CMYK
2 February, 2020 I 7 Jamadi-ul-Sani, 1441 I Rs 27.00 I Vol X No 214 I 68 Pages I Islamabad Edition
InflatIon jumps to record 14.6pc g
highest recorded inflAtion since pti took office in August 2018 KARACHI
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MEIRYUM ALI & ARIbA ShAhId
he inflation rate has jumped up 14.56 per cent year-on-year (yoy) for the month of January, according to data released by the pakistan Bureau of statistics (pBs) on saturday. this is the highest level that inflation has ever hit since the pakistan tehreek-e-insaf (pti) government took office in August 2018. in its monthly report, the pBs noted that inflation had risen by 1.97pc compared to december 2019. this is a marked increase from the previous month’s inflation rates. december’s inflation rate stood at 12.63pc, while the november inflation rate was recorded at 12.67pc. According to the data released, the bulk of the inflation was linked to rises in food prices, with food and non-alcoholic beverages making up 34.5pc of the cpi. housing, electricity, gas, and fuel made up 23.63pc of the cpi. on a whole, the information is dismal: on a yoy basis, tomato prices increased 157.72pc in urban areas, and 211.18pc in rural areas; onion prices increased 125.32pc in urban areas, and 136.63pc in rural areas; fresh vegetables prices increased 93.6pc in urban areas, and 104.47pc in rural areas; potato prices increased 87.3pc in urban areas and 111.24pc in rural areas; and what prices increased 36.13pc in urban areas and 32.18pc in rural areas. Additionally, gas prices rose 54.84pc yoy in urban areas, and motor fuels rose 25.69pc in urban areas and 26.4pc in rural areas. however, on a month-on-month (mom) basis, tomato prices decreased 8.36pc in urban and 8.22pc in rural areas, while onion prices also saw a decrease from december 2019 (18.37pc in urban and 20.52pc in rural areas).
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AnAlysts sAy inflAtionAry pressure will eAse in few months
this unusually high inflation rate of 14.56pc stands in sharp contrast to the official line the state Bank of pakistan (sBp) is promoting. it also puts the sBp in trouble, as the imf’s [intenational monetary fund] had given strict instructions to maintain positive real interest rates (nominal interest rate minus inflation rate). the real interest rate has for the first time dipped into negative territory, at -1.35pc. in the most recent monetary policy announcement on January 28, the sBp said that the bank’s projected average inflation for fy20 has remained broadly unchanged at the (much lower) 1112pc range. “the mpc viewed the latest increase in cpi [consumer price inflation] as primarily transitory in nature,” the central bank said in a statement. while noting that the recent inflation outruns of november and december 2019 had been on the higher side, the sBp maintained the figures reflected “sharp increases in selected food items on account of temporary supply disruptions and upward adjustments in administered prices”. terming the recent food inflation as ‘supply-side shocks’, the statement said that the “second rate effects on inflation from supply-side shocks have not materialized, and inflation expectations remain broadly anchored”. in addition to supply shocks, analysts term this spike in inflation also due to the lag impact of devaluation of pakistani rupee. in fact, sBp governor reza Baqir somewhat optimistically said inflation would be brought down to 5-7pc over the next two years. Akd securities noted in a research report sent to clients on January 29: “the [sBp] policy statement carried ‘accom-
modative bias’, with the statement downplaying inflationary risks, in our view. the central bank has surprisingly kept its inflation forecast for fy20 unchanged at 11-12% despite the recent increases in food prices, which we think are relatively broad-based and non-cyclical in nature barring an increase in wheat and its byproducts prices.” January’s inflation rate crossed even expectations of what market analysts were predicting, at around 13-13.6pc. “going forward i expect food inflation to persist at least till ramzan that can keep inflation elevated, after which the base effect will come into play in pulling down inflation numbers,” said hamza kamal, analyst at Akd securities. Arsalan hanif from Arif habib limited said inflationary pressures will ease in the upcoming months. “the government allowing the import of wheat will most likely normalize prices,” he said. he also said a significant decline in prices of perishable goods will bring inflation down to below 13pc. At the start of January 2019, the inflation rate was recorded at 5.6pc. it stayed in single digits until August 2019, when the inflation rate was recorded at 10.5pc. it then hovered between the 11-12pc range from september to december 2019, before climbing to 14.56pc in January 2020. in pakistan, inflation is measured by the consumer price index (cpi), using the base year of 2015-16. the pBs changed the base year for price statistics in August 2019, from 2007-08 to 2015-16. the cpi comprises urban cpi and rural cpi. the urban cpi covers 35 cities and 356 consumer items. the rural cpi covers 27 rural centres and 244 consumer items. in the new base year, the cpi for 12 major groups is also computed by taking the weighted average of urban cpi and rural cpi.
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Imran’s own people are out to get him, says Shujaat STORY ON PAGE 03
Abbasi seeks bail in lng case
Govt asserts won’t evacuate Pakistanis stranded in China china's isolation grows as virus toll reaches 259 STORIES ON BACK PAGE
CNIC condition for buyers comes into force
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STORY ON PAGE 12
pti senators propose 100pc increase in lawmakers’ salaries STORY ON PAGE 03
Nosheen Javed to head FBR in Shabbar Zaidi’s absence
Govt to import 300,000 tonnes of sugar STORY ON PAGE 12
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Trump set for midweek acquittal after witnesses blocked
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imran says BJp preparing to repeat myanmar-style genocide in india STORY ON PAGE 03
Sindh CM writes another letter to PM for IGP’s removal
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Contact: 0307-7338168 irfan.farooq@pakistantoday.com.pk
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
02 NEWS
ABBAsi seeks BAil iN lNG CAse IsLAMABAD
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stAff RePORt
ORMER prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday filed a post-arrest bail petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC). The petition filed by Abbasi’s counsel Barrister Zafarullah Khan has made the Ministry of Law and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) respondents in the plea. The petition pleads IHC to approve Abbasi’s bail till the completion of his trial in NAB’s LNG reference. A copy of the court decision with regard to bail granted to Sheikh Imranul Haq, a co-accused in the LNG case, has also been attached to the petition. “The petitioner has been in NAB detention for 191 days and the real motive of the accountability bureau is only to harass the petitioner,” the plea argued. It was initiated for his media trial,
according to the plea. The NAB has filed an interim reference against the petitioner till now, the petition said. The petitioner and other accused were not even provided the copies of the reference so far, the petition said.
Pakistan's first-ever allfemale peacekeeping team awarded UN Medal in Congo ISLAMABAD: Members of the first-ever Pakistani Female Engagement Team (FET), which is deployed with the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), were recently awarded the UN Medal at a ceremony in Adikivu in South Kivu, one of the provinces of the central African country. This team of 15 female Majors and Captains was the first ever Pakistani Female Engagement team in any UN peacekeeping mission around the world. The officers are psychologists, stress counsellors, vocational training officers, gender advisers, doctors, nurses, operations officers, information officers and logistics officers, according to a message received at UN Headquarters in New York. Another 17 female officers will join the team in early February. APP
PML-N supreme leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in London, had reportedly asked party colleague Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to seek his release from prison on bail. The former premier instructed Ab-
basi to contest corruption allegations leveled against him by the NAB after coming out of jail. Wasting energies in facing accountability based on political vendetta will serve no purpose, Sharif was quoted as saying. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, had previously refused to file a bail plea. Earlier, on Jan 21, an accountability court had extended the judicial remand of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi till Feb 04 in LNG reference. Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, ex-PSO MD Imranul Haq and others are facing charges of corruption over awarding an LNG import contract allegedly at exorbitant rates in 2015, which caused a big loss to the national exchequer. NAB sources said that Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, in 2013, had awarded the contract to the Elengy Terminal in violation of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules and relevant laws.
Dr Jawad Sajid takes reins of Lahore Gymkhana LAHORE sHAHAB OMeR
Dr Jawad Sajid Khan was on Saturday elected as the new chairman of the Lahore Gymkhana for the next three years after defeating the outgoing chairman Kamran Lashari in a tough contest. According to unofficial results, the Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah Ur Rehman-led panel secured 10 out of 12 seats of the executive body. Five independent candidates were also in the run. Of the club’s 5,500 permanent members, 3,966 cast their votes in the election. The Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah panel was being supported by former chairmen Salman Siddique and Fariduddin Ahmed, who were previously backing the Kamran Lashari panel, but had parted ways after the former reportedly went back on his commitment to hand over the club’s charge to Dr Jawad in the third year of his term. Lashari had denied the charge, claiming that the executive body had advised him not to hand over the charge to Dr Jawad because “he was not a team player and continued acting as a splinter group”. Lashari had vociferously pleaded his case for being entrusted with the all-important post once again on the basis of his “three-year performance” whereas Dr Jawad presented his credentials while questioning the former
chairman’s “dictatorial rule and extravagant spending of members’ funds”. It merits a mention here that the Jawad Sajid/Mian Misbah panel has promised club members that they would reduce the prices of food and beverages through best financial management practices and build parking space for 500 cars in a phased manner besides improving all facilities and services. The Jawad/Misbah panel has also committed that it would hold club elections on an annual basis, saying the next elections would be held in February 2021 after approval from the general body. The Kamran Lashari panel candidates were Kamran Lashari, Khawaja Imran Zubair, Shaukat Javed, Sami Ur Rahman, Ahsan Saeed Mian, Mian Javed Zahur, Dr Syed Atif Hasnain Kazmi, Qamar Khan (Bobby), Syed Tayyab Hussain Rizvi, Rabeea Salman, Zil e Ilahi and Prof Dr Col Iffat Batool. The Dr Jawad/Mian Misbah panel candidates were Dr Jawad Sajid Khan, Mian Misbah Ur Rehman, Dr Ali Razaque, Samira Maroof Khan, Mian Parvez Bhandara, Sarmad Nadeem, Agha Ali Imam, Zahid Nabi Malik, Pervez Bashir Agha, Prof Dr Abdul Majeed Chaudhry, Wajid Aziz Khan and Taimur Azmat Osman. The five independents were Syed Abid Hussain, Dr Shaukat Ali, Malik Ghulam Sarwar, Muhammad Shams Qaiser and Khalid Saeed.
British paper to pay £180,000 for falsely linking Pakistani origin man to paedophile ring NEws DEsk British newspaper Mail on Sunday has agreed to pay £180,000 to a former minicab licensing officer in the United Kingdom three years after publishing an article that falsely implicated him of facilitating a paedophile ring that was run by taxi drivers in Rochdale. In 2016, a UK court sentenced 10 men for committing sexual offences against a teenage girl in Rochdale. The group comprised men of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afghan origin who were sentenced for sexually abusing dozens of girls following an investigation centered on the town of Rochdale near Manchester. The court heard that the men groomed the girls with gifts and plied them with alcohol and drugs before forcing them to have sex with others. In 2017, the Mail on Sunday published a story which claimed that Iqbal, who is of Pakistani origin and worked as a junior licensor for minicabs, was a “fixer” for taxi drivers “at a time when some local drivers were raping underage girls as members of paedophile rings”. As the case proceeded, the Mail on Sunday admitted that Iqbal was a member of a large team that looked over the licensing of cab drivers. Iqbal accused the Mail on Sunday for involving him because of his race and said that following the article his “whole world crumbled” as he lost his job, was unable to see his children and had to take anti-depressants. He was unable to find another job because, though there was no legal evidence of his involvement, media reports implied that he facilitated the gang. “The colour of my skin was the selling point. Put that together with grooming gangs and then — boom,” he told The Guardian. “I feared for my life. I put CCTV all up around my house because you get lunatics. I had to come off social media completely. My son was studying at Preston and people would say: ‘Your dad’s dodgy, he’s part of this grooming thing’.” In 2018, a UK court had deported three men to Pakistan after they were stripped of their British nationality and convicted of luring girls as young as 13 into sexual encounters using alcohol and drugs.
British journalist says 'highlighting Shehbaz Sharif’s corruption not based on hatred' British journalist David Rose on Saturday said that allegations being levelled against him for being antiMuslim and anti-Pakistani are “monstrous and defamatory”. In a series of tweets, the Daily Mail journalist said that he could not talk about Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif as he was legally bound due to the matter being sub-judice. Rose said the speculations against his research and allegations against Shehbaz may be motivated by intolerance, hatred or racism were untrue. He added that he had spent much of his career exposing and fighting racism, and stands by his track record. In a subsequent tweet, Rose said that those alleging that he is a racist should get ready to prove it in the court of law. The Daily Mail journalist went on to reveal that he had met Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar before he held office in Pakistan and had worked on human rights cases with him and respected him immensely for his services towards humanity. News Desk
CMYK
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
NEWS
PTi seNATors ProPose 100PC iNCreAse iN lAwMAkers' sAlAries BILL PROPOSES RAISING SALARIES OF NA AND SENATE SPEAKERS FROM RS225,000 TO RS879,000 IsLAMABAD
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stAff RePoRt
AWMAKERS belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) are all set to table a bill in the upper house of parliament that seeks a whopping 100 per cent increase in the salaries of the lawmakers and other perks for parliamentarians. The draft bill is expected to be tabled by PTI chief whip Sajjad Toori, Dr Ashfaq Qamar, Dilawar Khan and other members. The Salaries and Allowances Amendment Bill seeks an increase in salaries of Senate chairman and National Assembly speaker’s salary from the present Rs225,000 to
Rs879,000 to match the salaries of Supreme Court judges. Whereas, it also proposed the increase in the salaries of the Senate deputy chairman and National Assembly deputy speaker to match those of Islamabad High Court judges. The bill further seeks to increase the salaries of parliament members from Rs150,000 to Rs300,000. The draft bill also calls for the travel allowance of parliamentarians to be increased to cover the cost of business class air tickets and AC class rail tickets. It further calls for 25 business class tickets to be allocated for each lawmaker and for the option of these tickets being used by members’ spouses and children to travel within the country to
be available. PPP’s Sherry Rehman has already made it clear that her party will not support the bill. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday said that while the PTI is not in majority in the Senate, it “will do everything in its power to make sure no injustice is
done towards the public.” Answering a question regarding PTI’s chief whip tabling the bill on Monday, Awan said that the party is united towards implementing the prime minister’s austerity drive. “If a member of the party is bringing up such a bill, they are doing it as an individual and the party does not support such measures.”
Imran says BJP preparing to repeat Myanmar-style genocide in India China grants 11-day visa extension to stranded Pakistanis BEIJING: A group of Pakistani students and community members stranded in Urumqi, China, due to suspension of flights in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak have been granted an 11-day visa extension by Chinese authorities. All of them have been provided hotel accommodation and food will be made available for them until flights resume between Urumqi and Islamabad, according to official sources in Beijing. A senior official at the Pakistan embassy said Chinese authorities in Beijing and Urumqi were fully cooperating and had assured them that all of the Pakistani nationals who were stranded in Urumqi were being provided accommodation, food and healthcare. The embassy officials are also in contact with the Pakistani nationals in Urumqi and as of now, “there is absolutely no problem and difficulty being faced by these people”, the official said. Meanwhile, some students took to social media to appreciate the efforts of the Pakistan embassy and the Chinese government for providing them support and help. On Friday, the group of nearly 150 Pakistani nationals stuck at Urumqi airport in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang for the past four days had appealed to the government in Islamabad to evacuate them back home. In video messages, the students and traders had said they could neither leave the airport because many of them had reached the expiry of their visas, nor could they fly home due to Pakistan’s suspension of its flights to and from China in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. “We request the Pakistani government to evacuate us from here … this is our constitutional right,” Tariq Rauf, a PhD scholar from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Shangla district who was studying in China, had said in his video message. APP
Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned the international community that India’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) was preparing to repeat the Myanmar-style genocide and exclusion of its minority Muslim population. He said that as many as 500 million people will be excluded from the citizenship list under India’s new controversial laws such as the exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC). “This is exactly what happened in Myanmar when they first started the registration act and that’s how they excluded the Muslims and then the genocide took place. I am afraid this is where it is heading in India,” the prime minister said. In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Prime Minister Imran spoke in detail on an array of issues including the situation in the Middle East, Afghanistan, relations with Turkey, domestic issues, country’s economy, climate changes, relations with neighbouring India and its actions in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Responding to a question regarding the possibility of any influx of immigrants toward Pakistan and Bangladesh from India in the wake of current developments, Khan said, “Bangladesh has already refused to take anyone, who has been excluded from the citizenship list in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.”
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imran's own people are out to get him, says shujaat News DesK Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Saturday said that the party considered the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as its partner, adding that the PTI government was facing threats from its “own people”. In a statement, the PML-Q senior leader urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to treat his party the way allies are treated and do not pay heed to certain elements in his party that were out to malign the Punjabbased party. He said that the statements of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, Tariq Bashir Cheema and Moonis Elahi reflect the truth. “The PML-Q is indeed small, but in terms of experience, they have ruled with a twothird majority,” he added. Speaking about PML-N, he said that Shehbaz Sharif was nothing in front of Nawaz Sharif in terms of popularity and that the PML-N’s vote bank belonged to Nawaz Sharif. ‘DON’T TREAT US AS SECOND WIFE’: PML-Q senior leader and Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Friday said that the PTI should refrain from treating its allies as its “second wife”, revealing growing divide in the ruling coalition led by PTI. The PML-Q leader said this while speaking to a delegation of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) led by its president and Pakistan Today Editor Arif Nizami. He said that his party has always supported its partners in good faith but the coalition partners must not be considered unimportant. “The government should not consider its allies as its competitors and should honour the promises it made when it formed an alliance with them. We had different experiences as allies with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and PTI. Our best alliance was with PPP because former president Asif Ali Zardari did more than he promised,” he said.
