Epaper_22-09-26 ISB

ISLAMABAD s ta f f r e p o r t

a number o f p u r p o r t e d a u d o c l i p s o f Pr i m e M n i s t e r S h a h b a z S h a r i f P M L N V i c e Pr e s i d e n t M a r y a m N a w a z a n d l e a d e r s o f t h e r u n g c o a l t o n s u r f a c e d o n s o c i a m e d i a o n S u n d a y, w h i c h p r o m p t e d m a n y q u a r t e r s i n c l u d i n g t h e Pa k i s t a n Te h r e e k e I n s a f ( P T I ) t o r a i s e c o n c e r n s a b o u t s e c u r i t y o f t h e Pr i m e M n i s t e r s O f f i c e ( P M O )

The development came a day after PTI leader Fawad Chaudhr y had a so shared an audio clip on his off c al Twitter handle of a conversat on al egedly between the premier and a senior government official

In the clip, a voice said to be that of Prime Min ster Shehbaz Sharif nforms the government off c al about Pakistan Mus m League N (PML N) Vice President Mar yam Nawaz looking to import machiner y from India for a power plant upon the request of her son in law Raheel lEakEd CliPS PUt UP fOr SalE ON darkNEt: In formation about sensitive government business and private conversations between the prime m n ster and members of his adm n stration has apparently been eaked and put up for sa e on the dark web n what wou d be one of the b ggest data breaches in Pak stan s histor y

The data mainly a co ection of te e phone records of Shehbaz Sharif and a former prime minister whose identity wasn t revealed

totalling about 100 hours in length was priced at 180 b tcoin a digita currency which at its Sunday afternoon trading rate translated into over $3 4 million

Sized at 8 gigabytes the data also in cludes conversations between the prime m n ister and a l high profile people inc uding those who are nfluential and not in power the descr ption of the advertisement posted on an unidentif ed dark web marketplace read Pakistan Today couldn t independently verify the authenticity of the post

The sel er who goes by Indishell has also released three conversations nc uding one between Sharif and an unidentified member of his team to discuss the potential import of machiner y for a relative of the former, re ported on in the press apparently after being asked to produce evidence to support the claim

According to an analys s by an open source intel igence (OSINT) account on Twitter, the seller has no prior h stor y on the forum “ It looks ike he created this account just to post about these leaks,” OSINT Insider tweeted

Two threads 16 posts all about this al leged data leak in the PM Off ce iMPOrt Of MaChiNErY frOM iNdia : In the f rst of the mult p e audio conversations leaked later, a voice said to be of Shar f can be heard saying that Mar yam Nawaz, v ce pres ident of Pakistan Mus im League Nawaz (PML N), has asked h m to facilitate her son n law Raheel Munir for the import of mach ner y for a power plant from India Nawaz s daughter Mehr un Nisa Safdar married Munir in 2015

Mif tah steps down as dar hand picked to regain ‘political capital’

LONDON s ta f f r e p o r t

The top PML N huddle headed by party supremo Nawaz Sharif decided on Sunday that former F nance Min ster Ishaq Dar will return to Pakistan along w th Pr me Minister Shehbaz Sharif and would replace Miftah as new finance m nister The party top brass advised Ishaq Dar to travel a ong with prime m nister by Nawaz Sharif and he would take oath as f nance min ster on Tuesday The finance w zard had prev ous y booked return ticket for Wednesday Sources further said that Miftah Ismail, the current finance minister will remain part of the government ’s economic team, while Ishaq Dar will assume charge as the coalition government s new finance m nister Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday reached London to meet his brother and PML N supremo Nawaz Sharif to discuss the ongoing political situation in the countr y Both eaders discussed the strategy to dea with PTI Chief Imran Khan’s call for a long march, sources informed ARY News Miftah iSMail StEPS dOwN a S fiNaNCE MiNiStEr: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail on Sunday tendered his resignation to PML N supremo Muhammad Nawaz Sharif n a party meeting he d in London Sen or PML N leader Ishaq Dar would replace Miftah as new finance minister Ishaq s nom nation was put forth by Prime Minister Shehbaz Shar f and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a meeting, held under the chair of PML N supremo The meeting threadbare discussed overall pol tica and economic situation of the countr y It was of the op nion that the incumbent government had to steer the countr y out of the economic crisis caused by the previous government of PTI Miftah Ismail thanked Nawaz Sharif for repos ng confidence in him He said he ser ved the countr y n ast four months with best of his ab lities Nawaz Sharif appreciated the efforts of Miftah for carr ying out the respons b lities under the most difficult conditions Pr me Min ster Shehbaz Sharif Ishaq Dar Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, M ftah Ismail, Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan, and Ahad Cheema attended the meeting I worked to the best of my abil ty for four months and remained loya to the party and the countr y,” the PML N statement quoted Miftah as saying during the meeting

C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E

Pa k i s t a n a s c r e d i b l e p a r t n e r : P M

ISLAMABAD

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Sun day said he and his team during meetings with a wide array of

both the international forums was the result of excellent team work I particularly appreciate Foreign Min ster Bilawal Bhutto, Minister for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb & M nister for Climate Change Sherr Rehman for their hard work r t s m a d e a t U N , S C O t o p r e s e n t

