E-Paper PDF 2nd January 2020 (ISB)

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Thursday, 2 January, 2020 I 5 Jamadi-ul-Awwal, 1441 I Rs 19.00 I Vol X No 183 I 16 Pages I Islamabad Edition

Govt set to raise retirement aGe of services chiefs to 64 g

federal cabinet approves amendments to army act, expected to table draft bill in parliament on friday

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amendments authorise president to extend tenure of services chiefs by three years on pm’s advice

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Govt forms committee to hold talks with opp parties to pass army act amendments

opp senators put govt on the mat over amended nab ordinance STORY ON BACK PAGE

Pakistan to fare better in 2020, PM Imran says

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staff report

he federal cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Army Act in light of the directions given by the Supreme Court (SC) last month in a case pertaining to the extension in tenure of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

An emergency meeting of the cabinet was convened under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan to define the service period and process of extension of an army chief.

According to reports, the Army Act’s amendments will also be applicable to the chairman of joint chiefs and the other two services chiefs.

Reportedly, the draft bill recommends raising the retirement age of the services chiefs to 64, while the president may extend their term by three years on the advise of the prime minister.

The government is likely to table the bill in parliament on Friday. It will share the draft with the opposition on Thursday.

A government committee comprising Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Amir Dogar, Ali Muhammad Khan and Azam Swati has also been formed to hold talks with the opposition parties regarding the amendment bill.

A day earlier, President Dr Arif Alvi had convened a session of both the upper and lower house of parliament on a 24-hour notice. The move was unexpected since the Upper house of the legislature had not met for 124 days, apart from a requisitioned session.

On December 27, 2019, the apex court had approved the government’s review petition in the case and allotted a number for the initial hearing. however, it would be heard as per the directives

nepra notifies rs1.56 per unit hike in power tariff STORIES ON PAGES 11 & 03

File photo

of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed.

The review petition filed on December 26, 2019, had sought formation of a larger bench and to nullify the judgement delivered in the case over “legal and constitutional flaws”. The petitioners, including the army chief and the prime minister, had requested the court for a larger bench and sought in-camera hearing of the case as well.

Speaking to the media on the day the petition was filed, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan had said that the government’s legal team had reviewed all aspects of the court’s decision thoroughly and concluded that there were several “legal gaps in the verdict”.

“There are flaws in the verdict, and legal and constitutional faults surfaced in the decision.

With due respect to the judiciary, the government

wants rectification of the faults and has thus decided to file the review petition. The review petition is being filed ultimately in the higher public interest,” she had added. The PM aide had also said that despite the review petition, the option to legislate on the matter through the parliament would remain intact. She had further said that the media would be briefed on the matter extensively by Law Minister Farogh Naseem.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed had said that all political parties were on the same page regarding the extension in the tenure of the army chief. Addressing the media in Karachi, he said, “The army chief’s issue is not problematic. everyone is unanimous on his extension. All parties are on board [with the federal government],” he had added.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 02

UAE crown prince arriving for talks with PM Imran STORY ON PAGE 03

amended nab law protects bureaucrats, penalises ‘powerless’ ministers: ihc cJ STORY ON PAGE 05

CMYK Thursday, 2 January, 2020

02 NEWS

Centre willinG tO COOperAte with Sindh GOvt deSpite ‘Severe differenCeS’: ASAd UMAr KaracHi

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STAFF REPORT

eDeRAL Minister for Planning, Development & Reforms Asad Umar on Wednesday said that the PTI government in the Centre is willing to work with the Sindh government for the betterment of the province’s people.

Addressing a press conference alongside Sindh Governor Imran Ismail and Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi, Umar said every political party had the right to politicking but

“this should not be done on issues impacting the lives of citizens”.

“No doubt we have extreme differences with the Sindh government,” he said, adding that “the Centre will not let these differences come into play when working with the Sindh government to improve citizens’ lives”. “From our side, this is the approach and [we] hope that the Sindh government will also adopt the same approach so that projects for the improvements of citizens’ lives can be worked on as soon as possible.” Umar said two months ago, Prime Minister Imran Khan had decided to appoint him

'Mein ne jaan Allah ko deni hai': Opp launches scathing attack on Shehryar Afridi The first session of the National Assembly on Wednesday was particularly harsh for Minister of State for Narcotics Control Shehryar Afridi as opposition members launched a scathing attack on him over the matter of the heroin recovery case against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Rana Sanaullah Khan. The opposition members repeatedly called Afridi a “liar” and mocked his oft repeated sentence “Mein ne jaan Allah ko deni hai” when the minister got up from his seat to respond to a query regarding the development work being undertaken in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). PML-N MNA Shahnawaz Ranjha said that Afridi was his friend but “inhon ne jaan Allah ko deni hai”. The opposition’s criticism angered Afridi who responded by saying that some people would give their soul to Allah like Hazrat Imam Hussain (AS), while some people would face God’s wrath like “Shimar and Firon”. He said that he would prove all allegations against him wrong if he was granted some time.

Interestingly, no person from the PTI or its coalition partners came to Afridi’s defence. Later, while speaking on the development in erstwhile FATA, Afridi informed the House that the budget for the merged tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been enhanced from Rs58 billion to Rs162bn. Afridi said that Rs62bn had been allocated to the KP government for the “recurrent and development budget” for erstwhile FATA. He said that Rs48bn had further been earmarked by the federal government according to its share of the National Finance Commission Award and released to KP, adding that the federal government had also released Rs10bn for the previous financial year 2018-19 to the KP government. “Rs11bn have been released for the temporarily dislocated persons of erstwhile FATA,” he said. NEWS DESK

as the focal person for the implementation of the Centre’s projects in Sindh. He said the consensus after today’s meeting was that progress [on the projects] had improved but difficulties that needed to be overcome persisted.

In response to a question regarding whether today’s meeting was held to appease the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) after PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had offered them a partnership in the Sindh government in exchange for quitting the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led coalition government, Umar said

today’s meeting had been decided prior to Bilawal’s announcement. “I don’t want to say much about that, he has a right to do politics. Given the difficulty that PPP is in today and the way in which their roots with the people have been weakened, they will make some efforts,” he said. Inaugurating four development projects in Karachi on Monday, Bilawal had offered MQM an “equal number of ministries in Sindh” if they helped in toppling the PTI-led government in the Centre. The MQMP did not outright reject the move but described it as a “non-serious attempt”.

Govt set to raise retirement age of services chiefs to 64 continued from page 01 The petition, “filed in the interest of public good”, had questioned the legal aspects of the judgement.

“The impugned judgement is bad in law and facts.

The same is completely without jurisdiction, void ab initio and of no legal effect,” it had stated.

“The order suffers from material irregularities which have converted the process from being one in aid of justice to a process of injustice,” it had stated, and added that the court had “completely overlooked” the laws laid out in the constitution as well as “vital laws”.

“It is respectfully pointed out that glaring omissions and patent mistakes have crept into the Impugned Judgment, violating the law and the Constitution,” it had added.

The petitioner “with the highest respect” had insisted that the judgement by the top court was “patently erroneous” and that the errors were “floating on the face of the record”.

“The enemies of Pakistan were extremely happy when they thought that General Bajwa’s extension or re-appointment had fallen into jeopardy,” the petition had stated, and added, “Pakistan is undergoing a 5th generation war.”

“Very recently, the Pulwama incident bears testimony to the preparedness of our armed forces under the able captaincy of General Bajwa, who on his proactive initiative has also mustered healthy military international relations and support for Pakistan,” it had said. “The war on terror is not over.

The wounds from the APS incident are not forgotten,” the petition had reflected, and added, “The preservation of two leading institutions of the state i.e. the Armed Forces and the Superior Judiciary are necessary concomitants to a healthy democracy, rule of law and safety and security against internal and external aggression.”

“The enemies of the state, now for a number of years have ganged up to destabilise Pakistan,” it had added.

“General Bajwa’s contribution to take vital steps so as to facilitate safety and security in the country will go down in history. The pulse of the people at large is that General Bajwa’s re-appointment has been warmly welcomed. There were seminars and processions in favour of General Bajwa’s re-appointment, from which the pulse of the public opinion can be appreciated,” the petition had stated, and added, “In the present times, it was most appropriate to re-appoint General Bajwa, who himself never sought a re-appointment.”

“The court could not interfere in the legislative

domain or equip itself with the function of a parallel legislative authority. It is respectfully pointed out that the direction to the legislature could only be given by the courts so as to avert a situation of unconstitutionality or illegality. No judicial directions to the legislature could be given so as to convert a convention into codified law,” it had added.

The review petition had also revealed that on November 25, the respondent mala fidely preferred a direct Petition No 39 of 2019 before the apex court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, challenging the appointment of General Bajwa as the army chief for a second term of three years, commencing from November 29, 2019 to November 29, 2022.

The petition had stated that the “appointment of the COAS was strictly in accordance with the settled departmental practice followed for seven decades or so”.

“If one would look into the parliamentary debates or otherwise, which would make it rather clear that intentionally and deliberately the matter of the appointment or extension of the COAS was left at the discretion of the prime minister/president,” it had added.

THE CASE: In an unprecedented move, the apex court, last month, had suspended the notification of a three-year extension in the tenure of COAS Bajwa on the account of the summary being “not correct”.

The three-member SC bench, headed by the then chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa, had directed the parliament to legislate on the extension/reappointment of an army chief within six months, after noting that there were no clear laws or rules on the matter. The court, after grilling the attorney general for three days over the matter, had decided that General Bajwa would remain COAS during the six-month period in which the parliament would draft laws regarding the extension and appointment of an army chief.

“We would like to emphasise that this crucial matter of the tenure of COAS and its extension, which has a somewhat chequered history, is before the Parliament, to fix for all times to come,” wrote Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, a member of the three-judge bench which heard the case, in the court’s 43-page judgment.

“It is now for the people of Pakistan and their chosen representatives in the parliament to come up with a law that will provide certainty and predictability to the post of COAS, remembering that in strengthening institutions, nations prosper,” the court had noted.

Govt imposes severe penalties on smuggling gold, currency abroad iSLamaBad SHAHZAD PARACHA

In a bid to curb money laundering and to meet the conditions of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the government has imposed strict penalties on travelling abroad with gold or cash exceeding the permissible limit.Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Spokesperson Dr Hamid Attique informed reporters on Wednesday that a new ordinance pertaining to certain tax laws was promulgated by President Dr Arif Alvi on December 26.Under the ordinance, a directorate general of law and prosecution would be established to deal with false declaration cases. If the amount of currency a traveller is carrying exceeds the permissible limit till $10,000, the currency would be confiscated and the person would have to pay a sum not exceeding the excess amount. However, if it exceeds the limit till $20,000, the currency would be confiscated and the person would have to pay a fine not exceeding twice the value of the confiscated currency.The higher the exceeding amount goes, the higher the penalty would be. For currency between $20,000 to $50,000. the fine would not exceed three times the exceeding sum but upon conviction by a special judge, the person shall further be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.Furthermore, if the amount is between $50,000 to $100,000, the currency would be confiscated and the person would have to pay a fine four times the excess sum and upon conviction by a special judge, the person shall further be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.If the amount is between $100,000 and $200,000 the above mentioned penalties would be applied with the difference being the fine which would be not six times the excess value and the jail term being 10 years. The same also applies to any amount over $200,000 with the difference being the fine which would be not 10 times the excess sum and the jail term being not more than 14 years.Moreover, the ordinance states that if the smuggled goods comprise gold, silver or precious stones in any form, such goods shall be liable to confiscation. If the quantity of the gold is 15 tola or equivilant, it would be confiscated and the offender would have to pay a fine not exceeding the value of the gold. Additionally, the penalty of carrying 500 tola gold, silver or other items is fine of not more than 10 times their original value along with jail time not more than 10 years. Dr Attique said that the government has inserted new clauses pertaining to Special Convertible and Rupee Account (SCRA). The ordinance states that every banking company or a financial institution maintaining SCRA of a non-resident company having no permanent establishment in Pakistan shall deduct tax from capital gain arising on debt instrument and government securities, including treasury bills and Pakistan investment bond.He also said that the tax department has also refunded Rs103 billion to exporters in its first six months while it has also collected Rs2,083 billion in taxes, which was 16 per cent higher than the previous year. He further said that FBR has set the target of connecting the 20,000 shops under the point of sales system and has so far connected 4,700 shops and 186 retailers to this system around the country and would soon apply it on big shopping malls.

Pakistan shares list of prisoners, nuclear installations with India iSLamaBad STAFF REPORT

Pakistan on Wednesday shared lists of 282 Indian prisoners in the country and of nuclear installations and facilities with the High Commission of India in Islamabad. According to a statement issued by the Foreign Office

(FO), Indian prisoners include 55 civilians and 227 fishermen. “This step is consistent with the provisions of the Consular Access Agreement between Pakistan and India, signed on 21 May 2008, under which both countries are required to exchange lists of prisoners in each other’s custody twice a year, on 1st January and 1st

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July, respectively,” said FO statement.

It added that the Indian government would also share a list of Pakistani prisoners with Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. In April last year, Pakistan had released 55 Indian fishermen and five civilians in a gesture of goodwill. The Indian fishermen and citizens, arrested in Pak-

istan, were released from Karachi’s Malir jail. Both the countries also exchanged lists of nuclear installations and facilities. According to the Foreign Office, list of Pakistan’s nuclear installations was handed over to the Indian representative in Islamabad while the list from Indian side was received by Pakistani representative in New Delhi. The handing and taking over of the lists is binding on both countries on January 1 every year in accordance with the agreement on prohibition of attacks against nuclear installations and facilities between the two countries.

CMYK Thursday, 2 January, 2020

NEWS

pAKiStAn tO fAre better in 2020, pM iMrAn SAyS iSLamaBad

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STAFF REPORT

RIMe Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday admitted that the nation had to face harsh times in 2019 due to the ‘corrective measures’ undertaken by the government to recover the economy, but expressed the hope that the year 2020 will help take Pakistan forward.

“The vision of the previous governments of making Pakistan an ‘Asian Tiger’ was a small vision and that turning the country into a model state like Medina is reflective of a better thought,” PM Imran said while addressing a ceremony celebrating the laying of the foundation of a new campus of the Air University. Imran talked at length about the economic

policies of his government, noting that the rupee was about to crash when the Pakistan Tehreek-a-Insaf (PTI) came into power and corrective measures were needed. “[Due to corrective measures] they had an effect on the common man of the country as the price of petrol, diesel and other necessities increased,” the premier said in reference to the inflation in Pakistan.

“I am optimistic and I am sure that 2020 will take Pakistan forward,” he immediately added, attempting to reassure the students that the problems were only temporary and solvable in the long run. Addressing the students studying at the university, the prime minister said that students needed to dream big and realise their potential.

He noted that those who dreamed big went a long way in life.

“My life experience tells me hu-

mans have been given the power to turn into reality whatever they can picture. Mankind is the best of creations (ashraf-ul-makhluqaat),” the premier said on the occasion. “We live all our lives without realizing our potential.

We do not dream. We are afraid of dreaming big and going after big things,” the premier lamented, in a bid to motivate the students present at the ceremony. “Do not be afraid of dreaming big,” he said. “education is a scared duty. We [people of Pakistan] have to move towards understanding that,” the premier noted, adding that education was also the vision of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him).

PM Imran lauded the efforts made by the administration of the university for the new campus, saying that the new establishment would be a campus of the ‘space age’.

“The vision for a person determines how far he/she will go in life.

Nations also have visions, and unfortunately, previous leaders had a vision that Pakistan would become an Asian Tiger,” PM Imran said, apparently in reference to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government.

“It is a small vision. In my vision, I dreamed of making Pakistan a welfare state like Medina. My vision is based on the lessons of history, and there is a reason we should learn from history,” he remarked.

“Pensions were started first in the state of Medina,” PM Imran noted, adding that the rule of law, humanitarian principles and education were the basis of the welfare state of Medina.

It is pertinent to mention here that the government had recently increased the electricity and fuel prices. On December 26, 2019, the National electric Power Regulatory Authority (NePRA) approved Rs1.56 per unit increase in the power price on account of fuel price adjustment for the month of October 2019, and on December 31, 2019, the government increased the price of petrol by up to Rs2.61 per litre for the month of January 2020.

UAE crown prince arriving for talks with PM Imran SC moved to bar govt from amending rules to settle eCp issue iSLamaBad STAFF REPORT

A petition was filed with the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday against an anticipated move by the government to bring in a presidential ordinance to amend rules of the parliamentary panel that will finalise nominations for the posts of the Chief election Commissioner (CeC) and two members of the election Commission of Pakistan (eCP). The petition maintains that the government wants to appoint CeC and two members from Sindh and Balochistan of its choices by way of amending rules of the panel, which requires a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. “The government is trying to replace the word ‘two-thirds majority’ with ‘simple majority’, which would be a violation of Article 213 and 218 of the Constitution,” it said. The federal government, eCP secretary, and the Law Ministry were made respondents in the petition. A day earlier, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted 15 more days to the federal government for the appointment of the eCP members. During the hearing, the court was told that several members of the parliamentary committee were unable to attend the meeting on Monday due to dense fog. The rules formed by the previous committee are not suitable in the current scenario, a legal adviser said.

The IHC chief justice said the court can only expect that the opposition leaders and Prime Minister Imran Khan jointly select names for the posts. Only parliamentary committee can change the rules, he asserted.

The legal adviser said that parliament has the ability to handle the situation if it commits any mistake over which, the CJ said that the National Assembly should not do any mistake as it is representative of 22 crore people. Subsequently, the hearing was adjourned till January 15.

aBu dHaBi STAFF REPORT

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will arrive in Islamabad on Thursday on a day-long visit “to further strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two brotherly countries”. According to a statement by the UAe Ambassador in Islamabad, during the visit, the crown prince will hold a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan “to discuss the ways to enhance bilateral relations between the two countries”.

In addition, views on “matters of mutual interest and the regional and global situation” will also be discussed. The UAe crown prince had last visited Pakistan on January 6 in 2019, just weeks after his country offered $3 billion to support Pakistan’s battered economy. The UAe crown prince’s visit, which is part of growing exchanges between Pakistan and Arab countries, will take place less than a week after emirati Minister for Tolerance Sheikh Nahyan bin Mabarak Al-Nahyan met the premier and President Arif Alvi to discuss possibilities of expanding bilateral ties. Prior to that, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had toured Islamabad and emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan had also visited Pakistan.

Prime Minister Imran had visited Saudi Arabia, while Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa had travelled to Abu Dhabi on December 14. The prime minister held consultations with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman covering bilateral matters and regional developments. Gen Bajwa had meanwhile called on the Abu Dhabi crown prince. The two discussed “regional security environment and matters of mutual interest”. The premier’s visit to Riyadh had followed a trip to

AbU dhAbi’S CrOwn prinCe nAMed ArAb wOrld'S MOSt inflUentiAl leAder Of 2019 MOSCOW: Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan has been named the Arab world’s most influential leader of 2019 by Russia Today TV (RT), Middle eastern media reported. Prince Zayed, who is also the deputy supreme commander of the United Arab emirates’ (UAe) Armed Forces, was noted for his advocacy of tolerance, peace-making, and human fraternity. Of the total 14 million votes, he bagged 9.74 million (68.6 per cent). Also on the list were Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Algeria’s newly-elected president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and Tunisia’s new president, Kais Saied. Prince Zayed is known for his contribution to peace and tolerance as well as mediating a number of crises, as per Gulf News. The publication added that he personally attempted to ease tensions between Pakistan and India last year. “Among these initiatives is his patronage of the Human Fraternity Document that was signed on February 4, 2019 in Abu Dhabi,” it said. Separately, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince is expected to arrive in Pakistan on Thursday for a day-long visit and is scheduled to hold meetings with Prime Minister Imran Khan and other senior government officials. The trip will focus on strengthening “the bonds of friendship between the two brotherly countries”, according to a statement from a UAe envoy. Prince Zayed’s visit comes shortly after he met Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on December 14, when the two discussed ways to enhance cooperation between the two countries.

