because it ignores the religious sentiments of the Sikhs, who have been praying for access to religious shrines in Pakistan, ever since partition, but it also questions their loyalty and ability to think for themselves. By excessively raising the Khalistan issue and hyphenating Kartarpur with Khalistan, some fringe groups abroad who have minimal support are getting unnecessary publicity,” Maini adds.
CMYK
ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Saturday heard the petition of a death-row prisoner seeking court directives for the government to ensure proper treatment of his poor eyesight. Adiala Jail officers and doctors appeared in the hearing conducted by Chief Justice Athar Minallah. A death-row convict, Khadim Hussain had written a letter to the IHC CJ who converted it into a constitutional petition and sought a reply in this regard from the authorities concerned. Providing due rights to prisoners is responsibility of the federal government, chief justice remarks, adding that the government forms a medical board where it deems fit. “If a medical board could be constituted for Nawaz Sharif then why not for other prisoners,” Justice Minallah questioned. The chief justice said he will visit Adiala Jail on this Friday to look into the issues to the inmates. There are such prisoners in jails which later acquitted from cases. Justice Minallah ordered the federal government to submit a report on the prisoners in jails of all provinces. The IHC ordered the government to extend best medical facilities to jail inmates. The court also formed a commission headed by Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari, to inquire into human rights violations in jails. The prisoner in his letter had complained about alleged neglect of the executive authorities, which he said, has added to his suffering by causing further damage to his eyesight. He said he is orphan and doesn’t have financial resources for redressal of his grievance. It is noteworthy that the Lahore High Court had recently let former premier Nawaz Sharif fly abroad for four weeks for medical treatment without furnishing an indemnity bond as demanded by the federal government. The two-member bench, headed by Justice Ali Baqir Najafi, ordered the federal government to remove the name of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader from the ECL without setting any conditions. The bench, which was hearing the plea filed by PML-N seeking unconditional removal of Nawaz Sharif’s name from ECL, also maintained that the former prime minister can initially stay abroad for four weeks, but the duration is extendable on the basis of his medical reports.
04 LAHORE
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
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Buzdar takes notice of alleged sexual abuse of girls at Kashana
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Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Saturday took notice of state-run shelter Kashana Lahore's superintendent's allegation that the facility was being used to supply underage girls to powerful ministers of the Punjab government. The woman, identified as Afshan Latif, claims she is being persecuted by the government for bringing the matter to light. In a series of videos shared across social media over the past few days, Latif claims she was responsible for overseeing Kashana Lahore (otherwise known as Darul Amaan) since April this year. She replaced the previous superintendent who was accused of bringing strangers (men) inside Kashana late at night. However, even after her appointment, Latif alleged that illegal practices continued at the center. In this regard, Latif filed a complaint to her department against the Director-General of Kashana, Afshan Kiran Imtiaz. The complaint alleged that Imtiaz was pressuring Latif to marry underage girls to highranking officials. Instead of taking actions against powerful ministers the Government of Punjab has arrested the superintendent of women shelter homes and her husband because she exposed ministers who wanted little orphan girls for sexual abuse. The ages of the destitute girls were between 15 to 17 years-old, and they were forcefully married off to favoured bureaucrats and a provincial minister, Latif alleged in her video message. She further claimed that an inquiry was launched on her complaint by the inspection team of Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar. Latif was suspended from her post by the inspection team after she filed the complaint in the very first phase of the inquiry. However, Imtiaz was also removed from her post by CM Buzdar. Latif claims that the inquiry team is continuously putting pressure on her to force her to step back from her complaint and statements. Latif further added that she refused to back off from her complaint. On doing so, the budget of the shelter in Lahore was ceased and the destitute girls residing there were left helpless without clothing, food and education. In one video, Latif claimed that she was arrested along with her husband by the Punjab police. A representative of the government of Punjab published a statement on Twitter in which it was clarified that an inquiry had been started following the allegations of forced marriages taking place in Kashana. The representative assured followers of the case that the culprits would be brought to justice and punishment given. "The allegation will be thoroughly investigated and facts will be brought to light," the chief minister said. "We will provide complete protection to the girls residing at Kashana and will not tolerate any abuse."
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ImraN dIrects PuNjaB chIeF secretary, IGP Not to succumB to aNy Pressure LAHORE
LAHORE STAFF REPORT
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EWLy appointed Punjab Chief Secretary (CS) Azam Suleiman Khan and Inspector General Police (IGP) Shoaib Dastagir called on PM Imran Khan on Saturday. IGP Shoaib Dastagir briefed the prime minister about law and order in the province and steps being taken to improve the police system. PM Imran directed him to utilise all the available resources for the protection of life and property of the people. He also tasked him to forward recommendations regarding reforms the police system. The chief secretary apprised PM Imran about the measures for the betterment of administration
and good governance in the province. On the occasion, the prime minister directed both the chief secretary Punjab and IGP to work freely and not to succumb to any pressure. Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Lahore on a day-long visit. In his last visit on October 28, PM Imran Khan had emphasized the early implementation of local government system while directing to complete the plan in this regard on time. Presiding over a high-level meeting on Punjab Municipal Services Program in Lahore, PM Imran had said, “The incumbent government has brought a revolution in Pakistan with the establishment of the local government system.” Shoaib Dastagir was sworn in as the new inspector general of Punjab police on Thursday.
Four gunned down over old enmity in Gujranwala GUJRANWALA STAFF REPORT
Four people, including a man and his son, were gunned down over old enmity in Gujranwala’s Nowshera Virkan area on Saturday. According to the local police, unidentified armed men, opened indiscriminate fire on a vehicle, resulting in the death of four people. The deceased were identified as Azam, his son Tauqeer and two of his guards, said the police, adding that the deceased were going to the court for a hearing when they were attacked. The police further said Azam got released on bail from the jail in a murder case a few days earlier. Further investigation into the matter was underway. Earlier on November 11, at least five people were gunned down and four others were injured in an armed clash between two rival groups over a property dispute in Lahore. According to the police, the firing incident took place in Lahore’s area of Batapur. Police had said that Amjad Group had shot and injured a member of the Rafaqat Group a couple of days earlier over the property dispute. On the way to the police station, armed men of both groups traded fire in Batapur area. Police said that 9MM and 30 bore pistols were used in the firing. The bodies and injured were shifted to hospital for medico-legal formalities.
Wrong injection claims two minor girls’ lives in Gujranwala GUJRANWALA INP
Two minor girls expired after being administered with allegedly wrong injections by medics here on Saturday. Their heirs held protest demonstration against the hospital staff. According to details, one-year-old Aiman and three-year-old Amina, hailing from Jinnah Road area of Gujranwala were shifted to Civil Hospital due to fever, flu and sore throat. The girls were allegedly administered with wrong injections by the medics resultantly both girls expired within an hour. Heirs of the deceased girls held protest demonstration against the hospital staff and demanded of the Chief Minister and other higher health authorities for taking notice and directing strict action against the responsible. Medical Superintendent (MS) of the Civil Hospital Dr. Sohail Anjum rejected the allegations saying both the girls were suffering from pneumonia and were injected with lifesaving injections.
“The aim of transforming the state according to the model of Madina is a long process,” Dastagir had said at a presser. “It can’t be achieved in two days, or in two months.” The IG has also requested that his department’s performance should be evaluated considering the resources allocated to them. “All officers who work on the basis of their personal preferences will not be a part of the department,” he added. Dastagir was appointed by the Punjab government on Tuesday after Prime Minister Imran Khan hinted at a major bureaucratic reshuffle in a meeting with Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. This is the fifth police chief to take charge in Punjab during the PTI’s tenure. Earlier on Friday, Dastagir issued orders for the transfer of over 19 senior police officials.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
Shaukat YouSafzai claimS dollar hike good for PakiStan
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NEWS DESK
AKISTAN Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Shaukat Ali Yousafzai came up with a bizarre explanation for the alarming rise of the dollar price in Pakistan over the past few months, claiming that the hike was actually good for the country in the long run. Speaking to a private news channel, the PTI leader referred to the hue and cry following the hike in the value of the dollar and said that the people with limited knowledge do not know that the dollar hike is beneficial for Pakistan. “We have an edge over the rising dollar rate [in the country] because its cost has increased by Rs3 billion and we can save up to Rs3.75 billion since Pakistan has to pay back in rupees, not in dollar," the minister can be heard saying in the video, trying to explain his position. "...therefore, we do not have to
spend anything from our pockets,” he bizarrely went on, trying to explain his strange theory. Yousafzai added that needless confusion was being stirred on the matter. Despite follow-up questions, Yousafzai refused to take back his bizarre remarks. The ill-thought statement earned the PTI leader lots of negative reaction from
Boy held for rape and murder of two minor nieces in Vehari VEHARI: The police have arrested a teenage boy for murdering his two minor nieces after raping them. Vehari DPO Akhtar Farooq said that the incident took place in Basti Chamanabad of tehsil Mailsi in Vehari where accused Muhammad Azhar raped 7year-old Sania and six-year-old Fauzia and strangled them to death to hide his crime. Both girls had left home for the local mosque on Thursday afternoon and when they did not return, their families informed the local police about the disappearance of the girls. Bodies of the missing girls were recovered from the agricultural fields. Their postmortem report proved that the two girls were strangled to death after rape. The police over suspicion arrested Muhammad Azhar, 17, the raped and murdered girls’ paternal uncle, who confessed the crime. The slain girls were laid to rest at native graveyard amid tears. A case was registered against the rapist uncle at concerned police station and investigation was underway. INp
Police, PML-N lawyers clash during Rana Sana’s hearing LAHORE: A scuffle broke out between police personnel and lawyers on the occasion of appearance of Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz leader Rana Sanaullah in an anti-narcotics court. An intense mismanagement was witnessed when AntiNarcotics Force presented the PML-N leader in the court in a drug case. The police personnel tried to stop the PML-N workers from entering the court, resulting in a heated exchange of words and later a scuffle. As the court proceedings started, the PML-N lawyers boycotted the court hearing on which the court extended the judicial remand of Rana Sanaullah for 14 days. Staff RepoRt
social media. Users of social networking platform Twitter mocked the politician for simplifying a complex economic principle, and trying to mislead the general public into believing him. According to an economic principle, a depreciation in the country’s currency can propel the increase in its exports; the country’s goods become cheaper internationally and gain a competitive edge over international competitors. However, social media users were also hesitant to take the statement of Yousafzai at face value since, a few days ago, he had advised people to use yogurt instead of tomatoes for cooking during the fiasco of the tomato price hike. He backed his advice with a demand-supply mechanism, adding that the price of the commodity would go up due to high demand and low supply. Prices of the item in question would come down if people stop using the item completely for a brief time, he had claimed.
Lockdown in Kashmir continues on 118th consecutive day SRINAGAR INp
In occupied Kashmir, the grim ground situation remains unchanged in the Kashmir valley and Muslim majority areas of Jammu and Ladakh regions due to unrelenting lockdown and military siege on 118th consecutive day on Saturday, Kashmir Media Service reported. The environment of fear and uncertainty continues to prevail due to the heavy deployment of Indian troops and police personnel. People continue to suffer immensely owing to restrictions imposed under section 144 and the suspension of prepaid mobile and internet services. Although landline phones and voice calls on postpaid connections have been restored partially but the move could not provide any respite to the masses. Meanwhile, several Hurriyat leaders have been asked to appear
before the court in connection with a false case registered against them in 1998. These leaders include Syed Ali Geelani, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Professor Abdul Ghani Butt, Javaid Ahmed Mir, Sheikh Ali Muhammad, Dr Ghulam Muhammad Hubbi, Shahid-ul-Islam, Sheikh Khalid, Sheikh Aslam, Wajahat Bashir Qureshi, Muhammad Siddiq Shah, Farooq Ahmed Sodagar and Ghulam Nabi Kashmiri. Ironically, most of the leaders who have been asked to appear before the court are either lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail and other jails or under house arrest. Media reports suggested that a Kashmiri truck driver, Mohammed Maqbool, was beaten by Indian police without any reason on the expressway in Faridabad in the Indian state of Haryana. Faridabad Police Commissioner K K Rao told media that an inquiry has been initiated in the incident.
NAB Multan gives list of 39 POs to airports across country MULTAN: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Multan has sent a list of 39 proclaimed offenders to immigration officials at airports across the country. It has been requested to the concerned authorities to immediately arrest the suspects upon their arrival or departure at any airport, however, no one has been detained as yet. The list includes names and Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) numbers of the offenders and their arrest warrants have also been issued. The airports include Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport, Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, Islamabad International Airport, Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport, Faisalabad International Airport, Multan International Airport, Quetta International Airport, and Sialkot International Airport. Staff RepoRt
BJP victory in Indian elections challenge for Pakistan: Qureshi MULTAN app
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Saturday said the victory of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in elections in India driven by an extremist ideology and hegemonic ambitions was a serious challenge for Pakistan. Speaking at the second convocation of Air University here, he said a peaceful neighbourhood and a people centric development agenda was Pakistan’s highest priority. However, Indian belligerent actions and rhetoric continued to imperil peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia, he added. Pakistan, he said, had consistently demonstrated in words and actions that it wanted peace in the region. Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said, inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor earlier in November, reaffirming the unshakable belief in the Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of Pakistan having interfaith harmony. At the same time, he added, Pakistan would always remain steadfast in advocating the case of people of Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJK) for their inalienable right of self-determination, showing solidarity with them, as
they had been resiliently facing inhumane lockdown by the Indian occupation forces for the last 116 days. He felicitated the graduating students and their proud parents, saying it was a moment of pride for them because they have achieved an important milestone in their lives. “The students and their families are reaping the fruit of their dedication and sacrifices today,” he noted. Qureshi said he was delighted to know that about 500 students were graduating on the second convocation of Air University and lauded the progress of the university within a short span of time. Highlighting the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government’s initiatives for the youth, he said it had paid special focus on the enabling young people to become drivers of economic and social growth through innovation and entrepreneurship. The prime minister’s recently launched “Kamyab Jawan” initiative was a step towards uplift of youth to utilize their potentials, he added. He asked the youth to come up with business plans and benefit from the resources earmarked under the programme. About the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ measures, Qureshi said they launched science diplomacy hoping that the youth would join hands with the government to become ‘agents of change’.