During the huddle PM Shehbaz and party supremo Nawaz nominated Dar as the new finance minister of the countr y dar SEt tO bECOME fiNaNCial Czar agaiN: Former financial czar Ishaq Dar is a l set to become Pakistan s finance minister again in what appears to be a desperate move by the b gwigs of the PML N not only to rev ve the countr y s fa tering economy but to regain its lost political capital ahead of the next general elect ons If all goes as per plan the senior PML N eader and the senator e ect s l kely to take oath as the finance minister as early as the com ng Tuesday

and United Nations General As sembly sessions, an credible

ers during SCO & UNGA, my team and I made an earnest effort to present Pakistan as a cred ble partner ready to do business with the world The damage nflicted on our foreign policy needed a hea ing

Presenting Pakistan s case

The premier who had gone to the UK to attend the funeral of Queen E izabeth had met h s e der brother in London to discuss key politica issues before departing to the US to attend the UN General Assembly session After the UNGA session PM Shehbaz returned to London again and had a long meeting with his brother and Dar, who had left for the UK in October 2017 wh le he was standing trial in a corrupt on reference

The PML N officials accompanying the prime min ster revealed that Miftah had opted to resign nstead of taking a new portfolio after the party leadership dec ded in the London huddle to rep ace h m with Dar Miftah’s term as the finance minister is ending on September 27 as he could only serve for six months as an outsider He e ther needed to be elected as a member of the Nat onal Assembly or Senate to continue holding h s portfolio

Pakistan offers to trade financial debts with big nations’ climate debts

Fore gn M nister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said Pakistan is wil ing to trade ts fi nancial debts for big countries ’ climate debts as we have a climate catastro phe, a natural d saster, a health emer gency and food secur ty crisis and potentially extreme y d fficult economic times to come ”

He also said Pakistan would like to hold talks w th India but it would on y be possible if the neighbouring countr y re verses its extremist posit on on Occu pied Kashmir status and Islamophobia on Sunday

In an inter view with Al Arabiya TV Bi lawal sa d: “ We l ke to be in a position to dea with India to talk with India to live peacefully w th our neighbours to solve the Kashm r dispute but they can only do so if India walks back its extremist po sit on on Kashmir and Is amophobia ”

H e s a i d : “ We l l a s t h e c h a i r o f t h e c o u n c i l o f f o r e i g n m i n i s t e r s o f t h e O I C w e o b v i o u s l y h i g h l i g h t e d t h i s t o p i c s i g n i f i c a n t y a t o u r O I C A n n u a l m e e t n g a n d o u r Ka s h m i r g r o u p m e e t i n g o n t h e s d e l i n e s o f t h e U N s e s s i o n I t h i n k w h a t h a s m a d e t h i s i s s u e p a r t c u l a r l y d i f f i c u l t i s t h e r e c e n t u n i l a t e r a l a c t i o n s b y I n d i a o n A u g u s t 2 0 1 9 w h e r e t h e y t r e d t o u n i l a t e r a l l y a n d i l l e g a l l y u n d e r m i n e t h e d i s p u t e d s t a t u s o f t h i s r e g i o n and then pus h for ward wi th converti ng t h e a s t a r e a o f t h e M u s l m m a j o r i t y w i t h i n t h e i r r e g o n i n t o a m i n o r i t y i n t h e i r o w n l a n d T h e s e t h n g s a r e t o t a l l y u n a c c e p t a b l e f o r u s

Talking about the dire floods in Pak istan B lawa said: The situation is really dire right now The cl mate catastrophe that we are fac ng is truly one of apoc alyptic proportions We al know the stor y of Noah’s f oods that they say it rained for 40 days and 40 nights

We l in Pakistan our monster mon

soon started n ear y June and ended at the end of August By the t me the r a i n f i n a y s t o p p e d a 1 0 0 k i l o m e t r e lake formed in the middle of my coun t r y c o v e r i n g a t h i r d o f m y c o u n t r y s landmass One in seven people 33 m l l i o n a f f e c t e d 1 6 m i l l i o n o f w h c h a r e c h i l d r e n, a n d 6 0 0 , 0 0 0 p r e g n a women now waiting to give birth under the open sky

“ This is the compounding tragedy because not on y do we have to dea with the nitial impacts of flooding we are also staring at a potent a hea th cri s s with the water borne disease spread ing at epidemic rates across the affected areas Then more than four mil ion acres of standing crops were de stroyed We are potent a ly star ng at a food security crisis and to top it all off we just engaged with our agreement with IMF We were receiv ng our pay ment and ooking for ward to some eco nom c breathing space and obviously

If we do so we will get a lot of flak when this matter goes to the ECC [Econom c Coor dination Committee] and cab net,” the offi cial whose identity couldn t be ascertained immediately, can be heard saying C E D E N T E D B R E A C H S E E S E C O R D O F P R I E N V E R S AT I O N S, G O V E R N M E N T U S I N E S S B E I N G S O L D O N I N T E R N E T E R S AT I O N S R E V E A L M B A R R A S S I N G E xC H A N G E O N I N A N C E M I N I S T E R, R E Q U E S T TO C I L I TAT E M A R YA M S O N I N L A W ta f f r e p o r t