Last year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had visited Pakistan for one-on-one meetings with PM Imran, followed by delegation-level talks. This is also the second visit by an Arab leader in just two weeks, as Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud visited Pakistan for a day-long trip last month. AGENCIES Bahrain where he was awarded the country’s highest civilian honour.

PAKISTAN SKIPS KL SUMMIT: The visit weeks after Pakistan skipped the much-trumpeted Kuala Lumpur Summit in December last year. Pakistan was one of the first countries with whom Prime Minister Mahathir shared his plans for holding the summit when he met Prime Minister Imran along with President erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York in September last year.

Later on, PM Imran formally conveyed his acceptance of the

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invitation for attending the summit when Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Marzuki Bin Haji Yahya called on him in Islamabad in November.

However, clouds of uncertainty started to loom over Pakistan’s presence at the Summit when Prime Minister Imran went on a hurried tour to the Kingdom on Dec 15, just three days before the event. A day earlier, Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa had visited Abu Dhabi where he called on Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.

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Sanaullah Abbasi appointed new Kp police chief iSLamaBad STAFF REPORT

The federal government on Wednesday appointed Sanaullah Abbasi as the new Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The notification for Abbasi’s appointment was issued after approval from Prime Minister Imran Khan. Abbasi replaces Dr Naeem Khan, who was appointed as IG KP in February 2019. A day earlier, reports of federal government deciding to replace the KP IGP had emerged. Officials said that the decision was taken after the premier expressed “dissatisfaction” with Khan’s performance. Abbasi is currently serving as the GilgitBaltistan police chief. He had also headed Counter-Terrorism Department of Sindh Police. Last week, it was reported that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf had decided to reshuffle the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa cabinet. A media report stated that some portfolios of the provincial ministers and advisers to the chief minister are likely to be changed in the first phase. “In the second phase, if they don’t deliver, they would be ousted from the cabinet and new people would be given the opportunity to serve,” the report claimed.

04 ISLAMABAD

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

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ISLAMABAD: All the educational institutes run by Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) opened on after observing nine-day winter vacations. FDE announced the winter vacation in the eeducational institutess working under its administrative control from December 23-31. Majority of the students resumed their educational activities on the first day of the new year through ensuring their presence in their respective institutions.However, those who went outstations to visit their relatives or for outing could not attend their schools due to lethargy. While some other students could not attend their institutions for the sake of enjoying the first day of the new year with their friends and relatives. APP

KP Assembly approves endowment fund for journalists PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has approved Endowment Fund Act meant for the welfare of the journalists’ community that would resolve issues of media persons, said Speaker provincial assembly Mushtaq Ghani.

Talking to newly elected cabinet of Peshawar Press Club here, he felicitated the newly elected president and his cabinet and hoped that he would come up to the expectations of the journalists’ community. The speaker fully supported the journalists’ community and said that he would always be available to resolve issues of journalists including the media persons of merged districts. APP

Nigerian man arrested for online fraud ISLAMABAD: A Nigerian man was arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency’s cybercrime unit on Wednesday for online fraud of more than Rs10 million. “He has been taking money from people online disguised as a welfare worker,” said an FIA officer. The accused was reportedly leading a gang and had been robbing people online for a while. He has taken money from people through various bank accounts, the officer said. The accused has been handed over to the FIA on a two-day physical remand. Further investigations are under way. STAFF REPORT

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CAPitAl PoliCE vow to rEsolvE PubliC issuEs oN Priority bAsis ISLAMABAD

Educational institutes reopen after winter break

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STAFF REPORT

FFECTIvE poling measures are being adopted by Islamabad Police to resolve public issues, curb crime and bridge the gap between police and people public.

It was stated by SP (Industrial Area) Zubair Ahmed Shaik while addressing the people at `Open Kutchery’ held at in the ground of Haji Camp. This interaction with public was held following directions of IGP Islamabad Muhammad Aamir Zulfiqar Khan and DIG Waqar Ud Din Syed for effective interaction of police with public.

DSP Ghulam Muhammad Baqir, Station House Officers (SHOs) of Shamas Colony and Noon police station, a large number of people and other police officials were also present on the occasion.

The SP (Industrial Area) said that people should identify the elements in the police or in their surroundings supporting the anti-social activities so that action could be initiated against them. He urged people to cooperate in the registration of new residents of slum areas so that unidentified people could be apprehended. People ensured their cooperation with Police and the Public didn't make any complaint of inappropriate police

behaviour. The SP (Industrial Area) Zubair Ahmed Shaikh said that police succeeded to ensure effective policing in the area through public cooperation. He said that disciplinary action would be taken against those policemen involved in sluggish policing.

He also directed the police officials to ensure interaction with respected people in their respective areas and resolve public grievances through prompt action. He said that Islamabad police is adopting decent policing measures and following the slogan `First Salute then proceed decently for good repute’ (Phele Salam – Phir Kalam)’ which is step towards friendly policing

and being widely appreciated by the people.

He said that steps are underway to enhance interaction with people and make them more responsible.

On the occasion, he listened to the problems of the people and issued directions to immediately resolve them.

The people of the area lauded this step of Islamabad Police and hoped that their problems would be resolved on priority basis. No complaint against any police official was received during this interaction with people.

Some people asked for increased Police Patrolling in the area which was assured to them.

Scavengers at high risk due to unhygienic garbage collection practices ISLAMABAD APP

The federal capital with an increasing population of over 2 million generates 500 to 600 tonnes of garbage per day where the scavengers or ragpickers managing that garbage from households to dumping sites are facing serious health risk.

Spokesperson Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Dr Waseem Khawajah said the rag-pickers are mostly at the risk to catch diarrhea, typhoid, paratyphoid and health complications related to liver, stomach and intestine due to bacterial contamination.

He said they were picking household garbage from dumpsters, waste heaps and even nullahs which increases their vulnerability to catch harmful diseases if they continue to eat and drink with those hands.

“They should wear proper uniform, masks and safety gloves to avoid direct contact with household waste and properly wash hands with sanitizers and hand wash that are easy to carry and use,” he added.

Director Sanitation Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) Sardar Khan Zimri said the garbage collecting sanitary staff had no proper kits rather they were wearing gloves and masks as per their choice. “Most of the scavengers working privately are Afghan and are il-

legally working in the sector and do not fall in our jurisdiction.

So that MCI could insist them to wear safety gloves and masks to protect them from negotiating infectious diseases. The waste being collected by rag-pickers is only household waste whereas a strict implementation of hospital waste management has been ensured through Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and there is no open dumping of hospital waste,” he added. To a question, Zimri said MCI could impose fine of Rs50,000 to Rs1,00,000 on violation to the hospital staff on poorly managing the waste disposal. The fine to be imposed depends upon the level of violation made in this regard.

In a recent report on Plastic Waste Baseline Study of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Ayubia National Park (ANP) jointly launched by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-Pakistan) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The report indicated that the hospitals in ICT were generating most hazardous waste which was found dumped in municipal garbage despite their garbage’s incineration.

He said the scavengers or rag-pickers in the federal capital were largely at risk as they were directly exposed with highly infectious hospital waste being dumped on the garbage disposal site. “There is no segregation system of the

waste and has been disposed openly with household garbage. The situation is also similar in galiyat area of ANP,” the report said.

The recommendations of the study claimed that it was necessary to mobilize and formalize informal waste sector through subsidies and equipment, registration of recyclers, NOCs to be given to only environmentally compliant recyclers, centralized recovery system and create public environmental awareness.

Rawalpindi Waste Management Corporation official told that all the sanitary workers collecting garbage in the garrison city were provided with uniform, gloves and masks which were up to their discretion to wear during the operations.

Looking forward to a new chapter of China-Pakistan Friendship YAO JING As time flies, we are in the year of 2020.

At this wonderful moment of welcoming the third decade of the 21st century, I, on behalf of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Pakistan, would like to extend my sincere New Year greetings to all Pakistani friends.

The year 2019 is of great historic significance for China’s development. Over 1.4 billion Chinese people celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. Over the past 70 years, under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China, we adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and have scored remarkable achievements.

China’s GDP has broken through the threshold of 90 trillion RMB (13.6 trillion USD) in 2018, a great leap forward from over 60 billion RMB (12.3 billion USD) in 1949. The GDP per capita has increased from 119 yuan (23 dollars) to 64644 yuan (9732 dollars). China now stands firmly as the world’s second largest economy. Over 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty.

In 2019, China fulfilled its international responsibility and injected positive energy into the international community.

With major changes undergoing in the world, China adheres to the principles of peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, holds high the banner of multilateralism, stabilizes relations with major powers, vigorously promotes mutually beneficial cooperation with neighboring and developing countries, continues to lead the global governance process, and actively promotes regional peace and stability.

China successfully hosted the second ‘Belt and Road’ Forum for International Cooperation, and advocated for open, green, and inclusive development with a view to achieve a high-quality and high-standard cooperation under the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ with people’s well-being at focus.

On the complicated international stage, China has become the mainstay for maintaining world peace and stability, and the main force for promoting global development and prosperity.

2019 is also a year of great development of China-Pakistan relations. This year, Prime Minister Imran Khan visited China twice and met with President Xi Jinping three times. The two sides exchanged experience and ideas on building a closer China-Pakistan community of shared future in the new era as well as jointly constructing the Belt and Road with high quality, and made a series of significant achievements.

Over the year of 2019, we have strengthened our mutual trust, mutual understanding and supported each other on issues related to our core interests. China firmly supports Pakistan in safeguarding its national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, and highly commends Pakistan's efforts to combat terrorism and extremism. China and Pakistan jointly safeguard the important role of the UN Charter in international relations, oppose unilateralism and bullying, uphold international justice, and promote regional peace and stability.

Over the year, we have deepened bilateral cooperation in various fields and connected the Belt and Road Initiative with the ‘Naya Pakistan’ vision. The

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has progressed smoothly. We focused on social-economic, industrial and agricultural cooperation. We have finalized 27 priority projects of social development under the CPEC, of which 17 will be launched in the first half of 2020. The second phase of the Free Trade Agreement between China and Pakistan comes into effect on January 1, 2020, and Pakistan’s exporting products such as leather, cotton and garment products will enjoy zero-tariff entry into China’s market. A large number of Chinese enterprises have actively invested and established branches in Pakistan, covering textile processing, tire manufacturing, motorcycle production, agricultural plantation, steel and etc. It will help Pakistan to enhance its manufacturing and exporting capacity, and bring more job opportunities.

Over the year, we have promoted people-to-people exchanges and continued to strengthen the foundation of friendship between the two countries.

2019 is the year of Sino-Pak local cooperation and we have established 16 localto-local partnerships. We have imported Pakistani films like ‘Parwaaz Hai Junoon’, provided training for Pakistani table tennis team in China, invited Pakistani cricket team to visit China. At present, 5 universities in Pakistan have established Confucius Institutes, and 58 universities have joined the CPEC University Consortium. Nearly 30,000 Pakistani students are studying in China with more than 7,000 scholarships.

2020 will be a landmark year of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

China will complete its thirteenth Five-

Year Plan, eliminate absolute poverty completely, build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, 2020 will also be a historical year to usher in a new chapter of win-win cooperation between China and Pakistan. As an iron brother, Pakistan will always be the prior partner in China’s external relations.

China and Pakistan will strengthen mutual support and strategic cooperation.

As good neighbors, good friends, good partners and good brothers who share weal and woe, we will continue to build upon our mutual trust with the guidance of high-level exchanges, deepen coordination and cooperation on major strategic issues, promote exchanges of governance experience, support each other on issues involving our respective core interests and major concerns, firmly safeguard sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity.

China and Pakistan will enhance cooperation to achieve common development. We continue to promote the high-quality development of the CPEC. We will deepen cooperation in trade and investment, support the development of manufacturing industry in Pakistan, increase employment and expand exports, and help Pakistan to accelerate integration into the international industrial chain.

China would like to increase technology transfer to Pakistan and expand cooperation with Pakistan in areas such as environmental protection, climate change and water resources management.

China and Pakistan will encourage more people-to-people contacts. In 2020, China will provide 1,800 training opportunities to Pakistan, help build and up-

grade more than 50 schools, 50 vocational training centers and 30 hospitals in all areas of Pakistan. We will provide 20,000 scholarships for Pakistan students in the next 3 years. Both sides will hold the 2nd Forum on local-to-local Cooperation between China and Pakistan and carry out more cultural activities. China welcomes more Pakistani friends to visit China, learn more about Chinese culture and promote mutual understanding between two civilizations.

China and Pakistan will consolidate international cooperation to work for regional peace. The two countries will strengthen coordination and cooperation on major international and regional issues, jointly safeguard the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, support multilateralism and win-win cooperation, and highlight the representation and voice of developing countries on international affairs.

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan once observed that, only through united efforts can we turn our ideals into reality. Today, China and Pakistan both shoulder the historic mission of achieving national rejuvenation and realizing the great dream of building a prosperous country and a better society. Let's work together to seize the opportunities, overcome the challenges, pursue common development and build upon the China-Pakistan all-weather strategic cooperative partnership forwards a China-Pakistan community of shared future.

May Pakistan enjoy prosperity!

The writer is the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

Amended nAB lAw protects BureAucrAts, penAlises ‘powerless’ ministers: iHc cJ JUSTICE MINALLAH SAYS NO SUSPECT CAN BE CONVICTED WITHOUT FAIR TRIAL, EXTENDS DURRANI’S BAIL ISLAMABAD

i

STAFF REPORT

slamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice athar minallah on Wednesday criticised the National accountability bureau (Nab) for presenting arrested suspects as convicted persons, saying no suspect could be sentenced without giving them a fair trial.

While hearing the interim bail petition of former federal minister and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUIF) leader akram Khan durrani, the IHC CJ also sought a reply from Nab regarding the protection granted to bureaucrats through the recent amendments in Nab Ordinance.

Chief Justice minallah remarked that akram durrani had

been holding public office while the principal accounts officer of the ministry was a federal secretary who was holding all powers.

The CJ asked Nab if it had moved against the principal accounts officer to which he was informed that he was also an accused in the case.

The bench remarked that bureaucrats who had all the powers had been protected through the amendment in Nab Ordinance while an inquiry had been initiated against a person having no powers for misuse of authority.

The Nab prosecutor told the bench that arrest warrants had been issued against durrani in the illegal appointments inquiry, not in a case pertaining to holding assets beyond his known sources of income. He prayed the court to grant some time to submit

Nab’s fresh reply after the amendments in the ordinance.

The chief justice asked the Nab official whether durrani was cooperating with the Nab investigation, to which the prosecutor said that the accused was appearing before Nab constantly but he was not cooperating with the investigation team. subsequently, the court extended durrani’s interim bail till January 15, and sought fresh reply from Nab. PRE-ARREST BAIL OF SHARJEEL MEMON EXTENDED: meanwhile, the IHC extended prearrest bail of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader sharjeel memon till January 7 in the Roshan sindh corruption case. during the hearing, memon’s lawyer said that his client is cooperating with Nab officials and the institution should be stopped from arresting him.

He pleaded the court to approve his pre-arrest bail until the completion of the hearing.

NEWS

150 days of siege: Pakistan urges India to end Kashmir lockdown ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

as India’s siege of occupied Kashmir continued on the 150th day, Pakistan on Wednesday reaffirmed its support and solidarity for the Kashmiris while urging India to immediately lift the lockdown and communications restrictions imposed in the disputed valley since august 5.

In a statement, the ministry of Foreign affairs (moFa) told India to free all detainees, particularly young children, and the Kashmiri leadership, and to remove all draconian laws, including Psa and aFsPa, while withdrawing its 900,000 security personnel from the occupied valley. The ministry also asked India to provide unhindered access to international humanitarian and human rights observers and international media to cover the rights atrocities in the held valley. "as part of our unstinted moral, political and diplomatic support for the Kashmir cause, Pakistan will continue to raise at all international forums the plight of over eight million innocent Kashmiris under the brutal occupation of 900,000 Indian security personnel, persecuting them day and night with impunity," the statement read.

Trashing India’s farcical claims of “nor-

No leniency for those involved in food adulteration, says PM ISLAMABAD APP

Prime minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said that those involved in food adulteration deserve no leniency as they have been amassing money at the cost of public health and have inflicted harm to the consumers who trusted their food.

Chairing a high-level meeting, the premier directed continuation of strict action against such elements and observed that provision of relief to the common man was among the top priorities of the government.

He also stressed upon the need for taking further effective steps to bring down the prices of daily use commodities through an effective strategy.

He observed that in the past, need to take comprehensive steps along with framing of a mechanism to keep check on adulteration and difference between the demand and supply, had been neglected, but the present government had been paying due attention to those issues. Expressing his deep concerns over the ratio of adulteration in the daily use commodities, he termed it an inhuman cruelty, which was also a cause of increase in fatal diseases. such aspects had been altogether ignored the past, he added.

The prime minister emphasised the use of modern technology to discourage the practice and also directed for ending the issue of hoarding as well.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief secretary dr Kazim apprised the meeting that the provincial government had been continuing the drive against adulteration under a sustained strategy ensuring collaboration among all the departments concerned.

Punjab Chief secretary major (r) azam suleman apprised the premier that a committee had been constituted under the di-

rection of prime minister to take stock of the demand and supply and for making of certain estimates.

The sindh chief secretary and balochistan secretary industries also apprised the meeting about the steps taken to control adulteration in the foodstuff and presented comparative figures of the prices of the daily use items in the rural

CMYK

05

and urban areas.

The prime minister said that he would review the measures through video conference every week.

He noted that interaction with the provincial governments regarding their experiences over public related issues was conducive, hinting that the practice would continue regularly.

malcy” in Kashmir, the ministry said that Pakistan will continue to stress the importance of urgent and effective steps by the world community to address India's state-terrorism against the Kashmiri people, who are demanding their legitimate right of self-determination as enshrined in the United National security Council (UNsC) resolutions.

"We deplore the continuing proclivity of Indian political as well as military leaders to fabricate 'facts' with regard to 'terrorism' or situation along the line of Control (loC) as part of their attempts to mislead the world and with the possible intention of staging some 'false flag' operation," the ministry stated and added that the Indian government would be well-advised to look inwards and curb the growing “saffron terror”, which is increasingly a matter of concern for the international community.

Pakistan said that in the context of the situation in IOK, it rejects the new Indian army chief's irresponsible statement regarding “preemptive strikes” across the loC inside azad Jammu and Kashmir (aJK). "There should be no doubt about Pakistan’s resolve and readiness to thwart against any aggressive Indian move, inside its territory or aJK. No one should forget Pakistan’s befitting response to India’s balakot misadventure," the statement added.

Chinese national bullies driver, beats traffic cop over ‘no parking’ ticket a Chinese national on Wednesday allegedly assaulted a traffic police officer near Qayyumabad area in Karachi after being charged with a no-parking offence, local media sources reported. according to the details, the Chinese man beat the officer to the point that he had to be rushed to a nearby hospital to be treated for severe injuries.