Civilian injured in indian firing along loC “I think Bangladesh is already worried because in Assam they deregistered almost 2 million people. I do not know the exact number but what will happen to these people?” Khan asked. ‘US-IRAN WAR AVERTED’: Talking about the recent tension between the United States (US) and Iran, Khan said tension still existed but expressed satisfaction that war was averted in the region following diplomatic efforts. “We feel, we played our part and brought down tensions. But of course, you know, there has to be some permanent solution,” he said. The prime minister rejected the criticism of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and brushed aside apprehensions about China’s debt. “So, this thing is quite unfounded that
Pakistan is getting into a debt trap of China,” Imran clarified. Talking about the Islamic World, he said Pakistan’s utmost urgency will be to douse fires and bring parties to conciliation, so that countries can focus on developing their infrastructure. He hoped that during the scheduled visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the middle of February, trading partnership between the two countries can be enhanced. “There are various areas where Turkey can help Pakistan for instance in mining. Pakistan is a country which is full of minerals, but we have not excavated explored minerals like gold and copper. We want certain areas where we want technology. So, it will be quite a comprehensive visit,” he said.
RAWALPINDI: The Indian Army in yet another incident of ceasefire violation resorted to unprovoked firing along the Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday, injuring an unarmed civilian, the military said. “Indian troops deliberately targeted civilian population along the LoC in Satwal Sector,” said a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). “Due to indiscriminate firing, a 45 years old resident of Madarpur village, sustained serious injuries. The injured has been evacuated to nearby medical facility for necessary medical care,” the statement added. Ceasefire violations by the Indian troops have increased in frequency and intensity since the February 27 air battle, in which two Indian fighter jets were shot down and the pilot of one downed aircraft was captured – only to be released later as a goodwill gesture last year. stAff RePoRt
Sindh CM writes another letter to PM for IGP's removal KARACHI stAff RePoRt
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Saturday penned yet another letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan to remove Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kaleem Imam and pick one of the five names recommended by the provincial government for the coveted slot. This is the third letter the province’s
chief executive has written to the premier on the issue. The chief minister said the federal cabinet’s Jan 28 decision to put the issue on hold is a violation of a 1993 agreement. He insisted that one of the five names floated for the post be chosen to replace the incumbent IGP. Murad stated that Kaleem Imam’s attitude is breeding hatred in the province as he has been degrading the
provincial government with his “nonserious and rude attitude”. Earlier this week, Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani had accused the federal government of dragging its feet on the appointment of a new police chief in the province, saying the provincial government is in no mood to suggest another name for the slot of IG Sindh. He said the federal government took a U-turn over the issue as Prime Minister
Imran in a meeting with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had finalised the name for the coveted post. Ghani lamented that the federal government didn’t want to replace the IG Sindh despite the fact that a consensus was reached on two names. “The federal government has muddied the issue,” he said, adding IGs in other provinces were replaced without ado while the issue of appointment of IG Sindh was taken to the federal cabinet.
04 ISLAMABAD
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
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CM direCTs CoMPleTion of arrangeMenT To iniTiaTe work on CPeC CiTy nowshera PESHAWAR
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HYBER Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan Saturday directed completion of arrangements and prerequisites including clearance of land to initiate construction work on CPEC City Nowshera. He was presiding over a progress review meeting of housing department here at Chief Minister Secretariat which was attended by Provincial Minister for Housing Dr. Amjad Ali, Minister for Education
Akbar Ayub, Secretary Housing, representative of FWO, DPO Nowshera and other relevant officers attended the meeting. He also directed immediate provision of required strength of police for consolidation of CPEC land and approved establishment of exclusive police station for CPEC City to enhance security arrangement. Mahmood Khan directed authorities concerned to accelerate payment to land owners. He also underlined the need for immediately initiating of works on this project so that economic activities could be started as soon as possible. On the occasion, Chief Minister was
briefed about different developmental schemes being undertaken by provincial housing authority. He was briefed that PC-I of Hangu Model Town has also been sent to Provincial Development Working Party. Master plan for media colony, Dangram Housing Scheme Swat has been prepared and the scheme would also be ready for inauguration till April 2020. It was told that Rs. 700 million have been approved for Naya Pakistan Housing Scheme. The meeting was informed about the progress on construction of high rise flats for government servants at Phase-V
meeting was also briefed about establishment of satellite towns in KP. The CM directed that agriculture land should not be utilized for housing schemes and suitable sites should be identified for establishment of satellites towns.
Hayatabad Peshawar and that Rs. 200 million have been allocated in ADP 2019-20 for the project. 144 flats of various categories are being established under the project whereas 56 percent physical work on the project has been completed. The
Three dead, 9 injured as roof of underconstruction seminary collapses PESHAWAR: At least three people died and nine others injured when roof of an under-construction seminary collapsed here in the provincial capital on Saturday. Rescue sources said that the incident took place in Badaber area near Spin Mosque of Peshawar where roof of an under construction seminar suddenly came down resultantly 12 people were trapped under the debris. Three people died in the incident while nine others were injured in the roof collapse. The Rescue 1122 team along with heavy machinery reached the scene and started rescue operation. The bodies and injured were retrieved after removing the rubble and shifted to hospital. STAFF REPORT
Pakistan congratulates Maldives for rejoining Commonwealth
RAWALPINDI: Citizens participate in protest to bring back Pakistani students stuck in corona virus hit China. INP
Jhelum doctor wants to go to China to fight coronavirus NEWS DESK A doctor from Jhelum in Pakistan wants to go to China to join the fight against the coronavirus. The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan hailed his efforts on Twitter on Saturday. “We appreciate Dr Muhammad Usman Janjua, a foreign doctor to join the fight against coronavirus in China as a volunteer. He is a teacher from Changsha Medical University, China and hails from Deena, Jhelum, Pakistan,” said the Twitter post on the Embassy’s official account. Dr Janjua had submitted an application to the Foreign Expert Service Office of the Hunan Provincial Department of Science and Technology and asked to go to Wuhan after news of the coronavirus epidemic broke, reported the Hunan News Network of the national China News Agency on January 31. He’s a 29-year-old doctor who graduated from the Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2012 and returned to Pakistan for four years. In 2016, he studied for a master’s degree in medicine at the Central South University and became a foreign teacher at the Changsha Medical College after graduation, said the news agency. “It was China that gave me good opportunities for education and employment and it’s where I realised my dream,” said the enthusiastic doctor. Right now he’s waiting for approval from his supervisor. “If I can’t go, I will do my best to help the hospital in Changsha and us. Students of the school do professional interpretation and psychological counselling for international students,” said Dr Janjua. According to the Chinese media, Dr Janjua says the Foreign Expert Service sends him methods of prevention from the coronavirus on a daily basis.
Pakistani nation to reiterate unflinching support to Kashmiri brethren ISLAMABAD APP
The government and the people of Pakistan would observe the upcoming Kashmir Solidarity Day (February 05) in a befitting manner to send a strong message of support to their brethren in occupied territory, said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday. Addressing a news conference here, the special assistant said Prime Minister Imran Khan had chaired an important meeting and reiterated unflinching support to
the brethren in Indian Occupied Kashmir and asked the party leadership, the government and the media to express solidarity with Kashmiris. She called upon the nation to send a strong message of support to Kashmiri people and jolt world conscience seeking its role in stopping Indian atrocities in the occupied region. “Kashmir cause is our top priority. The prime minister has desired nationwide support to Kashmiri people and activities in this regard have been started from February 01 that would continue beyond Febru-
ary 05,” she stated. She said besides observing the day at government level, the party leadership had been directed to observe the day at district, tehsil and municipal committees level so that people within the country and abroad realize the gravity of situation in occupied Kashmir. She said India was subjugating rights of Kashmiri people in the worst form of state terrorism as Indian occupied forces were trampling down all legal and constitutional norms by subjugating kashmiri people and denying them their just right to self-determination.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday welcomed the readmission of Maldives to the Commonwealth, while felicitating its government and people on rejoining the group of 54 states after a period of 40 months. In 2016, Maldives had angrily quit the organisation over criticism of its human rights record under former president Abdulla Yameen. “Pakistan welcomes the readmission of Maldives to the Commonwealth and congratulates the government and the people of Maldives on rejoining the Commonwealth family,” said a statement issued by Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui. “As a founding member of Commonwealth, Pakistan has been a strong supporter of Maldives’ readmission and it’s role as an important member of the organisation,” she said. Islamabad also acknowledged and greatly appreciated the role played by Maldives in other regional and international organisations. “Pakistan remains committed to working closely with Maldives in achieving the shared objectives of peace, development and prosperity within the region and beyond,” the statement concluded. STAFF REPORT
MOIP measures in place to control sugar hoarding, price hike ISLAMABAD APP
Ministry of Industries and Production (MOIP) has written letters to the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab to take effective measures against sugar hoarding and price hike in their respective domains. According to the ministry’s official memorandum, the undersigned was directed to refer to Sugar Advisory Board (SAB)’s meeting held on January 28, in which sugar stocks and prices were discussed in detail. During SAB meeting, it said, the representatives of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments informed
that due to overall decline in sugarcane production this year, production of sugar was expected to decline in current crushing session. The national average retail prices continuously showing rising trend in the market despite of crushing season was in process, it added. Moreover, during current price hike l&P Division again wrote a letter to the provincial chief secretaries with the request to control recent price hike in the country. As per the details, it said, “Price Control and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act 1977 has been delegated to Provincial Governments in 2006. The administration of this act has been also transferred to the Interior Di-
CMYK
vision to the extent of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). During the SAB meeting held on October 29, 2019 Secretary (Industries and Production-I&P) also discussed rising prices of sugar and afterwards wrote a letter to Provincial Chief Secretaries for controlling of hoarding and profiteering in their respective provinces.” In the light of the above mentioned, consequently government of Punjab fixed the retail price of Sugar at Rs70 per kilogramme (kg) utilizing powers under the Price Control and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act, 1977 in all its districts. Similarly, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government took serious action against
profiteering and hoarding of sugar in the province. Furthermore, a notification was also issued by MOIP to Commerce Division to approach Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet after the SAB meeting decided discontinuation of export quota of sugar. The notification was in the light of the meeting decisions in which it was decided that Commerce Division should approach ECC of the Cabinet to stop remaining export quota from 1.1 Million tons allocated quota for exports vide ECC decisions in case No. 96/19/2018 and case No. 143/29/2018 dated October 02, 2018 and dated December 04, 2018 respectively.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
MAke G-B coNStitutioNAL PRoviNce oR GRANt SPeciAL RiGhtS, deMANd LAwMAkeRS
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NEWS DESK
EMBERS of the Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) Legislative Assembly have called on the federal government to either make the region a constitutional province as recommended by a highlevel parliamentary committee or grant it special rights for being regarded as part of disputed Himalayan valley of Kashmir. The demands were made by the lawmakers belonging to both opposition and treasury benches — including G-B Assembly Speaker Fida Nashad, Minister Works Dr Iqbal and Opposition Leader Mohammad Shafi — at a joint press conference in Islamabad late Friday. “If G-B can’t be made constitutional province, its people should be given special rights enjoyed by residents of a disputed territory under the UN charter,” said Nashad. “We are no longer willing to be served under another governance order,” said the speaker, referring to
orders promulgated from time to time in G-B. The first governance order, through which G-B could have its first ever chief minister and governor, was promulgated in 2009, followed by The Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order, 2018-19. “We are comfortable with recommendations of the Sartaj Aziz committee to some extent. Therefore, the same should be implemented without any further delay,” said another lawmaker, referring to a
committee formed in 2017 under the then adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs. The committee recommended that the G-B be given status of a provisional province, till the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute and implementation of the UN resolutions on the disputed Himalayan region. It also recommended that G-B people should be given special representation in the parliament till the settlement of Kashmir issue.
Minister Works Dr Iqbal said, “We will think of a way forward if our demands aren’t met”. Opposition Leader Muhammad Shafi said the federal government couldn’t be trusted as it had little interest in matters of G-B. Nationalist leader Nawaz Naji said any attempt of creating hurdles in the way of granting constitutional rights to the people of G-B will be condemned. The lawmakers also warned the federal government about growing unrest among the youth, who they said “are more aware about their rights than their predecessors due to social media”. “This is the digital age and awareness created more frustration in the youth,” said the lawmakers, adding Pakistan’s enemies can exploit the situation if grievances were not addressed promptly. They praised efforts of Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for the region, saying he had always supported G-B’s constitutional cause according to aspirations of its people.
PML-Q, MQM standing with govt: Rasheed LAHORE: Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad Saturday said the allied parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) were standing with the PTI government. Addressing a press conference here at the Railways Headquarters, he said Prime Minister Imran Khan was working against price hike which was discussed in every meeting of the cabinet. He said the PML-N and the PPP had lost their presence in politics. He said that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif would not return while Maryam will not go abroad whereas only Shehbaz Sharif would come and do politics in the country. To a question, he said the Benazir Income Support (BISP) was not being closed and all other new welfare programmes were part of the BISP. To another question, he said Kashmir Issue was alive and Kashmiris would continue their struggle for freedom. He said that Pakistan Railways was going to make its modern schools and hospitals and these institutions would be considered among the top public sector institutions in future. To a question, he said that under the orders of the Supreme Court, railways could not sale its land and it could not be leased for more than five years. The minister said a threemember committee had been constituted to implement the directions suggested in the investigation report regarding the Tezgam Train incident. He said that a new shuttle train between Gujranwala and Lahore would be inaugurated on February 15. He also stated that dry ports at Chishtian, Kundian, Jia Baga and Sheikhupura would be upgraded and capacity of these ports would be enhanced. APP
NAB summons Sana on February 3 The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart Rana Sanaullah on February 3 claimed sources, ARY News reported on Saturday. The former Law Minister for Punjab is likely to be summoned for questioning in relation to matters pertaining to ongoing assets beyond means inquiry against him, sources claimed further.The politician has been asked to appear at 11 am on Monday to the establishment. Earlier on January 4, The NAB had asked PML-N Punjab president Rana Sanaullah to furnish his reply to a questionnaire handed to him by the anti-graft watchdog in connection with its probe into his assets until Jan 28. Sources said the questionnaire handed to him comprises fourteen questions. The questions related to the assets the PML-N MNA and his family members acquired over the past two decades, they said. News Desk
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NEWS
05
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
06 WORLD VIEW
The approaching debT wave THE WORLD BANK HAS WARNED THAT A MASSIVE DEBT WAVE IS BUILDING WORLDWIDE. THERE IS NO TELLING WHO WILL BE HIT THE HARDEST, BUT IF VULNERABLE COUNTRIES, FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM TO INDIA, DO NOT ACT SOON, THEY MAY FACE SEVERE ECONOMIC DAMAGE
ProjecT syNDicATe
o
KaUSHiK BaSU
VER the last decade, the world economy has experienced a steady build-up of debt, now amounting to 230% of global GDP. The last three waves of debt caused massive downturns in economies across the world. Long a marginal presence in Washington, DC, Bernie Sanders has in the past decade emerged as the leading figure of the progressive left in America – and now as the candidate most likely to beat President Donald Trump in November. But does his ambitious vision make economic sense? The first of these happened in the early 1980s. After a decade of low borrowing costs, which enabled governments to expand their balance sheets considerably, interest rates began to rise, making debt-service increasingly unsustainable. Mexico fell first, informing the United States government and the International Monetary Fund in 1982 that it could no longer repay. This had a domino effect, with 16 Latin American countries and 11 least-developed countries outside the region ultimately rescheduling their debts. In the 1990s, interest rates were again low, and global debt surged once more. The crash came in 1997, when fast-grow-
ing but financially vulnerable East Asian economies – including Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand – experienced sharp growth slowdowns and plummeting exchange rates. The effects reverberated worldwide. But it is not only emerging economies that are vulnerable to such crashes, as America’s 2008 subprime mortgage crisis proved. By the time people figured out what “subprime” meant, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers had collapsed, triggering the most severe crisis and recession since the Great Depression. The World Bank has just warned us that a fourth debt wave could dwarf the first three. Emerging economies, which have amassed a record debt-to-GDP ratio of 170%, are particularly vulnerable. As in the previous cases, the debt wave has been facilitated by low interest rates. There is reason for alarm once interest rates begin to rise and premia inevitably spike. The mechanics of such crises are not well understood. But a 1998 paper by Stephen Morris and Hyun Song Shin on the mysterious origins of currency crises, and how they are transmitted to other economies, shows that a financial tsunami can make landfall far from its source. How the source of financial trouble can vanish, leaving others stranded, was
illustrated in the delightful short story “Rnam Krttva” by the celebrated twentieth-century Indian writer Shibram Chakraborty. In the story – which I translated into English and included in my book An Economist’s Miscellany – the desperate Shibram asks an old school friend, Harsha, to lend him 500 rupees ($7) on a Wednesday, to be repaid the following Saturday. But Shibram squanders the money, so on Saturday, he has little choice but to ask another school friend, Gobar, for a loan of 500 rupees, to be repaid the next Wednesday. He uses the money to repay Harsha. But when Wednesday rolls around, he has no way of repaying Gobar. So, reminding Harsha of his excellent repayment record, he borrows from him again. This becomes a routine, with Shibram repeatedly borrowing from one friend to repay the other. Then Shibram runs into both Harsha and Gobar one day at a crosswalk. After a moment of anxiety, he has an idea: every Wednesday, he suggests, Harsha should give Gobar 500 rupees, and every Saturday, Gobar should give the same amount to Harsha. Shibram assures his former school friends that this will save him a lot of time and change nothing for them, and he vanishes into Kolkata’s milling crowds. So who are the likely Harshas and
Goodbye, Palestine! Why Trump’s ‘peace deal’ is good for Moscow
Gobars in today’s debt wave? According to the World Bank, they could be any country with domestic vulnerabilities, a stretched fiscal balance sheet, and a heavily indebted population. There are several countries that fit this description and run the risk of being the conduit that carries the fourth debt wave to the world economy. Among advanced economies, the United Kingdom is an obvious candidate. In 2019, the UK narrowly avoided a recession, with a growth rate a shade above zero – the weakest growth in a non-recession period since 1945. The country is also about to undertake Brexit. Conservatives in Britain have promised that a “tidal wave” of business investment will follow. This is unlikely: if there is a tidal wave, it will probably be one of debt instead. Among emerging economies, India is especially vulnerable. In the 1980s, India’s economy was fairly sheltered, so the debt wave back then had little impact. At the time of the East Asian crisis in 1997, India had just begun to open up, and it experienced some slowdown in growth. By the time of the debt wave in 2008, the country had become globally integrated and was severely affected. But its economy was strong and growing at nearly 10% annually, and it recovered within a year. Today, India’s economy is facing one
Moscow TiMes Vladimir FroloV
The Trump administration’s plan for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the so-called “Deal of the Century” — unilaterally imposes humiliating terms for peace on the Palestinians that Tel Aviv’s right-wing forces have long wanted. Although the plan ostensibly calls for creating an independent Palestinian state — in accordance with UN Resolution 242 — in practice, it offers no guarantees and demands that the Palestinians fulfill numerous conditions for ensuring security, while leaving the ultimate decision-making power in Israel. Moscow, meanwhile, stands to benefit from the Trump plan — not because it advances peace in the Middle East, but because it provides a precedent for major powers dictating terms to weaker ones. A NEW APARTHEID: If the plan crafted by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner is implemented, the Palestinian state will be surrounded by territories controlled by Israel and deprived of external borders — much like the Bantustan territories in South Africa during apartheid. For one, the Trump plan provides no guarantees for connections between the proposed Palestinian enclaves, which would be isolated and cut off by the Israeli security wall. Meanwhile, the plan’s proposal for an “increase” in Palestinian territory
would be accomplished by creating two major “oases” in the middle of the Negev desert at the border with Egypt, which would be linked by road to the Gaza Strip. The latter, in turn, would be connected to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank by a 90-kilometer tunnel — which, of course, will never be built. Under the plan, Israel would also take the best plots of land in the West Bank. It would hand over several settlements with predominately Arab populations that border the West Bank to the “Palestinian state” while rescinding Israeli citizenship for their residents in a watered down form of “ethnic cleansing.” Palestinians will not have the right to control their skies, waters or communication frequencies. The Palestinian state would be demilitarized and prohibited from forming alliances or joining multilateral international organizations and alliances without Israel’s consent. This would resemble the “limited sovereignty” that Moscow had once wanted to give to the former Soviet republics. Also, the new state would be forbidden from repatriating the Palestinian refugees living in neighboring states — primarily Jordan and Lebanon — without Israeli permission. Even the status of “Palestinian refugee” would be abolished and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has been operating since 1950, would be eliminated. Probably the only practical consequence of the U.S. initiative would be Israel’s de facto annexation of approximately 30% of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank — on which the Israeli cabinet is expected to reach a decision this Sunday. It would also extend Israeli control over the entire Jordan Valley, enabling it to use the Jordan River — a wide and “natural barrier” — as the country’s eastern border. In fact, this is exactly what Israel has been trying to achieve since 1967. CRIMEA: RUSSIA’S “WEST BANK”: Moscow has prudently showed restraint after the announce-
ment of the plan. It declared a readiness to study the plan’s contents while calling for everyone to first listen to the opinions of the involved parties. The Kremlin is more interested in its relations with Israel and the Arab monarchs of the Persian Gulf than in symbolic solidarity with the Palestinians. Moscow will take its cue from its new regional partners and will not rush the process. The time when the Soviet Union — or Russia — worked in concert with the U.S. as a “co-sponsor of the Israeli-Palestinian settlement” is long past, and it was correct to let go of that fetish. Nor is Russia losing any sleep over the fact that there is no longer any demand for the “Middle East Quartet” of the U.S., Russia, UN and EU. When the Trump plan was still in development last year, Russia made a number of attempts to get involved in the process — even trying to organize a summit in Moscow between Netanyahu and Abbas which never materialized. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow this week to “confirm the plan” will be used by the Kremlin as further evidence of Russia’s new leading role in the Middle East and its “great power status.” The Kremlin also has a good reason to play along with Trump and not get involved in the international campaign against the U.S.-sponsored settlement mechanism. The U.S. plan essentially pushes for international recognition of annexed territories occupied during military operations. In other words, it would set an important precedent for legitimizing Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow “reunited with Russia” in 2014. That would give Putin a perfect quid pro quo with Trump and Macron at the upcoming meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Vladimir Frolov is a Russian political analyst and columnist.