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Sunday, 1 December, 2019
06 WORLD VIEW
The avalanche of cocaine hiTTing europe der SPIegel StaFF
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ARcH 4 is shaping up to be another gray and dreary winter day in Herzfelde, Germany. All is silent and still. The temperature is close to freezing and the town has just received a dusting of fresh snow. A sound in the distance grows louder and materializes into a line of vehicles speeding down Rüdersdorfer Street. Police officers spill out. They bust down doors, canvas the area with sniffer dogs and begin tearing apart a VW bus and a chevy camaro. It was the snow that drew them — not the stuff of snowball fights and slippery walkways, but a pure, white powder that goes for 70,000 euros ($77,149) a kilo in Europe. The authorities find 12.8 grams of cocaine stashed over a third-floor stairwell and another 214.3 grams in a garage. There are also micro scales, plastic vials and a shoebox full of cash. All an hour’s drive east of Berlin. At a gas station near the edge of town, they apprehend the man behind the illicit operation. He is identified as René F., 42, a car salesman-turned-drug-dealer. F. didn’t work alone. He employed his son Mike, his ex-wife Natalia and his new girlfriend’s son, Otto. It was a flourishing family business that offered sameday delivery. One phone call was all it took for customers to place an order. In the Berlin nightlife scene, it’s known as the “cocaine taxi.” Everything was going smoothly until March 4. cocaine. coke. charlie. An intoxicant for those with disposable income. A party drug. Not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Herzfelde, an otherwise sleepy town, population 1,750, in eastern Germany. The closest thing to nightlife here is a condom dispenser on Main Street. If the raid earlier this year showed anything, it was how far-reaching cocaine’s global supply chain has grown — and how insatiable demand for the drug has become. Never before has there been so much cocaine on the market in Germany, in Europe or around the world, investigators say. And the stuff that is available has never been purer. Some estimates put the average level of purity at 70 percent or higher. It’s never been easier to procure the drug, either. consequently, more people are sniffing it. The question of what cocaine can do to a society already afflicted by a compulsive urge for self-improvement has never been more pressing. In Lisbon, where the headquarters of the European Monitoring center for Drugs and Drug Addiction is located, there is talk of a “big boom.” Germany’s Federal criminal Police Office (BKA) has also recorded a “dramatic increase” since 2016. One Interpol investigator says in his 14 years on the job, he’s never experienced anything like this. Things aren’t likely to slow down anytime soon. “The global cocaine glut has yet to reach its peak,” warns Kevin Scully, the chief drug hunter at the European headquarters of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Quantities will “go up again compared to 2018,” he says.
DRUG SYNDICATES ARE FLOODING EUROPE WITH VERY PURE COCAINE. CONSUMERS NEED ONLY SEND AN ENCRYPTED TEXT AND A DEALER WILL SHOW UP AT THEIR DOORSTEP. AND THE AUTHORITIES ARE ALL BUT POWERLESS TO STOP THEM That goes for Germany as well. That kind of forecast doesn’t require complicated math, just simple logic. In colombia, the world’s No. 1 producer of cocaine, the amount of land used for cultivating coca has skyrocketed, according to the United Nations. The same is true for Peru, No. 2, and Bolivia, No. 3. And all that cocaine has to go somewhere. In Germany, demand for cocaine has “risen sharply,” as Niema Movassat, the Left Party’s drug policy spokesman in parliament, points out. What’s more: There is hardly a business more worthwhile for criminals. In South America, a kilo of coke goes for $1,000 (906.50 euros). By the time it gets to dealers in Europe, they’re paying $25,000 to get it across the Atlantic. On the street here, that same kilo can fetch as much as $70,000. There are few other areas of business that are more lucrative for criminals. A WELL-OILED MACHINE: The cocaine trade has become a well-oiled machine. It’s almost as if the drug dealers had brought in professional business consultants to analyze their operations. Sure, there’s still the usual violence, such as the recent murder of a lawyer in Amsterdam. But the industry has also grown more efficient. It relies on economies of scale and bulk purchases, precise divisions of labor and just-in-time supply chains. And, of course, it’s constantly innovating — on the lookout for the next, even more sophisticated smuggling method. In the end, the cartels can sit back and rely on the sheer power of the masses. The bigger the avalanche, the less important the things are that get in the way. News reports of customs agents seizing multiple tons of cocaine in a single bust — 4.5 tons in July in Hamburg, 1.5 tons a few days later — are merely symbolic victories. In truth, investigators know little about the perpetrators or their operations. What they do know is that the record amount of cocaine they found in 2018 was a reliable indication of the record amount of the drug they did not find. Interpol estimates that for all its efforts, 95 percent of shipments slip through undetected. As the volume of cocaine flowing into Europe grows, so do the concerns of politicians, who have long lost sight of the drug problem, of investigators, who openly admit they are powerless, and of doctors, who know just how dangerous cocaine can be. For this report, DER SPIEGEL and its partners at the European Investigative collaborations (EIc) network spoke to coca farmers in colombia and consumers in Germany about the reasons behind and consequences of the boom. Documents provided insights into how large-scale drug dealers set up their billion-dollar,
Star, BangladeSh Despite the constant alarms being sounded by us in the media about the relentless rise in nonperforming loans (NPLs), we find that NPLs are increasing, and not decreasing. This is reflected in the latest figure published by Bangladesh Bank on November 27 which tells us that classified loans stand at Tk22,377 crore, a new record! We have had a series of facilities being given by Bangladesh Bank to defaulters that runs contrary to sound banking practices. Repeat offenders are being allowed to reschedule their already existing bank loans running into thousands of crores, so that they may take out fresh loans!
B2B-like businesses — and how smallscale dealers organize their local, B2c operations, distributing product in baggies and tiny vials. Joao Matias, an analyst with the EU’s anti-drug agency, estimates that snorting cocaine will increasingly seem normal. People’s inhibition thresholds will become lower and consumption will increase. The effect this will have on Germany cannot be known for another few years. “The effects of the cocaine glut are on the way,” warns Karl Lauterbach, a health expert with Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). But he can say this much: “cocaine is cheaper, better and therefore much more dangerous than before. In the future, we can expect more deaths.” THE CONSUMERS: Lisbon is a perfect microcosm of the cocaine trade. During the day, down near the Tagus River, the EU’s drug officials pore over the numbers. come closing time, cocaine can be purchased with ease higher up in the city, in the Bairro Alto bar district — however much you want, wherever you want. Europe’s anti-drug officials work downtown in a modern office building made of glass and white stone. There, they attempt to understand and explain the cocaine wave. According to the statistics, some 3.9 million Europeans took cocaine in 2017. By last year, that number had jumped to 4 million. That’s not a dramatic increase, but the trend is clear. Just over 2 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 34 — the most susceptible age group when it comes to taking drugs — snorted cocaine in 2017. On a country level, the figures varied slightly. Only 1.2 percent of German youths do coke, for instance. That’s considerably less than in Holland (4.5 percent), Denmark (3.9 percent) or France (3.2 percent). At first glance, these figures seem to suggest cocaine is a major problem in other countries but not in Germany. But the German figure is from 2015, before consumption really took off. One thing alarming EU officials across Europe are waste water samples. “Water doesn’t lie,” says Laurent Laniel, the anti-drug authority’s chief analyst. Of the 38 countries that had their waste water tested in 2017 and 2018, 22 reported increases in traceable levels of cocaine, which enters the water through people’s urine. In Berlin, those levels were almost twice as high in 2018 as they were in 2014. In Dortmund too. Spikes were recorded on weekends in particular. The Berlin police say this is because more people are taking cocaine, but European drug officials aren’t so sure. It could also be attributable to the same repeat offenders simply doing more drugs or the fact that the cocaine on the street today is more pure. But one thing is certain: No other drug puts more people in
the hospital in Europe. In Berlin, cocaine has overtaken heroin as the drug with the highest death rate. In all of 2018, 35 people died from using cocaine. By the end of July 2019, that number had already hit 25. EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL: Back in Bairro Alto, street dealers stand amid throngs of party tourists, tapping their noses and asking unabashedly, “cocaine, cocaine?” One puts his arm around passers-by, introduces himself as “Pablo Escobar,” and boasts about having “the best stuff in town.” It’s all very casual. A gram costs 50 to 60 euros and you can even test it because, as “Escobar” and the others promise, it’s “no shit” that they’re selling here. Bairro Alto was where DER SPEIGEL ran into Lukas, a 27-year-old PhD student who uses an alias to cover up the fact that he does drugs. He first took cocaine two years ago with some friends from college. Ever since, he has done it around 10 to 15 times a year, and only when there’s something to celebrate: a birthday, their friendship — sometimes just life in general. They do it when they want to feel prosperous and decadent. They only do 0.2 or 0.3 grams each, never more. Lukas describes his high: “You feel clear-headed. You know exactly what you need to say or do. You let it all out. You feel like you have everything under control.” Lukas says he has no trouble keeping his cocaine consumption under control. He doesn’t think he could ever become addicted. He’s also aware that the drug doesn’t actually make him smarter, that it only feels that way. He has everything under control, so he doesn’t understand why cocaine is so much more stigmatized than alcohol or nicotine. People get downright “hysterical,” when they talk about cocaine, he says. Lukas could be the kind of person who can use cocaine recreationally his entire life without becoming addicted. Or maybe not. A lot of a person’s susceptibility to addiction has to do with their psyche. The phrase doctors use is “addictive personality.” Lukas might one day be 50-years-old and just fine. Or he might keel over and die. Heart attacks are one of the potential long-term effects of cocaine use. Unlike marijuana or hash, cocaine doesn’t calm a person down. It pumps them up. It gets a person’s heart racing and it attacks the heart and brain vessels. Officially, only 93 people died in 2018 in Germany from cocaine use. Their deaths were seldom caused by an overdose but by a collapse of their cardiovascular system. In many cases, no one suspected it was cocaine use that had come back to haunt its victims so many years later.
EVERYBODY DOES IT: For experts like the drug critic Rainer Thomasius from the University Medical center Hamburg-Eppendorf, this is what makes cocaine such a mixed bag: everyone can react to it differently. Thomasius says the drug has a “high potential for psychological dependence.” For anyone who wants to escape their dreary everyday life and live in a world in which everything seems to be working for them, cocaine can be a seductive respite. It offers a soothing, getme-out-of-here experience that a person could crave again, again and again. Nevertheless, no more than 10 percent of people who do cocaine are considered hardcore users — the ones who snort the drug more than 50 times a year. Most are recreational users, people who have lives, jobs or families. They are managers, politicians, professors, creatives. You wouldn’t notice at first glance that they use cocaine. In fact, you wouldn’t even notice at second glance. To be sure, you’d have to examine their nasal septum for holes. That these people appear to have their cocaine use under control, and not vice versa, may also be due to the fact that cocaine is expensive. Many people can’t afford it until they start making money. For some, this isn’t until they’re 20, maybe as late as 25. By that point, according to Thomasius, a person’s personality is more fully developed and their risk of addiction is lower. And yet, time and again, there are new users who become delusional after doing coke for only a short amount of time. People who, after a few years, can’t concentrate on anything except the next line of blow. A LIFE UNDER THE INFLUENCE It wouldn’t take much for Florian, a student from Berlin, to become one of these lost souls. Florian isn’t his real name, but he did begin taking drugs when he was 20 and got sucked in by the club scene in Berlin, where dealers often stand in front of the bathroom stalls. For three years, Florian was an intense coke user. Today, he realizes his habit isn’t sustainable. Not unless he wants to become a junkie. “This stuff makes me more self-confident the more I take. I can make me start acting pretty smug,” he says. Once he was sitting with friends at a bar in Hamburg. The next table over was occupied by several Englishmen who wanted to talk. Florian kept giving them the runaround and felt better about himself with every rude remark. “I enjoyed making a show of my arrogance. I was this cool guy who did the cool drug. And I increasingly acted this way even when I wasn’t high,” Florian says. He was impatient, aloof, contemptuous. “I could hardly stand my own friends sometimes. And strangers? Forget it.” Similar to Lukas, Florian considered himself to be a “fairly circumspect consumer” too at first. Then he noticed how his life gradually began to revolve more and more around cocaine. He remembers the time he was at a family get-together, sitting at a table outside with good food, drinks, good company, a nice atmosphere, “and then I caught myself thinking how nice a line of coke would be right now.” Florian hates the moments in which cocaine takes control of his thoughts and won’t let go. He wants to take back control. He’s only done coke once since January, he says. But quitting altogether? Why should he? Half the people in his philosophy department do cocaine, he says. Then there’s his friend who works in a cafe and says he wouldn’t be able to stand in the kitchen so long without a line every now and then. And the mother of one of his friends, who works at a casting agency. And an acquaintance of his father’s, a businessman. There’s even the young woman who he recently met while playing ping-pong and who seemed so inconspicuous — even she does coke. Everyone does it, Florian says, and the quality is good. Plus, it’s easy to get.
CENTRAL BANK SOFT ON SERIAL BANK DEFAULTERS REVERSE TREND WHILE THERE IS TIME We find that on May 16, our central bank caved in to further demands of large-scale defaulters. How does one justify the offer to make a deposit of a mere two percent to reschedule classified loans as opposed to the existing 10-50 percent? Why on earth would defaulters bother to repay money siphoned off when they can take this
easy way out? And this is not the only bungling we see. The fact that a defaulter can now only pay nine percent interest on rescheduled loans (a reduction from existing 12-16 percent) and a generous 10 years, with a grace period of another year—all point to a regime being put in place that will encourage others to default on their loans and
allow existing defaulters an easy way out. Small and medium entrepreneurs now have little access to affordable funds to do business because the size of NPLs has created a liquidity crunch that is only getting worse with time. We have said it before and we say it again. Unless this trend is checked now, it runs the risk of causing a meltdown in the financial sector somewhere down the line—a scenario which policymakers in every country knows may trigger an economy-wide recession.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
IraqIs KeeP UP antI-reGIMe deMos desPIte PM's vow to qUIt TEHRAN
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Agencies
RAqIS kept up anti-government protests in Baghdad and the south on Saturday, unsatisfied with the premier’s vowed resignation and insisting on the overhaul of a system they say is corrupt and beholden to foreign powers. Protesters have hit the streets since early October in the largest grassroots movement Iraq has seen in decades, sparked by fury at poor public services, lack of jobs and endemic government graft. The decentralised demonstrations were met with violence from security forces and armed groups, leaving more than 420 people dead and 15,000 wounded according to an AFP tally compiled from medics and an Iraqi rights commission. The toll spiked dramatically this week, when a crackdown by security forces left dozens dead in Baghdad, the Shiite shrine city of Najaf and the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah — the birthplace of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. Facing pressure from the street and the country’s top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Abdel Mahdi announced on Friday that he would submit his resignation to parliament, due to meet on Sunday. But demonstrations have not subsided, with crowds in the capital and across the Shiite-majority south sticking to their weeks-long demand
of complete regime change. “We’ll keep up this movement,” said one protester in the southern hotspot of Diwaniyah, where thousands turned out early on Saturday. “Abdel Mahdi’s resignation is only the first step, and now all corrupt figures must be removed and judged,” he said. Teenager protesters also held their ground in Baghdad, staring down security forces positioned behind concrete barriers to protect government buildings. “We won’t leave our barricades until the regime falls, until we get jobs, water, electricity,” one protester said. Hundreds also converged in the main protest camp in Nasiriyah’s city centre and set tyres ablaze on three bridges spanning the Euphrates
River, according to AFP’s correspondent. Iraq’s second holy city Karbala was rocked by overnight clashes with young protesters and security forces trading fire bombs until the early hours of the morning. Najaf was relatively calm on Saturday, according to AFP’s correspondent, but protests there usually swell in the afternoon and evening. This week’s stunning turnaround was set off when protesters stormed and burned the Iranian consulate in Najaf late Wednesday, accusing Iraq’s neighbour of propping up the Baghdad government. Tehran demanded Iraq take decisive action against the protesters and hours later Abdel Mahdi ordered mil-
FOREIGN NEWS 07
itary chiefs to “impose security and restore order”. Men in civilian clothes opened fire on demonstrators and tribal fighters deployed in the streets to defend them in standoffs that sparked fears of widespread clashes. Over two days, 42 people were shot dead in Nasiriyah, 22 in Najaf and three in Baghdad. Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council on Saturday said it had formed a committee to probe the unrest, pledging to “punish those who attacked protesters”. Chief justice Faeq Zeidan is among a list of names circulated as possible replacements for Abdel Mahdi. Accountability for those killed has become a key demand of protesters in Iraq, where tribal traditions — including revenge for murder — remain popular. “Every victim has a mother, a father, a tribe who won’t stay quiet,” said a Baghdad protester. “Otherwise there could be civil war.” The rising death toll sparked a dramatic intervention from Sistani, the 89-year-old spiritual leader of many of Iraq’s Shiites. For week he called for restraint and urged parties to get “serious” about reform, ramping up his rhetoric on Friday when he urged parliament to end its support for the government. Within minutes, leading political factions called for a vote of no-confidence, including one of the government’s key sponsors, the Saeroon parliamentary bloc led by firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr.