The foreigner, in the meanwhile, has been arrested. The police further revealed that Chinese was travelling with a driver, who said he was following his employer’s orders. “I had parked the car in a no parking zone,” admitted the driver but added that it was because he was forced to do so because of the foreigner’s demand.

“The officer had asked me to remove the car, however, my employer did not let me,” he added. The driver also testified that the assault came as a response to the traffic police, who tried to remove the car that was wrongly parked. “The traffic police began to take the car away using a lifter, after which the foreigner started beating the officer badly,” he said. NEWS DESK

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

06 WORLD VIEW

Paralysis of nations is emPowering cities CITIES PRODUCE OVER 80 PER CENT OF GLOBAL GDP AND OVERSEE THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN, GLOBAL TRADE, AND GLOBAL BANKING

hill CHRYsTiE sWiNEY, RETa JO lEWis aND sHEila FOsTER

“t

HE Demolition of U.S. Diplomacy.” “The Long Rise and Sudden Fall of American Diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy, Disrupted.” A cursory tour of recent headlines paints a less than rosy picture of the state of American statecraft. The impeachment and impending trial marks the starkest example of what happens when diplomacy is mismanaged.

Partisan gridlock, ideological inflexibility, growing distrust and polarization have essentially paralyzed traditional nation-states — rendering them often unwilling or unable to solve our increasingly urgent problems. Inaction on climate change has become another popular — and near constant — reminder that this growing trendline is not going to reverse itself. The recently completed COP25, which was held in Madrid, is only the most recent example of nations failing to take any real action or to commit to any substantive agreements on the issue of climate. What happens, though, when the people and places with the potential to fix parts of our broken system are not empowered to do so?

When it comes to solving global crises, cities, states, NGOs and even corporations are stepping up to fill the gap countries are leaving behind.

Cities in particular are taking diplomacy into their own hands: They’re setting up offices of international affairs, and global city networks are coalescing to tackle issues like migration, human rights, inclusivity, terrorism and healthcare.

Cities are home to over 50 percent of

the global population, a number that will skyrocket to nearly 70 percent by 2050.

Cities produce over 80 percent of Global GDP and oversee the global supply chain, global trade, and global banking. They are also the greatest global producers of knowledge and creativity. Cities are arguably more accountable than nationstates, more closely connected to their constituents, more aware of the everyday problems that confront everyday people, and as a result, comparably adept and motivated to get things done quickly, efficiently and without a big fuss. Cities should be on the frontlines of diplomacy.

Official Washington is not built to handle this type of diplomacy — despite its growing importance. Treaties are exclusively negotiated, signed, and enforced by national leaders (and their legislative branches), and in general, international relations and international law are the domains of nation-states alone. Subnational entities are viewed as mere appendages of their nation-states, which are expected to represent them at the global level in all international affairs. Indeed, we can’t even talk about international diplomacy without employing the word “nation.”

The City and State Diplomacy Act, a new bipartisan bill proposed in the House would allow U.S. cities and states to have a greater voice in U.S. diplomacy. Cosponsored by Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), the bill would establish a permanent Office of Subnational Diplomacy within the State Department. It would create more opportunities for formal cooperation between Amer-

The social-media decade

national RevieW MiCHaEl BRENDaN DOuGHERTY

My nomination for the trend of the decade is the expansion of social media and the contraction of our social world into it. At the very end of the first decade of the century, social media was hailed as a liberating force that would empower liberal movements across the Third World. Like our hopes for Chinese liberalization, it turned out the flow worked as well or better in the opposite direction.

Now social media is seen by liberals as a source for backlash politics, an open channel for interference by the illiberal Right. Conservatives see it as a seat of power for a progressive nomenklatura. Most parents see it as a source of danger for their kids — but a necessary one. Kids run their social lives through it. And even public schools communicate to parents through this medium.

Facebook began in the first decade of this century when it virally attached itself to the high stakes and somewhat claustrophobic social world of America’s most highly reputed school, Harvard University. It spread then to other top schools, and now it is coming closer than its founder could have dreamed to realizing a true “social graph” of the planet. Not just friendships, but reading, shopping, and thinking habits.

Social media’s birth and gestation in colleges and high schools seems in some way to have given it a quality that remakes the whole world as a giant school. And like a school, it has a variety of aristocracies. The (formerly bookish) gossips on Twitter determine the meaning of news events.

The beautiful and stylish determine fashion and luxury trends across Instagram. The youth emerging from

their own platforms are building a counterculture that is being bought up by corporations and political movements. The Great Awakening and the alt-right were the conjoined twins, offspring of the friction between Tumblr and Reddit/4chan.

For me personally, it became impossible to ignore this cafeterialike element almost seven years ago, when the word “derp” started spreading across social media. It was a nonsense word generated to point to nonsense. It was also literally the thing that was yelled and half-sung across my own high school’s cafeteria whenever someone accidentally knocked over one of the aluminum poles marking off the lunch line, leading to that unpleasant sound of aluminum hitting cold tile.

We were warned by teachers and school administrators that we had a permanent record. Now we actually have one. We were warned by George Orwell of a state that would impose a perpetual two-way broadcast from screens that were also video cameras. We think it’s heartwarming. But the end result is like an intensification of high school, where people feel that one social misstep can destroy them, even if the details of it are almost instantly forgotten during the next hurricane of outrage.

Social media’s strange power comes not just from its intelligent algorithms, which make such an exhaustive study of us. It comes from its strange combination of virality — things that spread wildly with memetic power — and exhaustive documentation, a function associated with modern institutions.

What will be the results? I’m not sure. But so far it looks like the decade of social media will make moral panics a habit. It will give us the politics of undereducated and narcissistic children, and a creeping sense that totalitarian levels of surveillance and social intervention are the natural consequence of free people interacting freely.

MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY is a senior writer at National Review Online.

ica’s state and local leaders and their counterparts around the world. It would also serve as the State Department’s lead interlocutor in generating, negotiating, and executing agreements with foreign countries, as well as maintaining international networks, identifying policy gaps, and coordinating resources.

Supporters of the bill expect that this office would have a positive effect on trade, environmental issues, and tourism, among other areas. This would also provide much-needed support when it comes to coordinating subnational commitments on greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

It would also benefit U.S. business.

The U.S. corporate sector is proportionally less internationally-connected than foreign counterparts. Corporations in Germany, France, the UK, Japan and many other leading national economies have markedly more international branches than domestic. Those in the U.S. have proportionally more domestic than international branches. American firms must be empowered to compete. A Subnational Diplomacy Office would provide the latitude needed to do just that.

A recent example of successful subnational engagement occurred in May at the Fifth U.S.-China Governors Collaboration Summit, which was hosted by former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin in Lexington. Despite tense relations between Washington and Beijing, the summit saw over 400 public and private stakeholders from the worlds of business, academia, and government from the United States and China commit to coop-

erate on initiatives ranging from economics to trade and education. Five months later, the State Department announced that Chinese diplomats would be required to notify authorities before holding meetings with U.S. officials — a response to “level the playing field” for long-standing restrictions on U.S. diplomats in China.

The mission of the Office of Subnational Diplomacy could help to navigate this type of diplomatic row and facilitate more productive interactions.

When the federal and local governments inevitably disagree on foreign policy, there needs to be a conflict resolution mechanism. According to original research by sociologist Benjamin Leffel, declassified archives show President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State George Schultz pressuring U.S. local leaders to not divest from South African apartheid — and local leaders defying him in turn. This is just one example where a dedicated office at State was needed to provide a space to negotiate disagreements on foreign policy, and this need will only grow over time.

The concept isn’t a new one. During the Obama administration, the U.S. Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs (a position held by co-author Reta Jo Lewis) was the first office dedicated to subnational diplomacy efforts. And the need for such an office dates back decades. According to Leffel’s research, in the 1980s, several U.S. embassies abroad sent cables to the State Department asking for a federal office to “assist local government officials and

groups to plan their overseas visits in order to optimize their chances of meeting their trade, investment and tourism goals.”

National governments should harness the power and ambition of their local leaders to help solve global challenges. The power of subnational engagement has been underestimated, though there are advocates who realize its potential. The Office of Subnational Diplomacy could be a productive way for the United States to get all hands on deck regarding global cooperation.

Cities and states are increasingly relevant, indeed critical, to solving the global challenges that confront us today. National governments can choose to work with the current or against it. History proves that cities and states will move forward and upward with or without them.

Chrystie F. Swiney is a political scientist, legal scholar, and international attorney, and currently serves as the Doctoral Fellow for the Global Cities Initiative at Georgetown University.

Reta Jo Lewis is a senior fellow and director of congressional affairs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Previously, she served as the State Department’s first-ever special representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs, under secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry from 2010-13.

Sheila R. Foster is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University.

Benjamin Leffel, a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California Irvine specializing in the sociology of climate change mitigation, contributed.

UK murders and Putin's hand THE AUTHOR ALSO TRACES THE UPWARD TRAJECTORY OF A WORKADAY KGB OFFICER NAMED VLADIMIR PUTIN WHO BECAME A DEPUTY MAYOR AND LATER ROSE TO BECOME THE LEADER OF RUSSIA Washington times Paul Davis

Ben Macintyre, a columnist for the London Times and the author of “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War,” “A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal,” and other fine books on spies and espionage, wrote about a Russian GRU (military intelligence) assassination group operating in Europe that is the descendant of the Soviet assassination organization SMERSH, the counterintelligence unit that inspired Ian Fleming.

“If the idea of a ruthless spy-killing unit sounds like the stuff of fiction, that’s because it became precisely that,” Ben Macintyre wrote in his Times column. “In the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming portrayed Smersh (director of operations: Rosa Klebb) as a massive counterintelligence network that more closely resembled the KGB.” Ben Macintyre wrote that the real SMERSH was effective in not only murdering Soviet traitors (some of whom were undoubtedly innocent, he noted), but SMERSH also instilled terror among potential enemies and enforced obedience in Soviet citizens.

“And now it is back, with a new name and a new remit but essentially the same purpose: to put the fear of God, and assassination, into Russia’s enemies, traitors and deserters,” Mr. Macintyre wrote. “According to intelligence sources, Unit 29155 is an elite sub-unit of GRU assassins that operated out of the Haute-Savoie in the French Alps, conducting a variety of wet jobs across Europe: notably the attempted poisoning in Salisbury of GRU officer-turnedMI6 spy Sergei Skripal, and the attempt to kill a Bulgarian arms dealer in 2015.”

In Ian Fleming’s classic 1957 thriller “From Russia with Love,” James Bond was the target of a SMERSH plot to assassinate him and discredit British intelligence in a scandal. SMERSH sent out from Russia a psychopath assassin named Red Grant to

kill Bond. Ian Fleming admitted that his plots were fantastic, but he also said they often lifted the tip of the veil to reveal the real world of espionage.

Heidi Blake’s “From Russia with Blood” (a clever take on Ian Fleming’s “From Russia with Love” title), lifts the veil off a series of murders in the United Kingdom and places blame squarely on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Ms. Blake, formerly assistant editor of the British Sunday Times (where Ian Fleming also worked years before), is the global investigations editor at BuzzFeed News and oversees an award-winning team in the U.K. and the United States.

Her team’s investigation into Russian assassinations in the West was named a Pulitzer finalist in 2018.

In the foreword to her book, she explains how she flew to New York in 2014 to meet the BuzzFeed News investigations editor, Mark Schoofs. She was meeting the editor to discuss setting up an investigative unit at BuzzFeed’s’ U.K. office.

“I came carrying a newspaper clipping containing the first clues to a mystery I hoped the new team might solve,” Ms. Blake writes. “It described how a multimillionaire property tycoon had plunged to his death from the fourth-floor window of a London town house a few days earlier — becoming the latest in a group of men, including the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who had all died under bizarre circumstances. I was fascinated by what lay behind this expanding web of death at the heart of London — and so was Mark.”

Ms. Blake goes on to note that as she was setting up the team, she received a call from the ex-wife of the tycoon who died in the fall.

“Her ex-husband had been murdered, she said, and by coincidence she wanted my new team to investigate. More serendipitously still, she was sitting on a large trove of documents detailing the activities of her ex-husband and his associates in the years before their untimely deaths.”

The author traces how a privileged few benefitted from the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and gobbled up the state-run utilities and companies at mostly rigged auctions and became oligarch billionaires. The author also traces the upward trajectory of a workaday KGB officer named Vladimir Putin who became a deputy mayor and later rose to become the leader of Russia.

The Russian government forged a partnership with Russian organized crime and the favored oligarchs, enriching the selected few. But as some oligarchs fell out of Mr. Putin’s favor, some were arrested and imprisoned, some died mysteriously, and some left Russia with their millions and moved to London. One such oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, attempted to undermine Mr. Putin from London. This did not end well for him. Nor did it end well for a former KGB/FSB officer who worked with the oligarch. “From Russia with Blood” is a well-written and well-researched book that reads like a thriller.

Paul Davis covers crime, espionage and terrorism.

FROM RUSSIA WITH BLOOD: THE KREMLIN’S RUTHLESS ASSASSINATION PROGRAM AND VLADIMIR PUTIN’S SECRET WAR ON THE WEST

By Heidi Blake, Mulholland Books, $15.99, 336 pages

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

FOREIGN NEWS 07

trUmp threatens Iran after Baghdad emBassy attacKed WASHINGTON

U

AGENCIES

S President Donald Trump warned Tehran it would “pay a very big price” after a mob of pro-Iranian demonstrators stormed the American embassy compound in Iraq, as his government said it is sending hundreds more troops to the Middle East.

Angered by US airstrikes that killed two dozen paramilitary fighters on Sunday, hundreds of protesters spilled through checkpoints in the high-security Green Zone Tuesday, demanding the removal of American troops from Iraq and voicing loyalty to a powerful Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the attack was “orchestrated by terrorists,” one of whom he named as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Muhandis has been identified as second-in-command of the Tehran-backed Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary group which includes Kataeb Hezbollah, the group that was targeted in the US airstrikes. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said around 750 troops from a rapid response unit of the 82nd Airborne Division are prepared to deploy over the next several days to the region. “This deployment is an appropriate and precautionary action taken in response to increased threat levels against US personnel and facilities, such as we witnessed in Baghdad today,” he said. Prior to the announcement, a US official told AFP that “up to 4,000 (troops) may ultimately be deployed”.

The US had already flown a rapid re-

sponse team of Marines into Baghdad to reinforce its embassy after the attack Tuesday, which left smoke and flames rising from the embassy entrance and further heightened tension between Tehran and Washington.

Esper’s announcement is the latest move by Washington to step up its defences in the region since US President Donald Trump in May 2018 pulled out of a multinational nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed crippling economic sanctions.

Trump blamed Tehran for the embassy attack and warned that it would face punishment if Americans are killed.

“Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities,” Trump said on Twitter.

“They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat,” wrote Trump, adding “Happy New Year!”

However, Trump later told reporters

that he did not foresee a war with Tehran.

SURPRISE, FURY: Trump’s message came at the end of a day in which Washington officials appeared surprised and furious over the ease at which the protestors entered the Green Zone, reaching the US embassy compound for the first time in years. Live broadcasts showed the protesters battering down the high-security doors of the embassy reception building, smashing windows, burning a sentry box and chanting “Death to America!”

The State Department and Pentagon demanded Iraq’s leaders provide security to the compound — which was already heavily fortified.

By the time a contingent of US Marine reinforcements flew in, some of the demonstrators had pulled back and others settled in for a sustained protest, preparing food for the evening. Tehran said the United States is itself to blame for airstrikes that killed about two dozen Kataeb Hezbollah fighters on Sunday.

“The surprising audacity of American officials is so much that after killing at least 25… and violating the country’s

sovereignty and territorial integrity, that now… they attribute the Iraqi people’s protest against their cruel acts to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi.

‘STRATEGIC PATIENCE’: The mob attack put a focus on the strains in the USIraqi relationship. Allies of Iran, which enjoys significant support in parts of the Iraqi government, increasingly challenge Washington’s influence in the country.

US jet fighters on Sunday struck five Kateab Hezbollah outposts in Iraq and Syria after a series of rocket attacks on US-occupied facilities in Iraq over the past two months that are blamed on the group and its alleged Iranian sponsors.

One of those attacks, in Kirkuk on Friday, left an American civilian contractor dead and exhausted what US officials called Trump’s “strategic patience” with Tehran.

‘FIRST LESSON’ TO US: It also added to the growing calls by some political factions in Iraq to push US troops out of the country nearly 17 years after they entered and overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The protesters who besieged the US embassy on Tuesday carried posters reading: “Parliament should oust US troops, or else we will!” Late Tuesday Kataeb Hezbollah hailed the attack as a “first lesson” to Washington, “so that Trump knows he did something extremely stupid”. US officials said there were no plans to evacuate the mission, and no US personnel were reported injured. Ambassador Matthew Tueller, who had been on holiday, was on his way back to the embassy.

Iran's KhameneI strongly condemns Us attacKs In Iraq DUBAI: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strongly condemned US attacks on Iran-allied militia group in Iraq, Iranian state TV reported on Wednesday, blaming the United States for the violence in the neighbouring country.

“The Iranian government, nation and I strongly condemn the attacks,” state TV quoted Khamenei as saying. The US military carried out air strikes on Sunday against the Kataib Hezbollah militia in response to the killing of a US civilian contractor in a Friday rocket attack on an Iraqi military base. US President Donald Trump accused Iran of orchestrating violent protests at the U.S. embassy in Iraq on Tuesday and said Tehran would be held responsible. Iran has rejected the accusation. “Again that guy (Trump) has accused Iran for the attacks. You cannot do a damn thing. If you were logical, which you are not, you would see that your crimes in Iraq and other countries have made nations hate you,” Khamenei tweeted. “If Iran decides to confront a country, we will do that openly … If anyone threatens our nation’s interests we will fight back … without any hesitation.” AGENCIES

North Korea ends test moratoriums, threatens 'new' weapon PYONGYANG AGENCIES

In new year message, pope decrIes vIolence agaInst women VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, in his first message of the new year, denounced on Wednesday the use and abuse of women in modern society and called for an end to the exploitation of the female body.

Speaking in a packed St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope also defended women’s rights to migrate in search of a better future for their children and condemned those who only thought about economic growth rather than the well-being of others. “All violence inflicted on women is a desecration of God,” the pope said in his homily. “How often is a woman’s body sacrificed on the profane altar of advertising, profit, pornography, exploited as a surface to be used,” he said, adding that the female body “must be freed from consumerism, it must be respected and honoured.”

The pope has regularly sought to defend women’s rights during his pontificate and in April told the Roman Catholic Church it had to acknowledge a history of male domination and sexual abuse of women. “We can understand our level of humanity by the way we treat a woman’s body,” he said on Wednesday. He also used his homily to address another theme close to his heart, immigration, saying women who moved abroad to provide for their children should be honoured and not scorned.

“Today even motherhood is humiliated because the only growth that interests us is economic growth,” he said. “There are mothers, who risk perilous journeys to desperately try to give the fruit of the womb a better future and are judged to be redundant by people whose bellies are full of things, but whose hearts are empty of love.” AGENCIES

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared an end to moratoriums on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests and threatened a demonstration of a “new strategic weapon” soon.

Analysts said the announcement, reported by state media on Wednesday, amounted to Kim putting a missile “to Donald Trump’s head” — but warned that escalation by Pyongyang would probably backfire.