UN exPertS Urge MeMBer StAteS to helP flood-hit PAKiStAN

neW YORK A N A d o l u AG e N C y

SEvERAL UN human rights

experts have called on member countries to help floods h i t P a k i s t a n , c a l l i n g i t a n “ i n t e r n a t i o n a l o b l i g a t i o n ” “ T h e g l o b a l c l i m a t e c r i s i s h a s c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e s e t e r r i b l e f l o o d s a n d c a u s e d u n p r e c e d e n t e d h u m a n s u ff e r i n g i n P a k i s t a n A l l c o u n t r i e s t h a t h a v e

c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e g l o b a l c l i m a t e c r i s i s h a v e a n i n t e r n a t i o n a l o b l i g a t i o n t o a s s i s t P a k i s t a n w i t h i t s r e c o v e r y, ” s a i d a g r o u p of UN experts in a joint statement released i n G e n e v a T h e r a g i n g f l o o d s h a v e a ff e c t e d o v e r 3 3 m i l l i o n o f t h e 2 2 0 m i l l i o n p e o p l e , c a u s i n g a s t a g g e r i n g l o s s o f o v e r $ 3 0 billion in damages to an already weakened i n f r a s t r u c t u r e A l m o s t 4 5 p e r c e n t o f t h e c o u n t r y s c r o p l a n d h a s a l r e a d y b e e n i n u n d a t e d b y

KP universities’ staff protests at Banigla for regularization

ISLAMABAD

Ad hoc employees from public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), who earlier had dispersed from their protest sit in camp outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan s Banigala residence after negotiations with the party leadership, have gathered again to protest as their demands were not met by the provincial government Hundreds of the contractual employees of 32 public sector universities have staged a sit in in favor of their demands as according to them, the provincial government was not even honoring a unanimous resolution passed by the KP assembly regarding regularization of the employees The provincial government which has recently regularized over 38,000 ad hoc teachers across the province, is reportedly reluctant to regularize around 8000 contractual employees despite earlier assurance and a subsequent resolution unanimously passed in the provincial assembly Over 400 employees of the universities, who according to them are representatives of employees of 32 public sector universities, have announced to stay outside Imran Khan s house till their demands are met The contractual employees of public sector universities assembled at Banigala on Saturday evening The same employees had earlier ended their protest at Bani Gala after former minister of Kashmir Affairs and PTI central leader Ali Amin Gandapur assured the protesting employees that since contractual employees of public sector universities in Punjab had been regularized, the same would be adopted in KP According to Secretary Information All Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Contract Employees Association (AKUCEA) Dr Latif Shinwari claimed that there were at least 8,000 teaching and non teaching contractual employees of the universities waiting for regularization for years He said every university had about 30 PhD degree holders who had been at the job for up to 13 years and were still waiting for their regularization He said thousands of teaching and non teaching employees in 32 public sector universities in the province had decided to protest to push for their demands The PTI government in Punjab resolved a similar matter in April 2019 A protesting employee warned that if the matter was not resolved, thousands of the contractual employees would join them outside Imran Khan’s house in Islamabad He said a written demand had been made to Mr Khan when he was the PM that KP and Punjab assemblies had imposed a restriction that there will be no extension in the contracts of the contractual employees beyond three years According to President of AKUCEA Kashif Naseer, on August 2, 2022 the KP assembly had unanimously passed a resolution moved by Mian Nisar Gul Kakakhel of JUIF demanding regularization of contract and daily wage employees in all the universities of the province Subsequently the Higher Education Department of the province was also asked to implement the resolution within two months However the HED officials and provincial government were reluctant about implementing the resolution which ultimately forced the employees to gather at Bani Gala again According to him both KP and Punjab assemblies passed “Regulation of Services Act” in 2018 to save the services rendered by contractual employees in both provinces On the basis of this act, all contract employees except the employees of public sector universities were regularized in KP and Punjab After the exclusion of university employees from regularization process, both the governments were approached by the employees and the Punjab government regularized the employees in 2019 after a complaint was lodged in Pakistan Citizen Portal by Punjab universities contract employees, but the KP government failed to do it till now

t h e f l o o d s , p o s i n g a s e r i o u s t h r e a t t o f o o d s e c u r i t y a n d f u r t h e r a d d i n g t o t h e a l r e a d y s k y r o c k e t i n g i n f l a t i o n T h e d e a t h t o l l d u e t o f l o o d s h a s r i s e n t o 1 , 5 6 9 s i n c e m i d J u n e , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e N a t i o n a l D i s a s t e r M a n a g e m e n t A u t h o r i t y ’s l a t e s t d a t a B e s i d e s , t h e t o t a l n u m b e r o f h o u s e s d a m a g e d a c r o s s t h e c o u n t r y h a s c r o s s e d t w o m i l l i o n , o ff i c i a l e s t i m a t e s s u g g e s t The UN experts said Pakistan and its people have only modestly contributed to

global warming that has resulted in extreme weather events and climate change “ I t i s i m p o r t a n t t h a t i n t e r n a t i o n a l r e l i e f e ff o r t s a r e g u i d e d b y h u m a n r i g h t s , p r i o r i t i s i n g h u m a n i t a r i a n a s s i s t a n c e a n d r e l i e f t o t h e m o s t v u l n e r a b l e I n r e h o u s i n g t h o s e w h o h a v e b e e n l e f t h o m e l e s s b y c l i m a t e c h a n g e i n d u c e d m o n s o o n f l o o d s P a k i s t a n n e e d s t o r e n e w a t t e n t i o n t o l a n d r i g h t s a n d s e c u r i t y o f t e n u r e , t h e y s a i d These experts stated that practices such

as forced evictions and uncontrolled deforestation can exacerbate the effects of climate change