Kaushik Basu, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, is Professor of Economics at Cornell University and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Sisters-in-law are not always friends. Just ask Kate and Meghan GLoBe AND MAiL
TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN PUSHES FOR RECOGNITION OF ANNEXED TERRITORIES — A WELCOME PRECEDENT FOR RUSSIA’S HOLD OVER CRIMEA
of its deepest crises in the last 30 years, with growth slowing sharply, unemployment at a 45-year high, close to zero export growth over the last six years, and per capita consumption in the agricultural sector decreasing over the last five years. Add to this a deeply polarized political environment and it is little wonder that investor confidence is rapidly declining. It is not too late for countries to build seawalls to protect against debt tsunamis. While India’s political problems will take time to solve, the Union budget – to be presented on February 1 – is an opportunity for preemptive action. The fiscal deficit needs to be controlled in the medium term, but the government would be wise to adopt expansionary fiscal policy now, with money channeled into shoring up infrastructure and investment. Managed properly, this can boost demand without increasing inflationary pressures, and strengthen the economy in order to withstand a debt wave. The country’s leaders must seize this opportunity. The alternative is to adopt the brace position.
lYdia dENWorTH
Last July, when the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex sat side-by-side in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, they looked an awful lot like two girlfriends hanging out. The world wanted that to be true. Among the many imagined ways Meghan Markle might have benefited the Royal Family was the hope that, in each other, Kate and Meghan would find a friend. They could be the very model of modern royal sisters-in-law, together. But Meghan left for British Columbia and the tie between Meghan and Kate will probably be cut as surely as whatever grand opening ribbon the still-working royals will be snipping next week. The world has run headlong into the glaring difference between hope and reality when it comes to friendship and sisters-in-law. (Would we have anticipated the same of royal brothers-in-law? Probably not.) Oh, it would have been fun if they had picked up where the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York left off. One of the things we loved most about Diana and Fergie was their friendship. Remember when they poked a friend in the backside with their umbrellas at Royal Ascot? Some thought it unseemly, but the rest of us saw a shared sense of humour and friends having some silly fun. But Diana and Sarah Ferguson were friends before they were sisters-in-law. Diana even had a hand in setting up Prince Andrew and Fergie. And, in the end, it wasn’t all so rosy. In the year before Diana died, she stopped speaking to Sarah, miffed over Fergie’s 1996 autobiography, My Story. Among other things, Sarah said she had borrowed Diana’s shoes – and her plantar warts. Real friendship is not a fairy tale. It’s a warts-and-all relationship that has to be earned. The word friend is not categorical like cousin or sister-in-law. Except perhaps on Facebook, friend carries emotional weight. It signifies something about the quality and character of a relationship that is based on history and the content of repeated interactions. If we call a spouse or relative a friend, we do so to signal the texture and tenor of our relationship with that person that cannot be automatically assumed. There is value added. To achieve such value, friendship re-
quires several things. One is proximity. We make friends most often with the people we see most often. We presume Meghan and Kate have put in some hours. Beyond that Wimbledon sighting, we periodically saw them smiling and waving from the balcony at Buckingham Palace. But their interactions could have been limited to those photo ops. On a related note, friendship requires time and lots of it. It takes about 50 hours to go from being an acquaintance to a friend and close to 200 hours to be a “best friend.” If Meghan and Kate have spent 200 hours together, that would be the equivalent of 40 to 50 lingering girls’ nights out. That seems unlikely. Friendship also requires a little similarity. Most of us befriend people who are like us. Kate and Meghan are thin and beautiful, but are from different countries and different backgrounds. Meghan was married once already. Kate was Prince William’s college girlfriend. Before she married, Meghan had a successful acting career and financial independence. Before she married, Kate worked as a fashion buyer and for her family’s party planning business. But she was mostly known as William’s girlfriend. The one thing they had going for them was what psychologists called “shared plight,” which can strengthen bonds intensely. In Meghan and Kate’s case, there is no one else in the world who knows so well what it is like to be them. Now that Meghan is a mother, too, that connection extends to being young mothers raising young royals. According to Sarah Ferguson, she and Diana burned up the phone lines discussing their predicament when they realized they were stuck in unhappy marriages inside the Royal Family. It cannot be a coincidence that the two divorced within months of each other. With that in mind, let us hope that whether or not Meghan and Kate are or were friends, these two young royal marriages survive. The unions stand a better chance of that if everyone involved has a friend to rely on when times get tough. This is reason to hope Prince Harry and William’s relationship recovers. It’s also a reason not to worry too much about Meghan. When she flew back to Vancouver, her actual best friend, stylist Jessica Mulroney, was reportedly waiting for her.Sisters-in-law are not always friends. Just ask Kate and Meghan
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
FOREIGN NEWS 07
Trump seT for miDweek acquiTTal afTer wiTnesses blockeD WASHINGTON AGENCIES
The US Senate on Friday rebuffed Democratic calls for new witnesses at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, paving the way for his acquittal next week of charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Following the 51-49 vote, the Senate scheduled four hours of closing arguments by Democratic prosecutors and White House defense lawyers on Monday and a vote for acquittal on Wednesday. A Wednesday vote will mean the historic trial will not have concluded before Tuesday, when Trump is scheduled to give his nationally televised annual “State of the Union” speech to a joint session of Congress. Trump is all-but-assured of being acquitted by the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats to 47 for the Democrats and a two-thirds majority — or 67 senators — is needed to remove a president from office. Two Republican senators — Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine — joined 47 Democrats in voting to introduce further witnesses into the trial. But Democrats failed to muster the four votes needed to allow testimony from Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and others. Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “grand tragedy.” “America will remember this day -— a day when the United States Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, turned away from truth and instead went along with a sham trial,” Schumer said. IMPEACHED FOREVER: Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the
House of Representatives, which impeached Trump on December 18, accused Republicans who voted against allowing witnesses of being “accomplices to the president’s cover-up.” “He is impeached forever,” Pelosi said. “There can be no acquittal without a trial. And there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence.” Democrats had been eager to hear from Bolton following reports that he claims in an upcoming book to have been personally told by Trump that military aid to Ukraine was tied to Kiev investigating Joe Biden, his potential Democratic rival in November’s presidential election. The charge is the crux of the case which led to Trump becoming just the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump ally, said House prosecutors, known as “managers,” had already presented
enough evidence to make their case and there was no need for further witnesses. “A majority of the US Senate has determined that the numerous witnesses and 28,000-plus pages of documents already in evidence are sufficient to judge the House Managers’ accusations and end this impeachment trial,” he said. “There is no need for the Senate to re-open the investigation,” he said. “Never in Senate history has this body paused an impeachment trial to pursue additional witnesses.” McConnell said the Senate would resume as a court of impeachment at 11:00 am (1600 GMT) on Monday to allow House prosecutors and White House lawyers to deliver their final arguments. Each side will have two hours to speak. The Senate will then vote at 4:00 pm on Wednesday on the two articles of impeachment passed last month by Democrats in the House. PARTISAN NATURE: With the focus
shifting to the final vote, all eyes will be on whether any Democrats facing potential tough re-election battles in November will vote to acquit the president. Democratic Senator Doug Jones, for example, is facing what is shaping up to be a tough re-election fight in Alabama, a state which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2016 election. Democrats had been hoping to sway enough Republicans to support the call for further witnesses but efforts collapsed when Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said she would vote “no” to new testimony. “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” Murkowski said. “I don’t think the continuation of this process will change anything,” she added. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who had also been considered a possible swing vote, also said there was no need for more evidence. “It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation,” Alexander said. “But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate,” he said. Before the Senate vote, Adam Schiff, the leader of the House impeachment prosecutors, made an impassioned last-ditch argument for witnesses. “A trial without witnesses is simply not a trial,” the California lawmaker said. “This trial is supposed to be a quest for the truth,” he said. “Let’s not fear what we will learn.”
Syrian rebels launch attack near Aleppo: rebel sources, monitor BEIRUT AGENCIES
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels attacked governmentheld positions northeast of Aleppo on Saturday, rebel sources and a war monitor said, opening a new front against Syrian army forces that have made significant advances in nearby Idlib over the last week. The attack was focused on territory near the city of al-Bab, which has been controlled by Turkey and its Syrian opposition allies since 2017. Syrian state media made no mention of a new attack. Turkish forces were not taking part, rebel sources said. Rebel sources said their fighters had taken three villages so far. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, described it as a fierce attack “carried out by factions loyal to Ankara”.
Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have made rapid advances in Idlib this week, capturing the town of Maarat al-Numan which is located about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of al-Bab. Idlib and the area north of Aleppo form part of the last major rebel-held territory in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad has taken back most of the ground once held by his enemies with Russian and Iranian support. The government’s latest Idlib advance has triggered a fresh wave of civilian displacement, with hundreds of thousands moving towards the Turkish border. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkey may launch a military operation in Idlib unless the fighting there is halted. U.S. special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey said on Thursday the Idlib fighting raised the specter of an in-
ternational crisis. Turkey, which already hosts 3.6 million refugees from Syria, fears a fresh wave of migrants from Idlib. It has 12 military observation posts around Idlib, set up under a 2017 agreement with Russia and Iran, and several of them have since been surrounded by advancing Syrian government forces.
Crews hold blazes back from Australia's capital MELBOURNE/SYDNEY AGENCIES
Firefighters kept wild blazes fueled by strong winds and soaring temperatures from reaching suburban areas of Australia’s capital, Canberra, using airdrops of fire retardant to create a 2.5-kilometre (1.55-mile) long defensive line late on Saturday. Three drops of the pink retardant created the line along the bottom of a mountain south of Canberra, authorities said, with further drops planned for Sunday. Fire crews had so far been able to save all structures in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), home to Canberra, authorities said. “This has been a good firefighting day for us, in terms of protecting our cultural assets and critical infrastructure,” ACT Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Georgeina Whelan said on Saturday evening. “Our intent tonight is to undertake backburning operations to consolidate
those containment lines.” There were fears earlier in the day that the blaze could reach Canberra’s southern suburbs, threatening homes and lives as they did in 2003 when fires destroyed almost 500 houses and claimed four lives. Skies along the Monaro Highway in the ACT turned orange-red on Saturday as an uncontrolled blaze ballooned to more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) in size. A major highway was closed and authorities issued warnings for some residents that it was too late to evacuate, before conditions started to ease late in the day. The territory declared a state of emergency on Friday in anticipation of the hot and windy conditions that are expected to last through the weekend. Australia’s devastating and prolonged bushfire season has killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals since September. About 2,500 homes have been destroyed and more than 11.7 million hectares (2.8 million acres) of tin-
der-dry bushland have been razed. A second major uncontrolled fire was burning slightly further south in the Snowy Monaro region of New South Wales state on Saturday, the same alpine area where an air tanker crashed on Jan. 22 after dropping fire retardant, killing three American firefighters. Temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in parts of NSW and the ACT on Saturday, prompting widespread warnings for people to be alert to the potential fire danger. Some fires were generating their own weather patterns, including thunderstorms, in Australia’s southeast, authorities said. Around 20 fires were burning in Victoria state, with one at emergency level. Away from the firegrounds, intense rainfall was forecast, with authorities warning of potential “dangerous and lifethreatening flash flooding.” “When it comes to the weather, it’s really the tale of two states,” Victoria Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said.
Delhi police says shooter was teenager who pushed Hindu cause online DELHI AGENCIES
The 17-year-old boy left his home in a small north Indian town on Thursday morning after telling his grandfather he was going to school. Instead, he turned up 80 km away in New Delhi, where he pulled out a gun and shot an anti-government protester. The incident, captured in dramatic pictures on Thursday, was the first time a civilian had opened fire on protesters in the capital, raising fears that more Indians would take the law into their own hands as sometimes deadly protests rock the country. A new law brought in by the Hindu-nationalist government that fasttracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from three neighbouring countries has divided opinion, as critics say it discriminates against Muslims. Family members, neighbours, and a school official in Jewar described the boy — who cannot be named under Indian law because he is under 18 — as quiet and ordinary. His act of violence took them by surprise. In social media posts and conversations with some classmates, he spoke of restoring Hindu pride and expressed admiration for a rightwing activist whom police have accused of fomenting violence. “He wanted to do things for Hindus, he had that in his heart,” classmate Shivam told Reuters, giving only his first name. “For years, he had said he was going to do something big.” Reuters has not been able to establish how the boy planned the attack outside Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university or how he acquired the rudimentary gun. He fired a single shot, wounding a protester in the hand. WhatsApp messages with another classmate, seen by Reuters, show that he asked for several thousand rupees three days before the shooting incident, without revealing why. UPHEAVAL AND DECISION: Since December, when the citizenship law was passed, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets, saying the legislation is anti-Muslim and against the spirit of India’s secular constitution. At least 25 people have been killed in clashes with police. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the law is designed to help persecuted minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. In recent days, some leaders from the ruling party have called for action against protesters opposed to the law, whom they accuse of being unpatriotic. Junior finance minister Anurag Thakur this week encouraged supporters at a state election rally in New Delhi to chant slogans calling for traitors to be shot. He was reprimanded by Indian’s election commission. Hours after the shooting, small groups of people walked past the boy’s house in Jewar, shouting Hindu slogans in support of his actions. “What he did was unconstitutional, but we are with him,” a neighbour said, declining to be named. Hindus, Muslims and members of smaller religious minorities live cheek-by-jowl in Jewar, typical for towns and cities in Uttar Pradesh, Indian’s most populous state.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
08 COMMENT
Almost two years later
Stranded Pakistanis And the PTI administration
W
HILE Pakistani students in coronavirusstricken Wuhan issued frantic calls for repatriation, the PTI government invented excuses to dodge its responsibility. On Thursday, Dr Zafar Mirza, SAPM on National Health Services said the government has decided not to repatriate them because in case they were brought back, the epidemic which had been contained by the Chinese government to Wuhan would “spread all over the world like wildfire”. He further maintained that so far China had not allowed evacuation of people from Wuhan. He also claimed that China was the only country where this disease could be successfully diagnosed. A similar stand was taken by the Foreign Office. Each one of these claims is against the facts. On Tuesday, the European Union announced that it would co-finance air travel to bring Europeans home from Wuhan, with the first aircraft leaving France on Wednesday morning to collect around 250 French citizens. A plane carrying 206 Japanese nationals from Wuhan landed in Tokyo on Wednesday. The same day, Australia and the UK announced that their citizens repatriated from Wuhan were to be quarantined for up to two weeks. On Saturday India evacuated 324 of its nationals from Wuhan. No country talked about China having disallowed foreigners or the WHO issuing advice in this respect or the disease spreading worldwide by repatriation. For that matter, the coronavirus was not confined to Wuhan alone. The stand taken by the government was in fact yet another example of its lack of competence to deal with a crisis-like situation. Bringing back any number of citizens would test the government’s ability to undertake a complex exercise including sending of special planes with doctors to Wuhan, providing screening facilities at Pakistani airports, setting up isolation wards in hospitals as well as quarantine arrangements to keep those brought from China with doctors and related staff. What’s more, it would require funds. On Friday PTI Senator Shibli Faraz told the Upper House that if the situation changed the government would evacuate the Pakistani students on this basis. The next day he was contradicter by Dr Mirza, who said the government had decided to stay firm on its earlier decision against repatriation. This sends the message that the PTI administration has turned into a Tower of Babel lacking unity of views on crucial issues.