Washington was swift to respond, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging Kim to “take a different course” and stressing that the US wanted “peace not confrontation” with the North, while Trump played down the development. Pyongyang has previously fired missiles capable of reaching the entire US mainland, and has carried out six nuclear tests, the last of them 16 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast, according to the highest estimates. A self-imposed ban on such tests — Kim declared they were no longer needed — has been a centrepiece of the nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington over the past two years, which has seen three meetings between Kim and US President Donald Trump, but little tangible progress.

Any actual test is likely to infuriate Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Kim’s “promise” to him not to carry them out, and has downplayed launches of shorter-range weapons. Negotiations between the two sides have been largely deadlocked since the breakup of their Hanoi summit in February, and the North set the US an end-of-year deadline for it to offer fresh concessions on sanctions relief, or it would adopt a “new way”.

“There is no ground for us to get unilaterally bound to the commitment any longer,” the official KCNA news agency cited Kim as telling top ruling party officials. “The world will witness a new strategic weapon to be possessed by the DPRK in the near future,” he added, referring to the North by its official name.

The full meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ Party was an indication of a major policy shift.

State television showed veteran newsreader Ri Chun Hee reading out the KCNA dispatch over footage of Kim addressing the officials and general imagery of the country.

The broadcast appeared to stand in place of Kim’s usual New Year speech — normally a key moment in the North Korean political calendar. Kim acknowledged the impact of international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its weapons programmes, but made clear that the North was willing to pay the price to preserve its nuclear capability. “The US is raising demands contrary to the fundamental interests of our state and is adopting brigandish attitude,” KCNA cited him as saying. Washington had “conducted tens of big and small joint military drills which its president personally promised to stop” and sent high-tech military equipment to the South, he said.

GEOPOLITICAL CHICKEN: For months, Pyongyang has been demanding the easing of international sanctions imposed over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, while Washington has insisted it takes more tangible steps towards giving them up.

“North Korea has, in effect, put an ICBM to Donald Trump’s head in order to gain the two concessions it wants most: sanctions relief and some sort of security guarantee,” said Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest in Washington.

“Kim Jong-un is playing a dangerous game

of geopolitical chicken,” he added.

The strategy was risky, he said, as Washington was likely to respond with “more sanctions, an increased military presence in East Asia and more fire and fury style threats coming from Donald Trump’s Twitter account”.

Kim’s moratorium comments were “ominous”, said Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul, but added that he could be looking to “elicit concessions by approaching Trump’s red line without crossing it”. The US has already indicated that it will react if the North carries out a long-range missile test.

Speaking to Fox News and CBS after Kim’s announcement, Pompeo said a resumption of nuclear and missile tests would be “deeply disappointing”.

“We hope that Chairman Kim will take a different course… that he’ll choose peace and prosperity over conflict and war,” Pompeo said. “We want peace, not confrontation,” he added, with Seoul’s unification ministry adding that a strategic weapon test “would not help denuclearisation negotiations”.

Trump himself was emollient, saying that he thought Kim was “a man of his word” and that at their Singapore summit “We did sign a contract, talking about denuclearisation”. An ICBM launch would be likely to frustrate China, the North’s key diplomatic backer and provider of trade and aid, which always stresses stability in a region it regards as its own back yard.

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

08 COMMENT

The death of Indian democracy

The case against Rana Sanaullah ANF fails to satisfy PTI cabinet

Pakistan must make the world aware that it must stop Indian excesses

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mL-N Punjab President rana Sanaullah was bailed out by Lahore High Court on the ground of several lapses in the case filed by the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF). despite being kept in prison for six months avowedly without normal facilities provided in the jail manual to the inmates, the rana remains defiant. The way he was arrested and accused of heroin smuggling and kept in jail without producing evidence before the anti-narcotics court had given birth to several questions. Some of his critics and political rivals were unwilling to buy the story about his involvement in narcotics smuggling. Sections in the media too had cast doubts about the veracity of the case. meanwhile opposition leaders belonging to different parties targeted the PTI government, particularly the Pm, for being responsible to get a fabricated case registered against the former Punjab Law minister. on Tuesday, the dG ANF was called to the Federal Cabinet meeting and subjected to questioning by important ministers including Tariq Bashir Cheema, Fawad Chaudhry, Shireen mazari, and Interior minister Brig (r) Ijaz Shah. Avowedly every one of these leaders expressed dissatisfaction over the way the ANF had prepared its case. reportedly ANF minister of state Shehryar Afridi passed the buck to the dG ANF, saying that whatever he narrated was told to him by the dG ANF under oath.

The dG ANF claimed that rana Sanaullah’s assets are worth rs 25 to rs 30 billion. rana Sanaullah has raised serious questions about the claim. Supposing the ANF stand is correct, the case should have been sent to NAB for enquiry into possessing assets beyond means rather than taken up by the ANF with unusual zeal. To maintain that the ANF’s case suffered from serious lapses because its lawyer is paid rs0.1 million per month while rana Sanaullah is represented by a retired judge raises questions about the ANF’s competence. The plea before the Cabinet left many unconvinced.

The ANF is an important national asset. It is all the more reason for it to be seen both as independent and competent. In case the ANF loses its case in the court, questions are likely to be raised regarding other cases it has dealt with.

The year of living dangerously 2020 has started inauspiciously

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He PTI has of late seemed to deflect criticism of its economic stewardship in 2019 by claims that 2020 is the year of economic progress, of the fulfilment of promises. Punjab Chief minister Usman Buzdar began the New Year by saying so. While he may have gladdened the hearts of ardent party supporters by saying so, the PTI government in Islamabad belied his contention by an across-the-board tariff hike that both made prices certain to rise, and ensured that jobs would continue to be shed. While gas and electricity tariffs and fuel prices have all gone up, tax targets have been missed yet again, making it all the more difficult to meet the targets set by the ImF for the year.

The PTI claims just on jobs will not be met by its recent steps. It might be true that the tariff hike in electricity, and the rise in fuel prices, are because of increases in world oil prices, but the jobs it promised to create will remain uncreated. Perhaps most damaging for the government, these price rises will mean that food prices will go up. Fuel price rises mean that tubewell irrigation will cost farmers more, while the cost of transporting food crops to markets will also increase.

This is apart from the gas tariff increase, which will mean more expensive fertiliser, and thus more expensive crops. While workers having to pay more for food demand higher wages, manufacturers will also have to contend with these tariff hikes, which will directly impact manufacturing. As if these input costs are not enough of a burden, they also have to deal with high interest rates.

A major problem in tax administration, which has led FBr to have a shortfall of rs 118 billion on its halfyearly revised target of rs 2198 billion, is said to have been the resistance to removing certain members, who have been posted because of closeness to senior political figures. Whether promises about 2020 are to do with the financial year, which ends on June 30, or the calendar year, ending december 31, it is unlikely they will be met, no mtter how much senior figures clamour.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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Dr ZeesHan KHan

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LATo once said, “Your Silence Gives Consent.” An intellectual 2400 years ago knew this but today the poor Indians have realized it. Protests against the Narendra modi government’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) have engulfed India. It started in and around delhi in some academic campuses on 12 december 2019 and since then it has been fast spreading. It has now spread to small towns and villages in India and all over world from London to California. Primarily muslim students started the protest and others joined in and it has taken the shape of a mass movement with the support from major opposition parties, Bollywood actors, civil society organizations, activists, and other intellectuals.

Surprisingly a large number of female students are at the forefront of this rapidly unfolding protests against modi’s authoritarian regime. organizations representing dalits and Christians have been taking part in the protests. Thirteen Indian states are suffering from the fire of the CAA. The USA and the Gulf Countries have issued warnings to their citizens to not go to the specific states of India to avoid any danger. Violence is a high-risk option as it often brings backlash from the regime.

There was one Hindu state, Nepal. even bit ecame secular. In 1951, 303 million Hindus were in India, in 2011, 966 million. Today common citizen (Hindu) of India would think vehemently that he is not against any other Hindu. He is as good Hindu as anyone can be. He is against Hindutva, which is a criminal gang.

It’s India’s internal upset which has resulted

owing to the BJP’s miscalculations due to biased policies. Liberal and enlightened Indians, and specifically Hindus, have more high voices than Indian muslims against CAA. modi has destroyed Indian secularism and tried to implement extremism. From the beginning, it was clear that the Indian constitution was secular, but not the Indian society. With the advent of modi, the Indian government is being recognized as the face of Hindu orthodoxy or religious fanaticism.

Such emotions were present in general from the beginning, but the state had distanced itself from such emotions and now there is no distance left.

There are 250 million muslims in India. Pakistan tried to advance the hand of friendship to India to improve the miserable conditions of Indian muslims, and especially for the people of Kashmir, but India did not reply positively, unfortunately.

Both countries have achieved nothing from enmity. Wars are initiated by governments. Hitler and mussolini are the stark examples. The Indian Parliament has passed the CAA but seven chief ministers have rejected adopting it in their states.

India’s minorities, particularly muslims, not only have been subjected to blatant discrimination but also to various forms of mob violence.

The lynching of muslims on suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows has become quite regular. muslim youths have been harassed by the police and ruling party cadres.

Fortunately, unlike on other issues like triple talaq, or Kashmir or Ayodhya verdict, opposition parties criticized the CAA. modi is visibly flustered– he doesn’t know what he is blabbering! The same modi had killed 2000 muslims in 2002 in Gujarat.

A few days back, about 500 lawyers have offered help across India. In past few days, 22 people, including an eight-year-old child, have been killed by Police in CAA protests, all in BJP-ruled states. 1500 have been arrested, and 4000 plus detained including more than 200 intellectuals.

This is worse than the Nazis.

After what India has been doing in Kashmir, it can no more be called as a democracy, according to The Washington Post’s scathing editorial.

In India, The right wing is bound by hatred for Gandhi, Nehru and his family, but plays the victim in claiming that the liberal or secular are bound by their hate for modi. They abuse women and issue rape threats but they play victims that the liberal secular discourse is bad. The right wing spreads hate, targets minorities, and

its members act as cheerleaders of violent ideology, but they play the victim and falsely accuse the liberal or secular, or anyone who doesn’t agree with them, of being Urban Naxalites. They defend even their convicted criminals and seek swift punishment for others on mere suspicion.

They spread fear, victimize anyone who disagrees with them, clamp down on media, freedoms of common citizens, create policies that destroy economy badly but their slogan says ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas”. Yet, they play the victim and claim “Hindu khatre main hain” (Hinus are in danger). modi’s Government is blamed in engaging in land grabbing in the Kashmir Valley. India today is a glimpse of what Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK) has been for the last four months and it is bad luck imposed on Indians due to the sufferings of Kashmiris under severe curfew.

In the end, Pakistan is right now needed to carry out diplomatic steps to improve its reputation and must assure the world that until and unless the Western countries cross the line to put pressure on India, things will only deteriorate. The Indian Government will never stop the human rights violations in IHK and other conflicted areas in India. Pakistan must end the sustained propaganda of terrorism in Western countries against itself. It is needed to address the concerns which are expressed on international level against Pakistan or must address the negative propaganda which India makes against Pakistan. moreover, Pakistan should need to take steps to portray a positive image of Pakistan for Western World. But the violations of human rights in India and especially IHK must be highlight on the International front.

Pakistan is not a defenseless force. Its armed forces are not ordinary forces but they include a battled-hardened army. The Pakistan Army has defeated organized terrorism and it is the only Army which has done, which denotes its capability, but spreading awareness in the world about chances of a false-flag operation from the Indian side against Pakistan is crucial and India’s intentions are an open secret for world but the economic interests of other countries inhibit them from adopting or supporting the truth. Indeed, it is obvious that Indian democracy has died and Shining India has lost its shine.

Dr Zeeshan Khan can be reached at Email: dr.zeeshan.alias.ghazikhan@gmail.com. He tweets at @DrZeeshanKhanA1

Freedom of expression & press under fire The press is under attack the world over Mujeebul Haq

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reedom of expression and press, as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 under Article 19 as a fundamental right, are essential ingredients of democracy. Unfortunately, they are under fire not only in Pakistan but also across the world.

Both of them have become anathema to the selected few who want to brush the truth under the carpet thereby to avoid being criticized. Sadly, the state of freedom of press and safety of journalists in Pakistan is as worrisome the journalists are facing all sorts of threats and mental agony. Indeed, curb on the freedom of press is tantamount to curbing the rights of citizens.

Undeniably, the restrictions on the freedom of expression are prevalent worldwide. Beginning from russia and the USA to the developing countries, all have restricted freedom of speech under different pretexts; media persons are being pressurised to toe the line of the authorities or face the music. In the USA, President Trump’s antipathy towards those media houses who do not report what suits the President’s whims and wishes are disdained. It was quite shocking especially the way the CNN’s Jim Acosta’s microphone was cut off and his White House credentials were revoked.

That phenomenon is indeed unwarranted keeping in view the global standing of America and the much sway it wields across the world.

Shockingly, in our country, Steven Butler, who is the Asia Programme Coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), was barred entry. After his arrival at the Lahore airport, he was deported. He was informed that his name was in the “stop list”. In the first instance, in case his name was in the stop list, then why was he issued visa as it is issued after due security clearance? Why was he not informed prior to departure? Such a situation is really painful for the media persons, masses and the country’s overall progress at large.

Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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recently, the Sindh Provincial Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable development Goals (SdGs), of which I am Convener, in coordination with the National Assembly’s Task Force on SdGs, UNeSCo Pakistan, Parliamentarians Commission on Human rights (PCHr) and Peace and Justice Network (PJN), held a two-day event on freedom of expression and protection of journalists at the Sindh Assembly which was attended by mPAs, journalists, civil society activists, and others to deliberate on the target 16.10 of the SdGs. It was quite shocking to know that the violence against the journalists has increased tremendously.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 1,358 journalists have been killed across the world between 1992 and 2019. Besides, as per Freedom Network, at least 33 journalists were murdered for their journalism work in Pakistan during the past six years, including seven in the past one year (November 2018 to october 2019) alone. depressingly, Pakistan has been ranked 142 out of 180 counties on the World Press Freedom index and is among the 13 countries where journalists are murdered and their killers go scot-free. In the last 10 years, at least 16 such cases were found in Pakistan. In this backdrop, practising journalism professional is certainly a challenging task.

Ironically, Dawn whose foundation stone was laid down by the founder of the nation, Quaid-iAzam muhammad Ali Jinnah, is under severe pressure. After the London Bridge attack, an imported mob thronged the head office of Dawn in Islamabad harassing the staff and chanting slogans calling for the shutdown of the newspaper, which is certainly condemnable. As my party’s slogan is “democracy is our politics” and free press is indispensable for it, Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited the Dawn offices and condemned the besieging of the newspaper office and expressed solidarity with the staff. Simultaneously, on the second day of the event on the SdGs 16.10, all the participants condemned the harassment of Dawn staffers in particular and the violence against press in general.

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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Violence in any manifestation against the press is unjustifiable and deserves across-theboard condemnation. We must admit that a free press is vital for vibrant democracy. For that purpose, on the second day of the event on SdG 16.10 we were joined by Sindh Information minister Saeed Ghani and deliberated on the “Sindh Safety of Journalists Bill” which will soon be introduced in the Sindh Assembly. Nonetheless, there was a disagreement on the definition of ‘journalist’ amongst the participants. mazhar Abbas, Afzal Butt and others were of the view that the full-time journalists be included in the definition, while others recommended that the scope of definition be broadened in the light of emerging trends such as vlogging, social media, and so on. Hence, it was agreed that once the bill has been introduced in the House, media persons would be consulted and their input will be incorporated in the bill at the review stage. After all, that legislation pertains to their safety and rights.

Thus, if we are to prosper with a vibrant democracy entailing free and responsible press, it is essential to let the culture of tolerance flourish where freedom of expression as permissible under article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, and Article 19 of the Universal declaration of Human rights are valued and appreciated. moreover, it is high time that all the legislatures of Pakistan consider the journalists’ safety law in order to provide safety to, and ensure the welfare of, media persons.

There is a need to make all-out efforts to improve ranking on the World Press Freedom index, in addition to prosecuting those involved in violence against journalists. At the same time, it is also necessary that media, which is considered the fourth pillar of the state, performs its duty responsibly and avoid airing unauthentic news. This measure will further add to the credibility of media.

Mujeebul Haq is a Sindh MPA and Convener of the Sindh Provincial Parliamentary Task Force on SDGs. He can be reached at: pirmujeeb@gmail.com

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

COMMENT 09 Editor’s mail

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The danger of political contention

New insights on modern Hinduism and Hindutva How Hindutva evolved as Hinduism’s response to modernity Dr rajinDer KuMar

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INdUISm is a tolerant, accommodative, eclectic and inclusive way of life. Hindutva is an intolerant and chauvinistic caricature of the great tradition it seeks to upsurge. originally portrayed by Vir Savarkar, the old Hindutva project of creating a ‘Hindu Sangathan’ took recent shape in seeking to create a hothouse unity around a single book and church. It provides further impetus to ‘Hindu consolidation’ on the one hand and defines the muslim once more not just as another Indian but as ‘the other’. It appeals directly to one’s emotions. Its ideology is full of fire and brimstone. Its slogans hit us in the solar plexus. It dredges tribal memories and clothes them in the garb of patriotism. While all the time railing against jehadis, it wages a ceaseless jehad of its own. It has created a heady cocktail of history, myth and religion, and flaunts it as ‘cultural nationalism’.

The notion has emerged from the dilemmas of the interpretation of India’s civilization as a multinational ‘nation’ or perhaps a multinational ‘country’. When analysed further the notion of ‘country’ is distinct from ‘nation’.

Practically in political terms, ‘country’ turns out to be no different from ‘nation’. dimensions of Hinduism: To equate Hindutva with Bharatiyata is to create an avoidable semantic and conceptual confusion.

Hinduism is one of the great religions of the world, and to seek to confine it to India or to give it an exclusivist and majoritarian interpretation is to do it a disservice. It is certainly true that Hinduism has provided the broad cultural and religious framework that has held India together despite its astonishing linguistic, ethnic and political diversity and divisions. Hinduism is as essential for an understanding of Indian culture and civilization as Islam is for the Arab World and roman Catholicism for Latin America. Hence, all Indians are not Hindus and all Hindus are not Indians. There are millions of Hindus living around the world who, while certainly having special regard for India as their spiritual motherland, are yet loyal and patriotic citizens of their respective countries.

Three other world religions– Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism– were born here, while four religions– Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam– came to us from West Asia and also flourished here. Along with the Baha’i faith as well as some new Buddhist sects, they represent a rich, pluralistic religious mosaic that needs to be carefully nurtured.