“Many people who have been affected by the floods have no titles to land and homes so they have chosen to remain closer to their residences, putting themselves and their families at risk, they added

They suggested Pakistan regularize informal housing as a “bulwark of building a society equipped to withstand the impact of climate induced events ”

Have plans to marr y but in no rush, says FM Bilawal

AgencIeS

Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is considered one of the most eligible bachelors in his country, has revealed plans to marry, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)

When asked by Arab News if he plans to marry, Bilawal Bhutto replied, “Of course, I have plans to marry But added that he is in no rush

Bilawal Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), took over as the 37th Foreign Minister of the country in April this year He is the son of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto and former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari Bilawal Bhutto is considered one of the key architects who helped oust Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf

(PTI) chief Imran Khan from power in April

The Pakistan foreign minister is currently in New York to attend the 77th session of UNGA

On Friday, Bilawal Bhutto called for generous international support during the next rehabilitation and reconstruction phases due to the Pakistan floods

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UNGA he called for climate justice” for Pakistan

“This is a tragedy of monumental proportions,” the Pakistan FM was quoted as saying by The Nation newspaper in New York

According to Bilawal, the total flood damage in Pakistan was over USD 30 billion 10 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), with one third of the country under water

Two soldiers mar t yred in NWA explosion: ISPR

ISLAMABAD

s tA f f R e p o R t

Two Pakistan Army soldiers were killed in an explosion in the North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the media wing of the military said on Sunday According to a statement released by the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the incident took place Saturday when an improvised explosive device exploded in the Esham town of the district resulting in the death of soldiers

Both the soldiers Naib Subedar Javaid Iqbal

and Naik Hussain Ahmed belonged to Punjab, the ISPR said “Clearance of the area is being carried out to eliminate any terrorists presence in the area, according to the statement

Meanwhile, President Dr Arif Alvi expressed his deep grief and sorrow over the incident, the presidency said The president prayed for the elevation of the ranks of the departed souls He further observed that the martyred who laid down their lives for the protection of the motherland were the benefactors of the nation

Marriyum says saddened over ‘toxic impac t ’ of Imran’s ‘politics of hate’

ISLAMABAD

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Sunday that she was saddened over the ‘toxic impact of Imran Khan’s politics of hate and divisiveness on the society

Retweeting a tweet of senior journalist Syed Talat Hussain, she said she stayed and answered each and every question of by the PTI activists But sadly, the people there were victims of Imran s propaganda she added “We will continue our work to counter IK’s toxic politics & bring people together”, she maintained

In his tweet sharing a video clip in which Marriyum Aurangzeb was being asked questions by Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf activists during a protest in London Talat said she braved the situation with aplomb He said it was a ‘shameful act on the part of harassers’ and the trend would be irresistible for others He said it was only a matter of time before PTI women or Imran himself would face the same situation “I will condemn it even then but with the reminder that what goes around comes around Talat Hussain said PM laudS MarriyuM FOr dEaliNg

In a tweet on social media platform Twitter he said, “The manner in which Marriyum Aurangzeb dealt with the harassment from the PTI supporters shows her grace By her calm & honorable conduct she exposed the ugly face of the harassers & their promoters We are proud of her ”

Austere PM doesn’t spend official funds on his US visit

ISLAMABAD

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has set an example of aus terity as he did not spend a single penny from national ex chequer on his visit to the United States to address the UN General Assembly in New York, it emerged on Sun day The prime minister not only bore all the expenditure of his visit but he also paid from his pocket for the ex penditure of the ministers of his delegation who went with him to the US During his tenures as Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif had never availed any perks in cluding salary Shehbaz Sharif as chief minister had also paid all the expenditures from his pocket for the official visits for ten years

Pakistan to prefer local resources for power generation: Musadik

FAISALABAD

State Minister for Petroleum Dr Musadik Masood Malik said on Sunday that Pakistan will prefer utilisation of local resources instead of depending on importing costly fuel for power generation Addressing 36th Annual General Meeting of Pakistan Textile Exporters’ Association (PTEA), he said Pakistan s indigenous gas deposits were depleting at a rate of 10 per cent per annum therefore it was need of the hour to search new gas reserves but now, new wells was dug up in this connection for the last many years due to which industrial as well as domestic consumers were facing great deal of difficulties He said that local as well as foreign investors were investing in Pakistan and the growing trend of investment in the country was an expression of confidence in the government’s economic policies The state minister said that textile industry was the backbone of economy, hence the government was taking remedial measures to overcome the challenges for the uplift this sector Dr Musadik said that no country could achieve economic targets without due role of exporters added that the government was committed to facilitate industrialists and investors for improving economic activities and increasing employment opportunities

time, as the PM was in New York

The judgement by the Election Commission in the reference sent by the National Assembly Speaker about Imran Khan’s non declaration of assets has been reserved Everyone seems 5o think that it should lead to his disqualification So let’s see how the ECP oils out of disqualifying him