Too little too late Locusts destroy crops
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OW that the federal government has declared the locust attack in the country a national emergency, only after the crisis made its way to Punjab and KP, it is necessary to ask why the declaration had not been made earlier when the crop-ravaging insects first started flying into Sindh in June, to multiply gradually and turn into a full-blown catastrophe for the province. The Sindh government had made repeated requests for support from the centre to get a hold of the situation but to no avail. Earlier this month, during a National Assembly debate on the matter, where the newly appointed Minister for Food Security Khusro Bakhtiar was conveniently absent, PPP MNAs Syed Naveed Qamar and Ghulam Ali Talpur explained how quickly the locusts had spread across over 12 districts of Sindh, forcing farmers to burn their crops and that there was risk of them spreading towards the North. That prediction came true within weeks as multiple districts in Punjab and KP are also now affected. The government’s inaction on the matter displays its incompetence and a worrying tendency to not dispense federal resources to provinces where it isn’t in power. The Prime Minister is willing to host a stubborn and noncompliant Sindh Police IG at his office in Islamabad to ‘hear him out’, because it suits his government politically but he will not take an issue as serious as risk to food security into consideration unless it hits home. There has to be a collective effort to get rid of this menace. The NDMA and provincial governments must act swiftly and timely in order to contain the situation before it ruins crops in all three major provinces and creates a food shortage, forcing imports that the country does not afford. Equipment shortcomings such as a lack of planes to airdrop pesticide, should be fulfilled with the help of the military if need be. One hopes the situation does not deteriorate further. Unfortunately, with this government, that is always a risk.
Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami
Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad
Umar Aziz
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Mafias, those damn mafias!
Yousaf Nizami
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T has taken the PTI government less than two years to prove the skeptics and cynics correct: the experiment has failed quite miserably and publicly. The comfort of blaming previous governments for the sheer lack of commendable performance or respectable governance efforts is fast becoming a luxury. The focus, of late, has shifted towards ‘mafias’ that are supposedly out to sabotage Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ‘vision for the country’. There is a ‘media mafia’ that ‘reports negatively on the PTI government’s performance’, deliberately ignoring the positives. Does the PM expect only puff pieces and severe self-censorship from newspapers and TV channels because he is now in power? That sort of treatment, these days, is reserved only for those who are actually in power. A food-hoarding mafia, responsible for the recent wheat and sugar crises, also exists according to the PM. This a problematic defence of poor planning and an embarrassing level of mismanagement across the board. Which mafia is the PM referring to here? In case he doesn’t have any names yet, a simple exercise of ‘following the money’ made when exporting and importing wheat and sugar would provide a fair indication of who is responsible. Perhaps he is fearful of that information, or maybe already has it and wants to sweep it under the carpet due to the people it really exposes. Either way, it’s a pathetic deflection from what has actually happened. Now, there are apparently internal mafias trying to destabilise PTI’s provincial governments in Sindh and Punjab. Faced with a forward bloc of 20-odd MPAs in Punjab, demanding development funds that were promised, PM Khan had to rush to the province’s capital to pacify them. In KP, PM Khan had to fire three of his most revered MPAs that he had boasted about pre-elections as being the best of the best, after they attempted to stage a rebellion against the sitting CM in the province. Both fires were put out and the arson blamed on ‘organised mafias’; no contemplation on the reality that perhaps the CMs in both provinces are simply not cutting it and need to be replaced with more competent people. Things aren’t much better at the centre either. Allies, so clinically pushed in the PTI’s direction, are now demanding their pound of flesh. The
MQM(P) has resigned from the Cabinet but is a half of monetary policy tightening later, there keeping one foot in the game by not leaving the al- is no let-up in inflation to allow a decrease in inliance, yet. PML(Q) leader and Punjab Assembly terest rates. Choice figures that are presented to Speaker Ch Pervaiz Elahi, in a candid meeting with the public for consumption do not reflect the acjournalists two days back, did not mince his words tual situation in households, business or industry. about how the PTI has mistreated him and his party. When the Finance Minister has no constituency A third committee has now been formed to ‘resolve to worry about, and the SBP Governor and outstanding issues’. Speaker Elahi, much like his Deputy Governor are IMF representatives, also Sindhi counterparts, maintains that they want to not worried about any sort of election; the public give the PTI a fair chance at governing and don’t perception will obviously lean towards the government not being in control of matters. want to see them sent packing so soon. To be fair, the PTI did deliver, albeit without When majorities are so razor thin, allies and independents have a lot of leverage to play with. permanent results, in one field: ‘accountability’. The opposition-specific It becomes all the more cruspectacle of arresting and cial then that the governharassing political oppoment, instead of its cabinet nents made for great entermembers merely enjoying tainment, pandering to the the perks of important min- No one forced Imran Khan istries, walking the corri- to become PM. He has been PTI’s core base’s ill-conceived fantasies of a corrupdors of power, keep its allies relatively happy. This itching to wear that black tion-free Pakistan based on the lies they were told for has not happened and if it achkan since 1996. Yes, over 10 years. The farce is comes strictly to the matter exposed as the NAB, being of distribution of developthere was a demand and an ineffective reckless bully, ment funds, those at the has finally been restrained, bottom of the feeding pool space for a third bails have been granted, might just jump ship in the arch-enemies were allowed next act. Of course, those mainstream political party leave the country and inwho forced them to get on and he certainly filled that tovestigations against memthis ship in the first place bers of government have could persuade them to with his self-made PTI, but started to gain momentum. stay, no matter what. PerThere is no more air left in haps some records and files no one forced him to climb corruption slogan as it from cold storage have alonto the shoulders of the the has been overused to ready been thawed and comedic levels. There is a shown to an MPA or two to powers that be to ensure a limit to which the citizenry resolve the recent impasse. can be duped. Hypocrisy This is a crucial year questionable victory in tends to stand out at some for PM Imran Khan; it repoint. ally is make or break. He 2018. The “it’s too soon to forced Imran has promised a prosperous expect results” argument KhanNotoone become PM. He year, ignoring all macrohas been itching to wear economic indicators, forewill simply not suffice that black achkan since casts and ground realities. anymore. 1996. Yes, there was a deHe cuts a sorry figure by remand and space for a third peatedly asking everyone to mainstream political party wait patiently and endure and he certainly filled that through this temporary period of economic hardship. It doesn’t help mat- with his self-made PTI, but no one forced him to ters when he says that even his own disposable climb onto the shoulders of the powers that be to income isn’t enough in the present economic cli- ensure a questionable victory in 2018. The “it’s mate. Unfortunately, it is impossible to vet un- too soon to expect results” argument will simply written speeches. One can only stare with not suffice anymore. It is time the PM stops probemusement at what he says at times, that too jecting his failures on so-called mafias and governments of the past and deliver on the promises with a straight face. Suffering patiently would be an acceptable he made so emphatically without a plan on how task for the citizenry if true stability had been to fulfill them. The buck stops with him. achieved by now or at least there was some light Yousaf Nizami is a staff member. at the end of the tunnel in sight. Over a year and
The implausability of war We need to think about spending priorities
Rabia ahmed Yuval Noah Harari, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos this year, said: “The very meaning of the word “peace” has changed.” ““Peace,” he said, “no longer means just the temporary absence of war. Peace now means the implausibility of war. WE are now living in a world in which war kills fewer people than suicide, and gunpowder is far less dangerous to your life than sugar. Most countries don’t even fantasize about conquering and annexing their neighbors. Unfortunately, we have gotten so used to this wonderful situation, that we take it for granted, and we are therefore becoming extremely careless. Instead of doing everything we can to strengthen the fragile global order, countries neglect it and even deliberately undermine it.” That neglect explains why, in Pakistan, in the Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9
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clash between the demands of the military and the requirements of its civilians, the result is a layout of far more than the country can afford on our defense budget, and much less than there should be on education and health. According to a national daily last year, an analysis of the ‘proposed defense allocation shows that it makes up 14pc of the total outlay and 2.62pc of GDP.’ Also, that ‘the defense allocation does not give the complete picture of defense spending, as it does not include the Rs 327 billion earmarked for pensions of retired soldiers next year, which would shoot up by 25pc over the previous year.’ Also that allocations for major procurements and strategic programmes are never made public. Rs 327 billion in a poor country like Pakistan. Yet it is the civilians themselves who enable this by succumbing to the guff put out by select quarters about the dire need for security. Harari goes on to talk about the disruption caused by technology, and about growing advances in AI because of which he says that an increasing number of persons in society will become ‘irrelevant’ because they cannot cope with this technology. These people will constitute, he says, the new ‘useless class’ from the economic and political point of view. Sadly, there is nothing new about such a class in Pakistan where a person already becomes ‘irrelevant’ when faced with an ‘alif’ or an ‘A’. There is no need for AI. Which dhobi, few maids, and almost no sanitation workers are able to read, not to mention many others like those who labour on the roads or farms. These people constitute a huge segment of our population. Yes, they can use cell phones, but they cannot read the numbers
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they dial. They know those by sight, and by the photographs that accompany them. We have the funds to change this, funds that are at present all being channeled towards one sector of society. Whither diplomacy, which should be settling matters and minimizing the threat of war? With the looming threat of the coronavirus who imagines that our health care authorities have any coherent plan in place to prevent the spread of the disease here? Even if there were a plan, are our hospitals able to cope with any emergency, given the condition they are in? Can anyone at all say that organisation and prudence are strong points in this country? It is time to make peace and stop raising the spectre of war. No country today can afford war. Not us, not those across the border. With the next budget coming up, it is time to reconsider our priorities and divert money into education, and healthcare. Not into promises of either by means of pumping fists and slogans, but into actual progress in the matter. There can be no two ways about it. In an age like this where war is all about nuclear arms, it ceases to matter how much you fine tune your defense. In the end a people can only die once, and eventually that is the end of humanity. Whereas we all have a single life each, and not to cater to its needs is to create an endless cycle of hell on earth. This latter is where we are headed. It is wonderful that the PM is not living in the Prime Minister’s house, and that he is not to get a pay raise, as the PM’s office spokesperson says. Mubarak. But this is a drop in the ocean. The entire administration needs to be brought into line, and the country needs to fall behind it to ensure that we do not become ‘irrelevant’ as a country, as large segments of our society already have. It is the tragedy of Pakistan that we do not understand the implausibility of war, and the extent of our own deprivation. Rabia Ahmed is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabiaahmed.blogspot.com/
Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
COMMENT 09 Editor’s mail
Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan. E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively
Helpless THE Coronavirus in China is spreading rapidly and the centre where the virus is rooted, Wuhan, is completely in the grip of this deadly virus. Many countries including US, Japan, India, Egypt, Turkey, South Korea, Iran, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are evacuating their students from Wuhan. Only Pakistani students are left there. More ever, 28,000 Pakistani women and children and 80,000 students have been left stranded in China. About 200 Pakistani passengers got stuck at the airport. Instead of all the scenarios, our government is stubborn for it would not bring them back to Pakistan. I got tears in my eyes seeing our students pleading on social media for help. Almost all the countries are evacuating their students. On the very other, the negligence of our government is leading them unaccompanied. Exactly, don’t know what we are waiting for? Such citizens must be kept in isolation but they should be brought back, otherwise any further delay will result in a harsh situation and the responsible would solely be the state. I urge the concerned authorities to take immediate action for the people stuck out there so as leaving everything aside, they are kindred to Pakistan. ASIF MuRAd uMRANI Karachi
Virus fever
The ides of March jitters Compromises breed mafias and parasites
Candid Corner Raoof hasaN Caesar: The ides of March are come. Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone. William Shakespeare: “Julius Caesar”
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OING by the ancient Roman calendar, ides would mean a day falling roughly in the middle of each month from which other dates would be calculated. But, ides of March assumed a special meaning associated with betrayal and treachery when the Roman Senate conspired to murder Julius Caesar, an act that was immortalised by William Shakespeare in one of his classics. If one were to believe the grapevine, so treacherously anchored by stalwarts of the media and perpetuated by the lords of the judiciary, the ides of March could strike any day, every day. Such is the pernicious environment deliberately created by a conglomerate of the mafias whose future has been at stake ever since Imran Khan took over as the Prime Minister. According to narratives pieced together by these operators, mostly based on their bucketlists, not a day has passed when a threat did not loom over the fate of the government, and Khan’s survival as the Prime Minister. It is not just the mafias around who pose a threat to him. The mafias who sit with him as his coalition partners are even more poisonous, even more dangerous, as they pretend to be his associates and well-wishers. Principally, they are the MQM and the Chaudhrys of Gujrat. It is the very same people who swore allegiance to countless previous coalitions also. In essence, they are parasites nibbling away for their pound of flesh irrespective of the damage it may cause to the government. By going over the history of their past associations, one can evaluate that they were only their own friends and of their sinister motives. Consequently, their inclusion in the current set-up was never going to be smooth because, owing to the narrative which brought Khan into power, he could not render himself, and his government, vulnerable before their devious manipulations. While the MQM’s link with Altaf Hussain, and his kind of politics, is a morbid reality as they remain wedded to the instruments of
crime, corruption and banditry, the Chaudhrys initiated which will bring people dividends in are a conniving lot, always focused on what due course. But that time has neither come yet, they must gain from such partnerships. From nor will it be before the next couple of years. the very beginning, their eyes have been fixed So, thinking of going to the polls at this stage on gaining the top slot in Punjab. Accepting the would be a dangerous option not likely to yield position of the Speaker of the Provincial As- the intended dividends. But there is another way which can help in sembly was only an interim in that quest. They desired it at the beginning, and they still do. In tiding over the difficult times that the governthe event they are not able to gain it, as appears ment is presently confronted with. This is by imto be the case at this juncture, their presence in proving the quality of governance by the coalition would not be a cause of strength, incorporating overdue changes among the group of people who surround the Prime Minister, and but of perpetual gossip and upheaval. Both of them have their respective options who have failed in contributing to the attainment to ponder. The MQM in Sindh have the offer of his laudatory ideals and bringing about a from the Chairman of the PPP himself to take speedy transformation in the country. This ministries in the provincial cabinet in exchange would require a pragmatic evaluation and apfor rendering help to dismantle the government praisal of what targets have not been achieved of Imran Khan. The leader of the opposition in so far and why. Where do the fault-lines lie? the Punjab Assembly did not lag behind in his Does the problem reside in the formulation of blackmailing tactics, saying that their windows policies and their limitations, or in the inadequacies of the implementation and doors were open to any mechanisms? Even more offer of cooperation and importantly, does this have they would be willing to something to do with the discuss the prospect of giving the Chief Minister’s The most appropriate way people who constitute the Prime Minister’s team slot to Ch Parvez Elahi in for the Prime Minister today? Have they delivered exchange for support to hoist the PML(N) coalition would be to undertake a on their avowed ability and commitment to his ideals in Punjab. Much as one may want dispassionate appraisal of and ambitions, or have they but an albatross to moan over how low the his team and see whether been around his neck? And benchmark of political do people among the conduct has been set, it is they are really up to the where coterie of his advisors, neither unheard of, nor was it likely to stay out of the challenge that the country whose names have been tarnished, stand in this bargaining permutations in confronts. Sacrificing equation? the present times. As a matThese are the contours ter of fact, it was ever more some of them at this of the gigantic challenge likely now and those who were not able to see the injuncture would not be too that the Prime Minister faces at this critical juncherent danger while putting heavy a price to pay for ture of his tenure. There is together the coalition need no need to be overawed by a visit to the soothsayer. creating a caring, the ides of March jitters, Yet another detriment but time is definitely ripe has been the role that the jubeneficent and welfare for taking a comprehensive diciary has assumed for itstate that he is so stock of what has been self which is well beyond achieved so far and what the parameters of its manpassionate about. still remains to be. More date. It is repeatedly enimportantly, what are the croaching upon the constraints in the way of executive domain and obfulfilment of his agenda, structing it in implementing its agenda. Be it its activism in the matter of pa- and how best can these be removed? The most appropriate way for the Prime tronising the Sharifs and other corrupt oligarchies of the country, its interference in the appointment Minister would be to undertake a dispassionate of people at various positions, or its unnecessary appraisal of his team and see whether they are and opinionated proclamations of success or oth- really up to the challenge that the country conerwise of state institutions, the judiciary is not fronts. Sacrificing some of them at this juncture only piling on its own chequered past, it is creat- would not be too heavy a price to pay for creating serious administrative issues for the govern- ing a caring, beneficent and welfare state that ment. There is no constitutional provision that he is so passionate about. Compromising has bred mafias in the past and there is no other way warrants it. The puritans among us may contend that it would be in the future either. The time to act the Prime Minister should move to dissolve the is now before the venom spreads beyond remassemblies and hold early elections for a more edy, beyond redemption. decisive majority to be able to fulfil his mission Raoof Hasan is a political and security without the inclusion of any coalition partners. That is easier said than done. There are numer- strategist, and heads the Regional Peace ous reasons for that, the most important being Institute – an Islamabad-based think tank. He that the country is currently enduring the pangs can be reached at: raoofhasan@hotmail.com; of the reform process that the government has Twitter: @RaoofHasan
THE deaths toll from a deadly virus detected in china and rose sharply. Deadly virus is a major and horrific issue which is caused many deaths in the entire country, especially in the downtown of china Wuhan. A large number of virus cases are reported in Wuhan city which is facing hardly any people in the country. It is found in Wuhan city which the people called it the coronavirus as a dangerous virus. China is the most populated country in the entire globe but this coronavirus defeated the entire country and it has affected nearly 1,300 people in the country. The country faced with a grave situation of accelerating spread up deadly virus.furthermore, it is affected also neighbouring country like Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, etc. The first case was reported in 2019 in the city. There was no known of antibiotic to contain its transmission and it has spread up indeep far and wide also spreading and affecting the people more.now within a span of few weeks more than 17 cases are reported. In China over 570 cases were recorded by the coronavirus in over country. ALTAF AdAM, Turbat, Kech