In terms of India, Nehru defines ‘unity in diversity’, the essence of Indian history, is the ideological basis of this position. This ‘unity of diversity’ is not the same as the Hindutva (Hinduness) as a Hindu state, but is only a liberal assimilationist view of the same Indian nation as the product of an Indian culture that was identified as Hindu culture. This liberal interpretation of Nehru extends to ‘secular’ and can identify Shivaji as the symbol of ‘a resurgent Hindu nationalism’. Nationalism as pointed by

Benedict Anderson, has to be related to ‘the our forefathers… We will never forget them or large cultural systems that preceded it, out of cease to take pride in that noble heritage of which– as well as against which – it came into ours. However, this melding of ideas was partly being’. out of fragmentation of the old sacred success because all-India institutions– the Govcommunity arose the nations of europe. But in ernment of India, the army, the universities, India’s case the unity of India or unity in diver- large corporations and the like over time engensity is a civilizational unity as rabinder Kumar der an accommodation of values which help to puts it, ‘the political identity of the republic of shape a new national consciousness.’ In the India should be in terms of a ‘civilization-state’ early years of independence this experience of rather than a nation state’. To quote one analyst national consciousness was limited to the lead‘We need to remember that the essential identity ership class. The public life of this new middle of India is cultural, not political or economic. It class tends towards modern values of individualism and scientific is one civilization that thought because these has withstood various vipan-Indian institutions cissitudes and still enare modern. In their pridured, largely because of A possible solution to this vate lines and familial its basic identity being relations, these same cultural. It never had a dilemma on the part of people tend to maintain political centre except Hindu majority in India is many of their old relivery recently. The basis gious and philosophical of this Indian culture has to follow the theocratic instincts, values and perbeen defined as the upper suasions. caste Hindu culture of lead, which need to Still confusion conthe Hindi belt. Although restore inner spiritual tinues: The prevalent duit may be called ram alism continued in the rajya, but it is not a reintegrity, not only among new middle class and as vivalism that seeks to the middle class, but also its urban section became bring back some values more modern, it was furof the past. rather, this is for the urban poor. This ther removed from the a use of the past to define rural life of the masses something new–a uniappeal was noted of Indian villagers. At form, homogeneous naprominently in Farhang’s the same time arose their tional culture centered on personal and spiritual the cultural tradition of analysis of Khomeini’s problems which left Bharatvarsha and them alienated from victory in the Iranian Aryavarta.’ themselves. They are not Nehru’s explanation revolution. The power of at home. Having two of new India: The base of sets of values and living Indian culture, and culsuch fundamentalism, in two different worlds tural continuity, as noted which aims to restore or is at best discomfiting.

by Nehru, had been Granted, life under the rooted in three major sorevive inner spiritual British raj made many a cial forces. Caste, the aumiddle class Indian integrity, would result in tonomous village and the at living in two joint family. But in new political balkanisation and adept worlds.

As Nirad India, urbanisation, modernisation and democrathe dreams of both Nehru Chaudhuri put it, “one cannot be at home in the tisation gradually erode and Gandhi would have new India without fithem all. Here lies nally being at home with Nehru’s dilemma, and in died.

In Nehru’s fine oneself.” one possible an effort to find the solution to this dilemma phrase, India will no ‘binding ingredient’ of on the part of Hindu mathe India he spoke of longer be India jority in India is to folIndia as a ‘sentiment’ low the theocratic lead, which went far back into which need to restore the remote periods of Ininner spiritual integrity, dian history. He also spoke of it as a conflict between two approaches not only among the middle class, but also for to the problem of social organisation, which are the urban poor. This appeal was noted promidiametrically opposed to each other; the old nently in Farhang’s analysis of Khomeini’s vicHindu conception of the group being the basic tory in the Iranian revolution. The power of unit of organisation and the excessive individ- such fundamentalism, which aims to restore or ualism of the West, emphasising the individual revive inner spiritual integrity, would result in above the group. As a possible solution, Nehru political balkanisation and the dreams of both suggested, must be a melding of these two with Nehru and Gandhi would have died. In Nehru’s religion, philosophy and science interrelated. fine phrase, India will no longer be India.

‘We can never forget the ideals that have moved Dr Rajinder Kumar is head of the Political our race, the dreams of the Indian people through the ages, the wisdom of the ancient, the Science at bNMu, Saharsa, bihar, India. He can buoyant energy and love of life and nature of be reached at rajkumarsinghpg@gmail.com

IN a democratic system, elections are held, and every political party nominates its candidate for each constituency.

The head of the winning party in elections becomes the Pm and the head of the runners-up party becomes the opposition leader. These lawmakers are elected after they are selected by the party. All are the chips of the same block. elected members’ primary duty is to make new laws and modify existing ones for the benefit and uplift of citizens.

Government must ensure freedom, access to the necessities of life, and security of the citizens. Similarly, the opposition party is responsible to keep a check on the ruling party to ensure they do the right things. Unfortunately, our lawmakers instead of performing their duties in an appropriate manner indulge in a war of criticism against each other. They don’t debate on matters of public interest but waste time on petty issues and personal cribbing. Both the parties in power and the opposition are more interested in levelling allegations at each other and wooing the public for their self-serving purposes. The PPP lead by Z A Bhutto introduced land reforms and held the first oIC meeting at Lahore. Bhutto won the election for a second term, but the grand alliance of opposition parties started a movement to overthrow the government, which they did only to see a dictator take over. Similar episodes have happened repeatedly in our history every time a dictator or a puppet government takes charge. Unfortunately, yet again, the opposition alliance is committed to repeating the mistakes of past. I am afraid if the result is anything close to what has always happened in the past, we are up for a very tough next decade. However, if our politicians see the light, be tolerant, and reduce their terms to four years, wait for the elections to convey their griefs to the people, we can stabilize, InshaAllah.

RAJA SHAFAATuLLAH Islamabad

Load-shedding in Karachi SIr, I want to draw the attention of the electricity department towards the breakdown of electricity which has affected nearly 80% of the city. only the upper class is exempted from this breakdown. This class includes ministers, politicians, and rich businessmen. In case of emergencies, they have their own high powered generators so they do not need to worry about anything. only the middle and labour classes even after paying full bills remain under pressure.

There is no electricity for a great part of the day, and when we try to go to sleep at night, this happens again and we spend the whole night stressfully.

How can we expect children to wake up fresh for the school in the morning, how working women can stay fresh the whole day on their duty timings?

Besides, at home little children, old citizens, sick people all of them are facing this problem. every family isn’t able to afford UPS and generators.

I hope you’ll help us. Through your attention we can solve this problem.

AREEbA HAIDER Karachi

The curse of dowry SIr, dowry is an act of discrimination against unmarried girls, whose marital life and values are defined by the monetary value of their respective dowries. of all social tribulations, it is one of the most significant ones in Pakistan. With the majority of the population living below the poverty line and destitute of basic living requirements, it adds to their misery .

“Jahaiz Aik Lanat” is a phrase that is often heard in our daily lives, yet no one implements it practically. If this system is brutal and evil enough to be called a curse, then why are the people of Pakistan still promoting the act that motivates domestic violence, mental torture and financial crises?

Your daughters are way more precious to be given to someone who would only accept her for the assets she would bring with marriage. It is time to raise your voice against it and eradicate it from the society so that no other family suffers at the hands of this social evil .

NAMIRA ZubAIR Karachi

Absentee doctors in Turbat CIVIL Hospital of Turbat is the biggest official hospital in Turbat where every day a great number of patients come from remote areas for their treatment. But unfortunately, some return to their homes with weeping eyes while some meet their maker only because no doctors were present in the emergency. The major reason of the doctors’ absence is that, that after getting their mBBS degree rather than performing their duty at the official hospitals, they get busy operating their private clinics. Some four to five days ago one of our beloved ones lost his precious life because no doctors were present. The reason of his death was some french-fries which got stuck in his throat due to which he couldn’t breath. When the doctor was called, the doctor said that he would arrive after an hour. How could the patient remain alive without taking breath for an hour?

No doubt, death is inevitable for every living creature, but cure can delay it. So, I request the Cm of Balochistan mr. Jam Kamal Sahab to provide these facilities to the people, at least.

RIAZ QuRAISH MAQSooDI Turbat

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

10 FOREIGN NEWS

thoUsands march In hong Kong on new year's day, pledge to 'Keep fIghtIng' HONG KONG

t

AGENCIES

ENS of thousands of anti-government protesters began marching in Hong Kong on New Year’s Day, demanding concessions from the city’s embattled government as the civil unrest that convulsed the Chinese-ruled city for over half a year spills into 2020.

Gathering on a grass lawn in Victoria Park under grey skies, citizens young and old, many dressed in black and some masked, carried signs such as “Freedom is not free” before setting off. “It’s hard to utter ‘Happy New Year’ because Hong Kong people are not happy,” said a man named Tung, who was walking with his two-year-old son, mother and niece.

“Unless the five demands are

achieved, and police are held accountable for their brutality, then we can’t have a real happy new year,” he added, referring to the push for concessions from the government including full democracy, an amnesty for the over 6,500 people arrested so far, and a powerful, independent investigation into police actions.

The pro-democracy march is being organised by the Civil Human Rights Front, a group that arranged a number of marches last year that drew millions.

Along the route, a number of newly elected pro-democracy district politicians mingled with the crowds on their first day in office, some helping collect donations to assist the movement.

“The government has already started the oppression before the New Year began […] whoever is being oppressed, we will stand with them,” said Jimmy

Sham, one of the leaders of the Civil Human Rights Front. Thousands of Hong Kong revellers had earlier welcomed in 2020 on neon lit promenades along the iconic skyline of Victoria Harbour, chanting the movement’s signature eight-word Chinese protest couplet — “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our Time” — for the final eight seconds before clocks struck midnight.

A sea of protesters then surged down Nathan Road, a major boulevard, blocking all lanes in a spontaneous march breaking out within minutes of the new decade. Some held signs reading “Lets keep fighting together in 2020.”

Overnight, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons during some brief standoffs. China’s President Xi Jinping said in a New Year’s speech that Beijing will “resolutely safeguard the

prosperity and stability” of Hong Kong under the so-called “one country, two systems” framework. Many people in Hong Kong are angered by Beijing’s tight grip on the city which was promised a high degree of autonomy under this framework when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Beijing denies interference and blames the West for fomenting the unrest.

A group of 40 parliamentarians and dignitaries from 18 countries had written an open letter to Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam on New Year’s Eve, urging her to “seek genuine ways forward out of this

Floods in Indonesia's capital kill nine, force thousands to evacuate JAKARTA AGENCIES

Indonesia rejects china's claims over south china sea JAKARTA: Indonesia said on Wednesday it rejected China’s claims over a disputed part of the South China Sea as “having no legal basis”, after two days earlier protesting to Beijing over the presence of a Chinese coastguard vessel in its territorial waters. The boat trespassed into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone off the coast of the northern islands of Natuna, leading Indonesians officials to issue a “strong protest” and summon the Chinese ambassador in Jakarta. [L4N295169] Speaking in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said China had sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and their waters and that both China and Indonesia have “normal” fishing activities there. In a sharp rebuke, Indonesia’s foreign ministry called in a statement on Wednesday for China to explain the “legal basis and clear borders” regarding its claims on the exclusive economic zone, as based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). “China’s claims to the exclusive economic zone on the grounds that its fishermen have long been active there… have no legal basis and have never been recognized by the UNCLOS 1982,” the foreign ministry said. Jakarta also noted that the argument had been refuted during China’s legal defeat against the Philippines in 2016 over disputed South China claims at Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Indonesia has no claims over the Spratly Islands, which lie to the northeast of the Natuna Islands. The foreign ministry reiterated its stance that the country is a non-claimant state in the South China Sea and that it has no overlapping jurisdiction with China. However, Jakarta has repeatedly clashed with China over fishing rights around the Natuna Islands, detaining Chinese fishermen and expanding its military presence in the area. China claims most of the South China Sea, an important trade route which is believed to contain large quantities of oil and natural gas.

Several Southeast Asian states dispute China’s territorial claims and are competing with China to exploit the South China Sea’s abundant hydrocarbon and fishing resources. Beijing has raised the ante by deploying military assets on artificial islands constructed on shoals and reefs in disputed parts of the sea. AGENCIES

Flash floods inundated swathes of Indonesia’s capital and nearby towns on the first day of the New Year after torrential rainfall overnight, killing at least nine people and forcing thousands of people to evacuate, authorities said on Wednesday.

“As of 4 pm today, there are 19,079 displaced residents who have been evacuated at temporary shelters throughout Jakarta,” city governor Anies Baswedan told a news conference. “The rain in Jakarta has stopped, now we are waiting for the water to recede”.

Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) said at least 9 people had died in flash floods and landslides triggered by the rain in Jakarta and nearby towns.

Most of the deaths were due to

hypothermia, though one was a teenager who was electrocuted by a power line, disaster mitigation agency spokesman Agus Wibobo said. Television footage showed cars almost completely submerged and people wading through meters murky brown water in some neighbourhoods of the capital.

Water levels in East and South Jakarta as well as in the satellite cities of Tangerang and Bekasi in West Java province started to quickly rise from 3 a.m. local time (2000 GMT), according to the disaster mitigation agency.

Indonesia’s state electricity utility said it had switched off the electricity in hundreds of districts in Jakarta, which is home to 30 million people. The floods also caused the temporary closure of the runway at Jakarta’s domestic Halim airport, with flights redirected to the

capital’ bigger Soekarno airport.

City authorities have in the last few years sought to improve lowlying Jakarta’s vulnerability to flooding during the rainy season.

More than 50 people died in one of the capital’s deadliest floods in 2007 and five years ago much of the center of the city was inundated after canals overflowed.

Jakarta resident Daniel, whose neighbourhood had been waterlogged, told reporters of his disappointment with the city government’s efforts to mitigate the floods, which happen yearly during the rainy season.

“I only have one hope, which is to ask the current governor to fix this because it impact all the people,” he pleaded.

“Take the right action please, look at what is happening now, bring the situation back to normal.”

crisis by addressing the grievances of Hong Kong people.”

The protest movement is supported by 59 per cent of the city’s residents polled in a survey conducted for Reuters by the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute.

Demonstrations have grown increasingly violent in recent months, at times paralysing the Asian financial centre.

Protesters have thrown petrol bombs and rocks, with police responding with tear gas, water cannon, pepper spray, rubber bullets and occasional live rounds.

There have been several injuries.

australian authorities scramble to reach victims of deadly fires as death toll rises SYDNEY: A third person was confirmed dead on Wednesday in devastating bushfires that engulfed Australia’s southeast coast this week and a fourth was missing and feared dead, as navy ships rushed to provide supplies and assist with evacuations. At least 15 people are now believed to have died, while scores of people remain missing after weeks of fires that have ripped through Australia’s east coast, much of which is tinder-dry after three years of drought. Fanned by soaring temperatures, columns of fire and smoke blackened entire towns on Monday and Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents and holidaymakers to seek shelter on beaches.

Many stood in shallow water to escape the flames. Bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres) and new blazes are sparked almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions and, most recently, dry lightning strikes created by the fires themselves. AGENCIES

World welcomes 2020 but wildfires, protests cast a pall over some celebrations SYDNEY/HONG KONG/LONDON AGENCIES

The world celebrated the New Year on Wednesday with fireworks displays from Sydney to London, although celebrations were clouded by deadly wildfires in Australia, protests in Hong Kong and India and nuclear tensions with North Korea.

Large crowds gathered in European capitals for spectacular firework displays that lit up the skies over landmarks like Big Ben in London, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Parthenon in Athens and the Kremlin in Moscow. The traditional drop of a Waterford crystal ball on Times Square in New York capped a six-hour New Year’s Eve show. Intermittent rain did little to dampen the festivities as hundreds of thousands of people were treated to performances by pop star Post Malone, the Korea-pop band BTS, and singer songwriter Alanis Morissette.

In Australia, a million revellers thronged Sydney harbour and nearby districts to watch more than 100,000 fireworks explode above the city, even as thousands of people along the country’s eastern seaboard sought refuge from the bushfires on beaches.

Thousands in Hong Kong welcomed 2020 on neonlit promenades in the picturesque Victoria Harbour, breaking into pro-democracy chants shortly after the countdown to midnight. Hong Kong authorities cancelled the main midnight fireworks display for the first time in a decade, citing security concerns. A “Symphony of Lights” took place instead, involving projections on the city’s tallest skyscrapers, while smaller-scale pyrotechnics were launched from waterfront rooftops.

In Japan, people took turns striking Buddhist temple bells, in accordance with tradition.

SYDNEY CONTROVERSY: Sydney decided to press ahead with its fireworks despite calls by some members of the public for the display to be cancelled in solidarity with fire-hit areas in New South Wales,

of which the city is the capital.

Sydney Mayor Clover Moore said planning had begun 15 months ago and that the event also gave a boost to the economy. Some towns in eastern Australia cancelled their New Year’s celebrations as naval vessels and military helicopters helped firefighters rescue people fleeing the fires, which have turned swathes of New South Wales into a raging furnace.

The fires have killed at least 11 people since October, two of them overnight into Tuesday, destroyed more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres) and left many towns and rural areas without electricity or mobile coverage. Elsewhere, celebrations from Auckland, New Zealand, to Pyongyang, the capital of isolated North Korea, welcomed in the New Year with fireworks displays.

Fireworks exploded and confetti rained on revellers after the ball dropped in New York. High school science teachers and students pressed the button that started the ball on its 60-second descent to count down to the New Year in a gesture to highlight efforts to combat climate change. The ball has changed form several times since it first dropped at One Times Square in 1907 as an iron-and-wood sphere and has now become a global symbol of the New Year.

CMYK

But amid the celebrations of a New Year and decade, old tensions threatened to flare up. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Wednesday his country would keep developing nuclear programs and introduce a “new strategic weapon” in the near future after the United States ignored a year-end deadline to restart denuclearisation talks.

PROTESTS, BREXIT: In Hong Kong, rocked by months of sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations, protesters were urged to wear masks at a New Year rally called “Don’t forget 2019 – Persist in 2020,” according to social media posts.

Some 6,000 police were deployed and Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, appealed for calm and reconciliation in her New Year’s Eve video message and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hoped “harmony” would return to the territory. The protests began in response to a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, where courts are controlled by the Communist Party and have evolved into a broader pro-democracy movement.

Thousands of Indians ushered in the year by demonstrating against a citizenship law they say will discriminate against Muslims and chip away at India’s secular constitution. The demonstrations came despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempts to dampen protests that have run for nearly three weeks.

Irshad Alam, a 25-year-old resident of the Shaheen Bagh area of New Delhi, stood with his 1-yearold child in his arms and his wife by his side. He said he had been participating in the protest every day.

“It’s freezing here,” he said. “But we are still here because we care about this movement.”

More than three years after the UK voted to leave the European Union, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, fresh from winning a parliamentary majority in last month’s election, promised in his New Year’s message to “get Brexit done before the end of this month.”

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

BUSINESS 11

NEPRA NoTiFiEs Rs1.56 PER uNiT hikE iN PowER TARiFF

CORPORATE CORNER

ISLAMABAD

KARACHI: Team Media Matters celebrates New Year with a cake cutting ceremony at their office to welcome the beginning of 2020. Founder and CEO Aleem Durrani also joined the team on the occasion. P R E S S R E L E A S E

ISLAMABAD: The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Akhuwat have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) which will help microentrepreneurs in the country to get access to professional support and develop financial literacy. PRESS RELEASE

T

AHMAD AHMADANI

HE National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has notified Rs1.56 per unit hike in power tariff, which would be charged from the consumers in the billing month of January 2020.

According to the NEPRA notification, the decision to increase electricity price was taken on account of fuel price adjustment for the month of October 2019. "This increase shall be applicable to all the consumers' categories except lifeline consumers of the power distributing companies (DISCOs) as well as the consumers of K-Electric."

NEPRA has also advised the DISCOs to show this increase separately in the consumers' bills on the basis of units billed to the con-

December inflation clocks in at 12.63pc ISLAMABAD GHULAM ABBAS

KARACHI: Nestle Pakistan Head of Corporate Affairs Waqar Ahmad receives an award from Adviser to PM on Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh. The award was presented to Nestle Pakistan for being one of the top 25 performing companies in the country. P R E S S R E L E A S E

KARACHI: Dawlance Pakistan recently participated in Dawn Lifestyle Expo 2019, showcasing a wide range of products. Dawlance CEO Umar Ahsan Khan was also present on the occasion. P R E S S R E L E A S E

sumers in the month of October 2019. The DISCOs shall also reflect the fuel charges adjustment in respect of October 2019 in the billing month of January 2020.