It might not be so easy as the way the Islamabad High Court got out of indicting him, which would have led to his being disqualified, by accepting his promise to apologise to Judge Zeba Chaudhry for threatening her after she gave remand of

Shehbaz Gill to the Islamabad Police I do wonder what will happen when he does apologise to her I think he should put the incident behind him, especially since Gill is now out on bail It would have been one for the books if Imran had been disqualified nonetheless

Imran shouldn t be so stroppy about apologizing He should take a leaf out of the book of the late Rana Phool Muhammad, that scrappy backbencher who made a virtue about his lack of formal education ”Say what you want,and then take back your words Of course,he was talking about the Punjab Assembly not the judiciary

It’s also interesting that Imran can take time out to rail against the expense of Shehbaz going to address the UN General

Assembly when the country was suffering from floods Of course,we all know of his deep concern for the affectees which he showed by cancelling rallies, and getting his feet wet while visiting the affectees, and making sure that there was real money deposited with the banks after his telethon

It was also a relief not to be constantly buttonholed and told what a brilliant speech it was When Imran first went to the UN GA, he was hailed by all as having made a brilliant speech The problem was he kept going, and neither the state media nor the PTI trolls could admit his speeches were less brilliant than the first I know the floods are being blamed on climate change, but somehow I had expected it to be more dramatic Y’know

snow in May maybe, leaves falling in August, or heat waves in December All that is happening is that the climate stays the same, but the weather grows worse I mean,these are indeed probably the worst ever floods in our history but they happened when you normally have flooding Not of that intensity, of course, bu flooding nonetheless

We’ve been getting visitors from abroad First was UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres then was the actors playing Abdur Rehman Alp in Ertogrul, and then there was Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood actress She was also here for the 2005 earthquake The highlight of that visit was her photoshoot with then PM Shaukat Aziz There was no photoshoot this

Those are not the only visitors England is here for the first time in 17 years The captain, Moeen Ali, is the first England captain of Pakistani origin Nasser Hussain, who captained England at the turn of the century, was half Indian and half English He was Chennai born, and thus also qualified for India At least he was half English, and took after his mother Moeen Ali, on the other hand, looks very Pakistani

FOOTNOTE TO THESE NOTES:

Nawaz Alam has passed away I can’t explain how quiet and efficient a photographer he was Photographers are the true journalists, I sometimes thought Many years ago, in the last quarter of the 20th century he once told me that he took his camera into the john “If a snake comes out, the News Editor will want a photo ” Ever since I always made sure I had a pen just in case I had to make notes

wiTH PTi HaraSSErS wiTH gracE Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Sunday said the manner in which Marriyum Aurangzeb dealt with the harassment from the supporters of Pakistan Tehreek i Insaf (PTI) showed her grace

9 t h i N t ’ l C o N f e r e N C e : C J P e N v i S A g e S P r o g r e S S i v e

PA K i S tA N w h e r e l Aw r e i g N S S U P r e M e

ISLAMABAD s tA f f R e p o R t

CHIEF Justice of Pakistan (CJP)

Justice Umar Ata Bandial has said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan hosted its 9th International Judicial Conference with the intention of addressing past issues and finding innovative ways to secure a better future for Pakistan

Addressing the closing ceremony of International Judicial Conference the Chief Justice said that the Conference was an incredible success and had a great turnout with participants ranging from esteemed members of the superior and district judiciary and members of the legal community to members of the executive branch and foreign speakers that provided their valuable recommendations regarding steps to be taken for improving the dispensation of justice

In his concluding remarks the Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial shared with the participants his vision for a

prosperous and progressive Pakistan where the rule of law reigns supreme

He stressed the importance of ensuring that courts are made equally accessible to all the citizens of Pakistan irrespective of their gender, religion, race and economic status

H e s a i d t h a t t h e j u d i c i a r y a n d l e g i s l a t u r e w e r e e n c o u r a g e d t o d e v e l o p A D R f a c i l i t i e s a n d p r o c e d u r e s , a n d t o p r o m o t e t h e i r u s e a m o n g s t l i t i g a n t s t o e n s u r e t h e i n e x p e n s i v e a n d e x p e d i t i o u s d i s p e n s a t i o n o f j u s t i c e T h e u s e o f t e c h n o l o g i c a l a d v a n c e m e n t s w a s a l s o e m p h a s i z e d i n s t r e a m l i n i n g l i t i g a t i o n h e a d d e d I n t h i s r e g a r d t h e C h i e f J u s t i c e a l s o i n f o r m e d t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s o f t h e s e t t i n g u p o f a N a t i o n a l J u d i c i a l A u t o m a t i o n U n i t , a p p r o v e d b y t h e N a t i o n a l J u d i c i a l ( P o l i c y M a k i n g ) C o m m i t t e e t o h e l p d e v e l o p a N a t i o n a l O n l i n e D a s h b o a r d f o r c r e a t i n g a n i n t e g r a t e d i n f o r m a t i