UK PM Johnson says important to enforce terrorism sentences after London Bridge attack LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday it was important to enforce terrorism-related sentences, as The Times newspaper reported that a London knife attacker had been convicted of an “Islamist terrorism-related offence” and released from prison about a year ago. “It is a mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early and it is very important that we get out of that habit and that we enforce the appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals, especially for terrorists,” Johnson said. Britons head to the polls on Dec. 12 to elect a new government. Agencies
Paris train station partly evacuated over inactive shell PARIS: Police in Paris partly evacuated Europe’s busiest train station, the Gare du Nord, on Friday after an inactive explosive shell was discovered in a passenger’s bag, sources said. The shell was found as part of a random check at the station, which serves as a stop for the Eurostar from London, the Thalys from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, four suburban train lines, and two busy Paris metros. A source close to the investigation said the man, who was arrested, was a soldier. Arrivals and departures were temporarily disrupted before being resumed later Friday. Agencies
Germany's far-right party eyes path to government with new leaders
Malta prime minister expected to quit in crisis over journalist murder VALLETTA Agencies
Hague must probe Morales 'crimes against humanity', says Bolivia SUCRE: Bolivia’s interim government will file a case in The Hague against former president Evo Morales for “crimes against humanity,” the interior minister announced Friday. The government will file the lawsuit “in the next few days,” the minister, Arturo Murillo, told state radio Patria Nueva. The International Criminal Court sitting in The Hague has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity. Murillo last week filed a criminal complaint in Bolivia accusing Morales of sedition and terrorism, after he allegedly called on supporters to blockade cities and cut off fuel and food supplies. The ex-president “must answer to justice for what he has done, and is doing, in addition to his accomplices who have participated in the tragic events that Bolivians have experienced,” Murillo said. If Morales — who fled to Mexico after resigning on November 10 — were charged and convicted in a Bolivian court, he would face a maximum penalty of 30 years in jail. Morales has in turn accused the interim government of “genocide” following the deaths of 32 people, mostly his indigenous supporters, in post-election violence. Morales denied wrongdoing and said he was being persecuted for leading a propoor, pro-indigenous government and nationalizing the country’s gas and other natural resources. Congress last week gave a green light for a new vote without Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. He had been seeking a fourth term after nearly 14 years as leader of the poor but resource-rich country. Meanwhile, Murillo expressed concern over the presence in the country of an Argentine human rights group. “We recommend these foreigners who are arriving….to be careful,” said Murillo. Agencies
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has told associates he plans to resign over the political and legal crisis stemming from the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Times of Malta reported on Friday. Muscat’s spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the report. His Labour Party cancelled an event scheduled for Sunday at which Muscat was set to speak. Muscat’s chief of staff and two members of the cabinet have already stepped aside this week over the murder case, which threatens to bring down the island nation’s close-knit elite. Caruana Galizia, a campaigning journalist who investigated corruption, was blown up by a car bomb on Oct. 16, 2017. Her family demanded on Friday that Muscat resign, after his right hand man Keith Schembri was set free overnight. Schembri, who quit as Muscat’s chief of staff and was held for questioning in the case this week, denies wrongdoing. Police said they no longer needed him held for their investigation. Caruana Galizia’s family said Muscat should not preside over an investigation that implicates three of his closest colleagues. “This travesty of justice is shaming our country, ripping our society apart, and it is degrading
us. It cannot continue any longer,” the family said in a statement. Muscat has previously rebuffed calls to quit. “I will not abdicate my responsibilities. Malta needs stable leadership and I will continue to take decisions in the interests of the country and will not protect anyone,” he said. His spokesman said Muscat would make an announcement “in due course”. “The PM has pledged various times he wants to see this case through,” he said. Roberta Metsola, a Maltese member of the European parliament, said in a tweet: “If only #DaphneCaruanaGalizia was alive to see that even after they assassinated her, she brought the criminals down in disgrace.” Three men have been awaiting trial for setting the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia but so far the authorities have failed to track down the person who hired them. The case has moved quickly in recent weeks since a middleman suspected of introducing the killers to the person who ordered the hit was pardoned in return for testimony. Earlier on Friday, Muscat’s cabinet turned down a request to pardon a businessman, Yorgen Fenech, over the murder in return for testimony that Fenech’s lawyers said would implicate senior government figures, including Schembri. Fenech, who was arrested last week while trying to leave the island in his yacht, was also freed on bail on Friday.
BRUNSWICK: Hundreds of people rallied on Saturday in protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany in the western German city of Brunswick where the AfD gathered to elect new leaders. Riot police fenced off the Volkswagen Halle sports venue hosting some 550 AfD delegates to keep leftist protesters waving rainbow flags and banners reading “Against the AfD and its incitement” from reaching the building. Party co-leader Alexander Gauland said in an opening speech that the AfD’s goal was to move from the opposition to government, at least at the regional level. The AfD is the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag national parliament, which it entered for the first time in 2017, propelled by voters angry at conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to admit almost one million mainly Muslim asylum seekers. The AfD also sits on opposition benches in all of Germany’s 16 state parliaments, where it is ostracized by all established parties, including Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centerleft Social Democrats (SPD). “They call us Nazis, fascists and right-wing terrorists,” said Gauland. “But we need to be wise and resilient. The day will come when a weakened CDU has only one option: us.” Merkel’s conservatives have said they cannot work with the party, saying its anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric contributes to an atmosphere of hate that encourages political violence. Agencies
A relic of Jesus' manger, Christmas gift from the pope to Bethlehem BETHLEHEM Agencies
A fragment of wood reputed to be from the manger where Jesus was laid after his humble birth arrived in Bethlehem from the Vatican on Saturday, kicking off Christmas season at the town revered as the place of Jesus’ birth. The Custodian of the Holy Land, Father Francesco Patton holds a wooden relic reputed to be part of Jesus’s manger, upon arrival at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 30, 2019. REUTERS/Mussa qawasma. The wood piece, just a few centimeters (inches) long, was once kept in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. It was handed over earlier this week to the custodian of the Bethlehem church, who said it brought “great honor to believers and pilgrims in the area”. The provenance of ancient relics is often questionable. Still, they are revered by the Christian faithful, among them the coachloads of pil-
grims who squeeze through a narrow sandstone entrance in the Church of the Nativity to visit the birth grotto that is its centerpiece. According to the Custos of the Holy Land for the Catholic church, Francesco Patton, the relic dates back more than 2,000 years and was sent to the Vatican in the 7th century. Encased in a silver-colored ornamental table-top stand, the relic was unveiled to the public
on Friday at the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, before it was taken to Bethlehem on Saturday. A procession of marching bands greeted the relic as it arrived in Bethlehem. It was placed in Saint Catherine’s Church, at the Church of the Nativity compound in Manger Square. “We are proud that part of the manger is back in Bethlehem because we feel that the soul of God is with us more than before,” said Chris Gacaman, 53, a Bethlehem homemaker, as she stood outside the church. Others were a little let down. “It’s a small piece, we thought it would be a bigger piece,” said Sandy Shahin Hijazeen, 32. “When we heard that the manger is coming back we thought it would be the whole manger, but then we saw it.” Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is usually particularly busy ahead of Christmas on Dec. 25, with tourists and pilgrims flocking to the Biblical city. Christians make up around 1% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
08 COMMENT State of higher education And an un-consulted stakeholder
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ILITarY dictators have all along put curbs on academic freedom and imposed strict regimentation on the universities and colleges. The once-thriving culture of free debate and discussion was considered dangerous and was suppressed. Ziaul Haq went to the extreme of letting loose armed gangs on the campuses to terrorize the student community. Successive powerless governments did little to revive the culture of tolerance. There is now no space left for critical thinking, fresh ideas and inventiveness in institutions of higher learning. Students are required to study in a highly regimented and suffocating environment. There are also increasing complaints about the agencies monitoring student activity. Despite a phenomenal increase in their number the multifarious educational institutions can no more bring forth nobel Laureates like abdus Salam and Hargobind Khorana, once produced by Punjab university alone. In elite english medium schools questioning is discouraged and students are persuaded to memorize without analyzing and comprehending what is taught and to regurgitate it in the exams to get the maximum number of as. Student unions, which once acted as a conduit between the university and the student community, stand banned. one of the universities has gone a step further by requiring an affidavit from every student at the time of admission that they will not take part in politics or hold protests on the campus The Students Solidarity March held all over the country demanded restoration of student unions. These unions provide the student community an opportunity to understand the democratic process by casting votes. once these unions organised House-of-commons-style debates and declamation contests to educate students to argue a case in a logical way. They also organized a variety of cultural functions. The unions also presented student demands before the administration. The student community is a stakeholder in the educational system like the teachers and the administration. The Students Solidarity March was totally peaceful. This shows that the student community is responsible. There is therefore a need not only to hear the ignored stakeholder but also provide it representation in the administration. This can be done only through elected student unions.
Picking judges Competence should remain paramount
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He decision by the Parliamentary committee on Judicial appointments to conduct interviews of nominees for elevation to the superior judiciary should be seen as an attempt by politicians to restore the balance in their favour, but it should be given some more thought, because it seems to be an attempt to graft a concept developed in the uSa’s presidential system, onto a parliamentary system. The danger to be guarded against is to ensure a tendency that has already been observed, where judges have been appointed because of their political prominence rather than their legal acumen. until the present system was developed through the 19th and 20th amendments, where the Parliamentary committee vets the work of the Judicial commission, the executive pretty much had free reign in a system which was pretty much opaque, and which left high court chief justices with a few judges who were never assigned any cases to hear, for fear of the disgrace to the judiciary this would lead to. The Bar has noted that in the uK, where interviews of prospective candidates has started, the interviewing panels include experts. Perhaps the parliamentary committees doing the interviewing should include such experts. one means of ensuring their presence would be for the committee itself to prescribe additional qualifications for members, so that while party leaders would not face any restriction on their right of nomination, they would have to nominate members with some expertise. There might be some conflict of interest if a legislator was a nominee, though it must be remembered that the example of ‘senatorial courtesy’ quoted is of the Senator given a smooth path to confirmation if named for a judicial appointment. That elected representatives would take a heightened interest in judicial appointments, which had been one the executive’s prerogatives, was perhaps inevitable. It was probably also welcome. However, this must not mean that judgeships should degenerate into jobs for the boys. This has not happened in the uSa, and indeed the standards of appointment there have become higher with time. The process, however, remains highly political, and there have even been recent instances of partisanship which are not edifying examples for this country. These posts are extremely important, affecting the entire administration of justice, and how the laws passed by Parliament are understood.
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Student politics in Pakistan Student union must be restored TahiR Khan
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ouTH is an asset for any country. They are the source of capable human resource and movers of the wheel of development of the country. They have the power to perform any activity and bring honour and respect for the country. The youth of Pakistan also has left no stone unturned in performing something big and bring honour to the country. according to the comprehensive national Human Development report, of the unDP, Pakistan is one of the youngest countries in the world having the youth form 64 percent of the population, which is next to afghanistan in South asia. tudent leaders should be elected fairly through a democratic process of voting without any outside involvement as this will infuse them with democratic ideals. In this way, merit based and capable leaders would join student politics and provide Pakistan with future leaders who would try their best to resolve issues faced by Pakistan and make their country proud in the eyes of world leaders. This will also strengthen our institutions, as unfortunately, in our country personalities are given precedence over the institutions which is inimical to a democratic dispensation These students are in the phase of learning. They try to understand nearly everything that comes to their way with the help of various sources. They learn from their political leaders and political happenings too. Hence, it is their right to get involved in politics and the policies of their country; to praise what is good in the country and to criticize what is bad. Keeping in view this point, students must be provided with a platform where they may raise their voices regarding the problems faced by them; a platform for socio-political and economic discussions. This platform is really necessary because student politics is the nursery of future leadership. Historically, student politics was banned by General Zia’s regime step by step, beginning from a ban on student politics in Islamabad in January 1984, and spread to the whole country within a few months. He feared that students could be a threat to his regime and could begin a wave of protest against him. after him, student unions and student politics
were allowed in the country for a short period of time till they were again banned by the Supreme court of the country, after some violent activities by the students. However, it is pertinent to mention that the Supreme court in iys 1993 judgement had banned politics within campus but had stressed for a platform where students may indulge in intellectual discussions and debates. In this regard, there are certainly many pros and some cons of student politics in Pakistan. The major advantage of student politics is the political training. Indeed, when students would be involved in politics from their college and university level; they are trained to distinguish between positive and negative aspects of politics in their country. They would practically know how people are elected democratically, how democracy and its institutions are being run and how political alliances are formed and dissolved. This creates awareness regarding democracy and encourages participation. Hence, when a student enters the world outside academia, he knows all good and bad trends and becomes a good and far-sighted politician and contributes positively to the national politics of the country. Further, these student political organizations are the hub of healthy discussions. an example to site here is the Study circle conducted by students of the Mehran Students’ council of Quaide-azam university, Islamabad. In this circle students discuss various issues related to politics, philosophy, mysticism and social evils prevailing in our society. They not only discuss those issues but also try to find out their viable solutions too. additionally, student politics is the vital source of demanding rights and basic facilities in colleges and universities. The recent wave of student protests in Sindh university, in Punjab university, Balochistan university and in the Faiz Festival is a clear example of those hard-pressed demands for facilities and for lifting the ban on student politics, throughout the country. Besides, student unions organize various educational and entertainment events for the recreation of their fellow students. These events are a good source of information, knowledge and entertainment for the students. In this connection, a book fair, organized by students of Karachi university; Latif day, organized by Sindhi students of Quaid-e-azam university, Islamabad, and other cultural and entertainment activities organized by students of various uni-
versities, are worth mentioning. conversely, nearly everything in the world has two sides, student politics has its darker side too. The most dangerous aspect of student politics, in this regard, is infighting and violent activities among rival parties. Many of the students suffer injuries in those quarrels. These quarrels create an atmosphere of fear in those institutions. another serious negative aspect of student politics is victimization of new students in the form of ragging. This not only creates fear in new students but also becomes a cause of the above-mentioned quarrels. Moreover, some student political leaders pressurize their institutions’ administration and teaching staff to get some vested interests, while others are exploited by the local politicians. Those politicians use those students for getting personal gains from college, university or local authorities. Due to this, students not only forget their real object of getting education but also become involved in criminal activities and ultimately lose their valuable time, money and their future. However, positives of student politics overweigh the negatives, as their disputes and differences are amicably resolved by a third party of the students. Here, example of Quaid-eazam university is again worth noting where if any dispute occurs between any two councils, an action committee called Quaidian Students’ Federation comes to their quick rescue and performs role of a mediator and resolves their dispute. By the way, to control ragging is the task of that college and university; meanwhile, student leaders should create awareness regarding the trauma of ragging and should take practical steps to resolve that issue. Lastly, student leaders should be elected fairly through a democratic process of voting without any outside involvement as this will infuse them with democratic ideals. In this way, merit based and capable leaders would join student politics and provide Pakistan with future leaders who would try their best to resolve issues faced by Pakistan and make their country proud in the eyes of world leaders. This will also strengthen our institutions, as unfortunately, in our country personalities are given precedence over the institutions which is inimical to a democratic dispensation. Tahir Khan can tahirkhan@ir.qau.edu.pk
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Fallingen standards The Bajwa extension exposed a mess
Rabia ahmed Standards in public life have decayed over time…incompetence is the norm. — Jed Mercurio
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overnance here is like a disastrous musical performance with the instruments twanging, clashing, and shrieking out of turn in an attempt to cover the fact that the singers haven’t a clue of the words or the tune. and nothing made the performers’ ineptitude more obvious than the recent fiasco regarding the coaS’s extension, although the brouhaha surrounding nawaz Sharif’s leaving the country achieved almost as much. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s throwaway statement a year ago about legislating by means of ordinances was probably the only time he did not execute a u-turn, because now the government is further down that path and in the case of the coaS’s extension acting first and then promising to come up with legislation to make their actions legal at a later date. Should the country’s Supreme court have allowed this? The Prime Minister could have been called to account for his extremely unprofessional announcement of this
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extension, but he was not; the Supreme court has allowed the extension to go through for an initial period of six months. By doing so they set a precedent for further such transgressions, but then again, perhaps by doing so they managed to prevent the matter from escalating into an even bigger and more humiliating state of affairs. In fact the coaS and the PM could both have been asked to explain why the extension was so crucial. Does this pushed-through extension mean that the Pakistan army cannot produce another person competent enough to fill the current boots? That is doubtful since the top brass in the army appears to be of …er… more or less the same calibre. There should have been no problem there. So what is it? Has no one else been groomed and to deal with the tense situations on Pakistan’s borders, its ‘regional security environment’? If that is the case, what does that say about the leadership in the Pakistan army and its dedication to smooth transitions, and to the nation it serves? and since no one can be in office indefinitely, in what position does that put whoever comes next? not to mention that it would be good to know what makes the current coaS so important to the present government. Is the government itself not competent enough? To function without this coaS, that is? You wonder if the PM even knows…well he probably knows now (we hope), but when he blew in with his bald statement concerning General Bajwa’s extension, did he know then that it is the President of the country who appoints the coaS, that it is the President who is the Supreme commander of the armed Forces? See article 243 of the Pakistan constitution. You wonder if the PM or anyone in his government has read the Pakistan constitution. If so, surely the letter announcing the coaS’s extension would have reflected this.