Climate catastrophe THE world is witnessing unprecedented climate change which seems to be aggravating with the passage of time. Be it fierce Australian bushfires, extreme weather conditions, changes in climate pattens, increased frequency of natural disaster, all these depict the gravity of this issue. The reason why our planet is heading towards the catastrophe is mainly ruthless human activities. Deforestation, industrialization, burning fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions etc are some of the major factors contributing to gruesome climate change. As per the recent report by German watch, Pakistan has been ranked 5th most vulnerable country to climate change. However, Pakistan does not contribute massively in GHG emissions but it is most likely to be severely plagued by the climate change owing to its geographical location which makes it prone to the extreme weather conditions as well as natural disasters. Back in 2019, Lahore was labelled as the most polluted city in the world due to the dense smog engulfing the city and grossly affecting the air quality. In turn, various respiratory ailments develop among the citizens ultimately. Furthermore, after measuring the tantalizing and devouring menace of the very matter, the world powers inaugurated some important treaties, accords and organizations to counter climate change reduction including the Paris Agreement. But the terms and conditions of the agreement prove to be only limited for the periphery countries, not for the core states which produce greenhouse gases on the highest level. As, the US—— one of the most industrial countries—— has yet not ratified the agreement. Thus, we all need to come on the same page and acknowledge the fact that it is a potential threat to our planet that needs to be addressed timely. SoNA BAKHTAWAR BIJRANI Shikarpur
Hidden beauty of Balochistan BALOCHISTAN is the heart of Pakistan with its beauty and attractions. It is the artery and blood vessels of Pakistan. The beauty of Balochistan beyond the secret of attractions, love, emotions, feeling and cause to remember the heaven of hive and Adam by its colorful lands, green grass, collyrium fountains, sparkling blue seas, decorative mountains and the glossary picnic points are the hidden heaven of Balochistan. Additionally, anywhere else a terrain like Balochistan would have been a crowd-puller for the visitors. The beauty of Balochistan teaches them art of love, remembrance, put them in thoughts to recall the past adventures with their beloved and bosoms. The attraction of greenery opens the blind eyes into bright; the sound of fountains water brings a huge sound deaf to listen to the beautiful sound of the universe. In the same way, the blue color of mountains reduces the depressions and obsession of ones to enjoy life. However, these are not the only aspects of its beautify rather it is blessed with natural resources like copper, gold, marble, gas, and many more. Because of these expensive raw materials every country is looking at Balochistan like a stray dog. HAMEEd KARIM Turbat
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
10 FOREIGN NEWS
inDia announces $40 billion spenDing on farms, Tax cuTs To revive falTering growTH NEW DELHI
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AGENCIES
NDIA’S government announced a multi-billion dollar package of farm and infrastructure support in its budget for 2020/21 as it blew past its fiscal deficit target for the year, but the stimulus fell short of market expectations and battered stocks. India is grappling with its worst economic slowdown in a decade, with falling employment, consumption and investment ratcheting up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revive growth. The government estimates economic growth this year, which ends on March 31, will slip to 5pc, the weakest pace since the global financial crisis of 2008-09. It has also warned that an expected bounce back in growth the following year might entail a blow out in fiscal deficit targets. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman,
presenting the 2020/21 budget for the financial year beginning April 1 to parliament on Saturday, said 2.83 trillion Indian rupees ($39.82 billion) will be allocated for agriculture and allied activities including helping farmers set up solar power generation units as well as establish a national cold storage to transport perishables. “Farm markets need to be liberalized, farming needs to be made more competitive,” she said. She also said the government will spend $50.65 billion on a federal water scheme to address the challenges facing one of the world’s most water stressed nations. Agriculture accounts for 15pc of India’s gross domestic and a source of livelihood for more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion population. But higher government spending has put pressure on public finances, prompting caution from rating agencies. Sitharaman said the fiscal deficit for the current year would widen to 3.8pc of gross do-
mestic product, up from 3.3% targeted for the current year. For fiscal 2020/21 Sitharaman set the fiscal deficit at 3.5pc as it boosts state funding to shore up a sagging economy that has intensified pressure on Modi, who is already facing a public backlash over a new citizenship law seen as socially divisive.` Gene Fang, Associate Managing Director, Sovereign Risk, Moody’s Investors Service said: “India’s 2020/21 budget highlights the challenges to fiscal consolidation from slower real and nominal growth, which may continue for longer than the government forecasts.” India’s government debt is already significantly higher than the average for Baa-rated sovereigns – a product of persistent fiscal deficits, it said. “While India’s new budget calls for a modest narrowing of the deficit to 3.5pc in the fiscal year 2020/21 from 3.8% in the fiscal year 2019/20, sustained weaker
growth and tax cuts would make gross revenue targets difficult to achieve.” SHARES FALL: Indian shares slid to an over three-month low on Saturday, with sentiment dented by the lack of sufficient stimulus in the budget to lift the economy, analysts said. The NSE Nifty 50 index dropped as much as 2.1pc to 11,717.45, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex slumped 1.95pc. “Markets had very high expectations from the budget, including that long term capital gains would be removed which would have incentivized people to hold on to shares for a longer time,” said Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities “These expectations have not been met.” Consumption, the bedrock of India’s $2.9 trillion economy, has fallen so much that the IMF cited it as one reason for trim-
Apple takes smartphone sales crown from Samsung NEW YORK AGENCIES
Apple was the top smartphone seller in the final quarter of last year, seizing the crown from Samsung, according to market trackers. Apple shipped an estimated 73.8 million iPhones during the fourth quarter, driven by the popularity of its newest models in the US and Europe and lower-priced handsets in other parts of the world, International Data Corporation reported this week. Apple, which has been below Samsung for some time, “is recovering, due to cheaper iPhone 11 pricing and health-
ier demand in Asia and North America,” said Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics, whose separate survey also showed Apple on top in the past quarter. South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung delivered some 69.4 million handsets as it slipped to the number two position, according to IDC. Chinese smartphone powerhouse Huawei remained a strong player in its home market, but saw sales of premium models take a hit in Western Europe in the wake of US sanctions, according to IDC analyst Melissa Chau. “Things will continue to look challenging for Huawei given that the trade war is still not yet resolved, while new
uncertainty raised around the Wuhan coronavirus could potentially have adverse effects on not just Huawei, but all players reliant on the China smartphone supply chain,” Chau said. Huawei shipped 56.2 million smartphones during the quarter, a decline of about seven percent from the same period a year earlier, IDC reported. IHS Markit senior analyst Anna Ahrens said Huawei faces headwinds because of US sanctions which have prevented it from getting key components and software. “In markets like Western Europe, the lack of Google services will make Huawei phones a hard sell for consumers, especially considering that the
company’s Mate series is positioned squarely in the premium price segment,” Ahrens said. Samsung remained the top smartphone seller overall last year, and the broader market is expected to get a boost as 5G telecom networks get established and new smartphones synched to them are launched. For the full year, overall smartphone sales were down around one percent despite an improving trend in the fourth quarter, according to IDC and Strategy Analytics surveys. IDC reported shipments of 368 million handsets in 2019 compared with 373 million a year earlier, marking a third consecutive yearly decline.
Britain embarks on its future outside EU LONDON AGENCIES
Britain began an uncertain future outside the European Union on Saturday after the country greeted the historic end to almost half a century of EU membership with a mixture of joy and sadness. There were celebrations and tears on Friday as the EU’s often reluctant member became the first to leave an organisation set up to forge unity among nations after the horrors of World War II. Little has changed as of Saturday as the UK is now in an 11-month transition period negotiated as part of the divorce. Britons will be able to work in the EU and trade freely — and vice versa — until December 31, although the UK will no longer be represented in the bloc’s institutions. But legally, Britain is out. Thousands of people waving Union Jack flags packed London’s Parliament Square and sang the national anthem to mark that reality as Brexit became law at 11 pm (2300 GMT) — midnight in Brussels. Prime Minister Boris Johnson — a figurehead in the seismic 2016 referendum vote to leave — held a private party in his Downing Street office with a clock projected on the walls outside counting down the minutes to departure. In an address to the nation, he hailed a “new era of friendly cooperation” acknowledging there could be “bumps in the road ahead” but predicting the country could make it a “stunning success”. “The most important thing to say tonight is that this is not an end but a beginning,” he said. At a “Big Brexit Bash” in the market town of Morley, northern England, Raymond Stott said he was “glad it’s all over” after years of political gridlock and acrimony. “We will look after ourselves. We don’t need Europe,” said the 66-year-old. DEEP DIVISIONS: However, Brexit has exposed deep divisions in British society and many fear the consequences of ending 47 years of ties with their nearest neighbours. Some pro-Europeans, including many of the 3.6 million EU citizens who have made their lives in Britain, marked the occasion with candlelit gatherings. There was a sombre atmosphere among passengers on one of the last ferries to leave the European mainland pre-Brexit and make the 42-kilometre (26mile) journey across the English Channel. “It’s very depressing what’s happening today,”
said Alessio Bortone, an Italian who has lived in Britain for 10 years. Some Britons in southern Spain celebrated in bars but for many pro-Europeans Friday marked a day they hoped would never come. Brexit has also provoked soul-searching in the EU about its future after losing a country of 66 million people with global diplomatic clout and the financial centre of the City of London. French President Emmanuel Macron described it as a “historic warning sign” that should force the EU and its remaining nations of more than 440 million people to stop and reflect. Britain’s diplomatic mission in Brussels sent an employee out early on Saturday to change the building’s nameplate to read “UK Mission to the European Union”, signalling its new non-member status. Meanwhile, Joao Vale de Almeida, the newly named EU ambassador to Britain, said on Twitter he looked forward to “laying the foundations for a solid EU/UK relationship”. TRADE TALKS LOOM: While the divorce terms have been agreed, Britain must still strike an agreement on future relations with the EU, its largest trading partner. Both will set out their negotiating positions on Monday. But Johnson, a polarising figure accused of glossing over the complexity of leaving the EU, has given himself just 11 months to negotiate the new partnership — not enough time, according to his critics. London is now free to strike trade deals around the world, including with the United States, where US President Donald Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit. One of his top envoys on Friday hailed an “exciting new era”. At a special Brexit day ministers’ meet-
ing in Sunderland in northeast England, Johnson discussed an aim to get 80 percent of Britain’s commerce covered by free trade agreements within three years, a spokesman said. Julian Braithwaite, UK Permanent Representative to the WTO in Geneva, said on Saturday he had formally notified all members of Britain’s EU departure. “The UK will now represent itself in the WTO, supporting the global trading system which we were instrumental in founding, and advancing our economic interests,” he tweeted. GOODBYE AND GOODLUCK: Getting to this point has been a traumatic process. Britain resisted many EU projects over the years, refusing to join the single currency or the Schengen open travel area, and eurosceptics have long complained about Brussels bureaucracy. Worries about mass immigration added further fuel to the Brexit campaign while for some, the 2016 vote was a chance to punish the government for years of cuts to public spending. But the result was still a huge shock. It unleashed a period of toxic social and political division that paralysed parliament and forced the resignations of prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. Johnson’s decisive election victory in December changed the dynamics, giving him the parliamentary majority needed to ratify his Brexit deal. Yet Britons appear as divided as they were nearly four years ago, when 52 percent voted to leave and 48 percent voted to remain in the EU. “Rise and shine… It’s a glorious new Britain,” said the Brexit-supporting Daily Express. The i newspaper, in contrast, headlined: “What next?” In Scotland, where a majority voted to remain in 2016, Brexit has revived calls for independence. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “Scotland will return to the heart of Europe as an independent country — #LeaveALightOnForScotland.” In Northern Ireland — soon to be a new EU frontier — there are fears Brexit could destabilise a hardwon peace after decades of conflict over British rule. “They’re going to have problems probably, sorting everything out with the border up the Irish Sea,” said Thomas Glover, 77, alluding to possible trade frictions between mainland Britain and the divided island. “I hope we can make the new realities work,” Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney tweeted, adding: “Goodbye & good luck.”
CMYK
ming its global growth forecast last month. Sitharaman announced the introduction of a new personal tax system under which she offered cuts for those ready to give up a myriad of existing tax breaks. “People have reposed faith in our economic policy,” said Sitharaman to the thumping of desks in parliament. “This is a budget to boost their income and enhance their purchasing power.” The government also announced higher duties on a host of imports from walnuts to automobiles and even smartphone components. Sitharaman increased taxes on imports of pre-assembled printed circuit boards to 20% from the previous 10%, and imposed new taxes on mobile phones ringers, display panels in a bid to boost local manufacturing of smartphones, like neighboring China.
oil majors request more mozambique troops after islamist attacks: sources JOHANNESBURG AGENCIES
Exxon Mobil Corp and Total have asked Mozambique to send more troops to guard their operations in the far north after a surge of attacks by Islamist militants, an industry source and two security consultants said. Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado is home to one of the world’s biggest gas finds in the past decade, and both oil majors are working on massive LNG projects that could transform the economy. The area is also the center of an Islamist insurgency that has killed hundreds since 2017. Fighters have destroyed villages, clashed with soldiers and often beheaded captives. The three sources said that the companies were negotiating with the government to try to increase the number of soldiers protecting their operations. One of the security consultants said there were around 500 troops in the region and the companies wanted another 300. An industry source with knowledge of the situation and another security consultant said more security had been requested, but did not provide numbers. Exxon said it did not comment on discussions with the government, and referred Reuters to Mozambique’s Ministry of National Defence. Mozambique’s government communications department did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment outside usual business hours, while calls to the department and ministry of defense went unanswered Total declined to comment on whether it had requested an increase in troops, but said the safety of its employees was paramount. “We continue to monitor conditions closely and work with the relevant authorities and other stakeholders to provide a safe and secure working environment for our workforce and local communities,” it said it a statement. The militants called themselves Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama when they started launching attacks in 2017. More recently, Islamic State has claimed responsibility via its media outlets, though there has been no independent confirmation of a link. The fighters – who tout their brand of Islam as an antidote to what they describe as a corrupt ruling elite – have been stepping up operations in Cabo Delgado, analysts say. There are concerns they might also be moving south after an assault in the district of Quissanga last week. One of the security consultants said the oil and gas companies were no longer satisfied with the security provided, and were requesting more support in response to a changing threat.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
bUSineSS 11
GB Govt Gives in to ‘timBeR maFia’, allows Five-month tRade
CORPORATE CORNER
ISLAMABAD
KARACHI: Eighteen showcased its premium product line at the Zameen Property Expo this year. The company’s appearance was its third successful one after two successive appearances in 2018 and 2019. PRESS RElEASE
LAHORE: Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre recently organised a fair for kids. P R E S S R E l E A S E
FBR revenue increases 17pc in Jan; returns surge 40pc in 2019 ISLAMABAD
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GHUlAM ABBAS
ESPITE a countrywide ban on the cutting of trees to stop deforestation, it seems that the country's timber mafia has again succeeded in legalising the supply of timber from Gilgit Baltistan for next five months. In line with the practices of the past, the timber mafia, in the name of lifting leftover timber, has again succeeded in making it legal to supply billions of rupees worth timber from Gilgit Baltistan to rest of the country, which according to GB government “is the last chance given for the traders”. Although the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had initially taken strict action against the trade of illegally–cut timber across the country, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and GB, to stop further deforestation, the GB government has blown up the restriction on timber trade by allowing the movement of timber, both legally and illegally, for five months. Interestingly, the fresh permission given on January 31, 2020, will be the "Last Ever to be Given" timber disposal policy for private forests of Diamer district in GB, a notification of the regional
government, a copy of which is available, said. According to sources, similar permissions had also been issued in the past on the pretext that "only leftover timber is allowed to be traded while new chopping of trees is restricted". But the mafia usually cuts green trees throughout the year and waits for similar permissions from the government for disposal of billions of rupees worth stored timber, they alleged. “Influential timber mafia sitting in the government and opposition parties always gets relief and concession, which results in rapid deforestation in the country,” deplored All Pakistan Timber Traders Association (APTTA) Chairman Muhammad Sharjeel Goplani while talking to this scribe. As per the notification of GB, the Forest, Wildlife & Environment Department has promulgated "The Timber Disposal Policy (TDP) 2020" for Diamer district with effect from February 1, 2020. Under the TDP, which will expire on June 30, the legal timber shall be allowed for transportation from Diamer district to other parts of the country subject to verification on case-tocase basis within the stipulated five months period. After that, leftover timber will be confiscated and auctioned by the GB government
Italian investors invited to explore Pakistani market
STAFF REPORT
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has released tax revenue collection figures for the month of January 2020 as well as the number of returns filed in the Tax Year 2019. According to official data, the provisional collection figures for January 2020 were recorded at Rs320 billion, which was 17pc higher than January 2019. "The figure is likely to increase due to book adjustments and late reporting by offline branches of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP)," the FBR said in a statement issued on Saturday. "It is wrong to assume that the tax collection is only growing at the speed of nominal GDP growth. In fact, the current tax base is dependent on the growth of large-scale manufacturing, imports and non-food/nonmedicine/non-shelter/high-end consumption inflation as well as on wage rate increases and a nominal increase in corporate profits. "All these indicators are going through macroeconomic adjustment phase and hence tax growth of 17pc represents a huge turnaround by FBR in this fiscal year." The last five years data shows that FBR collects almost 50 to 55pc of its taxes at the import stage. Import compression has brought growth this component to almost zero. "All the growth in taxes is now supported by almost 30pc growth in domestic taxes which is an unprecedented growth number in the history of FBR," the statement read. The FBR said that its officers and top hierarchy were almost working for 12 hours a day with extremely meagre resources to maintain the healthy growth in tax rate. 'A PHENOMENAL INCREASE': According to FBR, the number of returns filed in 2019 has grown phenomenally by 40pc as compared to 2018. The number of returns in 2018 (as on 31st Jan 2019) was 16,45,828, which increased to 23,42,642 on 31st Jan 2020. "FBR is conscious of the fact that taxes are a by-product of economic activity and it does not want to hurt sentiment by the evangelical pursuit of taxes. The effort this year has been done in collaboration and with the active association of business community and it is hoped that this cooperation will go on in coming months. "FBR has also been very active in removing irritants related to exporters refunds and has issued an unprecedented amount of refunds this year. The total of refunds issued this year is around Rs120 billion as opposed to Rs65 billion last year.”