Judiciary

The first phase of this project is expected to be up and running by and will centralise the data/record of cases pending in all courts

on one website The second phase of this initiative seeks to implement data sharing with other stakeholders in the justice sector

He also referred to the Federal Judicial Academy s initiative of launching an e campus by the end of this year to conduct training workshops and certification courses online for all stakeholders in the justice sector

The Chief Justice further emphasized the need for stakeholders in the criminal justice system, namely the Police and Prosecution, to improve their performance and coordination with each other to reduce the

incidences of crimes Members of the judiciary and legal community were also urged to make efforts to enhance their capacity, legal knowledge and performance

He said that the various organs of the state were also prompted to ensure the involvement of women, who form 50% of our population, in decision making processes

The Chief Justice also urged that efforts be made to effectively eradicate gender based violence along with other formal and informal biases that women face, both in the workplace and at home

He said that the need to counter problems relating to population growth and climate change on a priority basis was also stressed as these issues are ravaging Pakistan at present

The Chief Justice placed great emphasis on the need for all stakeholders in the justice sector to come together to improve the quality of justice dispensed by the courts

He encouraged the use of training sessions for the police and prosecution to increase conviction rates and reduce crime

The Chief Justice also suggested that

Cabinet Division seeks OGRA comments on LPG overpricing by today

District Judges partake in training sessions to learn about amendments and developments in the law and suggested that performance audits be made mandatory in all levels of the judiciary to assess gaps in legal knowledge so that steps may be taken to remedy them Bar Councils and Associations were also told to take on a more proactive role in the enhancing the legal knowledge of advocates to improve their quality of work

He said that the issues of increasing population, worsening climate change and pervasive gender inequality were said to be hindering effective administration of Justice In this respect the Chief Justice said that the Supreme Court is committed to protecting the marginalised groups directly affected but the legislature and executive must also do their bit

The Chief Justice concluded his speech stating that it is only through the collective resolution of the stakeholders in the justice sector that Pakistan can become a nation in which the Rule of Law, Democracy and respect for the Constitution will thrive

Pakistan offers to trade financial debts with big nations’ climate debts

KP approves rs1.9b for institutional suppor t to P&d dept

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Government has approved a project worth Rs1 935 billion to provide institutional support to the Planning and Development Department (P&D) The plan approved by the provincial government provides that Rs1 423 billion will be spent on salaries of the project employees According to sources in the P&D department, PC 1 of the project was approved on August 5 by the Provincial Development Working Party, after which the administrative approval has also been granted and the project would be completed by June 2025 at the cost of PKR 1 935 billion The details show that PKR 274 million have been earmarked for investment in the form of salaries, PKR 21mn for operational expenses, and PKR 21mn have been allocated for furniture and setting up the district office The project has been made part of the current year ’s development program and it will be completed in three years Initially, the estimated cost of the project was PKR 1 675bn which has now been exceeded PKR 1 935bn

The Cabinet Division has asked Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority chairman to submit comments on inaction against overpricing of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) by up to Rs200 per kilogram during the ongoing month of September, 2022

As per details, the cabinet division has asked t h e O G R A c h a i r m a n t o f u r n i s h c o m m e n t s b y M o n d a y ( t o d a y ) f o r o n w a r d s u b m i s s i o n t o t h e Senate Secretariat

Earlier, Sadiq Sanjrani, Chairman Senate had r eceiv ed a P u b lic P etitio n N o 4 8 9 9 d ated 2 0 th S e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 2 w h i c h w a s s u b m i t t e d b y I r f a n Khokhar, Chairman LPG Industries Association, s e e k i n g a h i g h l e v e l i n v e s t i g a t i o n a g a i n s t t h e black marketing/over pricing by upto Rs 200 per k i l o g r a m i n L P G p r i c e i n P u n j a b , K h y b e r P a k h t u n k h w a , G i l g a t B a l t i s t a n a n d A z a d K a s h m i r a m i d f l o o d s i n t h e c o u n t r y A n d t h e Senate Secretariat asked the Cabinet Division to submit comments/views as the said petition shall b e t a k e n u p i n t h e f o r t h c o m i n g m e e t i n g o f t h e Senate Standing on Cabinet Secretariat

The Chairman LPG Industries Association in a petition submitted before the Senate chairman has pleaded that over pricing by upto Rs 200/kg ( R s 2 4 0 0 p e r d o m e s t i c c y l i n d e r & R s 9 0 0 p e r c o m m e r c i a l c y l i n d e r ) i s b e i n g d o n e i n t h e o n going month of September 2022 and due to this b l a c k m a r k e t i n g o f a p p r o x i m a t e l y R s 8 b i l l i o n h a s b e e n d o n e i n t h e c o u n t r y T h e p e t i t i o n e r p l e a d e d t h a t O G R A h a s s o f a r n o t t a k e n a n y action against the gas mafia which has monopoly

on local LPG production He also advocated that t h e L P G c o m p a n i e s w h i c h h a v e m o n o p o l y a n d control on local LPG production should be made bound to import 50 percent of LPG to run their business and to ensure the availability of LPG at cheaper rate during the upcoming winter season