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The leaders of the country appear to be playing some kind of a dance. When in 2016 nawaz Sharif who was then the Prime Minister offered Gen raheel Sharif an extension, Imran Khan– then in the opposition– criticized the move and accused Mr. Sharif of being afraid of the army. Does that apply to Mr Imran Khan now? When General Sharif refused the extension Mr. Khan praised him, saying the nation respected him for his decision. If that was the case, you wonder what the nation thinks of General Bajwa now for accepting his extension, especially given that the nation finds itself in this imbroglio as a result. The PPP also, during its tenure, gave Gen ashfaq Pervez Kiyani a three year extension, but now its representatives have criticized Imran Khan for General Bajwa’s extension. Is it possible that politicians suffer from irreversible memory loss, and/or chronic inability to keep their heads down and get on with their job? Does either of those things make them incompetent to be appointed to positions in government? It is interesting to conjecture what happens if this government is unable come up with the promised legislation regarding the extension/reappointment of an army chief within the stipulated time of six months, legislation that would give General Bajwa’s extension beyond six months a legal stamp of approval. Will the army chief be out then? Somehow, that does not seem likely given the ‘yes sir’ relation between the armed forces and Pakistan’s civilian authorities. Will our leaders ever learn? It appears extremely doubtful. What made us think IK would be any different? Rabia Ahmed is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabiaahmed.blogspot.com/
Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
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
Our battle PaKISTan is among 10 countries affected most by climate change. Pakistan is in a geographic location where average temperature is predicted to rise faster than elsewhere increasing 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Pakistan has faced catastrophic floods, droughts and cyclones in recent years that have killed and destroyed livelihoods and damaged infrastructure. climatic changes are expected to have wide ranging impacts on Pakistan, reduced agricultural productivity, increased variability of water, increased coastal erosion and seawater incursion. In the last 50 years the annual mean temperature has increased by roughly 0.5 degrees centigrade. The number of heat waves days per years has increased nearly fivefold in the last 30 years. Sea level along the Karachi coast has risen to approximately 10 centimetres in last century. By the end of this century, the annual temperature in Pakistan is expected rise by 3 degrees Fahrenheit to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Pakistan is expected to experience increased variability of river flows due to increasing the melting of glaciers. Deforestation and increase in the use of chemicals in domestic and agricultural life are the main cause of climate change in Pakistan. RAFIA KHALId Islamabad
Winter rain
Half-way to perdition A generational undertaking to cultivate reform and method
Candid Corner Raoof hasan “Unless we maintain correctional institutions of such character that they create respect for law and government instead of breeding resentment and a desire for revenge, we are meeting lawlessness with stupidity and making a travesty of justice.” —Mary B. Harris
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T has been quite a gory enactment– three days of grandiose drama surpassing all previous dramas through its various stages: conceptualisation, scripting, direction, sound play, acting and theatrics. In the end, the stage was left littered with bloodied and battered bodies and the audience wondering if there was still some breath left to keep the rot away! one is at a loss trying to fathom the real purpose for staging all this. Was it the last hurrah on the part of the outgoing chief Justice to establish who was in control, this after having failed to move multiple cases of far more significance forward? Was it a battle among bruised egos to tell the other to beware of the hands brandishing the book of law? Was it an artful play of moves to mitigate the blemishes of a past when the very same institution legitimised military takeovers in the country and shirked its cardinal duties in bringing so many other cases to their logical fruition? or, was it a subtle combination of some or all these factors, leaving it just short of creating the ultimate mayhem? The more one thinks of it, the more one realises its absurdity. Why, after all, was the need felt to make a conscious and public demonstration to belittle institutions and individuals alike? Granted that there was a lacuna in the rules and procedures governing the extension granted to the chiefs of Services, but this could have been handled in a rational manner, without creating the ruckus that kept the country on tenterhooks for a good three days with the media and multiple other actors going hoarse with conspiracy theories: that there was a method to this madness, that some powerful institution was behind this drama. This was a sickly replication of what transpired during the sit-in staged by the bigot
and his cohorts in Islamabad which was cred- stitution that should lead by example and conited with far more importance and relevance duct. Having authored the concept of “doctrine than it deserved. even then, the conspiracy the- of necessity” to legitimise usurpation of power ories ran galore predicting the fall of the gov- in the country, here was another instance when the institution took a heavy battering and its ernment in days. It generates a horrible feeling to realise that, credibility and stature as a key pillar of the state for all these years since its creation, extensions was compromised. another thought that rattles is that once the have been granted to numerous chiefs of Services without having the requisite rules to go by, apex court had taken the plunge to putting the the last one as recent as July 2010 when Gen system right, no matter who the affected would ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani received a three-year be, why was it left hanging in there? This beextension from the PPP government. never be- comes even more relevant when the court had fore did the apex court take note of it. a petition the option of doing so, thus setting a benchmark was moved this time against granting extension for the future which would have earned it reto Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa which, reportedly, spect. Is this the course that the court had in kept rotting for months when, just three days mind from the beginning, or did this occur bebefore the tenure of the incumbent was to ex- cause of subsequent advice from within the inpire, the apex court sprang into action to take stitution, from outside, or having gathered this note of it, and what an incredible performance from the strong reaction in the social media and the caustic comments that were showered on the it put up! The handling of the petition against General working of the apex court and its judges from diverse platforms? Bajwa’s appointment That prompts me to makes for a case riddled deal with another aspect of with confusion. undermatter– the way it was standably, the alleged petiLet’s stop compromising. the treated by the media and a tion was withdrawn on the Let’s throw the muck out large number of people morning when the case who were invited 24/7, the first came up for hearing. and develop a genuine so-called experts and anaThe court rejected the petilysts, to comment on the tioner’s request saying that wherewithal for credible ongoing proceedings in the “it invokes article 184 (3) governance. In the shifting court of law. With scant of the Constitution and the understanding of the case subject matter of the petisands of time, this is the itself, these people intion involves a question of minimum the state would dulged excessively in fabpublic importance with refricating fictional erence to enforcement of need to begin its references and building fundamental rights and, their thesis on wobbly thus, the individual capacregenerative journey premises. In the process, ity of the petitioner pales What was Supreme anchors, if one may call into insignificance even if them so, were driving he decides not to pursue Court up to? themselves hoarse in enthe present petition. The acting doomsday scenarapplication attributed to ios. That’s where their the petitioner is, therefore, personal biases and prejunot entertained”. But, when it was reported that the petition dices came into play in preference to their abilhad been turned into a public interest notice by ity to debate the case on its merit. reform is a need of the times, practically the court, it was quickly debunked. under the circumstances, the conspiracy-mongers were in all departments of the government, as also given a vast space to weave their theories, and in the mindset with which issues pertaining to they did so with absolute abandon, distorting various facets are tackled. It is a time-consumand defacing facts in the process, thus causing ing undertaking which is not going to be done in days or weeks. It takes generations to cultiimmense pain and consternation to the people. What the court needed to do was to assist vate a substantive change of approach and the executive and, given that relevant rules did method. now that amendments are to be made not exist for pursuing the objective at hand, ad- in relevant laws and procedures for granting vise it in finding a credible way to tackle the extension to the chiefs of Services, it may be existent issue pending amendment in the rele- appropriate to undertake a comprehensive reapvant rules and procedures for granting exten- praisal of what the state has against what it sion to the chiefs of Services. This could have needs to have. Let’s stop compromising. Let’s throw the been done, if allowed by law, by sending a simple note to the government, or summoning the muck out and develop a genuine wherewithal attorney-General. Why, then, was the need felt for credible governance. In the shifting sands of for staging this harrowing spectacle just three time, this is the minimum the state would need days before the retirement of the incumbent to begin its regenerative journey. coaS? Was this an attempt to belittle the govRaoof Hasan is a political and security ernment, the coaS or the institution that he represents, the country and its people, or the ra- strategist, and heads the Regional Peace tionale behind granting the extension itself? Institute – an Islamabad-based think tank. He Whatever prompted it, the manner in which it can be reached at: raoofhasan@hotmail.com; was dealt with paints a poor picture of the in- Twitter: @RaoofHasan
WeLcoMe to the first heavy spell of the winter rain. Though it may be a cause of little concern for cotton growers, it is mostly good news for everyone in the country. Hopefully, it will help fight the gravely dangerous issue of smog in Lahore. Heavy rain in the twin cities of Islamabad and rawalpindi has ended the dry spell causing health issues for people. now the air will be free from pollution and dust and dirt will be washed away from roads. The agricultural land in the Pothohar region is arid, which primarily depends on rains for irrigation. These rains will be a blessing for farmers in the Pothohar region as it will benefit them preparing their land for the rabi crop. The government needs to supply better quality seed to farmers to enable them to increase agriculture production. The farmers must put in extra efforts to preserve water any way they can for use during dry days. Similarly, the citizens should avoid wasting water and littering as that chokes drains and cause problems. even a step further, they take small steps such as growing vegetables in their lawns and backyards to bring about a change. This would not only be a healthy activity but also will help fend off the adverse effects of exorbitant prices of daily use vegetables on their budgets. overall, a small effort by everyone can help bring about a big change. RAJA SHAFAATULLAH Islamabad
Treating our teachers better TeacHerS are supposed to be spinal cord of a nation in terms of socio-economic and cultural development of a country. In Pakistan, especially in Sindh teachers are treated badly. Yesterday, on november 6, there was called a well-managed and peaceful protest in front of cM house by the Sindh Professors and Lecturers association (SPLa) for their time scale and promotion. Meanwhile, police contingent reached there and arrested many of teachers including female professors. Perhaps, government is unaware that protest is a democratic right of every citizen. Moreover, college teaching staff from all over of Sindh has said they will remain in peaceful protest until their resolution of time-scale, and furthers it was explained that colleges will be closed till to meet their demands. on the other hand, by closing of colleges the already lowest rate of literacy in Sindh is going to be in a worst condition if demands are not meet. The protestors reminded the government that summary of time scale had been sent to the secretariat on 2010, but perhaps it has not yet been pursued. Surprisingly, all other provinces have resolved its time scale issue of the college education. ZAKIR HUSSAIn Wahi Pandhi
Banning plastic bags PLaSTIc bags had been a huge indication of apocalypses since 1950s and it is very much notorious of being the fountainhead of enhancing the mortality rate of people in Pakistan. Plastic bags are being manufactured with various hazardous chemicals which are very much dangerous for every individual surviving in Pakistan, because in every corner of Pakistan plastic bags are being used to carry out the eatable goods without being aware the causes and health risk and sometimes it is very much spoiler for the lands because the plastics would make a timber land into a barren land. according to the expert scientists that plastic takes more than 500 years to break down in a landfill. Moreover, the scientists have claimed that the plastic bags have been the source of numerous deadliest diseases such as cancer endometriosis, neurological damage, endocrine disruption, birth effects and developmental disorders, immune damage, asthma, and cause multiple organ damages. Furthermore, the Minister of climate change Senator had evaluated that more than 55 billion plastic shopping bags are being used in Pakistan where the utilisation had been increased to 15 per cent per annum. In Pakistan approximately 8,021 production units are available whose production of average is nearly 250-500 kilograms per day and the result more investigated that more than 160,000 were directly and 600,000 were indirectly dependent on the industry. I request to the government to conduct surveys to create awareness among the residents about the health risks of applying plastic bags. MEHRAJ ALTAF Turbat
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
10 FOREIGN NEWS
dUtCH PoLICe HUnt sUsPeCt after tHree staBBed In tHe HaGUe HAGUE
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Agencies
UTCH police kept up a huge manhunt on Saturday for an assailant who stabbed three youths in The Hague’s main shopping area. Officials said they were keeping an open mind about the motive for the attack, which came as shoppers hunted bargains on Black Friday. The incident caused panic in The Hague as it happened just hours after two people were stabbed to death in London allegedly by an exprisoner convicted of terrorism offences. The male attacker ran off after the stabbings at a department store in the city
centre’s Grote Marktstraat, The Hague’s main shopping area. “We haven’t arrested a suspect yet. So we are currently very busy trying the find the suspect,” police spokeswoman Marije Kuiper told AFP. “It’s a little too early to speculate about that kind of thing,” she said when asked about a possible terrorist motive, adding that investigators were still looking at several possible scenarios. Police forensics officers were seen examining a knife found at the scene overnight. The victims were a 13-year-old boy from The Hague, a girl of 15 from Alphen aan den Rijn and a 15-year-old girl from Leiderdorp, the ANP news agency said,
quoting police. They did not know each other, police said. They were all allowed to go home from hospital overnight. Images on social media showed shoppers running in panic away from the scene, on a nighttime retail street lit by Christmas fairy lights. Two teenage girls came running into the store after being stabbed, broadcaster NOS quoted witnesses as saying. “I saw two girls screaming and running away. A man fled. He jumped very athletically over benches to getaway. He looked like a cheetah,” one witness told NOS. “People were trying to get away. but that didn’t work. I was shocked.” Police helicopters flew overhead and
several emergency vehicles were on site, the correspondent said. Police initially gave a description of a man they were looking for aged between 40 and 50 but later withdrew it, saying they were still investigating. The stabbing took place not far from parliament, which is the seat of government for the Netherlands and home to many international organisations and courts. In Britain, two members of the public were killed in a stabbing on London Bridge in the heart of the capital on Friday. The Netherlands has seen a series of
terror attacks and plots, although not so far on the scale of those in other European countries. In March four people were killed when a Turkish-born man opened fire on a tram in the city of Utrecht. In August 2018 an Afghan man stabbed and seriously wounded two American tourists at Amsterdam’s central station, saying he wanted to “protect the Prophet, Mohammed”. He was jailed for 26 years in October this year. Earlier this month a Pakistani man was sentenced to 10 years in jail for a plot to kill far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
US panel sets deadline for Trump to decide participation in impeachment hearings WASHINGTON Agencies
No phones, scripted tweets: How Trump's Afghanistan trip was kept under wraps BAGRAM AIRFIELD Agencies
Notorious for leaks and chastened by previous security lapses, the White House went to unusual lengths to keep President Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving trip to Afghanistan under wraps, devising a cover story for his movements that included posting scripted tweets while he was in the air, administration officials said. On Thursday, Trump dropped in unannounced on troops at Afghanistan’s Bagram military air base in his first trip to the country and only his second to a war zone during his presidency. He served soldiers a turkey dinner and posed for selfies, before telling reporters that the United States and Taliban hoped to resume peace talks. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the 33-hour roundtrip, which White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said had been weeks in the making, was the administration’s success in keeping it secret until shortly before the president left Afghanistan to return home. Frequently wrong-footed by leaks and Trump’s freewheeling use of Twitter, the White House informed only a tight circle of officials about the trip. On Tuesday, Trump traveled to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as scheduled, accompanied by the regular caravan of reporters which follows the president on all trips. When those journalists waited for him to emerge for a Thursday afternoon conference call with the troops, per his official schedule, they learnt that overnight he had flown the 13,400 km (8,331 miles) to Afghanistan to visit them in person. “It is a dangerous area and he wants to support the troops,” Grisham told a small group of correspondents aboard Air Force
One on Wednesday evening, explaining why the White House had concealed Trump’s true movements. Only hours before, that second group of reporters had secretly gathered at a parking lot near the Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, a regular departure spot for Trump, from which they were driven in minivans into the complex. They had been told ahead of time that Trump would be traveling incognito to an undisclosed location. Once inside the base, all smart phones and any devices that could send a signal were confiscated and not returned until at least two hours after Trump’s arrival at Bagram, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan. Throughout the 13-hour flight, nobody on board Air Force One had access to their phones, including White House staff, Grisham said. The cabin lights were mostly switched off and window blinds stayed shut. Last Christmas, en route to a troop visit in Iraq, Air Force One was identified above England by a plane spotter who tweeted a photo of its distinctive turquoise livery, sparking a social media storm. Many speculated then that Trump was on his way to a war zone, pointing to his unusually quiet Twitter account, which had sent dozens of tweets the day before. This time, Grisham said the White House made arrangements to ensure continuity in the president’s Twitter account, which posted happy Thanksgiving tweets as he was in the air, including one thanking the military. “We just had a nice Thanksgiving dinner,” Trump said amid chants of “U-S-A” during his speech at the Bagram base. “I thought I was going to be doing it someplace else.”