"While affecting the fuel adjustment charges, the concerned XWDISCOs (ex-WAPDA DISCOs) shall keep in view and strictly comply with the orders of the court notwithstanding this order," the notification read.

According to details, the actual fuel charges component for October 2019 was Rs5.3235 per kiloWatt hour (kWh), while corresponding reference fuel charges component was earlier set at Rs3.7579/kWh. In this way, fuel price variation was registered at Rs1.5656/kWh during the said month.

Earlier, the Central Power Purchasing Authority (CPPA) had requested NEPRA to jack up the per unit price of electricity by Rs1.73 per unit on account of fuel price adjustment for October 2019.

Inflation rose to 12.63 per cent on a year-onyear basis in December 2019, as compared to the same month of last year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Wednesday.

Inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), however, dropped marginally by 0.4pc on a month-on-month basis, from 12.67pc in November 2019 to 12.63pc in December 2019.

The country's annual inflation rate dropped slightly in December due to what the data shows, a decrease in some commodity prices.

As per the PBS, prices of food items including tomatoes, wheat, chicken, cooking oil, sugar, motor fuel and liquefied hydrocarbons, which make up a third of the overall basket used to calculate inflation, dropped during the month under review.

In line with the IMF's claims that inflation has started stabilising, the government foresees a further downward trend in inflation during the coming months. IMF had lowered the inflation projection for the fiscal year 2020 from 13pc to 11.8pc on account of administrative and energy tariff adjustments that are expected to offset the effects from weak domestic demand. The finance ministry had also recently claimed that the country would do much better than IMF projections, saying that measures would be taken to bring inflation down to five per cent in the medium term.

According to the break-up figures, the urban CPI-based inflation increased by 12pc YOY,

whereas it went down by 0.4pc MoM. On the other hand, rural CPI-based inflation increased 13.6pc YoY whereas it decreased by 0.3pc MoM. Meanwhile, the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) witnessed an increase of 18.1pc YoY and a decrease of 2pc MoM. Likewise, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) increased by 12.4pc YoY and witnessed a decrease of 0.3pc MoM. During the month of December 2019, the core inflation measured by non-food non-energy (NFNE) urban CPI increased by 7.5pc YoY and 0.4pc MoM, whereas core inflation measured

by NFNE rural CPI increased by 8.1pc YoY and 0.5pc MoM. The top food commodities that witnessed increase in their prices on YoY basis included tomatoes (321.04pc), onions (169.45pc), fresh vegetables (83.59pc), potatoes(78.23pc), pulse moong (53.24pc), pulse mash (38.44pc), gur (31.22pc), sugar (27.81pc), wheat (21.68pc), cooking oil (16.67pc), vegetable ghee (16.39pc), wheat flour (15.8pc), pulse masoor (13.82pc), fish (13.64pc), meat (13.45pc), dry fruits(13.25pc), besan (11.96pc), beverages (11.1pc), pulse gram (11pc), beans (10.84pc), milk powder (10.64pc) and tea (10.21pc).

On the other hand, the non-food commodities that witnessed an increase in prices included gas charges (54.84pc), construction input items (18.51pc), motor fuel (17.95pc), electricity charges (17.57pc), motor vehicles (16.6pc), cotton cloth (12.49pc), transport services (11.89pc), doctor's clinic fee (11.2pc), woollen cloth (10.44pc), and motor vehicle accessories (10.04pc).

Govt allows car importers to pay partial duties in rupees ISLAMABAD SHAHZAD PARACHA

The federal government has permitted importers of used cars to pay partial duties in Pakistani currency to release their vehicles stuck at Karachi port, after fulfilling certain specific conditions.

The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) on Monday amended the import policy order 2016 through an SRO which read that “in case the Pakistani rupee depreciates or government increases the import duties or taxes after receipt of remittance and before filing of

good declaration, which results in shortfall of remitted amount against payable duties and taxes, the importer is allowed to meet the shortfall through local sources.”

Officials said this would facilitate the smooth clearance of imported cars, as in such cases of shortfall in remitted duty/taxes, the imported cars were stuck at Karachi port causing losses to the owners of vehicles.

The amendment will be implemented in backdate and will be applicable from 15th Jan 2019, the same day when the MoC had initially placed condition that duty and taxes on all imported vehicles, in new and

used condition, under personal baggage or gift scheme will be paid out of foreign exchange arranged

by Pakistani nationals themselves or local recipients supported by bank encashment certificate showing conversion of foreign remittance to local currency.

While implementing these measure officials had said that it was done to discourage misuse of gift and baggage schemes, earn foreign exchange for Pakistan and discourage imports as a whole. Around three thousand vehicles had been stuck at port owing to the imposition of foreign exchange related conditions since last one year.

Amid delays, Diamer-Bhasha’s PC-1 cost surges 68pc ISLMABAD GHULAM ABBAS

In a surprising development, WAPDA has sought Rs170.756 billion, through another revised PC-I, for the acquisition of land/resettlement of DiamerBasha Dam project.

The cost of 2nd revised PC-I of the project, which has been submitted by WAPDA to Ministry of Planning and Development, is 68pc higher than the 1st revised PC-I of the Acquisition of Land & Resettlement (AL&R), as the total cost of the project was estimated at Rs101.3 billion in 2015.

WAPDA has cited an increase in the number of houses built on the demarcated land, a surge in the number of

WAPDA yet to Acquire lAnD for the DAm's site DesPite All finAnciAl AnD ADministrAtive suPPort trees, revised compensation package and frequent protest of the project affectees as reasons behind the huge jump in the cost of revised PC-I. According to sources, the Planning Commission, while showing its displeasure over the surge in the resettlement cost, has asked WAPDA to explain the reasons for incurring such heavy costs to national exchequer due to time and cost overrun. As per the Planning Commission, there should also be a comprehensive investigation by the Prime Minister’s Inspection

Commission to probe into WAPDA’s proven inefficiencies in the aforementioned project.

The Central Development Working Party (CDWP), which met on Wednesday, referred the project to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) for further consideration.

As per the documents, the PC-I of AL&R of Diamer-Basha Dam was approved by ECNEC in 2008 for Rs60.00 billion. However, on the recommendations of the ministerial com-

mittee constituted by then prime minister, the 1st revised PC-I (AL&R) was prepared by WAPDA and approved by ECNEC in 2015, costing Rs101.37 billion. Now WAPDA has submitted the 2nd revised PC-I costing Rs170.75 billion for approval on the basis of “actual payments made to the affectees through various awards by Land Acquisition Collector, Chilas”.

The government has so far released over Rs87 billion for the PC-I of land acquisition. After 11 years, WAPDA has not yet been able to acquire the land for the dam's site despite all financial and administrative support. The proposed completion period has now been extended until 2028-29 as compared to 2020-21.

CPPA, in its application, had informed that 25.48pc electricity was produced from hydel sources; 24.62pc was generated from coal; 0.20pc from residual furnace oil; 12.17pc from natural gas; 25.41pc from regasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG); 9.23pc from nuclear power; 0.14pc from mixed sources; 0.06pc from bagasse; 0.64 from solar while 0.14pc electricity was imported from Iran to meet the energy needs during the month of October 2019.

As per CPPA, total energy generated in October stood at 9,572.06 gigawatts, while the energy delivered to power distributing companies (DISCOs) was 9,296.60GWh (97.12pc).

Sources in the power sector said that already burdened power consumers would bear an additional cost of approximately Rs14.5 billion with effect to the NEPRA’s approval of Rs1.56 per unit hike in power price.

Transporters to observe nationwide strike today The transporters have announced to hold a nationwide strike on Thursday (today) owing to toll taxes and other increased fines in the country. According to details, transporters suffering from fines and other taxes have called for a nationwide strike. Protests would be held at 12 places in Lahore. Transporters have also announced not to operate transport for the supply of vegetables and milk, while threatening to close the internal and external routes of the provincial capital. Officials of the Public and Goods Transporters Association maintained that all types of vehicles would observe the strike and that they have called for an immediate withdrawal of unfair fines and taxes. BUSINESS DESK

FATF pressure leads banks to educate customers on AML/CTF One of the leading commercial banks in Pakistan, Habib Metropolitan Bank has recently been conducting customer awareness sessions on money laundering and antiterrorism financing. The bank, which is known to be a specialist in trade finance, conducted these sessions at local hotels in Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. A senior official from the State Bank of Pakistan was also present at two of these sessions to explain regulatory expectations regarding FATF developments. As per directives of the State Bank of Pakistan, players in the banking industry seem to be working hard on improving their standards on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering Terrorism Financing (CTF) in line with those expected by international standard-setting and assessing bodies like Asia Pacific Group (APG) and Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Speakers also briefed the audience about greater documentary requirements arising due to the current geo-political environment and enhanced focus on the scrutiny of transactions by the regulators. BUSINESS DESK

China cuts banks' reserve ratios again BEIJING: China’s central bank said on Wednesday it was cutting the amount of cash that all banks must hold as reserves, releasing around 800 billion yuan ($114.91 billion) in funds to shore up the slowing economy. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said on its website it will cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50 basis points, effective Jan. 6. The move would bring the level for big banks down to 12.5pc.

The PBOC has now cut RRR eight times since early 2018 to free up more funds for banks to lend as economic growth slows to the weakest pace in nearly 30 years. AGENCIES

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

12 BUSINESS

hAFEEz shAikh uRgEs FBR To sTRivE FoR oPTiMAL REsouRCE MoBiLisATioN

MARKET DAILY

ISLAMABAD

PsX welcomes New Year with upward trend, index gains 664 points KARACHI STAFF REPORT

Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) started the new year on a positive note, as the indices drove north right from the word go while volumes improved significantly from the previous session. Foreign investors ended as net sellers of shares worth $3.51 million on the last trading session of the year, whereas they remained net buyers of shares worth $55.51 million in the outgoing year. According to the latest data published by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, inflation clocked in at 12.60pc in December 2019 as compared to 12.67pc in the previous month. Consumer Price Index (CPI) in December 2018 was recorded at 5.40pc. Passenger car sales fell by 24pc to 152,702 units in the first 11 months of 2019 as compared to 201,251 units in the same period of last year. Devaluation of the rupee, rise in interest rates and hike in taxes were some reasons behind the decline.

Gaining 808.97 points, the KSE-100 Index recorded its intraday high at 41,544.05. It settled with a gain of 664.92 points at 41,400.00. The KMI-30 Index ended higher by 1,037.37 points or 1.57pc at 67,068.88, while the KSE All Share Index appreciated by 268.24 points, settling at 29,279.97. Out of the total traded shares, 255 advanced and 67 declined. Sectors that helped the index accumulate gains included banking (+277.41 points), fertiliser (+92.58 points) and oil & gas exploration (+74.08 points). Among the companies, Habib Bank Limited (HBL +89.84 points), United Bank Limited (UBL +73.50 points) and Engro Corporation Limited (ENGRO +63.73 points) remained the top contributors to the index. The overall market volumes improved from 177.12 million in the previous session to 330.74 million. K-Electric Limited (KEL +8.92pc) led the volume chart on Wednesday, followed by Unity Foods Limited (UNITY +4.47pc) and Fauji Foods Limited (FFL +6.77pc). The scripts had exchanged 119.39 million, 26.57 million and 17.48 million shares, respectively.

China lowers import tariffs for Pakistan, others

INP

A

DvISER to Prime Minister on Finance & Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to aggressively follow up on its agreement with the traders.

During a visit to the FBR House, he urged the officials to expand the tax base, work optimally to enrol nearly 20,000 points of sales in the country, grant timely and full payment of tax refunds and draw up and pursue a futuristic workplan using modern communication tools to achieve organisational targets and goals in an ongoing manner.

“An efficient and robust communication with the public and stakeholders should be at the centre of every activity undertaken by FBR, as that would harness public support for its efforts to broaden the tax base and promote a tax-compliant culture in the country,” he said.

Earlier, the FBR chairman informed the adviser that the revenue board had registered 16.3pc revenue growth by provisionally collecting Rs2,083.2 billion between July-December 2019, netting Rs292.3 billion more than the revenue collected during the corresponding period of last year.

The board received more than 2.1 million tax

his team for a commendable performance and asked them to redouble their efforts for an optimal revenue collection in view of the current economic condition of the country, where the people were looking more towards FBR because each dollar not earned by the revenue authority would have to be borrowed from somewhere else, affecting the future choices of the country.

He also advised the FBR management to follow an integrated media and communication plan, using all modern tools of information and expertise of top-level service and content providers in the market, to communicate with the public and share with them on a consistent basis the results of efforts on revenue collection and tax facilitation.

Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said all his support was available to the FBR team for their honest work and he hoped that the revenue collection arm of the government would not disappoint the nation and work harder to fulfil the expectations of the prime minister.

The FBR chairman said that he had appointed five new complaint commissioners for the redress of complaints and by March 2020, many of the pending cases would be resolved.

He also committed to providing results of their sector-wise collection and progress on new initiatives and implementation of reforms to the adviser by next week.

CDwP approves eight projects worth Rs13bn ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

ISLAMABAD

BEIJING China on Wednesday lowered tariff rates in accordance with the free trade agreements it has separately signed with Pakistan, New Zealand, Peru, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore, Australia, the Republic of Korea, Chile and Georgia. The second phase of the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) allows Pakistani manufacturers and traders to export around 313 new products on zero duty to the Chinese market, according to official sources.

Pakistan was already enjoying zero duty on the export of 724 products to China under the first FTA signed between the two countries in 2006. After the implementation of the second phase of FTA, Pakistan has been allowed to export a total of 1,047 products to China on zero duty. Sources said the new facility would particularly help the textile sector enhance its export to China as these exports would virtually be duty-free. According to experts, Pakistan could now increase its export around $1 billion in the short-term, while the export of these items is likely to touch $4-5 billion in the medium term after setting up a new industry in the special economic zones being constructed in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) flagship project. In the long-term, they said, Pakistan could enhance its exports to China up to $10 billion in the next few years as the volume of Chinese import market was around $64 billion. Experts believe China wants to import quality products from different countries, including Pakistan. "If our traders actively participate in different trade fairs in China to market their goods, they can get import orders at fair prices."

returns by Dec 31, 2019, he said, adding that at least 600,000 more people were likely to submit their returns till January 31st, 2020.

The chairman also dilated on the domestic tax collection which had grown significantly, showing 21pc growth in domestic income tax, 34pc in domestic sales tax and 25.6pc in domestic federal excise duty, raising the share of domestic revenue to Rs1,172 billion in the overall tax collection, as against Rs934.5 billion in the corresponding period of FY18.

Shabbar Zaidi claimed that the FBR had doubled its focus on taxpayer facilitation and automation of processes, adding that all matters regarding the interaction of taxpayers with the department, including registration, issuance of certificates, returning filing, audit and monitoring, were fully automated.

“FBR has given away tax refunds worth Rs100 billion to the taxpayers in 2019 as against Rs36 billion refunds given in 2018,” he added.

The adviser lauded the FBR chairman and

gcc countries remain top destination for Pakistani workers in 2019

APP

APP

'robust communicAtion With Public AnD stAkeholDers shoulD be At the centre of every Activity unDertAken by fbr'

Member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) once again remained the top destination for Pakistani emigrants, as half a million people opted for these countries to get employment in multiple sectors during the last year.

According to data compiled by the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BEOE), 539,976 Pakistani workers proceeded to the GCC member countries in 2019, constituting some 95pc of the total outgoing manpower (563,018).

Among the Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia alone imported 294,156 Pakistanis as compared to 100,910 in 2018, registering a marked growth of 191pc in the previous year.

The United Arab Emirates employed 195,241 Pakistanis, followed By Oman 26,062, Qatar 17,413, Bahrain 6,988 and Kuwait 116.

Overall, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OP&HRD) helped 563,018 Pakistanis get jobs in different countries, a massive increase of 47pc as compared to 2018 when only 382,439 went abroad for overseas employment in various trades.

According to an OP&HRD official, the total number of emigrants who got

foreign employment in 2019 included 45.5pc skilled, 39.72pc unskilled, 10.64pc semi-skilled, 2.53pc highly qualified and 1.56pc highly skilled workforce.

Talking to APP, he said some 217,499 labourers and 161,226 drivers went abroad for different job assignments during the period under review.

To a query, the official said apart from the Middle East, the ministry was exploring new markets to send qualified and skilled youth.

He said the ministry had already initiated the process of sending skilled workforce to European countries, including Romania and the United Kingdom.

The official said Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Syed Zulfikar Bukhari had held consultations with the relevant authorities in different states to augment the number of Pakistani workers abroad.

He said that Zulfi Bukhari had formally requested the Saudi authorities to enhance the number of Pakistani workers in the multi-billion-dollar project, the New Taif City.

Saudi Arabia had also extended an offer for Pakistan's manpower export through “Musaned,” a digital platform launched by the Kingdom to facilitate the labour recruitment process and ensure the protection of workers' rights, he added.

The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on Wednesday approved eight projects worth Rs13 billion and recommended five others worth Rs112.20 billion to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for consideration. The CDWP meeting was held on Wednesday under the chair of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan. Planning Secretary Zafar Hasan, along with senior officials from the federal and provincial governments, was also present on the occasion. Projects related to food & agriculture, health, mass media, manpower, industries & commerce, physical planning & housing, transport & communication and water resources were presented during the meeting. The approved projects included ‘Construction of Auditorium at Pakistan Academy of Letter’ (Rs110.469 million), ‘Improvement in Livelihood of female home-based workers (FHBWs) in Informal Economic Sector of Sindh’ (Rs541.086 million) and ‘Procurement of Latest Printing Machines for Modernisation of Survey of Pakistan’ (Rs483.639 million). Two projects related to the Interior Division, namely ‘Construction of Admin Block Magazine Quarter Guard, Barracks, MT Shed, Horse Stable & Parade Ground in Diplomatic Enclave, Islamabad’ (Rs280.848 million) and ‘Construction of Police Barracks (100 men each) in sector F-7, F-8 and G-10, Islamabad’ (Rs185.416 million), also received a nod by the CDWP. Similarly, it approved two projects of the Transport & Communication Division, namely ‘Construction of Bridge over River Ravi at Mal Fatyana District Toba Tek Singh’ (Rs1,910.737 million) and ‘Project Financing for Punjab Water Resources Management’ (Rs1,276.324 million). In addition, a project titled ‘Promoting Sustainable Urban Development through Resilient Resources Management with a Participatory Approach in Mansehra’ (Rs1,040.60 million) was also approved in the meeting. Meanwhile, the projects referred to ECNEC for consideration included ‘Construction of Eastern Wastewater Treatment Plant (44MGD) of Faisalabad City [Phase-1]’ (Rs19,071 million), ‘Naulong Dam Project’ (Rs28,465 million), ‘Diamer Basha Dam Project Acquisition of Land and Resettlement’ (Rs20,337 million), ‘Gwadar Lasbela Livelihoods Support Project-II’ (Rs12,328 million) and ‘Punjab Human Capital Investment Project’ (Rs32 billion).

Uber to give 20pc discount if you are travelling by train LAHORE SHAHAB OMER

Pakistan Railways (PR) Chief Executive Officer Aijaz Ahmad Buriro on Wednesday announced that the passengers using Uber to travel to the railway stations will get a discount of 20pc on their Uber fares.