T h e p e t i t i o n e r, i n h i s a p p l i c a t i o n , f u r t h e r p o i n t e d o u t t h e i l l t r e a t m e n t a n d m i s b e h a v e o f OGRA s Member Gas in the presence of OGRA chairman with a delegation of LPG Distributors Association during a meeting which was held on 12th September 2022 in the premises of OGRA He said that OGRA had summoned this meeting o n h i s c o m p l a i n t a g a i n s t t h e p o w e r f u l c a r t e l involved in black marketing of LPG and minting a r o u n d R s 8 b i l l i o n f r o m t h e i n n o c e n t L P G consumers

O G R A s M e m b e r G a s w a s c o n t a c t e d t o secure his stance But he did not appear T h e L P G I n d u s t r i e s A s s o c i a t i o n , i n a s t a t e m e n t s a i d t h a t l o c a l g a s i s b e i n g monopolized by a few people due to which black marketing is rampant and OGRA Member (Gas) i s w h o l l y a n d s o l e l y r e s p o n s i b l e f o r t h i s b l a c k marketing

Chairman LPG Industries Association Irfan Khokhar stressed that there is no shortfall of LPG a s a b o u t 8 8 0 0 0 m e t r i c t o n s w a s i m p o r t e d i n August 2022 while 4500 MT of LPG is available at Port Qasim SSGC Terminal and at EvTL 3500 MT of LPG is available About 400 Bowzers at Ta f t a n b o r d e r a n d 2 5 0 b o w z e r a r e a w a i t i n g t h e o p e n i n g o f t h e r o u t e s t o P u n j a b a n d K h y b e r P a k h t u n k h w a s a i d I r f a n K h o k h a r C h a i r m a n LPG Industries Association

Leaked audio clips raise concerns about prime minister office securit y

A t t h i s , t h e p r i m e m i n i s t e r ’s a l l e g e d v o i c e s a y s : T h e s o n i n l a w i s v e r y dear to Maryam Nawaz Tell her very logically about this and then I will talk t o h e r T h e s a m e v o i c e a l s o a g r e e s with the perception that this would be bad for optics and may cause political trouble

At the end of the audio clip of just o v e r t w o m i n u t e s , t h e r e i s a m e n t i o n o f f o r m e r J u s t i c e M a q b o o l B a q i r, whose name was being considered as t h e n e x t h e a d o f t h e N a t i o n a l A c c o u n t a b i l i t y B u r e a u ( N A B ) T h e o ff i c i a l i s h e a r d c o n v e y i n g t o t h e premier the “suggestion” of two media persons, asking him not to consider the f o r m e r j u d g e f o r t h e p o s t o f d i r t y money watchdog’s chairman, in view of their experience with former NAB c h i e f J a v e d I q b a l w h o w a s a l s o a r e t i r e d j u d g e a p p o i n t e d b y t h e previous PML N government in 2016

T h i s e x c h a n g e h e l p s t o p u t a timeline on the purported audio, as the m a t t e r o f t h e N A B c h i e f ’s

a p p o i n t m e n t w a s i n t h e n e w s a r o u n d two months ago

E M B a r r a S S i N g M i F Ta H

EXcHaNgE: A second conversation b e t w e e n S h a r i f a n d N a w a z , a l s o posted on the secret portal revealed an e m b a r r a s s i n g e x c h a n g e o n M i f t a h I s m a i l , t h e f i n a n c e m i n i s t e r w h o i s a c l o s e a i d e o f t h e p r i m e m i n i s t e r b u t has received flak from a rival group in t h e p a r t y f o r h i s i n a b i l i t y t o c o n t r o l r i s i n g i n f l a t i o n a n d d o l l a r e x c h a n g e rate

T h e c l i p f e a t u r e s a c o n v e r s a t i o n p u r p o r t e d l y b e t w e e n N a w a z a n d S h a r i f “ H e [ I s m a i l ] d o e s n ’t t a k e responsibility [ ] says strange things on Tv which people make fun of him for [ ] he doesn’t even know what he is doing,” the former says

He clearly cut corners, Sharif is h e a r d a s s a y i n g “ U n c l e , h e d o e s n ’t k n o w w h a t h e i s d o i n g , ” N a w a z purportedly says, as she wishes for the r e t u r n o f I s h a q D a r, f o r m e r f i n a n c e minister and Nawaz’s confidante

N a w a z h a s p u b l i c l y s t a t e d s h e doesn’t agree with the decision to hike

petrol and electricity prices, claiming s h e d i d n o t o w n s u c h d e c i s i o n s , whether her party was in government or not

The third clip allegedly concerns a c o n v e r s a t i o n b e t w e e n t h e p r i m e minister, Minister of Defence Khawaja A s i f , M i n i s t e r o f L a w a n d J u s t i c e A z a m N a z e e r Ta r a r M i n i s t e r o f I n t e r i o r R a n a S a n a u l l a h K h a n a n d M i n i s t r y o f E c o n o m i c A ff a i r s Ay a z S a d i q a b o u t t h e r e s i g n a t i o n s o f P a k i s t a n Te h r e e k i I n s a f ( P T I ) M P s from the National Assembly cyBErSEcuriTy