A US congressional panel on Friday gave President Donald Trump one week to say whether his legal counsel intends to introduce evidence and call witnesses in upcoming impeachment proceedings that could lead to formal charges of misconduct within a few weeks. The Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee, which is due to begin weighing possible articles of impeachment against Trump next week, sent a two-page letter to the president setting a deadline of 5 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) on Dec. 6 for the president’s counsel to specify intended actions under the committee’s impeachment procedures. The procedures set out rules by which the president can call witnesses, introduce evidence and make presentations.Panel Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler set the same deadline for Republican lawmakers on the committee to notify him about intended witnesses and evidence and scheduled a Dec. 9 meeting to consider the matter. The Judiciary panel is expected to hold a series of impeachment proceedings, including an initial hearing on Wednesday at which legal experts are due to testify about the constitutional grounds for impeachment. The committee invited Trump to participate in the hearing and gave him until 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) on Sunday to say whether
he or his legal team would attend. The impeachment probe is looking into whether Trump abused his power to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations of political rival Joe Biden and a discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. After weeks of closed-door witness depositions and televised hearings, three investigating panels led by the House Intelligence Committee are due to release a formal report soon after lawmakers return to Congress on Tuesday from a Thanksgiving recess. The report will outline evidence gathered by lawmakers on the panel, along with those on the Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees. After Wednesday, the Judiciary panel, which could recommend a full House impeachment vote before
Christmas, is expected to hold a hearing to examine the evidence report and further proceedings to consider formal articles of impeachment. House Democrats aim to resolve the question of Trump’s impeachment by Christmas. If the House impeaches him, the Republican-controlled Senate would hold a trial to determine whether he should be convicted and removed from office. Political analysts say the ultimate verdict will come in next year’s U.S. elections for president and Congress, and candidates from both parties have used the impeachment issue to ramp up their campaigns. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who launched the impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24, on Friday asked supporters in an email from her campaign committee to condemn Trump’s actions.
China bans 'fake news' created with aI, bots
russia tests hypersonic missile in arctic
BEIJING: China has issued new rules banning online video and audio providers from using artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality technologies to produce “fake news.” The regulation published Friday by China’s cyberspace authority said that both providers and users of online video news and audio services are “not allowed” to use new technologies such as deep learning and virtual reality to create, distribute and broadcast “fake news.” “Fake news” has been generalised to mean anything from a mistake to a parody or a deliberate misinterpretation of facts. The rules come into effect on January 1, 2020. Failure to follow them could be considered a criminal offence, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said, without offering details on punishments. The rules require videos and audio tracks produced using AI or virtual reality technologies to carry clear labels warning users. The regulations particularly stressed the dangers of “deepfakes,” or technology that manipulates videos to appear genuine but which depict events or speech that never happened. Deepfake technologies could “disrupt social order and violate people’s interests, creating political risks and bringing a negative impact to national security and social stability,” the cyberspace authority warned. Concerns over deepfakes have grown since the 2016 US election campaign which saw wide use of online disinformation, according to US investigations. China’s top legislative body said earlier this year it was considering making deepfake technology illegal. Agencies
MOSCOW: Russia’s MiG-31K interceptor jet carried out a test of the Kinjal (Dagger) hypersonic missile in Russia’s part of Arctic earlier this month, TASS new agency reported on Saturday, citing two military sources. The report came a day after Danish intelligence service warned of intensifying geopolitical rivalry in the Earth’s freezing North, and said that China’s military was increasingly using scientific research in the Arctic as a way into the region. “The tests took place in midNovember,” TASS quoted one of its sources as saying. The MiG-31K interceptor took off from the Olenegorsk airfield in the northern Murmansk region and fired the missile against a ground target at the Pemboi training ground in Russia’s Arctic Komi region, TASS reported. It did not provide any further detail. The Danish Defence Intelligence Service said in its annual risk assessment report on Friday that “a great power play is shaping up” between Russia, the United States and China, which is increasing the level of tension in the Arctic region. Russian President Vladimir Putin disclosed the Kinjal’s existence in March 2018 along with other missile systems he touted as unbeatable, describing how it could evade any enemy defenses. Agencies
CMYK
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
BUSINESS 11
FBR Fails to Meet Revenue taRGet as deFicit Reaches Rs214 Billion SHABBAR ZAIDI SAYS REVENUE COLLECTION IN 5MFY20 IS 17PC HIGHER COMPARED TO LAST YEAR ISLAMABAD
a
GHULAM ABBAS
S the request for a downward revision in the revenue target has been rejected by International Monetary Fund (IMF), it seems that it would be difficult for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to meet the ambitious target of collecting Rs5.5 trillion set for the current fiscal year (FY20).
The revenue board collected around Rs1,614 billion in the first five months (July-Nov) of FY20, against the envisaged target of Rs1,828.4 billion. According to FBR Chairman Shabbar Zaidi, the board collected Rs334 billion in November 2019 as against the target of Rs381.4 billion. He, however, said that revenue collection surged by over Rs53 billion in November 2019 when compared with the corresponding month of last
year (Nov 2018: Rs280.717 billion). Zaidi further claimed that the collection in the first five months of FY20 increased by 17pc as compared to the corresponding months of last year. After collecting Rs1,614 billion in 5MFY20, the FBR would have to collect Rs3,889 billion in the seven remaining months (Dec-June) to achieve the desired target. The ambitious target seems almost impossible for FBR keeping in mind the trend of revenue collection in the first five months. Meanwhile, in order to meet the target of Rs1,295 billion set for the second quarter (October to December) of FY20, FBR needs to collect
Rs641 billion in December 2019 (it collected Rs654 billion in Oct and Nov). Similarly, to meet the Rs2.3 trillion half-year target, the FBR would need to collect Rs752 billion in December. FBR, as per the economists, is left with no option but to approach IMF for a downward revision in the tax collection target. During the first quarter (July-October) of FY20, the FBR had collected Rs1,280 billion against the target of Rs1,447 billion. FBR had missed the October revenue target Rs56 billion, September revenue target by Rs50 billion, August target by Rs59 billion and July target by around Rs10 billion.
Govt announces slight reduction in petroleum prices The government on Saturday night decreased the prices of petroleum products for the month of December. The decision was made keeping in view recommendations made by the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) which had proposed the decrease to pass on the impact of lower international market rates. According to a notification issued by the finance ministry, petrol will now cost Rs113.99 per litre which is Rs0.25 cheaper than last month’s rate. Light diesel oil and high-speed diesel will see a significant reduction in prices this month, costing Rs2.90 and Rs2.40 cheaper. According to the new rate, light diesel oil will cost Rs82.43 and high-speed diesel will cost Rs125.01. Similarly, kerosene has become Rs0.83 cheaper, costing Rs96.35 this month. Last month’s hike in prices were attributed to the government seeking to generate an additional revenue of about Rs700 million. The government had begun increasing petroleum levy rates over the past few months to partially offset a revenue shortfall of over Rs113 billion faced by the Federal Board of Revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. BUSINESS DESK
Malaysia to examine ringgit’s fall as import costs sting: Mahathir
LAHORE: A woman cleans peanuts at a local market in the federal capital. ONLINE
China to use drug bulk-buy programme to close price gap BEIJING AGENCIES
China will use its national drug bulkbuy scheme to lower the price of drugs currently sold at higher prices compared with other markets, it said in an official statement. The move could force international drugmakers to further cut prices and enable copycat medicines to replace imported off-patent brands at faster pace. Many branded versions of drugs are currently more expensive in China than in other major markets. They
could now be subjected to a centralised procurement programme where manufacturers will have to go through a bidding process to get the right to supply drugs to public hospitals, the National Health Commission said in a document published on late Friday. The bulk-buy programme, which currently covers 25 types of medicines, allows no more than three successful bidders access to China’s public hospitals, where most Chinese people buy their drugs. The programme caused the price of some drugs to plunge more than 90pc when it was introduced last year
in some cities, state news agency Xinhua said. Multinational drugmakers usually cut the price of drugs when they go off-patent and face competition from generic versions, but such price drops were slow to happen in China, partially because many local drugmakers were unable to develop high-quality generic drugs to compete with off-patent branded drugs. In the first round of nationwide implement of the programme, in September, multinationals including Sanofi and Eli Lilly managed to cut some prices low enough to levels close to those offered by local generic makers.
Beijing will strengthen its monitoring of overseas drug market and collect global prices for imported medicines, Friday’s guideline said. The government is leveraging its large patient population to push nondomestic drugs companies to cut prices to their lowest level globally. Most foreign drugmakers offered Beijing the lowest prices globally in a recent round of negotiations in order to get some of their new products included in national insurance program, a move that will help them gain access to more patients in less-affluent cities, officials said on Thursday.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s government will discuss a depreciation of the ringgit that is making imports more expensive and raising living costs, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Saturday, addressing one of the biggest criticisms of his administration. The Malaysian ringgit fell for a third straight week this week. “Previously, our currency was quoted at 3.80 against the US dollar, but now it is at 4.20. Due to our currency’s value, everything that we buy has become more expensive,” Mahathir told reporters when asked about high cost of basic necessities. “This is one of the reasons. We will discuss this problem in the government.” The 94-year leader, who took office in May 2018 after unexpectedly winning a general election, said last week he was considering a cabinet reshuffle after the ruling coalition badly lost a by-election hit by voter discontentment over issues such as high living costs and the economy. Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy grew at its weakest pace in a year in the third quarter, hit by sharp falls in exports and mining. AGENCIES
International stocks to outperform US in 2020: investors NEW YORK AGENCIES
Even though the US stock market continues a record-breaking rally that has sent the benchmark S&P 500 index up nearly 25pc for the year, investors appear to be looking elsewhere for better values in the year ahead. World stock funds brought in $8.2 billion in investor inflows over the last two weeks, breaking a losing streak that dated back to early September, according to Investment Company Institute data. US equity funds, meanwhile, lost more than $10 billion in outflows over the last two weeks, extending a retreat that has spanned seven of the last eight weeks. The move into overseas stocks comes as economic fundamentals appear to be improving in parts of Europe and Asia while US growth looks to be slowing, drawing money away from a market that
had been an outperfomer. Even with the MSCI All World Country Index, which tracks global equities, nearing record highs set in January 2018, fund managers and analysts say global stock markets still offer a better chance to outperform US stocks in the year ahead. The cite significantly lower valuations after failing to keep pace with the US equity market for much of the last decade. “We’re starting to see a period where valuation is going to be the driver for future returns,” said David Marcus, chief investment officer at Evermore Global Advisors. He has been shifting more of his portfolio into European stocks such as Belgium-based medical lab equipment maker Fagron NV and French media giant Bollore SA. The forward price-toearning ratio for the broad Stoxx 600 index, for instance, is 15.4, well below the 19.3 forward P/E of the S&P 500, according to Refinitiv data.