Speaking to media at Railways headquarters, he said, “We are contracting with the Uber Company on the direction of the Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed and we are also giving them space at the railway station. PR will also give a 20pc

PAkistAn rAilWAys exPects to mAke An ADDitionAl rs10bn from freight this yeAr discount to those who will arrive through Uber. However, the federal minister will inaugurate this service this month.”

He further said, “We have re-fixed 275 coaches by utilizing our given

budget and despite numerous problems, we have started 24 new trains since August 18, 2019. The Lahore-Jallo shuttle train was the last train in this regard. We also have 75 Chinese coaches and we are also trying to maintain them. Hopefully, we will run one or two more trains by May of this year.”

Aijaz also appreciated the efforts of his workshop division and carriage factory, saying, “Without the cooperation of workshops division and carriage factory, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to start new trains.”

He added that on the strong demand of people, the department had started a Christmas train. “Previously, it was decided to run the train till December 31, 2019 but due to its 100pc booking, we have decided to run it till January 10, 2020.”

The PR CEO said that 2019 was the year of e-ticketing as the department booked 60pc tickets online. Now we intend to increase the booking rate by 100pc in 2020 so as to facilitate the people.”

He further added, “Pakistan Railways is the second largest government

organization after the Pakistan Army.

There were three major accidents in 2019 and we are still in pain due to those accidents but all those accidents were caused by human error. We are installing the ATM machine at railways stations to facilitate the passengers. In 2018, our freight business was Rs52 billion. This time our target in freight is Rs58 billion but we expect to cross it by June and instead make Rs62 billion.

From passenger and freight cars, we have earned Rs1.4 billion more than the target set for Oct-Dec 2019 period.”

When Pakistan flashed On WOrld MaP again

By KauKaB Jahan

HOLLYWOOD BOLLYWOOD

Nauman Arfeen became a household name in mid of October this year when Duke of Cambridge, Prince William wore his sherwani in the reception hosted by the British High Commissioner to Pakistan on his visit to Pakistan. The exclusively designed bottle green sherwani became talk of the town instantly and media all over the world was discussing about the name, origin, variety and features of the outfit. That particular sherwani became so popular that Arfeen had to launch it exclusively to cater the demand properly.

When making the list of most happening thing in the fashion world in Pakistan in 2019, there was not any other name than Nauman Arfeen, who made Pakistan’s name flashing on the world map in very positive light.

Fixing the time for interview was not a very difficult task as Nauman was so prompt in answering and making things easier. We sat in his well decorated state of the art massive store at Bukhari Commercial Area, where the very down to earth and seemingly quite Nauman Arfeen came to me as very talkative but coherent, who is always ready to elaborate anything he speaks. To him, overnight success is nothing.

One has to struggle for years to get the sustainable reward.

His motto is to do something for his country.

“Clothes making is my business but I always wished that I could do something for Pakistan within my domain. I got this chance to put Pakistan on international fashion scene by designing sherwani for Prince William and I am sure God will provide me with more opportunities.”

1

How did you decide to designing clothes?

I was not expected to come into this business. I wanted to be a doctor as my elder brothers were also studying medicine. At the same time, we had a family business of having a shop in Saddar, Karachi, named ‘Hat Villa’, which was run by my father. So, when I showed my interest to become a doctor, my father rejected the idea because he wanted me to take on family business. He literally threatened us that if we didn’t take it further; he would sell Hat Villa, which he established in 1952. Obviously, no one else left to look after that in family as my brothers had already pursued their careers in medicine and law. So I could not follow my passion further and left it behind to join my family business.

2

So, How did you take it further when took the reins from your father?

In ‘Hat Villa’, we introduced the original and specialized art of wrapping pagirs (turbans), which became very popular item in early 90s. I took it beyond wrapping turbans and started designing other items for grooms like sherwani, kurta, pyjama and khusa etc. In late 90s, I set up a factory in North Karachi and bought another shop in Saddar and named it Naushemian, meaning ‘groom’, where everything related to groom was available under the same roof. Before that, people used to buy these items from different shops. That idea worked a lot then in 2007, I set up another outlet of Naushemian in the form of store at Bukhari Commercial Area DHA. That was really a proud moment for my father.

3

How was the feeling, when Prince William wore the sherwani designed by you?

Behind my mind, I always had a thought to do something for my country. With my brand flourishing, I knew that it would bring Pakistan on international fashion scene someday. That proud moment came when Prince William chose to wear our sherwani. I think that moment has also given this outfit a new recognition. I believe the whole nation must feel delighted that our traditional dresses are being known worldwide. It is the most memorable incident of my career yet but I hope in future, more wonderful moment would come. It is just a start.

4

What is the story of coming onto the Fashion Pakistan Week?

In 2009, Fashion Pakistan Council asked me to participate in Fashion Pakistan Week, FPW. For this, I give huge credit to Rizwan Baig, who really helped me in getting into FPW. There, it was really hard to proof myself to a group of people, who thought that a person running a shop in Saddar could handle the fashion sense of elites. My shows were back to back hits.

I got standing ovations. So, in 2012, I was made member of board of directors in FPC. Few years later, I was offered the post of CEO of council but refused because I was not ready for that responsibility at that moment. The truth is that fashion world was actually a new thing for me and I was struggling to move into that culture. So, I preferred to remain in board of directors and tried to serve the council.

It's illegal for supermarkets in France to waste food. Supermarkets must either compost it or donate unsold or nearly expired goods to charity.

5

How did you manage the opposition of fashion fraternity especially in FPC? In late 90s, the designers of haute couture had a different type of mind-set.

Those, who had their shops or stores at Zamzama Steet were called designer.

They were there with just their labels while I was running a shop at the old Saddar area, but the quality and aesthetic were same. I designed all my stuff myself and the big names of fashion world of that time asked me to design pagris for their collection. So first step was difficult but I didn’t lose hope and kept on going and now I am in a position where I can promote and multiply new talent.

6

Most of your ramp shows are on certain themes. Where do you get these ideas from?

To prove my unique vision of creativity, I take aesthetic and business together. What I show on ramp is to satisfy my inner starvation of artistry while my business is actually according to the needs of market. It is always a very good feeling when you are applauded and appreciated for what you show on ramp but it takes time for the general public to digest that. Moreover, 80 per cents of the audience in FPW are there for entertainment, so I always keep that factor in but my second last collection in FPW, “Har Shahkh Pe Ullo Baitha Hai” was my last Haute Couture as I feel time is changing and people love to watch what they can wear practicality. My recent collection in FPW was ‘Uraan’ means to fly, was designed to suit the need of market, in which I presented the pastel colour sherwanis with birds embroidered on them, denoting the father and son relationship. I dedicated that collection to my father, who passed away five years ago.

Dracula Rumored For 'Moon Knight'

Shazam! Role Saved Zachary Levi

More rumors surround introducing Dracula into the MCU as it's rumored Marvel's vampire may be introduced in the Disney Plus Moon Knight series.

No further details are known, but if the rumors are anything to go by, it seems as if Kevin Feige intends on bringing in Dracula into the MCU as well as the Marvel Comics supernatural genre.

While touching upon how Doctor Strange 2 isn't exactly a straight-up horror film, Feige did confirm the MCU will be delving into other genres from the comics but stopped short of confirming which ones as to avoid any spoilers.

Recent rumors also offered that Dracula might appear in the Mahershala Ali Blade reboot possibly played by none other than original actor Wesley Snipes.

Other rumors have also offered that Feige wants to do a Tomb Of Dracula series, possibly on HULU, and also introduced Werewolf By Night in Moon Knight.

Giancarlo Esposito, known for Breaking Bad and who recently appeared in Disney's The Mandalorian, is also said to be a possible contender to play Dracula.

Zachary Levi takes to social media to pen a heartfelt post about getting the Shazam! role, something that he first turned down when offered the opportunity.

Levi notes he was in a dark place in his life at the time as he felt like he was failing and didn't deserve the role.

He continues with the mention that with therapy and with continuing his journey about self-love that he was able to conquer his doubts and fears.

This last year has been fascinating. The last few, actually.

Two years ago today I was moving to Toronto, for the 4th time 3 years, to begin working on @shazammovie, one of the single greatest gifts I’ve ever been handed. Ironically, just 4 months prior, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to live anymore. My goals, and visions, and hopes, and dreams, and therefore expectations for myself, have always been a lot. So much so that when I surveyed my life a few years back, I genuinely felt like I was failing it. Failing myself. Failing my family. Failing the world.

I didn’t feel worthy of the love that was around me. I didn’t feel worthy of any of the things I had achieved up to that point.

And, when presented with an opportunity.

CMYK

Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.

A new baby can cost new parents 750 hours of sleep in the first year.

Rishi Kapoor celebrates New Year with rockstar Neetu Singh in Mumbai Actor Rishi Kapoor celebrated the New Year’s eve with wife and actor Neetu Singh, who stepped out in her rockstar avatar. She has shared a few fun pictures from their grand bash on Instagram.

Neetu is wearing a shimmery top paired with black shades and straight hair, completing her rockstar look with a band around her forehead. In one of the images, Neetu poses with Rishi while in another she is with her friends. Sharing the pictures, she wrote, “Happy 2020 hope this decade brings good health n happiness to all.” Daughter Riddhima showered the post with several heart emojis.

Neetu also shared a few videos on her Instagram stories.

The videos are from their long drive by Mumbai’s famous sealink but all we see is the vehicle and the view outside.

Sticking to their annual family tradition, the Kapoor family hosted its Christmas lunch last week. Kareena Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Randhir Kapoor, Armaan Jain, apart from Rishi and Neetu were present on the occasion. Ranbir Kapoor and his girlfriend Alia Bhatt were also in attendance.

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

14 SPORTS

Brighton spoil Chelsea's new Year partY as Villa seCure Vital win LONDON

a

Agencies

LIREZA Jahanbakhsh's spectacular overhead kick earned Brighton a share of the points against Chelsea and dampened Frank Lampard's New Year celebrations on Wednesday as Aston Villa secured a vital win against Burnley.

Chelsea's 1-1 draw on England's south coast gave them a five-point lead over fifth-placed Manchester United in the race to secure Champions League football for next season.

Cesar Azpilicueta gave the visitors an early lead, tapping in from close range following a corner in the 10th minute but Brighton were never out of it and pulled level in the 84th minute courtesy of Jahanbakhsh's moment of magic.

"It was frustrating for different reasons," Lampard told BT Sport. "In the first half, the game was there to be won. We weren't ruthless enough. We got the goal and we had the possession. But we just didn't kill the game off.

"We allowed them to stay in the game. In the end it was a wonder goal but we were lucky not to lose the game."

The Chelsea boss said he was concerned about the lack of consistency from his side, who have beaten Tottenham and Arsenal in recent weeks but also lost at home to Southampton.

The away side dominated the opening hour of the match but were clinging on at the end with the impressive Kepa Arrizabalaga denying Neal Maupay in the closing minutes.

Christian Pulisic will rue three wasted openings that ultimately prevented Chelsea from cementing their dominance.

Lampard's team were quickly on top from the start of the match and deservedly took the lead through Azpilicueta, who finished from close

range after the ball fell to him.

But Brighton enjoyed a spell of possession towards the end of the first half and Leandro Trossard tested Kepa with a powerful strike that

the Chelsea goalkeeper parried.

Lampard's team were quickly into their stride after the break but Pulisic failed to make the most of his chances and was replaced by Callum Hud-

Beckham's Inter Miami names Alonso as first head coach

Lampard keen to shield Hudson-Odoi from social media trolling LONDON Agencies

Frank Lampard is determined to do all he can to protect Callum HudsonOdoi after the England forward was criticised on social media.

The teenager struggled during Chelsea's 2-0 loss at home to Southampton on Boxing Day, his first start since October, and found himself being trolled as a result.

But the 19-year-old turned in an improved display during a brief stint in last weekend's 2-1 win over Arsenal.

Chelsea manager Lampard said it was his job to keep the external criticism at bay and help Hudson-Odoi fulfil his undoubted potential.

"I think it's a lot at 19 to say with

one performance you must produce instantly or you'll get social media criticism, and I'll certainly protect him against that," said the Blues' boss.

"Little snippets like at Arsenal, coming on and looking bright and going by people, he can do all that."

Lampard, a former Chelsea and England midfielder, added: "He does need to show more but he absolutely will do and we're right behind him.

"I've not spoken to him about that specifically and unfortunately on social media that's par for the course.

"That's something unfortunately that you've got to have a very thick skin about."

Chelsea travel to Brighton on New Year's Day, with Lampard's side currently fourth in the Premier League table.

Milan: Diego Alonso has been named the first head coach of David Beckham's Inter Miami ahead of their inaugural season in the North America's Major League Soccer. "In Diego we found a manager that fits our culture and has a strong desire to build a winning club for our fans," said Inter Miami spokesman Paul McDonough. "He brings a lot of experience and championship-winning mentality as we begin our drive to be among the best clubs in the Americas. "We have big aspirations for our club and believe Diego has the right drive, passion and leadership to accomplish our goals." Inter Miami, which opens the season March 1 against Los Angeles FC, is owned by five people, including Beckham.

Alonso, the only coach to win the CONCACAF Champions League with two different teams, reportedly beat out former New York City manager Patrick Vieira and former DC United midfielder Marcelo Gallardo for the job. Agencies

Venus Williams pulls out of Brisbane International BrisBane: Venus Williams pulled out of the season-opening Brisbane International on Wednesday after a "setback" during practice. The American veteran said she still hoped to play at the Adelaide International later this month ahead of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the year. "Unfortunately I will not be starting my season in Brisbane due to an unexpected setback during my training," the 39-year-old seventime major winner said in a statement. "I look forward to being in Australia in the new year and will see everyone in Adelaide." Agencies

CMYK

son-Odoi in the 66th minute.

Brighton kept battling and Kepa was forced to produce an outstanding save from Aaron Connolly in the 80th minute as the home side pushed for an equaliser.

Their persistence paid off minutes later. Lewis Dunk kept the ball alive from a corner and Iranian midfielder Jahanbakhsh acrobatically found the bottom-left corner to give his team share of the points.

- Grealish inspires Villa In the other early kick-off, Villa beat Burnley 21 despite seeing Jack Grealish's opening goal controversially chalked off by VAR. Wesley put Villa ahead in the 27th minute and captain Grealish doubled his side's advantage four minutes before the break as his powerful effort found the top corner.

Chris Wood pulled a goal back for Burnley with 10 minutes to go but Villa held on to secure all three points.

"It was massive. We've only had one away win all season before this," Grealish told the BBC. "To come here, one of the hardest places in the league, it was well-deserved and well-needed."

Speaking about his goal that was ruled out, he said: "I knew it was going to be disallowed, when you see some of the decisions over the past two weeks. When you score, you have the feeling it will be disallowed. When it was I really wanted to score again and thankfully I did."

Second-placed Leicester take on Newcastle later on Wednesday, with Tottenham and Wolves, also chasing Champions League football next season, also in action.

Pep Guardiola's Manchester City are hosting Carlo Ancelotti's Everton in one of the early evening matches before Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United kick off against Arsenal in the late match.

Runaway leaders Liverpool face Sheffield United on Thursday.

Mane set to be crowned king of Africa as troubles rumble on LONDON Agencies

Liverpool sharpshooter Sadio Mane is expected to become the first African football headline-maker of 2020 by winning the Player of the Year award in Egypt next week.

The January 7 ceremony will set in motion a year sure to be full of drama on and off the field with 2022 World Cup and 2021 Cup of Nations qualifiers in the mix.

AFP Sport looks at some of the issues facing the most popular sport in a continent where good footballers and bad administrators often share the media stage. awards: Consistent Liverpool scorer and Senegal talisman Mane is favoured to become the second star from his country after El Hadji Diouf to be named Player of the Year. His rivals are Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah, the Egyptian who won the last two editions, and Algerian Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City.

The Player of the Year, and the winners of seven other male and female categories, will be announced at a ceremony in Egyptian Red Sea resort Hurghada. world Cup: A couple of weeks after the awards banquet, Egypt will host another eagerly anticipated event, the draw in Cairo for the group stage of World Cup qualifying. The latest FIFA rankings are expected to determine the seedings, meaning Senegal, Tunisia, Nigeria, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Mali and DR Congo will be in pot one.

All those nations except Mali have played at the World Cup, and an Ivory Coast team that can call on the dazzling footwork of Wilfried Zaha could be the most dangerous second seeds.

Cup of nations: Trouble lies ahead after a change from a January/February to June/July tournament this year to avoid tug of wars between clubs and countries over the services of Europe-based stars.

The first revamped Club World Cup, featuring 24 teams, is set for June 17 to July 4 2021 in China, effectively ruling out a mid-year Cup of Nations in Cameroon. nations ChaMpionship: Tunisia have reportedly decided because of fixture congestion to withdraw from the 2020 edi-

tion in Cameroon of the tournament for footballers playing in their country of birth.

Traditionally a biennial January/February competition, it is slated for April 4 to 25 this year in three southern Cameroon cities, the capital, Yaounde, Douala and Limbe. The 16-nation championship will test the readiness of Cameroon to stage the Cup of Nations next year after construction delays led to them being replaced by Egypt as 2019 hosts.

ChaMpions league: Tunisian club Esperance have been erratic as they seek an unprecedented third straight title, battling to overcome a Chadian club then defying the odds to defeat Raja in Casablanca. They have lost several 2019 title-winning stars, including Algeria winger Youcef Belaili, and the starting line-up for a group match last weekend included only four Tunisians.

Record eight-time champions Al Ahly of Egypt, TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa and Casablanca clubs Raja and Wydad are potential threats.

Confederation Cup: A new name will be engraved on the trophy this year as recent winners Ahly, Etoile Sahel of Tunisia, Mazembe, Raja and Zamalek of Egypt are all competing in the Champions League. Judged by group form up to the halfway mark, Cairo outfit Pyramids could become the third Egyptian winners of a competition modelled on the UEFA Europa League. Emirati Salem al Shamsi has invested millions in a squad dominated by Egyptians but also containing stars from Burkina Faso, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Uganda. super Cup: Zamalek are threatening to boycott the February 14 match against Esperance scheduled for Qatar, a country Egypt accuses of destabilising the Middle East region. Controversial club chairman Mortada Mansour says Zamalek will change their stance only if ordered to do so by the government.

"I do not understand why CAF want to stage the match in a country which is an enemy of Egypt. We are African clubs so why should we play in Asia?," Mansour asked during a press conference.

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

SPORTS 15

Multan, rawalpindi aMong four Cities to host all psl 2020 fixtures MATCHES TO KICK OFF FROM FEBRUARY 2020 LahOre

f

Agencies

OUR cities across Pakistan have been identified as hosts for the 34 matches of the upcoming PSL, the PCB announced on Wednesday.

Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium will stage 14 matches, including the final on March 22, while Karachi will host nine games, including the tournament opener between Quetta Gladiators and Islamabad United on February 20. Rawalpindi (eight matches) and Multan (three matches) are the two other venues.

On the occasion of the schedule’s release, a countdown clock was placed by the PCB at the entrance to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, where two eliminator rounds, as well as the final, will be held.

The return of big cricket to Pakistan, following the 2009 terrorist attack on Sri Lanka's team bus in Lahore, has mostly been confined to Lahore and Karachi. International cricket returned to Rawalpindi after 13 years last month, when it hosted Pakistan's first home Test in a decade, while Multan last hosted an international game in April 2008.