LAHORE STAFF REPORT
The international community is acknowledging Pakistan as a great country with a bright future, and the grim picture being portrayed by some elements has nothing to do with the on-ground reality. This was stated by Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Senior Vice President Ali Hussam Asghar while talking to an Italian delegation, comprising Italy's Centre for International Studies Director Gabriele Lacovino and Senior Analyst Fancesca Manenti, on Saturday. Ali Hussam Asghar said Pakistan was a peace-loving nation with immense economic potential. "The country is ready to accommodate multinational companies and international investors, besides ensuring unmatched business facilitation to them," he added. The delegation was informed that Pakistan had recently jumped up 28 places on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Index to reach 108th place, and has also secured a place among the top 10 countries with the most improved business climate. "It is an ample proof that Pakistan is on the right track. The LCCI aims to bring
EODB rating of Pakistan in top 50 countries in next few years," the SVP vowed. He noted that within the European Union, Italy had always been very supportive to Pakistan, particularly in trade-related matters. "Italy is Pakistan's third-biggest market in Europe and bilateral trade is likely to touch new heights in the near future. Therefore, Pakistan attaches the highest importance to its relations with Italy in various fields," he remarked. The top LCCI official invited the Italian delegation to invest in agro-based industries, construction, mining, textiles, IT & telecom and tourism sectors. "It is high time the Italians make investments in Pakistan, as the country is fast becoming the hub of economic activity in the region," he said, asserting that there was a vast scope of investment in the dairy sector of Pakistan which Italy could capitalise as it possessed all the expertise in this regard. Ali Hussam said that all the projects under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) not only promise a healthy economic growth rate but also ensure a bright future of the country. "The Italian business community can take advantage of these developments," he concluded.
through the department. The illegal timber shall be allowed for transportation from Diamer district to other parts of country only after imposing fine of Rs660, Rs440 and Rs330 per CFT on trade of Deodar, Kail and Fir/Spruce respectively. The policy will be suspended at any stage for concerned forest ranges if gross violation of cutting of green trees takes place or reported in any forest range of Diamer District. All the forest lessees/contractors/owners/beneficiaries etc. involved in the timber business and the political representatives of Diamer district shall present and submit affidavit/ judicial bond for not claiming any future amnesty or extension of this policy after expiry of TDP 2020. All timber owners shall also be bound to submit bonds to the DFO concerned that there is no litigation on transportation of timber. The timber owners will lose their right on the timber if they fail to transport during the stipulated time period of TDP 2020. According to a resident of Diamer, the cutting of pine nut trees was causing a loss of around Rs15 billion loss to the national exchequer. The timber mafia was paying Rs40 per foot to the local people and selling them at Rs6,000 per foot in the market.
Govt bans tobacco advertisement on print, electronic media ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, while issuing new guidelines on Saturday, disallowed tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship on all forums of print and electronic media in the country. According to a notification issued by the ministry, no tobacco or tobacco product advertisement, promotion and sponsorship will be allowed in print media, including newspaper, magazine, book, periodicals, or any printed publications, except as provided by the Federal Excise Rules 2005. Similarly, tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship will not be allowed in cinema or theatre, including mobile or minicinema theatre, on television or radio including cable television or closed circuit television, through depiction of human or animal image or silhouette, through a poster or painting or banner made out of paper, plastic, cloth or screen display or electronic display any other material or by any other mean, at point of sale either inside or outside or any other place. The government also stopped tobacco advertisement and promotion through branding on clothes or garments including caps and useable items, through hard or soft on store board or fascia affixed or mobile at point of sale either inside or outside or any other place. Tobacco advertisement and promotion will also be banned on out of home billboard, where fixed or mobile at point of sale either inside or outside or any other place. The government banned tobacco promotion through a poster or painting or by any other mean, at point of sale either inside or outside or any other place. There will be no permission of tobacco promotion by display and visibility of tobacco products at, either inside or outside of a point of sale, including, mobile or fixed retail outlet and street vendor or any other place. This ban will also be on direct targeting of individuals, through promotional or informational material, including direct mail or research or third-party marketing. There will be no permission of tobacco promotion through payment or other contributions to retailers through free goods, gifts, giveaways, souvenirs, discounts, cash rebates, swapping or by any other means to encourage or induce them to sell products including retailer incentive programmes. APP
US consumer, factory data suggest economy losing momentum WASHINGTON AGENCIES
US consumer spending rose steadily in December, but tepid income gains pointed to moderate consumption growth this year, which together with slumping business investment likely set the economy on a slower growth path this year. While the report on Friday from the Commerce Department also showed inflation picking up last month because of higher prices for energy products, price pressures remained muted. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and could keep monetary pol-
icy on hold at least through 2020. Economic growth is already expected to slow considerably in the first quarter, in part because of Boeing’s suspension this month of production of its troubled 737 MAX jetliner, which was grounded last March following two fatal crashes. “The consumer says don’t count on me in 2020, and their support will be critical for growth this year,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, increased 0.3pc last month as households spent more on prescription medication and healthcare serv-
ices. That followed an unrevised 0.4pc rise in November. December’s increase in consumer spending was in line with economists’ expectations. When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending nudged up 0.1pc in December after rising 0.3pc in the prior month. That likely puts consumer spending on a slower growth trajectory heading into the first quarter. For all of 2019, consumer spending increased 4.0pc, the smallest gain in three years, after advancing 5.2pc in 2018. The data was included in the gross domestic product report for the fourth quarter, which was published on Thursday. The government reported that
growth in consumer spending slowed to a 1.8pc annualized rate last quarter after expanding at a brisk 3.2pc pace in the July-September period. The economy grew at a 2.1pc rate in the final three months of 2019, matching the third quarter’s pace. Despite the anticipated slowdown in growth this year, a recession is not expected as the economy draws support from the Fed’s three rate cuts last year. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday that he expected “moderate economic growth to continue” but also acknowledged some risks, including the recent coronavirus outbreak in China.
Business investment contracted in the fourth quarter for the third straight quarter, the longest such stretch since 2009. It has been hurt by the Trump administration’s 18-month trade war with China, which has depressed business confidence. Washington and Beijing signed a Phase 1 trade deal this month, but US tariffs remained in effect on $360 billion of Chinese imports, about two-thirds of the total. There are no signs of a turnaround in business investment. A separate report on Friday showed a measure of manufacturing activity in the Midwest dropped to a four-year low in January, with factories reporting declines in new orders and order backlogs.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
12 bUSineSS
PaRCo refinery shuts down for 53-day maintenance ISLAMABAD AHMAD AHMADANI
Pak-Arab Oil Refinery Limited (PARCO) has shut down its refinery for approximately two months due to initiation of the annual repair and maintenance work. As a result of this closure, refining of 100,000 barrels crude oil per day will be halted, said sources privy to the development. Although all refineries in the country are bound to initiate repair and maintenance work after every three years, PARCO has initiated the same after almost seven years. A PARCO official, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the refinery is scheduled for maintenance work and that the Petroleum Division has already given its approval in this regard. "The repair and maintenance will continue for 53 days," he added. As per the sources, as many as eight oil refineries are currently operating in the country: Pakistan Refinery, National Refinery, PARCO, Attock Refinery, Byco-I and II, ENAR Petroleum Refining Facility (ENAR¬I) and ENAR Petroleum Refining Facility (ENARII). Meanwhile, six oil refinery projects are currently at different stages of completion to ramp up crude oil refining capacity in Pakistan. "The government, in a bid to meet the ever-growing energy requirements of the country, is making all-out efforts to upgrade the existing oil refineries and establish new deep conversion facilities to meet the country's fuel requirements," said a source in the Petroleum Division. PARCO, a joint venture between Government of Pakistan and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, was incorporated as a public limited company in 1974. Pakistan holds 60pc of the shareholding while 40pc of the shares are held by Abu Dhabi.
Govt to imPoRt 300,000 tonnes oF suGaR ISLAMABAD
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SHAHZAD PARACHA
HE Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government will import at least 300,000 tonnes of refined sugar in an attempt to keep in check prices of the commodity. Sources informed this scribe that the decision had been taken a few days ago in a meeting of the Sugar Advisory Board (SAB). This was followed by the Ministry of Industries and production asking the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) to ensure that 300,000 tonnes of refined sugar is imported to maintain a strategic reserve of sugar, while giving the market some breathing room at the same time. Presently, the average retail price of sugar, as of 30 January 2019, is Rs79.06 per kg. Sources said that the government has also decided to discontinue the export quota from 1.100 million tons of sugar, and the SAB has di-
rected the commerce ministry to approach ECC for this at the earliest. The import may just be a stop-gap solution, since representatives of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments revealed during the SAB meeting that due to overall decline in sugarcane production in the previous year, production of sugar is expected to be decreased in the current crushing session. This has been corroborated by the fact that the national average retail prices have constantly been on an upwards hike, despite the crushing season currently in motion. In addition to this, sources revealed that the Secretary Industries and Production (I&P) had also discussed rising prices of sugar in a meeting held as far back as October 2019. The secretary then wrote a letter to the provincial chief secretaries making a plea to control hoarding and profiteering in the respective provinces. This was followed by the Government of Pun-
jab fixing the retail price of Sugar at Rs70/kg utilizing powers under the Price Control and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act, 1977 in all its districts. Similarly, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government said that they would also take serious action against profiteering and hoarding. Moreover, during the current price hike, the l&P division wrote again to the provincial chief secretaries, requesting them to control the recent price hike in the country, sources added. Presently, according to the International Sugar Organization, the international white sugar price should be Rs.62.60/ kg. At federal level, TCP, Commerce Division can import sugar for domestic use with no tax and duties that would make imported sugar cheaper than domestically produced sugar and ease the situation so keeping in view, the ministry of industries and production has asked the TCP to import 300,000 tons of refined sugar in order to maintain strategic reserve of sugar.
apple to close all China mainland stores due to virus outbreak
FAISALABAD: Members of All Pakistan Bedsheets and Upholstery Manufactures Association protest against hike in gas and electricity prices. ONlINE
Apple Inc on Saturday said it would shut all of its official stores and corporate offices in mainland China until Feb 9 as fears over the coronavirus outbreak mounted and the death toll more than doubled to over 250 from a week ago. “Out of an abundance of caution and based on the latest advice from leading health experts, we’re closing all our corporate offices, stores, and contact centers in mainland China through February 9,” Apple said in a statement. The company said looked forward to reopening stores “as soon as possible”. Earlier this week, Apple closed three stores in China due to concerns about the spread of the virus. It’s joining a handful of overseas retailers, including Starbucks Corp and McDonald’s Corp to temporarily shut storefronts as a precautionary measure. Many other companies, meanwhile, have called for employees in China to work from home and cease non-essential business travel in the first week of February. Normally, businesses in China would be preparing to return to normal operations following the end of the weeklong Lunar New Year Holiday. Apple remains heavily reliant on China both for smartphone sales as well as for its supply chain and manufacturing. Many factories in Hubei province, including plants run by AB InBev and General Motors Co, have temporarily suspended production due to the virus. AGENCIES
CNIC condition for buyers comes into force ISLAMABAD INP
The Federal Board of Revenue's provision to make it mandatory for ordinary citizens to show Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) in case of over Rs50,000 worth of purchase from a registered sales tax seller has come into effect from today (Saturday, Feb 1). "In case of violation, the person involved in the transaction will be prosecuted. Traders having a turnover up to Rs100 million for the tax year will not be considered withholding agents," read a notification issued by FBR last month to clarify issues pertaining to the same. "In the case of a female buyer, the CNIC of her husband or father
will be considered valid for the purchase. The condition will not apply if the value of purchases is below Rs50,000 in case sales are being made to an ordinary consumer." According to the FBR, the main purpose of the CNIC condition was to document business-to-business transactions and identify fictitious business buyers that disturb the tax value chain. The FBR clarification came through a sales tax circular issued to explain the amendments made in the Sales Tax Act, which made it mandatory for buyers to show CNIC on purchases made from a sales tax registered person. As of Jan 22, 2020, there were 41,484 such sales tax registered persons who were regularly
filing returns. As per the amendment, "If a purchase is made from a sales tax registered person, the CNIC number of the buyer is to be provided in limited situation. Provision of CNIC number does not mean that buyer has to be a registered person under the sales tax law." The FBR further clarified, "If it is subsequently proved that CNIC provided by the purchaser was not correct, the liability of loss or penalty will not arise against the seller in case the sale is made in good faith." In Pakistan, under the present regime and also under the proposed one for retailers, small and medium-sized retailers fall outside the sales tax regime. Therefore,
sales by such persons would not be affected by this provision in any manner. Moreover, no action would be taken against the seller if any error or incorrectness was identified subsequently, provided the transaction has been made in good faith. Certain policy guidelines will be followed in this regard. "No action will be undertaken without the approval of the chief commissioner of the jurisdiction. Furthermore, where the incidence exceeds Rs5 million, the action will require further approval of member operation or director general (export-oriented sector). No action will be taken unless it has been undertaken against the person who has used fake CNIC," the FBR stated.
Chinese regions unveil credit support for virus-hit firms BEIJING/SHANGHAI AGENCIES
Financial regulators in Guangdong province in southern China, Chengdu and Beijing have unveiled detailed measures to support firms hit by the coronavirus outbreak amid worries about a sharper economic slowdown. The banking and insurance regulator in Guangdong, China’s export hub, has pledged to provide support for firms in retail, wholesale, catering, logistics, transportation and tourism sectors that have
been hit by the outbreak. Banks and other financial institutions in Guangdong need to take measures such as delaying loan repayment deadlines and cutting interest rates to help firms, the regulator said in a statement. The regulator also pledged to provide more credit lines and simplify the credit approval process for such firms. In Chengdu, the capital of southwestern province of Sichuan, the local branch of the central bank called on securities firms to ask listed companies to disclose relevant information about the epidemic
in line with laws and regulations, to keep communication lines open with investors and prevent speculation or misinterpretation of policy. It also encouraged investors to rationally and objectively analyze the impact of epidemic and adhere to the concept of long-term value investing. The regulator in Beijing has taken steps to support services firms hurt by the epidemic, telling banks to lower interest rates appropriately and debt-clearing firms to acquire non-performing assets from struggling firms.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has urged banks not to cut off lending to firms facing difficulties and encouraged banks to reduce loan rates for firms hit by the outbreak. China’s economic growth may drop to 5pc or even lower due to the coronavirus outbreak, possibly pushing policymakers to introduce more stimulus measures, a government economist has said. China reported that growth slowed to a near 30-year low of 6pc in the fourth quarter.
Analysts at Nomura believed the virus outbreak could cut China’s firstquarter economic growth by 2 percentage points. “We expect more detailed measures in coming days. RRR cuts, rate cuts, various lending facilities, and open market operations all are possible options,” they said in the report. “We believe the PBOC (central bank) may also roll out some targeted credit easing measures, to help corporates and households that are likely to suffer more from the virus outbreak.”