Any narrowing of that large gap in valuations could be a driver, even for companies that have strong stock performance this year, said Thomas Banks, a portfolio manager for the Federated International Small-Mid Company fund who has been increasing his stake in European companies. He remains bullish on companies such as London Stock Exchange Group PLC and Sweden-based casino game operator Evolution Gaming Group AB, both of which are already up 50pc for the year to date. “Some of the higher valuations for US shares has been warranted because the US had a much faster growth rate. But going forward if there’s a trade deal announced or an amicable solution to Brexit, the divergent growth rates could converge again” as US growth slows, said Banks. The US economy grew at a 1.9pc annual rate in the third quarter, down from 3.1pc during the first three months of the
year. The European Commission expects the economy in the euro zone to expand at an annual rate of 1.2pc over the course of 2020, defying market expectations that growth rates would continue to fall from 4-year lows in 2018. Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy, grew 0.1pc in the third quarter after contracting 0.2pc in the previous three months, easing fears that the bloc would fall into a recession. Further declines in the US growth rate will also likely bring down the value of the dollar, which has hovered near record highs and eaten into the returns of investing in overseas markets, Banks said. Danton Goei, portfolio manager of the Davis International fund, said more attractive valuations are pushing him into Asian stocks and multi-national companies that are positioned to benefit from domestic consumption in India and China. He is bullish on Chinese companies that are not highly dependent on trade such as tech
giant Tencent Holdings Ltd and for-profit educational company New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. “You can see that the trade war has had a very limited impact on their businesses and yet valuations have come down a lot because of the macro concerns. When you have very strong businesses and their valuations are falling for unrelated reasons, that appears like a good buying opportunity,” Goei said. At the same time, he is adding to positions in companies such as French aircraft engine maker Safran SA, which he expects to benefit from growth in the Indian travel market as more consumers enter the middle class. Shares of the company are up 41% for the year to date, yet still trade near their lowest price-to-earnings ratio over the last 12 months. “The big difference in valuations obviously matters in terms of your likelihood of outperforming in the future,” he said.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
12 BUSINESS
easY loans to FaRMeRs, sMes aMonG Govt’s toP PRioRities: PM cutlery exports increase 9 per cent in 4MFY20 ISLAMABAD: Cutlery exports from the country witnessed an increase of 9.32pc during the first four months of the current financial year (FY20), as against the exports during the corresponding period of last year. Pakistan exported cutlery worth $31.530 million during July-October 2019-20, as against the exports of $28.842 million during July-October 2018-19, according to data shared by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). On a year-on-year basis, cutlery exports from the country during October 2019 declined by 12.09pc when compared to the same month of last year. Cutlery exports during October 2019 were recorded at $7.701 million as against the export of $8.760 million in October 2018. However, on a month-on-month basis, cutlery exports in Oct 2019 increased by 10.44pc when compared with the export of $6.973 million in Sept 2019. It is pertinent to mention that the country’s merchandise trade deficit plunged by 33.52pc during the first four months of FY20 as compared to the same month last year. The trade deficit during the period under review was recorded at $7.776 billion as against the deficit of $11.696 billion in 4MFY19. APP
‘tesla move will draw further companies into Germany’
PLRA, BANKS SIGN AGREEMENT TO REDUCE PROCEDURAL DIFFICULTIES FACED BY FARMERS IN GETTING ACCESS TO CREDIT
AS PER AGREEMENT, AGRI LOAN PROCESSING TIME WILL BE REDUCED FROM 30 DAYS TO THREE DAYS
LAHORE
P
STAFF REPORT
RIME Minister Imran Khan said on Saturday that the provision of loans to small farmers and small & medium enterprises (SMEs) was among the top priorities of the government, as this would not only address the issue of employment but would also help alleviate poverty. Addressing a ceremony regarding the signing of a service level agreement between Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) and major private commercial banks, the prime minister said the agreement would significantly reduce the procedural difficulties that the farmers faced in getting access to credit. Under the agreement, a digital link would be established between the central database of land records and the banks which would verify the status of farmers’ land, thus reducing the loan processing time from 30 days to three days. “Through this initiative, a common farmer will get an agriculture loan by visiting a bank and getting his land record verified without any hassle,” the PM informed. “This is a revolution and a great achievement, as loans to farmers were almost impossible in the past. Even small and medium industry, which is the backbone of an economy, used to face difficulties in getting loans,” he remarked.
The PM said that civilised societies always played a collective role to bring their people out of poverty. This had also been the characteristic of the state of Madina which had taken the responsibility of its poor citizens, he added. He said China steered around 700 million of its people out of poverty within 30 years only because the “state had played its due role and the farmers were supported”. Highlighting the government’s flagship initiative ‘Ehsaas’, the PM said despite tough financial conditions, the government had earmarked Rs200 billion for various anti-poverty programmes to provide loans to youth and cash grants to women through a data-
base connecting all the public and private sector institutions working on poverty alleviation. He noted that around 95pc of farmers in Pakistan owned not more than 12 acres of land, which was why they needed agri credit. Referring to the country’s economic condition during the first year of the government, he said, “We could not concentrate on any other thing except economy...we had to return loans worth $10 billion taken by the previous government, control the currency and bridge the current account deficit.” He, however, said that today, Pak rupee has gained, the confidence of the businessmen and the stock market has been revived while the investors were
looking towards Pakistan. The PM expressed contentment that the farmers were given a record credit of Rs1 trillion in a year which also showed that the economy was picking up. He appreciated various initiatives of the Punjab government, which, according to him, would brighten the future of the province. The PM called for more publicity of the initiatives undertaken by the Punjab government. Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, special assistants to prime minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan and Zulfiqar Bukhari, senior PTI leader Jahangir Khan Tareen, State Bank of Pakistan Governor Raza Baqir were also present on the occasion.
FBR to tighten noose around sugar manufacturers FRANKFURT: Tesla’s announcement earlier this month that it will build its first European factory near Berlin will draw further companies from the electric mobility and energy storage sectors into Germany, a state premier told newspaper Die Welt. “They are already on their way. I’m hearing there are further inquiries with the communities and the regional business development programme. Tesla will cause other companies to follow,” said Dietmar Woidke, premier of the eastern German state of Brandenburg that surrounds Berlin. He said Brandenburg was already in talks with other companies, declining to identify them due to confidentiality agreements. “I expect that we can announce it before Christmas,” Woidke said. Tesla’s move is a big boost for Germany as a centre for manufacturing after BMW and Daimler in recent years chose to build new factories in Hungary, and after its auto industry was hit hard by Volkswagen’s admission in 2015 that it cheated US diesel emissions tests. AGENCIES
REVENUE BOARD DEPUTES OFFICERS TO INVESTIGATE TAX EVASION IN SUGAR SECTOR ISLAMABAD SHAHZAD PARACHA
Based on information regarding tax evasion, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to conduct a thorough audit of sugar manufacturers. As per the documents available with this scribe, the revenue board has deputed its officers to investigate tax evasion in the sugar sector. The FBR team recently prepared a report on sugar sector and based on the analysis, it observed massive tax evasion in the sector. As per the report, the stock taking carried out by the FBR field formation as well as the cane commissioners of three
provinces showed a difference of 641,000 metric tonnes, which means that the sugar mills were underreporting their stocks in order to evade tax payments. In addition, local supplies during the tax period of July 2019 decreased 255pc due to enhancement in the tax rate (from 8pc in June 2019 to 17pc in July 2019). This shows that the sugar manufacturers manipulated the sales data by declaring maximum disposal of sugar stocks in the tax period of June 2019 (at a tax rate of 8pc). Furthermore, stockholding by the end of FY18 was 3,147,000 metric tonnes whereas the closing stock of FY19 was only 2,230,778 metric tonnes (-29pc). This was unusual and signal towards abnormal business practices. “Due to the above-mentioned reasons, the manufacturers declared a higher quantity of sugar in the month of June 2019 in order to avoid/evade payment of sales tax at a higher rate,” the report stated. According to FBR, the revenue board holds the power to form a team that could conduct a thorough investigative audit of any sector. The FBR team
would be deputed at the factories during the crushing season in order to understand the mechanism in this regard. They may also prepare a daily crushing report, note daily production of sugar, record daily production of by-products especially molasses, work out the percentage yield and production of ethanol in sugar mills having their own distilleries, and record the consumption of fuel, bagesse and electricity for self-use and for the supply to the national grid, wherever applicable. “The team will also prepare a report on the total production of sugar and byproduct at the end of the season with adequate information of opening and closing stocks and the fee for the team shall be determined on the basis of time spent,” the report said. “However, such fee shall not exceed Rs500,000 from each unit having a crushing capacity up to 750,00 metric tonnes.” FBR has asked its RTOs/ITUs to provide their input within three days after consulting the big four chartered accountant firms so that the task could be initiated.
China’s factory activity unexpectedly returns to growth in November BEIJING AGENCIES
Factory activity in China unexpectedly returned to growth in November for the first time in seven months, as domestic demand picked up on Beijing’s accelerated stimulus measures to steady growth. But gains were slight, and export demand remained sluggish. More US tariffs are looming within weeks and Beijing and Washington are still haggling over the first phase of a trade deal. With China’s economic growth cooling to near 30-year lows and industrial profits shrinking, speculation is mounting that Beijing needs to roll out stimulus more quickly and more aggressively, even if it risks adding to a pile of debt. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) bounced back to 50.2 in November, its highest since March, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Saturday, above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a
monthly basis. The result compared with 49.3 in October. A Reuters poll showed analysts expected the November PMI to come in at 49.5. The official factory gauge pointed to an improvement in China’s vast manufacturing sector last month. Total new orders bounced back to expansionary territory with the sub-index rising to 51.3, the highest level seen since April. That indicates domestic consumption firmed up after Beijing repeatedly urged local governments to kick stimulus up a gear to meet economic goals before yearend. Factory output also rose to 52.6 in November, marking the strongest pace since March. “In the short term, we may have already passed the low point where the economy hit the bottom,” Zhang Deli, a macro analyst with Lianxun Securities, wrote in a note. Beijing has front-loaded 1 trillion yuan ($142 billion) of a 2020 local government special bonds quota to this year and has urged that they be issued and used as early as possible to boost infrastructure investment. Some
analysts say that could be a sign that the government is worried about downward economic pressure. Zhang attributed to the better-than-expected November PMI to a government push on infrastructure investment, less property market control, and a de-escalation in US-China trade tension in October, when both sides said they had substantially reached a “Phase 1” agreement and the United States delayed a tariff increase scheduled to take place on October 15. RISING UNCERTAINTIES: But recent developments underscore rising uncertainties in the trade conflict, which bodes ill for the outlook for external demand. New export orders fell for an 18th straight month in November, albeit at a slower pace, with the sub-index rising to 48.8 from 47.0 in October. US President Donald Trump said this week that the world’s largest economies are close to reaching agreement on the first phase deal. But trade experts and people close to the White House said it could slide into
the new year, given China is pressing for more extensive tariff rollbacks. An additional 15pc in US tariffs are scheduled to take effect on about $156 billion of Chinese products on Dec 15. Trump has also highlighted Washington’s support for protesters in Hong Kong, potentially a huge sore point for China. The PMI survey also indicated factories continued to cut jobs in November despite slightly improved business confidence, while it signalled a further deterioration in profits for Chinese manufacturers, with output prices falling into a three-month low. Beijing’s drive to guide more bank lending towards small private firms appeared to be working. Their PMI index recorded the strongest gain in November, compared to medium-sized and large firms, but their performance was still the poorest of the three at 49.4. Growth in China’s services sector also quickened in November, while construction activity held up well, but growth in the latter
slowed compared to the previous month, a separate statistics bureau survey showed. The official non-manufacturing PMI picked up to 54.4, recovering from October’s 52.8, the lowest point since February 2016. A strong services sector has offered Beijing some cushioning effect as manufacturers face growing difficulties in securing demand both at home and abroad. However, the sector’s resilience weakened late last year amid a broader economic slowdown. Some analysts have also cast doubt over the prospects for robust growth in the construction sector. “After all, we are still waiting for more definitive signs of a recovery in the credit cycle. Meanwhile, sentiment in the property market continues to cool down, which clouds the outlook of the sustainability of property investment growth,” researchers from China International Capital Corporation (CICC) said in a note this week. China’s gross domestic product growth is expected to slow to a near three-decade low of 6.2pc in 2019 and then hit 5.9pc in 2020.
CMYK
13
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
B-b-but what was the point?
I
The Tube
T immediately seemed inspired by the Pharaohs. Because it was. After watching a documentary on ancient egypt, Brazilian business magnate Chiquinho Scarpa decided to bury his $500,000 Bentley in his yard so he could drive it around in the afterlife. A media frenzy ensued immediately after the announcement. Many called out the vulgar and crass display while some expressed concerns about Scarpa’s mental health. The video of a mechanical digger scooping out dirt to make room for the Bentley’s ‘grave’ in the yard was broadcast live on all channels to massive audiences. Just as the car was about to be ‘buried,’ Scarpa called an abrupt halt to proceedings. He told the assembled media: “i have not buried my car. everyone thought it absurd when i said i’d do it. it is absurd to bury bodies, which
can save many lives. Nothing is more valuable. Be a donor, tell your family”. it was all a publicity stunt. The purpose: to nudge people to become organ donors. The campaign had everything. virality and an immediate changing of perspectives. An aha! moment. A point that stays with you. international ad agency leo Burnett Tailor was behind the ad campaign and the “Bentley Burial,” received top prize in the promo and activation category at the Golden
lion awards in Cannes - the advertising equivalent of the Oscars. Now contrast this with the recent ‘viral campaign’ by Tv and film actor Ali Rehman Khan. Cellphone camera footage of the actor misbehaving with the cashier at a fastfood chain went viral, with the actor not only raising his voice but also pulling a “tum jaante nahi mayn kaun houn”. After noticing that a camera was recording him, he stopped harassing the cashier and addressed the individual who was filming him, before the video ends.