"After bringing Test cricket back to

Pakistan, hosting of the entire HBL Pakistan Super League is our other major achievement," PCB chairman Ehsan Mani said in a statement. "I never had any doubts it was Pakistan's league and should be played in front of home crowds. We had made this commitment to the people of Pakistan at the end of last year's event and I am pleased today we have announced the event schedule with four centres to share the 34 event matches between them."

Multan got its go-ahead following an extensive security assessment by a PCBappointed independent consultant. The stadium is still undergoing renovations but is

Sri Lanka pick Angelo Mathews in T20I squad for India series

Naseem Shah withdrawn from Pakistan's Under-19 World Cup squad LahOre

COLOmbO Agencies

Angelo Mathews has been named in Sri Lanka's squad for the T20I series against India starting January 5, and he could play his first T20I in nearly 16 months if picked in the XI. Mathews last played in this format for Sri Lanka as captain, in a one-off match against South Africa in August 2018, and scored a duck. August 2018 also happens to be the last time Mathews played T20s of any kind at recognised level.

Mathews' career has infamously been stop-start due to recurring injuries, but he has been something of a regular in Tests and ODIs for Sri Lanka over the last year or so, playing as a specialist batsman rarely bowling. That makes him one of seven specialist batting options in the 16-man squad named for the tour.

Fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep, who played in Sri Lanka's last T20I series against Australia in November, is out injured and has been replaced by Kasun Rajitha, who had originally been left out of the squad. Shehan Jayasuriya misses out from that squad, and allrounder Dhananjaya de Silva is the other addition apart from Mathews.

expected to be ready in time. The 36-player overseas contingent for this year's PSL includes international stars including Dale Steyn, Ben Cutting, Chris Lynn, Alex Hales and Chris Jordan. The six franchises signed six overseas players each, with only four allowed in the playing XI per game. A total of 425 overseas players from 22 countries had registered for the PSL 2020 draft.

"This shows the confidence that players throughout the world have in playing in Pakistan," Mani said. "Through this event, we expect economy and tourism to get significant boost, which will have a direct impact on the overall health of the country.

"For the fans, this will be a longawaited opportunity to see their cricketing heroes live in action and reinforce their love for this great game. I am expecting like last year, the entire country will get behind this tournament and by turning up in big numbers, they will once again show the world their passion for cricket."

Defending champions Quetta Gladiators will play three matches in Lahore, four in Karachi, one in Multan and two in Rawalpindi, while Peshawar Zalmi will play one match each in Lahore and Multan, three in Karachi and five in Rawalpindi.

Lahore Qalandars will play eight matches in Lahore and travel to Karachi and Rawalpindi for one game each.

Karachi Kings have two of their games in Lahore, five in Karachi, one in Multan and two in Rawalpindi while Multan Sultans will travel to Lahore for five matches, Karachi and Rawalpindi for one each, with three of their home games in Multan. Islamabad United will travel between Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi for five, three, and two matches respectively.

In recent years, the PCB has used the PSL as a key platform to revive high-profile cricket in the country. The ball got rolling in 2017 when the Gaddafi Stadium hosted the final of the tournament. In the following season, four games were held across Karachi and Lahore, with the fourth and most-recent edition in 2019, seeing eight games played in Karachi, including the final.

Agencies

Naseem Shah has been withdrawn from Pakistan's squad for the Under-19 World Cup. Mohammad Wasim, the 18year-old fast bowler who has been an Under-19 regular in recent months, has replaced him.

Naseem, the 16-year-old fast bowler who has played three Test matches since making his senior international debut in November, was named in the original Under-19 squad last month. Pakistan head-coach-cum-selector Misbah-ulHaq and bowling coach Waqar Younis, however, were not in favour of releasing him for age-group cricket.

The senior and junior selection committees have now come to an agreement, and Naseem will not travel to South Africa for the tournament, which begins on January 17.

"The ICC U19 Cricket World Cup is a stepping stone for future stars and a platform for budding youngsters to graduate to international cricket," said Wasim Khan, PCB's chief executive officer. "Naseem has recently broken that glass ceiling and has established his

credentials as an international cricketer.

As such, the PCB has taken a pragmatic approach and decided to withdraw him from [the] competition to provide this opportunity to another promising cricketer so that he can show his mettle and potential at a global stage."

In his short time so far as an international cricketer, Naseem has marked himself out as a special talent with his precocious pace and venom. He made his debut in Perth, in the first Test of Pakistan's recent tour of Australia, and dismissed centurion David Warner with a brute of a short ball. He missed the second Test with a knee niggle that is understood to have hindered his rhythm in the nets, but played both Tests of Pakistan's home series against Sri Lanka, taking seven wickets in the two Tests including a match-winning five-wicket haul in the second Test in Karachi.

That performance made him the second-youngest bowler, behind compatriot Nasim-ul-Ghani in 1958, to take a five-for in Test cricket, and the youngest fast bowler to do so.

The junior team management, headed by coach Ijaz Ahmed, wanted Naseem to be freed up for the Under-19

World Cup, and he was meant to link up with his team-mates at a preparatory camp in Lahore after the series against Sri Lanka. But he did not attend the camp, and was also rested from the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final in Karachi.

After extensive discussions with the senior team management, the national junior selection committee, headed by Saleem Jaffar, have agreed to withdraw Naseem and include Wasim in his stead. Wasim has taken 10 Youth ODI wickets in eight matches, at an average of 27.40.

"This should not deter Pakistan's chances at next year's ICC U19 Cricket World Cup as the selectors have picked a side that is experienced and bubbling with confidence to perform strongly," said Khan. "Naseem will now remain in Pakistan and continue to work on his skills under the watchful eyes of bowling coach Waqar Younis. Furthermore, he will remain available for the home series against Bangladesh."

Pakistan, the 2004 and 2006 champions and three-time runners-up, are slotted in Group C along with Bangladesh, Scotland and Zimbabwe in the 16-team Under-19 World Cup.

Archer becomes injury doubt for England's second Test in SA JOhaNNesburg Agencies

Jofra Archer has emerged as an injury doubt for England's second Test in South Africa.

Archer, who took six wickets in the first Test, only bowled six balls in England's training session on January 1 due to a sore elbow, raising concerns that he will not have recovered in time to play in the Cape Town Test. The pitch for the Test, which starts on January 3, lacks the grass seen in Centurion and is relatively dry. As a result, England are likely to bring a spin bowler into their side. Dom Bess, the Somerset offspinner, looks in pole position to play, ahead of Jack Leach - who trained on Wednesday, but has been unwell for most of the past month - and Matt Parkinson.

That means that one seamer would have to miss out, with Archer's injury suggesting he could be the most likely to do so. If he is fully recovered and fit to play - which is far from certain - the selection dilemma facing Joe Root and Chris Silverwood would probably come down to a choice between James Anderson and Stuart Broad. While Archer was expensive in the second innings at Centurion, it will be a significant blow for England if he is unavailable. He is, alongside Mark Wood, the fastest bowler in their squad and their seam attack would risk looking somewhat onepaced in his absence. The pitch is expected to prove relatively good for batting. Not only it is the first Test surface prepared by new groundsman, Ihtishaam Adams, but the local board's finances suggest they would prefer a four or even five-day crowd.

ECB give 'cautious' backing to four-day Test proposal LONDON Agencies

AREEB XI thrashes SAHIL XI to grab Champions Cup IPPSA Juniors.

England are "cautiously" backing an ICC proposal to scrap five-day Tests from 2023.

The ICC's cricket committee are expected to formally consider a proposal in 2020 to make four-day Tests mandatory as part of the World Test Championship in a bid to ease pressure in an increasingly crowded international schedule.

"We're definite proponents of the four-day Test concept, but cautiously so, as we understand it's an emotive topic for players, fans and others who have concerns about challenging the heritage of Test cricket, "an ECB spokesperson said.

"We believe it could provide a sus-

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tainable solution to the complex scheduling needs and player workloads we face as a global sport."

The world's cricketers pose the most likely source of opposition to the plan, with many viewing the step up from four-day first-class games to five-day Tests as a critical point of difference at the top end of the long-form game.

However, the ICC's increasing demand for event windows, the proliferation of domestic T20 leagues, the BCCI's demands for its own sizeable share of bilateral calendar space, and the costs of staging Test series are all factors contributing to the move, which would shave off a significant amount of time from the calendar for the 2023 to 2031 cycle.

A reduction in the number of

Test matches going to five days has also made administrators open to the idea, with more than 60 percent of matches played since the start of 2018 ending in four days or fewer.

"One of our top priorities is to underpin a healthy future for Test cricket while we continue to build accessible ways for new fans to enjoy our sport," the ECB spokesperson said. "We are strongly behind a thorough and considered consultation where all opinions are explored."

As early as 2015, the ECB and chairmen of the English counties were engaged in discussions about four-day Tests as part of a wideranging review into the future of English cricket domestically and internationally.

Thursday, 2 January, 2020

NEWS

Opp senatOrs put gOvt On the mat Over amended naB Ordinance ppp’S raza rabbanI SayS amEndEd nab law Only targEtS parlIamEntarIanS ISLAMABAD

O

STAFF REPORT

PPOSITION senators on Wednesday lashed out at the newly approved ordinance that has clipped the powers of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), saying the Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) government’s actions have rendered the parliament ineffective.

Addressing the first Senate session of the year, convened by the government on a 24-hour notice, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Mian Raza Rabbani raised questions on the amendments proposed by the government to the country’s accountability law.

He said that the government has exempted businessmen, bureaucrats, judges and the military from being proceeded against under the law through the amendments. “Who is then left? Only you and I are left,” he said, addressing the Senate chairman.

“Is the NAB law only there for politicians?” he asked, suggesting that the parliament should be allowed to “try the parliamentarians”.

Otherwise, he said, if the government really wanted to conduct accountability, then “the only path to meaningful accountability is one law, one bureau [and] across-the-board accountability”.

Rabbani said that there should be “no holy cows” under a fair accountability law, which according to him, should apply to the judiciary and military as well as the bureaucracy.

He said the government was not following the Constitution and its actions have rendered the parliament ineffective.

Speaking about the issue of extension in the service of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, which underwent strict scrutiny in the Supreme Court (SC) in November last

SayS gOvt’S ‘IncapabIlIty and IncapacIty’ haS landEd armEd fOrcES In an EmbarraSSIng pOSItIOn

year, Rabbani said the PTI government due to its “incapability and incapacity” had landed a national institution (army) into an “embarrassing position”.

“What kind of a government is this which cannot issue three or four notifications?” he said, urging the government to let the parliament and the Senate play their constitutional roles.

Speaking on the floor of the House, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said that the Constitution maintains the balance between the four institutions of government and the opposition and the military and the judiciary. “However, the four institutions appear to be at odds with each other as the country enters a new year,” he added.

“I think these four institutions are neither culpable in all matters nor blameless in all matters,” he said, adding that all four of the branches are susceptible to making mistakes.

The minister said that the country’s priority should be finding ways to provide a better future to its very young population. He said that it was natural for the government and opposition to have differences on fundamental issues, “but the country cannot function […] if we cannot appoint members and chairman of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and develop consensus on what the accountability process should be”.

The minister said that the government and opposition should move forward on issues on which consensus can be developed such as the appointment of ECP members, accountability laws and the pending legislation regarding the army chief’s tenure.

“The army is not only the PTI’s; it equally belongs to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the Jamiat Ulema-e-IslamFazl (JUI-F),” he said.

Fawad said that although he had great respect for the Supreme Court (SC) and the judiciary, the courts “want to judge all of us parliamentarians on the basis of Articles 62 and 63 [of the Constitution] and hold us accountable, but the judiciary itself is not ready to come to the Public Accounts Committee. How will things functions when public money is involved in all of this?”

Addressing the treasury and opposition benches, the minister added, “On this first day of the new year I want to request that we devise a minimum common agenda which can include the ECP, the accountability system and other big issues.”

Communications Minister Murad Saeed said that the government had already introduced an amendment to the rules to allow ‘PM Question Hour’. “The issue is still being debated,” he said. He also assured the members of the lower house that the “difficult time has passed” and that the “new year will bring prosperity”.

“The government is launching Ehsas programme on January 8 and all of you are requested to participate in the programme,” he added.

Later, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Raja Zafarul Haq expressed disappointment over the fact that the government had called the Senate session only after the opposition submitted a requisition. He said that the upper house had been “kept in the dark” regarding the promulgation of the NAB ordinance. He alleged that the accountability process is being carried out in a “unilateral, oppressive and illegal manner” in the country.

Haq said that the opposition had submitted the agenda for the Senate session but a “negative mindset” prevented it from being included in the scheduled of proceedings.

PPP Senator Sherry Rehman said that they had found out through news-

Taliban kill 23 in attacks on Afghan checkpoints

Indian forces violated ceasefire agreement over 3,000 times in 2019 ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Senate Committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan was informed on Wednesday that Indian forces breached ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) on more than 3,000 occasions in 2019. The committee met with its Chairman Senator Sajid Mir in the chair.

Foreign Office official Dr Muhammad Faisal said that details about Indian ceasefire violations are being compiled.

He added that ceasefire breaches by Indian forces along the frontier that divides the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir has become the order of the day over the past few years.

Dr Faisal said the Indian high commissioner in Pakistan is summoned to record a protest with the neighboring country whenever such violation takes place.

He said Pakistan has been

weighing all options to tackle the Kashmir issue and dispelled the impression that the issue has died down.

Taking a jibe at Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, PML-N Senator Lt General (r) Salahuddin Tirmizi asked where did the government’s point-man on the foreign affairs go over the Kashmir issue except Multan.

To this, Dr Muhammad Faisal said FM Qureshi met the foreign ministers of at least 50 countries following India’s Aug 5 move of ending special status for Jammu and Kashmir. He said the foreign minister met a total of 54 foreign ministers on the sidelines of last year’s UN Security Council session in New York.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Senator Sirajul Haq said the global media is now highlighting the Kashmir issue.

Dr Faisal said he can brief the committee over the issue in detail given that the session is held in-camera.

KABUL: At least 23 Afghan security forces were killed in a series of Taliban attacks across the country, officials said Wednesday, despite winter snowfall that usually leads to a lull in violence. The assaults targeted vulnerable checkpoints in at least three northern provinces. In Balkh, militants stormed a checkpoint early Wednesday and killed at least seven police officers, according to provincial police chief Ajmal Fayez. He said reinforcements had been dispatched to the post, which is located on the strategic highway connecting Balkh to neighbouring Jawezjan province. A Taliban spokesperson claimed that 11 police offices died in the attack, but Afzal Hadid — a member of the provincial council — put the death toll at nine, adding that four others were missing. "We are not sure whether these four police [officers] helped the Taliban in the attack or have been captured by them," he said. Separate assaults by the Taliban killed at least nine members of Afghan security forces in northeastern Kunduz, and seven in neighbouring Takhar province, officials said. AGENCIES

US deploying 750 soldiers after protest at US Embassy in Iraq WASHINGTON AGENCIES The United States is immediately deploying about 750 soldiers to the Middle East in response to the violent protests at the US Embassy in Iraq, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday. Esper said in a statement he had authorized the deployment of an infantry battalion from the Immediate Response Force (IRF) of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Apart from the immediate deployment, additional forces from the IRF are prepared to deploy over the next several days, he said.

Opp lawmakErS prOtESt OvEr cOnvEnIng Of SESSIOn In haStE, prEmIEr’S abSEncE frOm It

papers that a Senate session had been called for today. She said that some members were unable to attend because of the prevailing smog.

She also said that ministers were not present in the house even though the session had been called after such a long gap. In addition, questions and answers were not made part of the agenda “which means that the government was not prepared”, she alleged.

She lambasted the government for promulgating 25 presidential ordinances last year, saying, “The parliament cannot be run from Bani Gala or Aiwan-e-Sadr.”

The PPP leader further said that the government had failed to issue a proper notification regarding the army chief’s tenure extension and has now filed a review petition against the Supreme Court judgement on the issue. “What does the government going into review indicate?” she asked.

She also criticised the government for “doing nothing but giving a speech” regarding the issue of occupied Kashmir. She questioned why the foreign minister was not coming to the parliament to brief the lawmakers on the latest situation in the region.

CRITICISM OVER ISPR’S STATEMENT: JUI-F Senator Abdul Ghafoor Haideri expressed concerns over the statement issued by the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), on the verdict announced by a special court in the high treason case against former military ruler General (r) Pervez Musharraf.

He said that the debate on the verdict against Musharraf should have taken place in the parliament, and added that the statement given by the director general of the ISPR regarding the judgement had sparked “an exchange of statements”.

He added the matter of Gen Bajwa’s service extension should also have been dis-

India approves third moon mission months after landing failure

NEW DELHI AGENCIES

India has approved its third lunar mission months after its last one failed to successfully land on the moon, its space agency said on Wednesday, the latest effort in its ambitions to become a low-cost space power.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission will have a lander and a rover, but not an orbiter, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sivan told reporters at its headquarters in Bengaluru, according to an official telecast.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission in September successfully deployed a lunar orbiter that relays scientific data back to earth but was unable to place a rover on the lunar surface after a “hard” landing.

That mission had aimed to land on the south pole of the moon, where no other lunar mission had gone before. The region is believed to contain water as craters in the region are largely unaffected

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

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cussed in the parliament. Because that was not done, the country had to “face embarrassment”, he added.

OPP PROTESTS OVER ‘URGENT’ SESSION: Meanwhile, members of the opposition bench protested over the sudden convening of the session.

PML-N leader and former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq asked the speaker to defer the question posed by the members who were absent from the house.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) MNA Syed Naveed Qamar questioned the logic behind the decision. “Many members have been unable to reach Islamabad from their constituencies,” he said. Former prime minister and PPP leader Raja Pervez Ashraf also protested the convening of the session at such short notice.

“The members are sitting at Karachi and Multan airports. People are unable to come from Balochistan. The session has been convened on a less-than-24-hour notice. The members are asking you to defer the questions whereas no written replies have been given to most of the questions.

This is a joke,” he said.

The former premier went on to criticise what he termed “the height of irresponsibility” on the part of the government. “The government has increased petroleum prices. We register our protest. This house is not truly representing the people. We want a debate on the price hike,” he demanded.

PML-N’s Parliamentary Leader in the NA Khawaja Asif said that Prime Minister Imran Khan “had promised that he would himself come to the house to give replies to the questions”. “The PM has not come to the assembly for the last whole quarter starting from October. The session was scheduled to start from January 10, but the government has suddenly summoned the sitting,” he added. He urged the government “to maintain the sanctity of the rules”.

by the high temperatures of the sun.

ISRO had hoped to confirm the presence of water in the form of ice, first detected on its mission in 2008.

Chandrayaan-3 will have a “similar configuration” as the previous mission, Sivan said. Only the United States, Russia and China have landed on the moon.

Beijing’s Chang’e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon last year, while Israel made an unsuccessful attempt to land its Beresheet spacecraft on the moon in April 2019.

India’s third lunar mission will likely launch in 2020 and will cost less than its previous mission, the PTI news agency reported on Tuesday, citing Jitendra Singh, junior minister for the department of space.

Sivan also said ISRO was making “good progress” for its human space flight mission slated for late 2021, adding that four astronauts had been picked for training, which will be planned later this month. The project, called Gaganyaan, would cost less than $1.4 billion, the government said in 2018.

India has developed a reputation for pioneering affordable satellite launches and space missions. Its unmanned Mars mission in 2014 cost just $74 million, less than the budget of the Hollywood space blockbuster Gravity.

Sivan also announced that ISRO had begun the land acquisition process for a second spaceport in the southern port city of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu state.