CMYK
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Sunday, 2 February, 2020
Spoiler: the politician is a douche
I
THe Tube
get it. Militaries all over the world make PR films. One cannot hold this fare up to higher standards of art. It is, literally, propaganda. One cannot expect an American film, produced by, or in coordination with, the US military machine to be some sort of expose into the militaryindustrial complex. It is up to private filmmakers to make movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. The military itself will make films like Top Gun, which is getting a sequel this year after 34 years. So effective was the movie in what marketing types call brand activation that the US Navy placed recruitment booths right in the theatres. young men walked out, high on the movie they had just seen, saw the booths and the smiling recruitment officers, and signed right up. In Pakistan, where recruitment figures, at either the officer level or the soldier level, are in no danger by a stretch, the military’s audio-visual fare is left to projecting the institution’s image. One cannot – and perhaps should not – expect critical commentary on the nature of the military in our praetorian state. Were the traffic police to make a docudrama, one
can’t well expect it to weigh in on challan-corruption (though a slick, well-executed one would.) But it is not unreasonable, by any means, to ask for the military to limit its scope to, well, the military. That is not what happens, in the ISPR’s latest television series, Ehd-eWafa. Whereas the protagonists of the earlier serials Sunehrey Din and its sequel Alpha Bravo Charlie were army officers (cadets in the former, young officers in the latter), only one of the four main characters of Ehd-eWafa goes to the military academy. The rest of his Lawrence College friends go on to become a politician, a journalist and, by the time the next episode comes out, the fourth would have cleared his CSS exam. As expected, the military academy is shown to be an egalitarian gentlemen’s club. They follow the rules to a fault. (Has a fellow cadet has been caught cheating in an exam, a group of cadets ask each other over a game of pool in the luxurious recreation room; he deserves to be thrown out, they concur with coldblooded conviction. The chap is booted out in front of the academy the next day under the approving eyes of the commandant, corporals, staff and cadets. If only military men were as scrupulous about the rules years later when coups are staged and none of the corps commanders and the flurry of two and three-star officers over in ‘Pindi put up even the pretense of an objection.) The other boys: the pièce de
résistance is one Shahzain Malik, a kid from a landed family, who goes on to become a politician. After the usual routine about how no one in the constituency can become the MNA without his grandfather’s support, Malik is elected to the assembly. Let us not ask in which part of central, northern – and, increasingly, southern – Punjab is it possible for an election to be a cakewalk even for an ‘electable.’ Instead, let us focus on a conversation that he has with an Islamabad-based wheeler-and-dealer who is to groom him in the vagaries
of politics. It is such a caricature of how politics is seen that one halfexpects the mentor to sprout out a tail, a pair of wings and grow horns. The journalist seems to be a principled young man, in line with the drama producer’s larger attempts to reach out to the press. He makes content for social media and is eventually recruited by the mainstream media. After an acerbic interview of the newly elected politician Shahzain Malik (small world), he is thrown out of the channel at Malik’s behest (don’t let him know it was me, he tells the
slimy news director) and is then reinducted at his behest (this time, tell him it was me.) The fourth friend, the online teaser ad suggests, is going to clear his CSS, but is informed by the politician that the panellists were ‘his people,’ who got him in. He might be lying, just to curry favour, the evil Machiavellian that he has now become. There is no merit anywhere in this narrative universe. Media? you might be able to get in, if you’re lucky, but you can be thrown out upon the insistence of politicians. Civil Service? The FPSC is compromised by the pesky politicians. Politics itself? As mentioned earlier – despite what years-upon-years of election data reveal – it is just the matter of getting ‘feudal’ backing. There is merit only in one institution. And that is the military. Our stellar record in matters military, especially in the current, ongoing one against terror, are fruits of that merit. We’re 19 episodes in the series. If this is going to be a 24-episode affair, the politician isn’t going to get what screenwriters call a ‘redemptive arc.’ This is it. The ISPR is paid for by the taxpayer money, though one halfexpects some spindoctor somewhere to say it isn’t. It is in incredibly bad taste for it to produce such antipolitician fare, especially given the history of military interventions into politics. g
In Jenny Offill’s ‘Weather,’ Paranoia Is Delivered With Humor
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The New York Times By Dwight garner
y wife refuses to use Lyft or Uber in Manhattan because she thinks they’re evil. She thinks I’m a moral cretin for liking both so much. We don’t agree to disagree. We fight it out every time we step outside. In Jenny Offill’s melancholy and satirical third novel, “Weather,” there’s a small subplot about the narrator’s friendship with a car service driver in New york City. His name is Mr. Jimmy, as if he were Mick Jagger’s friend in “you Can’t Always Get What you Want.” The narrator, Lizzie, can’t afford car services, not really. She’s a librarian who pays for garlic with pennies at the bodega. She and her husband worry about losing their dental insurance. Lizzie scans their apartment for her “least depressing underwear.” They’re not selling plasma, but things are tight. Lizzie grinds her teeth in her sleep. In “Weather,” Offill is interested in the things we can save and the things we cannot. Lizzie calls Mr. Jimmy for rides to work because he’s threatened by the Lyfts and Ubers of the world; she thinks she can help him and his disabled son. Her other relief missions have more wobble in them. She’s trying desperately to save her brother, Henry, a former drug addict and a troubled soul. Lizzie experienced the last presidential election as a personal disaster. She reads the dread news about climate change. (“No more apples soon; apples need frost.”) She wonders if she can save her husband and young son by becoming a doomsday prepper, or at least a doomsday prepper manqué. She’s begun to hoard weird tips she finds online, like how to start a fire with a gum wrapper and a battery. Her husband, Ben, is a gentle classics scholar who now makes educational video games. He ingests too much news, too, like a goose dementedly stuffing its own liver. He
but in often square wonders if it’s blocks of text, time to buy a gun. each set off by Lizzie wears white space, as if her paranoia they were stanzas. lightly; she has a They’re the work sense of humor of a curator who about herself. “My likes a spare hang. book-ordering Each paragraph is history is a little lonely, like definitely going to a figure in an get me flagged by Edward Hopper some evil painting. government These parcels algorithm,” she of feeling and thinks. intellect drop out She dropped one at a time, like out of grad school packs from a because her cigarette machine. brother needed All the others her. She has a descend down a sense of humor slot, awaiting their about that, too. turn. The effect of While describing a this style is to put public intellectual a pause after every named Sylvia, she paragraph, to hold comments: “years it up for a little ago, I was her extra light and a grad student, but little extra then I gave up on examination, to it. She used to allow it to linger check in on me in the mind. sometimes to see There’s a bit if I was still of the brilliant squandering my Lydia Davis in promise.” Her life Offill. Davis is the has been, if not writer who said absolutely that she was “not disappointing, Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times interested, at this then at least a point, in creating series of “tiny lost narrative scenes virginities,” to between characters.” borrow words from the poet A.E. Stallings. There’s a bit of David Markson in Offill, As with Offill’s last novel, “Dept. of too. He’s the writer whose books were mostly Speculation,” “Weather” is written not so made up of unusual facts and anecdotes, much in consecutive paragraphs of narration
which he used to build surprisingly strong novelistic bird’s nests. Offill deploys a lot of sometimes ironic, sometimes plaintive factoids about subjects like the animal world, prepping and Eastern religion. Offill’s writing is often brisk and comic, and her book’s format underlines her gifts. Here’s a fairly typical paragraph: “I spend some time pulling books for the doomed adjunct. He has been working on his dissertation for 11 years. I give him reams of copy paper. Binder clips and pens. He is writing about a philosopher I have never heard of. He is minor, but instrumental, he told me. Minor but instrumental!” There’s a drawback to this format, too. Not every paragraph in a standard novel needs to shine. If you are Theodore Dreiser, no paragraph needs to shine at all. But when each paragraph in a short novel is cocooned in consecrating white space, as they are in “Weather,” the weaker ones can read like off notes rather than merely the veins or arteries that carry a story along. Here’s another fairly typical paragraph: “Funny how when you’re married all you want is to be anonymous to each other again, but when you’re anonymous all you want is to be married and reading together in bed.” This is true; so true that it’s a truism. In a different novel, you’d slide right past it. But in “Weather,” it’s written on a card thumbtacked to a wall. Offill has genuine gifts as a comic novelist. “Weather” is her most soulful book, as well. Lizzie’s relationship with her brother delivers heartbreak after heartbreak. She’s pretty funny about him, too. “‘Where did all these hipsters come from?’ says my brother in his fleece-lined trucker’s jacket.” Offill’s humor is saving humor; it’s as if she’s splashing vinegar to deglaze a pan. g Follow Dwight Garner on Twitter: @DwightGarner.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
14 SPORTS
Kenin grabs slam win, calls superstitious mother Melbourne
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OFIA Kenin had to call her superstitious mother to break the news she’d won the Australian Open on Saturday because she refuses to watch on TV, fearing it will bring bad luck. The 21-year-old’s father is her coach but the rest of the family was back in the United States as Kenin announced herself to the sporting world with her first Grand Slam title. The 14th seed showed all her trademark battling qualities to stun two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in Melbourne. “I called her right after the match just to tell her that everything’s fine, I won, she can just relax now,” a beaming Kenin told reporters, glass of champagne in hand, referring to mother Lena. “She’s been really stressed at home, very superstitious. “I told her I’m not going to be able
to talk to you for hours, but at least you know that I won. “I’m coming home, you can give me the biggest hug of your life.” At least Lena did not suffer alone and was accompanied by Kenin’s grandmother, sister and the family dogs
back in Florida. “They don’t watch, my mom cannot watch me,” said Moscow-born Kenin, a proud American who will now usurp Serena Williams as the topranked player from the United States. “She doesn’t like watching, it’s
fine.” Kenin, who dumped top seed and home hope Ashleigh Barty out in the semi-finals, said repeatedly that her mental strength was key to the biggest title of her tennis life. She also put her hand over her mouth on several occasions, almost disbelieving at what she had achieved, and later said she was “on cloud nine”. Kenin pinpointed the fifth game of the deciding set, when she was down 040 on her serve before reeling off five clean winners in a row to go up 3-2, as the moment the match swung in her favour. “I can remember that game very well, that’s the game I feel changed things,” said Kenin, who was born in Moscow but moved with her family to the United States as a baby in search of a better life. “I knew I needed to come up with the best shot, five best shots of my life.” “It got me to win a Grand Slam,” she added, smiling broadly once more. “I had to play some of my best tennis. I did. After that, I was on fire. “I was ready to take the beautiful trophy.”
Ighalo makes shock move to Man Utd in climax to quiet January window Manchester Agencies
Manchester United’s late swoop for Nigerian international striker Odion Ighalo was the most striking move of a quiet transfer deadline day for Premier League clubs on Friday. United looked set to miss out on cover for the injured Marcus Rashford when interest in Josh King was rebuffed by Bournemouth, but Ighalo, 30, will join on loan for the rest of the season from Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua. The Red Devils were also responsible for the biggest move of the window with the signing of Portuguese international midfielder Bruno Fernandes for an initial 55 million euros (£47 million, $61 million) that could rise to 80 million euros in add-ons. However, deals were difficult to do for even some of the world’s richest clubs as Chelsea and Tottenham were frustrated in their search for a striker. Total spending for the month by English clubs was marginally up from last season’s £180 million ($234 million), but well short of the record £430-million outlay in 2018. The mid-season window is increasingly seen as an undesirable time to do business for clubs wary of overpaying in a seller’s market. “We would need a striker to have a better squad to face the great challenges in front of us in three different competitions,” said Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho, who must cope without England captain
Harry Kane for most of the remainder of the season. “But we want to do things not to resolve the problems of today or tomorrow but things that are also good for the future.” Spurs did make one significant signing in Dutch
international winger Steven Bergwijn for £27 million from PSV Eindhoven as well as making Giovani Lo Celso’s loan deal from Real Betis into a permanent move to replace Christian Eriksen, who finally departed for Inter Milan.
Jimenez Kasintseva, 14, claims grand slam first for tiny andorra Melbourne: Fourteen-year-old Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva became the first Andorran to capture a title at a Grand Slam when she won the Australian Open girls’ tournament on Saturday. Jimenez Kasintseva, who was the youngest player in the draw and was making her Grand Slam debut, beat 17-year-old Pole Weronika Baszak 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in 2hrs 4mins. “It was a very tough tournament, I actually didn’t think that I would win,” said Jimenez Kasintseva, who divides her time between the tiny European state — sandwiched between Spain and France — and Barcelona, where her father has a tennis academy. “I guess I fought a lot for it. I was about to lose in some matches, and I just kept fighting. I guess that’s how I won.” Agencies
thiem looks for chinks in ‘king’ Djokovic’s armour Melbourne: “King” Novak Djokovic has won all seven Australian Open finals he has contested, he is on a 12-match winning streak and will become world number one if successful in the Melbourne Park decider on Sunday. Against those overwhelming odds, few are giving Dominic Thiem much of a chance to wrench the title from his iron grip and clinch a maiden Grand Slam. But the Austrian, remarkably, is the one with the recent edge. Djokovic is 6-4 in their career head-to-heads, but Thiem has won four of the last five. Three of those were on his favoured clay, but he also came from a set down to beat the Serb on hardcourts at the ATP Finals in November. Djokovic is the first to admit that the slick 26-year-old has successfully refined his game over the past 12 months to compete on all surfaces. And he acknowledges it is just a matter of time before Thiem wins a Slam. “I don’t think he’s really anymore ‘next generation’. He’s been around for many years. Now already he’s an established top-five, top-10 player,” said Djokovic. “It’s just a matter of one match here and there that can potentially give him a Grand Slam title, that he can actually get in the mix of top three in the world,” he added. Despite the platitudes, Djokovic, 32, is banking on adding yet another chapter to his storied Melbourne Park career, and heads into the match with an extra day’s rest after dispatching an injured Roger Federer in his semi-final on Thursday. Agencies
Russia, heat cloud Tokyo 2020 Olympics with six months to go tokyo Agencies
Uncertainty over Russia’s participation for the third consecutive Olympics and concerns over the heat hang heavy over Tokyo 2020 preparations, with only six months until the opening ceremony. The Japanese capital has avoided many of the crises that dogged previous Games — International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach said the city is the best prepared host city he has seen, with facilities complete well ahead of schedule and tickets massively oversubscribed. But elements largely out of organisers’ control have overshadowed the run-up to the 2020 Games, the second time they will have been held in Tokyo after 1964, when a post-war Japan wowed the world with its technological prowess and economic “miracle”. Chief among these is whether Russian athletes will compete after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) imposed a four-year ban from international sporting events over what it views as a statesponsored doping scheme. Moscow has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but sources have told AFP a decision is not expected before May, just weeks before the Games
open on July 24. Bach has urged CAS, the world’s highest sports court, to give a decision that “does not leave room for any kind of interpretation”, warning of “real, total confusion” if the ruling is not watertight. Russia’s up-in-the-air participation follows confusion at the Rio Games, where the IOC allowed individual federations to decide whether to permit athletes to compete. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, the IOC barred the Russian Olympic Committee but allowed clean Russian athletes to take part as neutral competitors. DeCISIon WITHouT AGreeMenT: Even less predictable than Russian participation is the Tokyo weather, which has resulted in the unprecedented moving of the marathon from the host city over safety concerns. In 1964, the Games were held in October to avoid the hot and humid Tokyo summer where the temperatures can exceed 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). But athletes in 2020 will have no such respite, with some doctors warning there could be deadly emergencies, and concerns have been raised for volunteers, spectators and the competitors. Test events last summer gave organisers a taste of what could be to come. A
French triathlete was hospitalised with suspected heatstroke and several spectators were taken ill at a rowing event. Tokyo 2020 has rolled out a series of measures designed to counter the heat, including artificial snow, cooling mist sprays, paper fans and towels to cool the neck. Events have been brought forward earlier to avoid the burning afternoon sun but the most extraordinary change was shifting the marathon and race walk 800 kilometres (500 miles) north to Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. The move, which apparently caught Tokyo officials off guard when it was announced by the IOC, sparked fury in the capital, with city mayor Yuriko Koike describing it as “a decision without an agreement”. Kazunori Asaba — training chief of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations — went further. “It’s like the athletes who had been training for many years to climb Everest were told just nine months before they would go to a different mountain,” he said. We’re noT CoMPlACenT: Tokyo officials are also carrying out drills in case of natural disaster in one of the world’s most active seismic regions, which also gets battered by several typhoons each year. Last year’s Rugby World Cup was af-
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fected by the huge Typhoon Hagibis, which forced the cancellation of three matches. With six months to go, excitement is building and nearly 60,000 fans packed out the new National Stadium for its opening to see three-time 100m sprint gold medallist Usain Bolt trot around the track. Olympic Minister Seiko Hashimoto, who represented Japan at seven Olympic
Games as a speed skater and cyclist, said the country would stop at nothing to pull off a spectacular show. “Last week I was in Lausanne, where President Bach again complimented our preparations. But we’re not complacent. We will do everything possible, I will do my best as a minister, to make the Games a success,” she told reporters.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
SPORTS 15
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AKISTAN have recalled offspinner into their Test squad, in a bid to counter what is expected to be a left-hander heavy Bangladesh line-up, for the first game in Rawalpindi. Seambowling allrounder also returned to the squad after having been ignored for the team’s most recent Test series at home against Sri Lanka. Both Asif and Ashraf weren’t part of the Test squad that toured Australia in 2019, but have now made comebacks in place of left-arm fingerspinner Kashif Bhatti and left-arm quick Usman Shinwari. Asif was the second-highest wicket-taker in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy, with 43 strikes in nine games, in Central Punjab’s run to the title. Meanwhile, Ashraf, his Central Punjab teammate, had taken eight wickets in three games in addition to making 118 runs at an average of 59 and strike rate of 90.07. Six of those wickets came in the final after he had missed six successive matches because of a groin injury. An offspinner, who can turn the ball sharply and generate extra bounce, Asif has played five Tests so far, collecting 16 wickets, including a six-wicket haul on debut against Australia in Dubai . Ashraf last played a Test in January 2019 . “The Test team is in good shape after winning the last Test against Sri Lanka,” coach-cum-selector said. “But now we have a different opponent, we haven’t made a lot of changes and have made only two changes. We went with four fast bowlers in the last Test in Pindi (Rawalpindi) and that’s why we have included an allrounder (Ashraf) if we get the same conditions. “Bilal Asif has been brought in because of left-handers and it gives us a different option if we need it. In the last series against Sri Lanka, if we consider the wicketkeeper as a batsman, we needed a bowler at No. 7 who can bat. Fa-
bilal asif, faheem ashraf bacK in paKistan test squaD
mustafizur rahman DroppeD
heem took five wicketsand gives you cushion to score runs too, but we consider him as a bowler. We will try to play with an experienced team in the Test matches; we have a settled batting line-up but have also have back-ups.” The first Test will take place in Rawalpindi from February 7 to 11, and Bangladesh will then return to the country in April to play a solitary ODI and the second Test, both in Karachi. The Pakistan Super League, also to be played in Pakistan in its entirety, will
be played between the second and third legs of Bangladesh’s tour. The first leg included a three-match T20I series, in January, which Pakistan won 2-0, after the third match was washed out. Both Tests will be part of the ICC Test Championship, where Pakistan are currently placed fourth, with 80 points from four games. Misbah rued the lengthy gap between the two Tests and said that it could disrupt the “rhythm” of the players.