Now they say hindsight is 2020, but one could tell that there was something a bit off about his reaction to being found out. it was ‘acting’. Nevertheless, most people bought the veracity of the video and took the actor to task on social media. He subsequently released an explanation. it was a ‘social experiment’. An awareness campaign against “tum jaantey nahi mayn kaun houn” culture. Many doubted this explanation. He’s released this video following the criticism. Those doubts were
unfounded, however, as even a bloopers and outtakes reel of the original video came out, with Rehman seeing breaking out in a laugh when the cashier messes up one of his lines. That isn’t the issue with the campaign. The issue is the nonsensical nature of the campaign. What, specifically, was the awareness about? That it is wrong to be...rude? Did this merit a campaign to ‘turn’ people? What change in perspective was brought about by the campaign? To dislodge the ‘be rude, please’ lobby? An ill-thought-out campaign. g
Clive James, a tireless polymath who led with his wit
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The New York Times By Dwight garner
live James, who died on Sunday at 80, mined such a rich vein of wit in his writing — poems, memoirs, translations, novels, song lyrics, intellectual journalism and a deep body of criticism — that he was, to his admirers, almost endlessly quotable. “A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing,” he wrote. “Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.” He said of George W Bush that he “should not be delivering a State of the Union address. He should be delivering pizza.” He compared Arnold Schwarzenegger’s torso to a “condom full of walnuts”. He made fun of his own looks, comparing himself to a bank robber who forgot to take the stocking off his head. He told an editor, “listen, if i wrote like that, i’d be you.” Reviewing a memoir by leonid Brezhnev, he declared: “Here is a book so dull that a whirling dervish could read himself to sleep with it. if you were to recite even a single page in the open air, birds would fall out of the sky and dogs drop dead.” He wrote that Perry Como — this is for older readers — resembled “a man who has simultaneously been told to say ‘Cheese’ and shot in the back by a poisoned arrow”. James smuggled his wit into nearly everything he wrote. His best-known poem begins: The book of my enemy has been remaindered And i am pleased. in vast quantities it has been remaindered like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized. Behind his wit lurked a polymath. He spoke multiple languages and was a translator of Dante. He was passionate and learned about unexpected things, like the tango and Formula One racing. He attended Cambridge University but wrote on his own wildcat autodidact frequency. He wasn’t the sort of critic who arrives like a crossing guard wearing an orange sash. “This is where i come to think, cafes all over the world,” he wrote. “A cafe table stacked with books has been my university now for 40 years.” His combinatory intelligence radiated in multiple directions. James was born in Australia in 1939 — his father survived being taken as a prisoner of
Clive James, who died on Sunday at 80, pictured here in Cambridge, England, in 1990.
war by the Japanese, only to die when his flight home crashed — but moved to england in 1962 and spent the rest of his life there. it’s hard to explain the many levels of James’s fame in england in American terms. He was an erudite man who was also the host of many popular television programmes (one was called “Saturday Night Clive”) and documentaries, and was a guest on many others. His memoirs were best sellers. it was like watching Johnny Carson, Russell Baker and edmund Wilson struggle to enter a door at the same time. i knew James a bit, and visited him in 2018 in Cambridge. He was winded. He’d been battling leukaemia and emphysema since 2010. He had a sense of humour about the fact that he’d been dying in public for nearly a decade. “i’ll be gone soon, and before long it will be 10 years since i started saying that. My credibility is sinking to zero.” On a previous visit, James told me that his friend Tom Stoppard had said of the attention James’s declining health brought: “This is marvellous! Don’t deny it, just go on enjoying
it.” James had been a serious smoker. in one of his memoirs, “North Face of Soho,” he wrote: “i smoked so much that i needed the hubcap of a Bedford van as an ashtray”. About smoking pot, he wrote in the same book: “i not only Bogarted that joint, i lee Marvined it”. James’s kitchen table, toward the end of his life, was his war room. it’s where he wrote, held court with visitors and sometimes watched movies on his laptop and listened to classical music. He’d been rereading the novelist Olivia Manning’s “Balkan Trilogy,” he told me. He’d re-watched the movie “Shooter,” and said he would watch the actress Kate Mara in anything. As he wrote in “latest Readings”, one of his final books, “The childish urge to understand everything doesn’t necessarily fade when the time approaches for you to do the most adult thing of all: vanish”. About listening again to Alfred Brendel play Beethoven, he told me: “i love Brendel. i never could understand why he hated Rachmaninoff. imagine being a piano player who boycotts a composer.” He was a gifted mimic who wrote
that the way to imitate the soprano elisabeth Schwarzkopf was to pretend to try to kiss the behind of a hummingbird in flight. To ask James a question could be to trigger an avalanche. You left his company with your mind aflame. You nearly always left his writing feeling the same way. “People don’t get their morality from their reading matter; they bring their morality to it,” he wrote. A moral quality infused his own writing. His career was dedicated to that most important purpose of all: bullshit reduction. He was a gifted poet — his late booklength poem “The River in the Sky” is a dark masterpiece — who also wrote with vigour and sensitivity about poetry. He practiced “kitchen criticism,” a phrase he explained: “it was the term that the elizabethans once used for the analysis of poetic technique: when to invert the foot, how to get a spondee by dropping a trochee into an iamb’s slot, and things like that. Kitchen criticism is a term that should be revived, because its unlovely first word might have the merit of persuading the fastidious to make themselves scarce until they can accept that there is an initial level of manufacture at which the potatoes have to be peeled.” He wrote that his own “prescription for making poetry popular in the schools would be to ban it — with possession treated as a serious misdemeanour, and dealing as a felony”. James lived well into the age of Amazon. in “latest Readings,” he wrote that purchasing books via his laptop made him wonder about “what life will be like when you will merely have to think of something you want and it will arrive instantly, still crackling with the ozone of the time-space continuum”. He wrote multiple books in his final years; he burned out rather than faded away. “if the young feel compelled to come and see your tomb, there should be something good written on it,” he wrote in “latest Readings”. “Here in Cambridge, in Trinity College Chapel, there is a plaque dedicated to ludwig Wittgenstein. it says, in latin, that he released thought from its bonds in language. if i ever had a plaque, i would like it to say: He loved the written word, and told the young.” in that same book, he wrote: “if you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.” g Follow Dwight Garner on Twitter: @DwightGarner
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
14 SPORTS
Warner hits 335, smith shatters record as Pakistan suffer adeLaide
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Agencies
N irrepressible David Warner smashed an unbeaten 335 on Saturday while Steve Smith became the fastest man to 7,000 Test runs as Australia took control of the day-night second Test against Pakistan. Skipper Tim Paine waved his players back into the pavilion at 589 for three ahead of the second day's dinner break with Warner on the 10th highest Test score ever, also a personal best. The decision to declare deprived him of a crack at Brian Lara's all-time high 400 not out, but it proved to be the right one with the Australian bowlers quickly tearing through Pakistan's hapless top order under the Adelaide Oval lights. They finished in deep trouble at 96 for six with Mitchell Starc grabbing four of them. Babar Azam was not out 43 and Yasir Shah was on four. The visitors, who have lost 13 consecutive Tests in Australia, enjoyed little success in a long day in the field as they look to avoid a 2-0 series defeat. But they did remove Marnus Labuschagne for 162 in the opening session and also bagged Smith, caught behind by Mohammad Rizwan off Shaheen Afridi for 36. In making his runs, Smith -- who had a rare failure in the first Test at Brisbane -- shattered a record that had stood since 1946. He took a single off Muhammad Musa to reach 7,000 runs in his 126th innings, taking possession of a mark held for 73 years by English great Wally Hammond who reached the milestone in his 131st innings. Smith also moved past legendary countryman Donald Bradman's 6,996 Test runs to become Australia's 11th highest scorer. The home team resumed the day at 302 for
one with Warner on 166 and Labuschagne 126, with the pair putting on another 67 runs before
Pakistan finally got a breakthrough. Skipper Azhar Ali took the new ball and
Afridi clean-bowled Labuschagne as he attempted a drive, just as he and Warner appeared set for another long day at the crease. The 25-year-old, who has come of age during the series, trudged back to the pavilion to a standing ovation after a classy 162, his second century in a row. Their marathon 361-run partnership was a record second-wicket stand for Australia against Pakistan and the highest ever in a pink-ball Test. Just minutes later, the explosive Warner completed only the second Test double century of his career. Playing in his 81st Test, he reached 200 with a single from Afridi, having clattered 23 fours along the way. Pakistan thought they finally had him out on 226 when he was caught in the gully off debutant Musa, only for their heads to drop when it was called a no-ball. Warner made them pay, passing his previous highest Test score of 253, set in Perth in 2015, before reaching a triple century off 389 balls to join an elite club. He raced to 335, one more than former captain Mark Taylor's epic 334 against Pakistan in 1998 and Donald Bradman's 334 against England in 1930, before Paine decided to unleash his bowlers, conscious that periodic rain is forecast for the next two days. Exhausted, Warner was given a standing ovation with his knock the second best score ever by an Australian after Matthew Hayden's 380 against Zimbabwe in 2003. Matthew Wade remained unbeaten on 38. Facing a tough last session under lights, Pakistan's batsmen quickly caved in. Starc removed Imam-ul-Haq, who got a thick edge to Warner on two, before Pat Cummins had Azhar caught for nine. Josh Hazlewood accounted for Shan Masood before Starc nabbed Asad Shafiq, Iftikhar Ahmed and Rizwan cheaply.
Young United talent gives Solskjaer food for thought London Agencies
India rout Pakistan 4-0 to seal Davis Cup qualifiers spot nur-suLtan Agencies
Veteran Leander Paes improved his Davis Cup record to 44 doubles wins Saturday as India thrashed Pakistan 4-0 in the Asia/Oceania tie played at a neutral venue due to political tensions between the arch-rivals. The 46-year-old Paes combined with Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan to serve out Pakistan´s teenage pair of Muhammad Shoaib and Huzaifa Abdul Rehman 6-1, 6-3 in the Kazakhstan capital of Nur-Sultan. Paes, who overtook Italy´s Nicola Pietrangeli as Davis Cup´s most successful doubles player with his 43rd win last year, won the doubles match to seal India´s berth in the qualifiers. Sumit Nagal then turned out for the reverse single to outplay Yousaf Khalil 61, 6-0 in 32 minutes and the fifth match was not played. India will now travel to Croatia -two-time Davis Cup champions -- next year for the world group qualifiers to be played on March 6-7. The 12 winners of the qualifiers will
join the six teams -- Spain, Canada, Great Britain, Russia, France and Serbia -- that have already booked their place in the Davis Cup finals. The International Tennis Federation moved the Asia/Oceania Group 1 tie away from Islamabad because of India´s security fears even though Pakistan opposed the decision. Pakistan´s top players Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Aqeel Khan pulled out of the tie in protest. The match was also pushed back from September because of security fears, as the two countries were wrangling over the disputed territory of Kashmir. The nuclear-armed neighbours split angrily in 1947 after independence from Britain and have fought three wars since. Sport has also suffered badly. India cut bilateral cricket ties with Pakistan after attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that authorities blamed on Pakistani militants. India last played a Davis Cup tie in Pakistan in 1964, when they beat the hosts 4-0. Pakistan lost 3-2 when they played in Mumbai in 2006.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will continue the difficult balancing act of integrating Manchester United's exciting young talent into a first team still struggling to find consistency when they take on Aston Villa on Sunday. United faced a marathon trek to play Astana in Kazakhstan on Thursday although, having already qualified from their Europa League group, the United manager was able to rest his entire first team squad. Striker Jesse Lingard was the only regular first team player to make the trip as Solskjaer kept one eye on the Villa game and an increasingly frustrating domestic campaign. United are presently nine points off the fourth and final Champions League place occupied by Chelsea, where Frank Lampard has illustrated youth can flourish. Solskjaer fielded a team on Thursday with an average age fractionally over 22 and the majority acquitted themselves well despite a 2-1 defeat. Right-back Ethan Laird, midfielder Dylan Levitt and centre-back Di'Shon Bernard, who was unfortunate to score an own goal, all made debuts and were singled out for praise by the manager. Solskjaer spoke of possibly allowing a number of the youngsters to leave in the January transfer window to gain valuable first team experience on loan elsewhere. "I think some of these might benefit from going out on loan," he said. "Of course, they need men's football and it was a first taste of it for some of them. "Some of them are also knocking on the door for us. Some of these have done themselves a good favour." But, while the Norwegian's selection continued his admirable reliance on the club's youth production line, it did raise the broader issue of how easy it will be to ease such precocious talent into United's current first team.
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Bucharest set for Euro 2020 draw as tournament enters new territory Bucharest Agencies
Bucharest hosts the draw for Euro 2020 on Saturday with the fates of World Cup holders France and reigning European champions Portugal providing the greatest interest just over six months before the start of what is a controversial tournament. The coaches of all qualified nations will be in attendance for the draw ceremony beginning at 1700 GMT (7pm local time) at the Romexpo exhibition centre in Romania's capital, which will host four matches at the finals. For the first, and surely only, time, this European Championship -- the second to feature 24 teams -is being held in 12 cities in 12 different European nations from June 12 to July 12, with the semi-finals and final taking place at Wembley in London. It was an idea championed by ex-UEFA president Michel Platini, before his four-year ban from the game, as a way of marking the 60th anniversary of the first European
Championship in 1960. However, the concept has come in for criticism, and part of that is down to the fact that much of the suspense has already been taken from the draw. The need to ensure qualified host nations get to play at least two home matches means some teams already know which group they will be in. For instance, four of the six top seeds are hosting games, with Ukraine and Belgium the only exceptions. However, the decision to keep Ukraine and Russia apart for diplomatic and security reasons has had an impact on the Belgians. They therefore already know they will be in Group B along with two hosts, Denmark and Russia. The only suspense is whether Wales or Finland from Pot Four complete their group. Belgium's Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne made headlines recently when he called that "a scandal". Similarly, the Netherlands -- who will play group games in Amsterdam -- know they will be in Group C with Ukraine.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
SPORTS 15
england harbour hoPes of big fightback to save neW Zealand series hamiLton
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Agencies
NGLAND rejected talk their New Zealand series was over when they ended day two on Sunday at 39 for two, but accepted it would need a special performance to turn their fortunes around in Hamilton. New Zealand, meanwhile, ruled out thoughts of playing for a draw as they targeted a clean sweep in the two Test series after a comprehensive innings victory in the first match. With BJ Watling, the architect of the first Test win, again holding the innings together New Zealand recovered from 191 for five to reach 375 in their first innings in Hamilton with Watling and debutant Daryl Mitchell featuring in a 124-run stand for the sixth wicket. England, in 18 overs before stumps, lost Dom Sibley and Joe Denly cheaply while Rory Burns was dropped twice to be not out 24 with Joe Root on six. Stuart Broad, England's chief wicket taker with four for 73, said there was little in the pitch to assist the bowlers and two good centuries should be enough to set them up for a series-levelling win. "The opportunity is there to go and bat big once," he said. "There's not a huge amount of
pressure, not a lot happening with the pitch, not a big scoreboard pressure, there's a chance for a couple of people to go and get hundreds ... and leave ourselves a day to bowl them out. Mitchell, who scored 73 on debut, said New Zealand's mindset was not to play for a draw. "Every Test you're aiming to win so we're trying to find a way to win this Test
Usman Shinwari transferred to Lahore Qalandars for PSL 2020 sports desk Left-arm fast bowler Usman Shinwari has become the first player to be transferred in the Pakistan Super League 2020 (PSL) as he moves from Karachi Kings to Lahore Qalandars, according to a press release issued by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). Shinwari was one of the players who had agreed to drop one category through the relegation request process. Based on the teams’ expression of interests, the player’s existing team is then given time to either retain the player in his original category or release him to the team willing to match the player’s registered category, the press release stated. In this instance, the Qalandars matched Shinwari’s relegation request resulting in his transfer to the franchise for the 2020 edition. The fast bowler missed the inaugural 2016 event but represented Karachi Kings in the subsequent editions. Five other players who have successfully been relegated as a result of their request are: Imam-ul-Haq (Peshawar Zalmi, diamond to gold) Junaid Khan (Multan Sultans, diamond to gold) Salman Butt (Lahore Qalandars, gold to silver) Shan Masood (Multan Sultans, gold to silver) Umar Amin (Peshawar Zalmi, gold to silver)
match," he said "It's a nice wicket to bat on at the moment, but there's some things there we can try to exploit later on." England made a confident start to day two when they removed both overnight batsmen early but then lost the initiative as Watling and Mitchell staged their repair mission before Broad removed both batsmen either side of the tea break.
Watling was out for 55 on the last ball before the interval while Mitchell departed in the fourth over after play resumed. New Zealand's last four wickets added a further 60 runs, with Broad finishing with figures of four for 73 and Chris Woakes three for 83. All-rounder Mitchell, the son of former All Blacks coach and now England assistant rugby coach John Mitchell, was unruffled in his maiden Test performance. He brought up his 50 pulling Ben Stokes through mid-wicket for four in a 159-ball innings which included eight boundaries and one six. An even more cautious Watling, who reached his 18th half century with an elegant cut to the cover boundary off Sam Curran, faced 192 deliveries for his 55. It was slow going by the pair, but from New Zealand's viewpoint their innings lasted almost two days which left England with only a remote chance of winning the Test to square the series. England had their tails up at the start of the day when overnight centurion Tom Latham added only one boundary to his total before he misjudged a Broad delivery seaming back at him and was bowled for 105. Broad stayed in the action to catch Henry Nicholls for 16 off Sam Curran, which brought the untested Mitchell to the middle to join Watling and bat New Zealand to a position of strength.
After rehab, Hasan Ali is injured again Lahore Agencies
Hasan Ali is injured again, days after recovering from a back injury that took seven weeks to heal. The latest one is a rib fracture that is set to rule him out for at least another six weeks. This automatically rules him out of the two home Tests against Sri Lanka next month. "Fresh CT scans revealed cortical rib fractures involving the ninth rib on the right side and eighth and ninth ribs on the left side," a PCB spokesman said. "The fractures will require up to six weeks of healing. He will start a rehabilitation process at the National Cricket Academy from Monday." Hasan last played for Pakistan in June. Since then, he has featured in just the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy opener in September. Earlier in the week, he was cleared to play the last two rounds of the first-class competition and even joined his side Central Punjab in Karachi. During training, he complained of sudden pain in his left side after which the fractures were revealed. ESPNcricinfo understands that Hasan received the clearance to play from Sohail Saleem, PCB's director for sports and medical sciences. He had been bowling approximately 50 overs a
week at the NCA in Lahore. It is yet unclear how he sustained the rib fractures. Hasan's injury comes at a time when the team management is in search for a genuine quick to complement the existing pace pack in Australia. Over the years, Pakistan have invested significantly in Hasan, because of which he became an automatic pick across formats under previous head coach Mickey Arthur. Between his debut in May 2017 and his previous Test appearance in January 2019, Hasan picked 31 wickets in nine Tests at 28.90. He also featured in 53
ODIs and 30 T20Is, which yielded 82 and 35 wickets respectively. Pakistan's long list of injuries in Australia forced them to field 16-year old rookie Naseem Shah and 19-year old Musa Khan. While both are quick and touch the 145kph mark, their lack of experience has shown. Pakistan's Test captain Azhar Ali touched upon the dearth of genuine quicks ahead of the second Test against Australia in Adelaide. "It's been five-seven years now that we've been struggling without proper fast bowlers," Azhar said.
Indian bowler facing corruption probe bags five wickets in an over mumBai Agencies
One day after being summoned by police for questioning in a match-fixing probe, former Indian Test bowler Abhimanyu Mithun settled a game by taking five wickets in one over. The 30year-old is still playing firstclass cricket whilst under investigation over corruption and fixing in the scandal-ridden Karnataka Premier League (KPL). Joint commissioner of police Sandeep Patil told Indian media on Thursday that Mithun, who played the last of his four Tests for India in 2011, had been summoned for questioning by the Central Crime Branch. A day later, Mithun lit the fireworks playing for his state side Karnataka against Haryana in a 20-over tournament. The right arm fast bowler took a hat-trick and two other wickets in a seven-ball over. Five wickets in an over is extremely rare in the first-class game. "You don´t plan these things but it´s like a dream come true," Mithun said after his team´s eight-wicket win to take them into the tournament final on Sunday. "I have worked really hard in the offseason, so I am reaping fruits for all the hard work," he added, without mentioning his legal troubles. The T20 Karnataka Premier League is at the centre of a growing spot-fixing scandal that has seen the arrests of players and owners. Earlier this month, two former Indian Premier League players C.M. Gautam and Abrar Kazi were arrested for allegedly accepting $28,000 each for "slow batting" in this year´s tournament final.
Warner cracks top 10 list of highest Mathews, Chandimal to tour Pakistan as SL name full-strength Test squad individual scores in Test cricket sports desk Australian batsman David Warner on Saturday cracked the top 10 highest scores in Test cricket history. The left-handed opener scored an unbeaten 335 off 418 balls laced with 39 boundaries and a six. His knock comes at number 10 in the list of all-time highest scores in Test cricket. It is pertinent to mention here that had he been allowed to score six more runs, he would have climbed up three more spots and finished at number seven. However, Australian captain decided to declare the innings at 589-3, ending a knock that was brilliant but also aided by some sub-par Pakistan effort in the field. Here is the revised list of top 10 individual scores of all-time in Test cricket:
400* - Brian Lara (WIS), West Indies v England, St John´s, 2004 380 - Matthew Hayden (AUS), Australia v Zimbabwe, Perth, 2003 375 - Brian Lara (WIS), West Indies v England, St John´s, 1994 374 - DPMD Jayawardene (SRI), Sri Lanka v South Africa, Colombo, 2006 365* - Gary Sobers (WIS), West Indies v Pakistan, Kingston, 1958 364 - Len Hutton (ENG), England v Australia, The Oval, 1938 340 - Sanath Jayasuriya (SRI), Sri Lanka v India, Colombo, 1997 337 - Hanif Mohammad (PAK), Pakistan v West Indies, Bridgetown, 1958 336 - Wally Hammond (ENG), England v New Zealand, Auckland, 1933 335* - David Warner (AUS), Australia v Pakistan, Adelaide, 2019
Lahore Ag e n c i e s
Pakistan will be hosting Test cricket for the first time in more than ten years, that too against a full-strength Sri Lanka lineup, in December 2019. Dimuth Karunaratne will lead the Sri Lanka side, with experienced batsmen Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal present in the 16-member squad. The team leaves for Pakistan on December 8 to play two Test matches that will count towards the World Test Championship. Less than three months ago, Sri Lanka had toured Pakistan
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for a series of limited-overs matches, but as many as ten high-profile players had opted against travelling. The Test series was originally scheduled for October at a neutral venue because of security concerns, but the PCB requested Sri Lanka to play the entire bilateral series in Pakistan. The white-ball games were played as a test of sorts for the security measures taken by the hosts, and following the success of that tour, Sri Lanka agreed to play the Tests in Pakistan too. There was only one change to the Sri Lanka squad that played the second Test against
New Zealand at home in August. Kasun Rajitha, the rightarm fast bowler, replaced legspinner Akila Dananjaya, who is currently serving a one-year suspension for an illegal action. The first Test will start on December 11 in Rawalpindi, followed by the second in Karachi from December 19. Pakistan has not hosted a Test match since the 2009 Lahore attack that wounded several Sri Lankan cricketers, support staff members and others. Of the current players, fast bowler Suranga Lakmal was part of Sri Lanka's squad back then as well.
Sunday, 1 December, 2019
NEWS
Woman raped, murdered and set ablaze in India The charred body of a woman has been found after she was allegedly raped and murdered in India’s Hyderabad. The body of the victim, a 27year-old veterinary doctor, was reportedly found in an underpass in the outskirts of the city by a passerby on November 28, according to The Independent. Police have reportedly detained at least two people, who they suspect offered to help the woman fix a flat tyre on her motorbike but instead drove her to a secluded spot and killed her. The veterinarian’s remains were so badly burnt that her family could only identify her from a locket she was wearing, the report added. Her identity has not been revealed for legal reasons. “My daughter was very innocent, I want the accused burned alive,” the victim’s mother said. The victim’s sister reported her missing on Tuesday night, after receiving a distressing phone call after a tyre was punctured on the victim’s motorbike. The victim asked her sister to remain on the phone with her as there were many unknown men in the area and she was “scared”. During the call, it appeared someone had offered help and the victim told her sister she would call her again soon but that was the last time they spoke. Her body was found on Thursday morning, but police are still searching for her vehicle. India is considered the most dangerous country to be a woman due to the prevalence of sexual violence and harassment against women, according to a 2018 Reuters poll. News Desk
Four Baloch women ‘forcibly abducted’ in Awaran
GovernmenT To Woo opp For Gen BAjWA’s sAke pm forms committee to convince opposition lawmakers to vote for imminent amendment IsLAMABAd
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Mian abRaR
HE federal government has started its consultation process to legislate for an extension in the service of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa while keeping its options open for amending the constitution or through an Act of Parliament. Prime Minister Imran Khan has tasked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to formulate a strategy while Law Minister Dr Farogh Nasim, counsels Dr Babar Awan, Naeem Bokhari, and some other party leaders would be working on the proposed amendment. A source told this scribe that though Dr Farogh Nasim, Shaikh Rasheed and majority of the cabinet members believed that an amendment through an act of law with a simple majority was enough to serve
the purpose, but Shah Mahmood Qureshi advised Prime Minister Imran Khan to take along all opposition parties in this regard. “The government wants to send a message of parliament’s unity over the amendment into law. Some ministers, including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, believe that the government should get a constitutional amendment passed to avoid any embarrassing situation,” the source said. The source said that the prime
london bridge attack suspect identified as Usman khan of pakistani origin Usman was previoUsly sentenced to 16 years imprisonment over a plot to bomb the london stock exchange
NEws dEsk Four Baloch women have been forcibly picked up from different parts of Awaran district in Balochistan, according to reports by rights activists shared on Twitter on Saturday. According to a tweet by rights activist associated with Amnesty International, Rabia Mehmood, four Baloch women named Sakina, Sayad Bibi, Nazal and Hameeda have been forcibly picked up from district Awaran in Balochistan. According to a statement by the Baloch Human Rights Organisation, two of the women were abducted from Pirandar Zelag area of Awaran. The organisation demanded their immediate and safe release. The rights organisation also said that Sakina’s teenage sons were abducted earlier this week and called HR Minister Shireen Mazari to take steps to ensure their return. An activist stated on Twitter that such incidents were the reason why they protested for missing persons and called for an end to enforced disappearances.
minister was yet to make a decision whether to go for amending the law or amending the constitution. The PM is consulting with his legal advisers and soon he would take a final decision, the source added. “The cabinet members would also be consulting Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaisar and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to get the bill sail through both houses of parliament,” the source added. Meanwhile, State Minister for
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A convicted Islamist terrorist, who spent part of his teens in Pakistan and was released last year from a UK prison, is suspected to be the man who stabbed two people to death in a terror attack on London Bridge, the police said on Saturday. Police have identified the suspect as 28-year-old Usman Khan, inspired by the ideology of al-Qaeda terror group, was previously sentenced to 16 years in prison term for his role in the London Stock Exchange bombing in 1990. According to The Telegraph, at the time of his sentencing in 2012, the judge warned that he was a “serious jihadist” who should not be released while he remained a threat to the public.
Khan left school with no qualifications after spending part of his late teens in Pakistan, where he lived with his mother when she became ill, it said. The BBC reported that Khan was out on licence from prison when he killed two people and injured three others in the stabbing attack on Friday, before he was shot dead by the Scotland Yard. Two people were killed and several others injured in the London Bridge attack on Friday. The Scotland Yard confirmed that a male suspect, later identified as Khan, wearing a hoax bomb vest was shot dead at the scene. Scotland Yard’s Head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, said in a statement at New Scotland Yard headquarters in London that a “number” of people had been injured, some of whom are said to be critical. The senior Indian-origin top police officer said Khan had attended an event on Friday afternoon at the Fishmonger’s Hall, a historic building near the London Bridge. London Bridge was one of the areas targeted by an ISIS-claimed terrorist attack in June 2017, when 11 people died as terrorists went on a stabbing spree after ramming a van into pedestrians.
Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan has moved a summary to Prime Minister for summoning the National Assembly session for December 4 so that a window of communication could be opened with the opposition parties for evolving consensus over the bill. On the other hand, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has also started a consultation process to benefit from the situation and use the process as a bargaining chip. According to the sources in the former ruling party, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif plans to put forth some conditions for any support for the government bill for the extension in services of the army chief. Shehbaz Sharif has directed the party leadership to send him a copy of a detailed judgment of the Supreme Court (SC) order as soon it is released. “Once the (SC) verdict is out, Shehbaz Sharif would convene a party meeting through video-link from London and would devise a detailed strategy on how to benefit from the situation,” the source added. Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) leadership is yet to devise a strategy though a couple of informal meetings have been held here at the Bilawal House to contemplate over the situation.
Government offending Opp to scuttle legislation on COAS' extension: Iqbal LAHORE Staff RepoRt
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal on Saturday accused the government of not being fair in the matter of legislation regarding the army chief’s extension. “The government is trying to offend the opposition so that legislation can’t be done in the 6-month period,” said the PML-N leader while talking to media. He added that legislation is possible only with the cooperation of the opposition parties. “Imran Khan has already declared the opposition as non-patriotic and thieves,” added the PML-N leader. “The federal ministers are continuing to malign the opposition which will only lead to divisions in the nation,” Iqbal said. Commenting on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement regarding the economy, Iqbal said, “Imran Khan should rebuke rather than praising his economic team for what they have done to Pakistan’s economy.” He added that PM Imran should not hide behind the army and army chief to hide his ineligibility as the institution is not only for PTI but the entire nation.
Hafiz Saeed, others to be indicted in terror financing case on Dec 7 LAHORE Staff RepoRt
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday announced that it would indict Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and other leaders of the banned outfit on December 7, on charges pertaining to terror financing. Saeed, JuD’s deputy chief Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Hafiz Abdul Salam bin Mohammad, Professor Zafar Iqbal, Mohammad Ashraf, Mohammad Yahya Aziz and others were presented before the court under strict security.
According to Deputy Prosecutor General Abdul Rauf Wattoo, the court was provided copies of the nearly two dozen cases registered against the JuD leaders during the hearing which was presided over by Judge Malik Arshad Bhutta. The state’s counsel requested the court to hold daily hearings since the copies had been provided. At this, the lawyers for the JuD leaders, Naseeruddin Nayyar and Mohammad Imran Gul, argued that they be given a week’s time so that they can carefully examine the documents and prepare
their arguments. When the state counsel pressed for daily hearings nonetheless, Judge Bhutta said: “The law binds us to hold a fair trial with properly prepared arguments. That’s why everyone should be given time.” On July 3, the top 13 leaders of the JuD were booked in nearly two dozen cases for terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997. The Counterterrorism Department (CTD), which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD was financing
terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit organisations and trusts, including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz Bin Jabal Trust, etc. These non-profit organisations were banned in April as the CTD, during detailed investigations, found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership. Subsequently, on July 17, Saeed was arrested from Gujranwala on charges of terror financing by the Punjab CTD. He was sent to prison on judicial remand after the CTD presented him before a Gujranwala ATC.
Published by Arif Nizami at Plot # 7, Al-Baber Centre, F/8 Markaz, Islamabad. Ph: 051-2204545. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk
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