PAKISTAN UNDER-19S 190 FOR 4 (MOHAMMAD HURAIRA 64, NOOR AHMAD 2 FOR 32) BEAT AFGHANISTAN UNDER-19S 189 (ZAKHIL 40, ABDUL RAHMAN 30, MOHAMMAD AMIR KHAN 3 FOR 58) BY SIX WICKETS
Pakistan set up semi-final showdown against India in U-19 benoni Agencies
In what was built up as a tense clash between two neighbouring countries, Pakistan’s allround bowling effort combined with a solid batting performance helped them set up a semi-final clash against defending champions India. Afghanistan, meanwhile, can at best hope to finish fifth if they beat Australia in a play-off fixture, Pakistan’s efforts were led by half-centurion , who ensured they didn’t have any hiccups in their chase of 190. They crossed the line with plenty to spare. Although the win was straightforward, it featured a moment of quick-thinking from Afghanistan’s left-arm spinner , who ran out opener Huraira for 64 in the 28th over for walking out of his crease at the non-strikers’ end. However, that dismissal did not alter the result. The unbeaten fourth-wicket stand between Qasim Ahmed (25) and Mohammad Haris (29) took Pakistan to victory in the 42nd over. “Our batsmen did not take the responsibility today, and that’s where we lost,” Afghanistan captain Farhan Zakhil told ESPNcricinfo after the match. “We want to congratulate Pakistan on the way they controlled the game. They deserved to win today.” “I had self-belief that whenever I get a chance for the team, I’ll try to do my best,” Huraira, the Player of the Match, said. “The coaches told us to not go for the big shots against the spinners. When they bowled bad,
only then did we go for the boundary shots. The pacers were wayward and we waited for the bad ball. When it came, we banged them away.” Afghanistan, opting to bat first, were bowled out for 189. Pakistani right-arm pacer Mohammad Amir Khan led the way, taking 3 for 58. Afghanistan had begun their innings well, putting on 41 runs for their first wicket in quick time, but Ibrahim Zadran’s dismissal to left-arm quick Tahir Hussain opened the gates for a middle-order collapse. The score of 41 for 1 soon became 99 for 4 as Pakistan’s bowlers upped the pressure by their tidy bowling in the middle overs. If it wasn’t for No. 9 Abdul Rahman’s 41-ball 30 towards the end, Afghanistan could have been bowled out for much less. Each of Pakistan’s six bowlers picked up at least one wicket, with Fahad Munir taking 2 for 29 in his seven overs. Pakistan’s chase began smoothly, as their openers struck exquisite drives and hearty pulls off the Afghanistan pacers in the first Powerplay. Haider Ali was the first man dismissed, run out in the 12th over, but by then they had already put on 61. Pakistan captain Rohail Nazir then struck 22 in the company of Huraira to take them past 100, and despite Noor’s efforts of taking two wickets plus the run-out of Huraira, they eventually had too few runs to defend. Huraira was the best batsman on the day. He struck eight fours and a six, peppering most of his boundaries through the covers and even holding his pose for the cameras on a few occasions.
LAHORE: Bangladesh have dropped left-arm quick for the first Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi next week, while , , and have been called back to the squad. While senior batsman Mushfiqur Rahim had opted out of touring Pakistan due to security concerns, Mosaddek Hossain, Imrul Kayes, Shadman Islam and Mehidy Hasan have been ruled out with injuries. Tamim makes a comeback to the Test side after last playing in the format in March 2019 against New Zealand. Shanto last played a Test in September 2018 and Soumya, who missed out on the India series last year, last played in the home Test against Afghanistan in November. Rubel fell out of favour in Test cricket after some poor performances in 2017-18 but he’s been recalled in place of the recovering Taskin Ahmed. “We felt [Najmul Hossain] Shanto has been doing well at every level, especially in the High Performance side while we wanted to give Rubel Hossain another chance in the Test side as Taskin Ahmed isn’t fully fit,” chief selector Minhajul Abedin said. “Soumya has replaced Shadman who requires surgery on his wrist,” While Imrul is still recovering from a hamstring injury, Mosaddek has been out of action since the middle of the India tour due to a shoulder injury. Mushfiqur is also suffering from a hamstring injury and could also be ruled out of the one-off Test against Zimbabwe later this month, while offspinner Mehidy is yet to recover from a finger injury. The Bangladesh team will depart for Rawalpindi on Tuesday. Agencies
“It’s very difficult not only for me but for the players too,” Misbah said. “If the player has scored a century in his last Test and then plays after a gap, it’s too diffi-
cult. When you play back-to-back Test series it gives you rhythm. It’s a very tricky situation for the team when you play with a gap of two-three months.”
New Zealand seek inspiration in Williamson territory Wellington Agencies
New Zealand are in territory in Tauranga, but he could just rest his left shoulder with the series already lost. Two back-to-back losses in the fashion they did have raised questions of their finishing abilities, ‘chokers’ to some if social media is a barometer. They’re currently in the kind of space that they’ll gladly take a win, however it comes. Colin Munro’s return to form makes it one headache less and he walks into a venue where he has two hundreds and a century in five innings at an average of 61.40 and strike rate of 193. But New Zealand’s recent dip in form, including the Australia whitewash, remains a larger worry constantly fighting to remain in public memory. Spirit of Cricket - like their juniors at the Under-19 World Cup - is fine, it’s also time to win. This message may not be explicitly written or told to
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them, but the players will know deep down that in a World Cup year, every opportunity counts and they should make the headlines for wins too. Two weeks ago, India were playing in Bengaluru. Then having traversed several time zones to play in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington in the space of five days, India are in Mount Maunganui. Camping here for three days should give them as much joy as they’ve derived from winning back-to-back Super Over thrillers. India’s uninhibited approach to a T20 innings is a refreshing change. Batsmen aren’t worried about preserving their wickets, the team is open to being flexible, has no problems batting out of position and KL Rahul keeping wickets lends better balance. Manish Pandey, who struggled to break into the first XI earlier, is a beneficiary of this change. Injuries to their frontline fast bowlers in the format - Bhuvneshwar
Kumar and Deepak Chahar - have pushed them to test their reserves, and the replacements have all delivered at some stage. Shardul Thakur, for example, has proven to not just be a swing option but also a death-bowling option. His hitting doesn’t quite make the lower order seem brittle anymore. Navdeep Saini gives them bristling pace, Jasprit Bumrah the consistency. Shivam Dude is also getting into the rhythm of bowling regularly, thereby accruing valuable experience that should help him should he be on the flight to Australia for the T20 World Cup. The result of the bowling rejig has meant one of their wristspinners, mostly Kuldeep Yadav, has had to sit out. The team management may as well give him a go come Sunday. The town is built around a hill and wind patterns aid swing. It could be hard for bowlers running against the breeze, but the surface is largely one with true bounce and good carry.
Sunday, 2 February, 2020
NEWS
Govt asserts won't evacuate Pakistanis stranded in china
china's isolation grows as virus toll reaches 259 BEIJING Agencies
China faced deepening isolation over its coronavirus epidemic on Saturday as the death toll soared to 259, with the United States and Australia leading a growing list of nations to impose extraordinary Chinese travel bans. With Britain, Russia and Sweden among the countries confirming their first infections, the virus has now spread to more than two dozen nations, sending governments scurrying to limit their exposure. The United States toughened its stance Friday by declaring a national emergency, temporarily barring entry to foreigners who had been in China within the past two weeks. “Foreign nationals, other than immediate family of US citizens and permanent residents, who have travelled in China within the last 14 days will be denied entry into the United States,” Health Secretary Alex Azar said. Australia said it was barring entry to noncitizens arriving from China, while Australian citizens who had travelled there would be required to go into “selfisolation” for two weeks. Vietnam suspended all flights from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan effective from Saturday. Similar expansive restrictions have been announced by countries including Italy, Singapore, and China’s northern neighbour Mongolia. The United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and other nations had already advised their citizens not to travel to China. UNKIND: Beijing insists it can contain the virus and called Washington’s advice against travel to China “unkind”. “Certainly it is not a gesture of goodwill,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. The US emergency declaration also requires Americans returning from the ground zero Chinese province of Hubei to be placed in mandatory 14-day quarantine, and health screening for American citizens coming from other parts of China.
PM’S SPECIAL ASSISTANT SAYS PAKISTANI NATIONALS CAN RETURN AFTER 14-DAY QUARANTINE ISLAMABAD
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RIME Minister’s Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Mirza on Saturday defended the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s decision not to bring back Pakistani nationals stranded in China, saying the federal government had complete trust in the policies of the Chinese government. During a press conference, Dr Mirza said that so far, it had been confirmed that 11,947 people were affected with the coronavirus, out of which 259 had died. “It is now being transferred from human to human. It means that a person affected by the virus can also become a source for the transfer of the virus.” “The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the situation an emergency of international concern. Being a responsible nation, Pakistan wants to take steps that ensure the safety of maximum people.” He said that the decision was finalised after a phone call between Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, where the latter assured that taking care of Pakistani citizens was a priority for China’s government. The statement about evacuation came as the United States and a few other countries evacuated their citizens from China and also imposed a travel ban on the country. “Till now, seven or eight countries have carried out evictions or requested China for evacuation,” said Dr Mirza. He added that China does not agree with the evacuations. “We should not forget people from 120 countries are living in Wuhan and 120 countries endorse measures taken by to contain the epidemic,” said Dr Mirza. Dr Mirza reiterated that Pakistan stands by China in its handling of the crisis. “We are the most worried about our own kids. But we have to take the right measures for us and not follow other countries,” Dr Mirza told reporters. The special assistant said that Pakistan has to take measures without compromising the safety and wellbeing of its people living in China.
trump's expanded travel ban targets nigeria, five other countries WASHINGTON Agencies
A man accused of killing two police officers while acting as the leader of an al Qaeda group in the Iraqi city of Fallujah was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, federal officials said on Friday. Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, 42, is wanted in Iraq on charges of premeditated murder of the Iraqi police officers in 2006, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office District of Arizona. An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for Al-Nouri’s arrest and the government there issued an extradition request to the US Justice Department, the statement said. The Justice Department sought an arrest warrant for Al-Nouri and he was taken into custody on Thursday in Phoenix. He appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Phoenix on Friday in connection with proceedings to extradite him to Iraq, the statement said. According to the Iraqi government, al-Nouri was the leader of an al Qaeda group in Fallujah which planned operations targeting Iraqi police.
DR MIRZA SAYS PM IMRAN IS ‘MOST WORRIED PERSON’ REGARDING OUTBREAK OF CORONAVIRUS He also shared that PM Imran was the “most worried” person regarding the disease and was receiving “minute by minute” updates from the government officials. China faced deepening isolation on Saturday over the recent break of the coronavirus epidemic as the death toll soared to 259, with the United States and Australia leading a growing list of nations to impose extraordinary Chinese travel bans. Speaking about the Pakistanis who wanted to return home, the special assistant said that the government will not allow any Pakistani citizen inside the country till they complete a 14-day observation period in China. An agreement in this regard had been finalised in a meeting held with the Chinese ambassador in Pakistan, he said, adding that the policy was same as China’s that says no Chinese citizen will be allowed to travel abroad till the completion of the 14-day observation period. “Those declared free of the virus after the period will be issued with a certificate that assures the airport officials that they are free from the disease,” Mirza said.
“Through this one measure we have ensured Pakistan remains free from the disease. Because our case definition says that travelling and staying in China is an important factor [behind the spread of the disease],” said the SAPM. Dr Mirza stated that if Pakistan was able to control the disease in Pakistanis present in China, then it has secured the country from the disease, according to the information that doctors have at this point. Dr Mirza said that the country will soon receive the health kits which would allow the country to detect the virus. “From tomorrow or today we will start carrying out tests to determine the coronavirus,” said Dr Mirza. PAKISTAN SENDS AID TO CHINA: Meanwhile, Pakistan has sent its first consignment of medical masks and related medical equipment to China to help fight the coronavirus. “Pakistani government has allocated 300,000 medical masks, 800 hazmat suits and 6,800 pairs of gloves from the stocks of public hospitals around the nation and transported the aid to China. The medical supplies from Pakistan arrived in China on Saturday afternoon,” Cui Jun from Beijing told Pakistan Today. He said that since China needed assistance and Pakistan, which is working to expand exports, can increase the productivity of medical protective equipment and allow China to import. “Both iron-brothers would benefit together from this trade,” maintained Cui.
Chinese hospitals discharge 243 recovered patients of coronavirus BEIJING: A total of 243 patients infected with the novel coronavirus had been discharged from hospitals after recovery by the end of Friday, Chinese health authorities announced Saturday. Friday saw 72 people walk out of the hospital after recovery, the National Health Commission (NHC) said in its daily report. Patients can be discharged when the symptoms are alleviated, the body temperature remains at a normal range for at least three days, and the nucleic acid test shows a negative result twice, according to the NHC. As of Friday midnight, a total of 259 people had died and 11,791 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China. Meanwhile, the first batch of charter flights sent by the Chinese government has brought back 199 stranded Hubei residents from overseas following the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province. The two charter flights operated by Xiamen Airlines departed from Thailand’s Bangkok and Malaysia’s Kota Kinabalu and arrived at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at 8:53 p.m. and 10:32 p.m. respectively. Passengers on board were tested if they had a fever. Those with the symptoms of fever will be quarantined immediately. Agencies
Nosheen Javed to head FBR in Zaidi's absence ISLAMABAD stAff RepoRt
In the absence of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Shabbar Zaidi, the federal government has appointed Member Admin Nosheen Javed Amjad, a BS-22 Inland Revenue Service officer, as the acting chair of the FBR. According to a notification, “Nosheen Javed Amjad, a BS-22 officer of Inland Revenue Service (IRS) presently posted as Member Admin FBR is assigned the look after charge of the post of chairman FBR with effect from January 31 during the leave period of Shabbar Zaidi. Pakistan Today earlier reported that Zaidi is going on indefinite leave due to health issues. According to reports, before going on leave, Zaidi met Adviser to the Prime
Minister on Revenue Dr Hafeez Shaikh and senior officials of the finance division and informed them that he was tak-
ing leave for an indefinite period. The FBR has missed revised revenue collection target for the first half
year of the current fiscal by a wide margin of Rs287 billion against the target of Rs2.367 trillion despite several measures and double-digit consumer inflation. The International Monetary Fund technical team will start review of the performance of FBR revenue collection from next week. Hafeez Shaikh had asked the FBR chairman to send home all those officers who were not performing, referring to the low revenue collection and lack of progress on reform measures. However, no officer was transferred. Similarly, Shaikh had asked the FBR chief to share with him a plan on revenue collection and registration of traders, especially big retailers, with the sales tax department. The fake refund scam is another area where the FBR has yet to take action against senior officials involved in it.
Palestinian Authority cuts all ties with Israel and US GAZA Agencies
The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the United States and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by US President Donald Trump, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday. Abbas was in Cairo to address the Arab League, which backed the Palestinians in their opposition to Trump’s plan. The blueprint, endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
calls for the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state that excludes Jewish settlements built in occupied territory and is under near-total Israeli security control. “We’ve informed the Israeli side … that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States including security ties,” Abbas told the one-day emergency meeting, called to discuss Trump’s plan. Israeli officials had no immediate comment on his remarks. Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s security forces have long cooperated in policing areas of the occupied West Bank that are under Palestinian control. The PA
also has intelligence cooperation agreements with the CIA, which continued even after the Palestinians began boycotting the Trump administration’s peace efforts in 2017. Abbas also said he had refused to discuss the plan with Trump by phone, or to receive even a copy of it to study it: “Trump asked that I speak to him by phone but I said ‘no’, and that he wants to send me a letter … but I refused it.” Abbas said he did not want Trump to be able to say that he, Abbas, had been consulted. He reiterated his “complete” rejection of the Trump plan, pre-
sented on Tuesday. ARAB LEAGUE REJECTS TRUMP’S PLAN: Meanwhile, the Arab League rejected Trump’s controversial Middle East plan, saying it did not meet the “minimum rights” of the Palestinians. In a statement released afterwards, the League said it “rejects the US-Israeli ´deal of the century´ considering that it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.” Arab states also vowed “not to … cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan.” They insisted on a two-state solu-
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tion that includes a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 SixDay War — when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza — and with east Jerusalem as its capital. The only Arab ambassadors present at the plan´s unveiling were from Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — three of Washington´s closest allies in a region where many nations host US forces. Other Arab states gave carefully worded initial responses to the plan, which was strongly rejected by Palestinian leaders.