Q u E S T i O N E d : W h i l e t h e government maintained its silence on the breach on Sunday as well, PTI was i n o v e r d r i v e q u e s t i o n i n g t h e cybersecurity of the Prime Minister ’s Office (PMO)

F a w a d C h a u d h r y, s e n i o r v i c e president of the party, said the way the d a t a w a s o ff e r e d u p f o r s a l e o n t h e d a r k w e b s h o w e d t h e s t a t e o f t h e nation’s cybersecurity

T h i s i s a f a i l u r e o f o u r i n t e l l i g e n c e a g e n c i e s e s p e c i a l l y t h e

Intelligence Bureau Obviously, apart f r o m p o l i t i c a l i s s u e s , i m p o r t a n t d i s c u s s i o n s o n s e c u r i t y a n d f o r e i g n i s s u e s a r e n o w i n e v e r y o n e ’s h a n d s , ” he tweeted S h i r e e n M a z a r i f o r m e r r i g h t s m i n i s t e r a n d P T I M P, s a i d o n e o f t h e conversations showed the laying down of groundwork for Dar s return “ T h e l e a k e d a u d i o s c e r t a i n l y reveal the influence of convict Nawaz S h a r i f a n d h i s c o n v i c t o n b a i l d a u g h t e r i n t h e r u n n i n g o f t h i s imported government itself a cabal of crooks, she said “This audio leak issue is so much b i g g e r t h a n i t s e e m s J u s t i m a g i n e i f h o s t i l e c o u n t r i e s a r e b i d d i n g o n i t , J i b r a n I l y a s , a m e m b e r o f t h e p a r t y ’s social media team, said in a series of tweets Q u e s t i o n i n g t h e g o v e r n m e n t ’s i n a c t i o n o n t h e m a t t e r, j o u r n a l i s t M u b a s h i r Z a i d i n o t e d t h a t i f s u c h sensitive conversations were leaked in a n y o t h e r c o u n t r y, t h e h e a d s o f t h e i r i n t e l l i g e n c e a g e n c i e s w o u l d h a v e resigned by now”

cOntInueD FROM pAge 01

When asked about the plans for rebuilding, Bilawal said “So as the Secretary General of the United Nations said Pakistan is not only drowning in floodwater but we are also drowning in debts We would like to be able to when we reach the reconstruction rehabilitation phase build back better, build back in a greener fashion in a more climate resilient fashion In order to do so, we need access to financing and finances that end So, we are not only dealing with our bilateral partners but with international organizations and international financial organizations and engaging with them in a conversation about how going forward So, we are not going as far as to say that you know forgive our debts or something That’s as extreme as that but we are speaking about a couple of options First of all, a moratorium on repayments that are due at this very moment Surely the countries we are indebted to going forward want their debts repaid and we want to be in a position to be able to do that We are also talking about supporting us with international financial institutions particularly when it is to do with the risk of lending “Thirdly, a conversation that the UN secretary general has been having for quite some time is about the debt swap and swapping debt and spending that money instead of paying the debtor country to spend it We would like to see sort of a similar formula for debt swaps We’d focus on greener projects on greener infrastructure on climate resilient infrastructure and many of the larger countries have this on their agenda now So this is a way where those carbon producing countries and industrialised countries come because Pakistan produces 0 8 percent of the carbon footprint but we are now the 10th most climate vulnerable country on the planet So we sort of like to trade our financial debts for larger countries’ climate debt and instead of paying them back the current repayments directly to them we could spend that same money directly on green infrastructure projects for our reconstruction and rehabilitation “ About OIC, he said: “So, from absolutely at the OIC countries were amongst first to respond to the climate catastrophe in Pakistan in the very initial phases we were in sort of the relief and rescue phase but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates and many countries within the GCC have stepped up to help Pakistan

NAB asks fake housing societ y victims to submit compensation claims

ISLAMABAD tA

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has asked the citizens cheated by Faisal Ali Khan and others the owners of an illegal cooperative hous ing society, to submit their compensation claims by October 4 According to an official announcement of NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the bureau has started investigations against the owners of the fake housing society, which was situated at Kaka Sahib road Badrashi District Nowshera on the alle gations of receiving money from the people through fraudu lent means by promising them plots in the aforementioned housing scheme The NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has set a deadline to ascertain the total amount of the fraud It has asked the victims to submit their applications on a stamp paper along with copies of their agreements and comput erised National Identity Cards (CNICs), authentic copies of original documents and payment receipts to Deputy Director (Coordination), Investigation Wing,II, NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PDA Complex Block III Phase v Hay atabad, Peshawar within the stipulated time

peSHAWAR

cOntInueD FROM pAge

ISLAMABAD A h M A d A h M A dA N i

World Bank Pledges $2B for flood-ravaged Pakistan

tHE World Bank said it will provide about $2 billion in aid to Pakistan ravaged by floods that have killed more than 1,600 people this year, the largest pledge of assistance so far Unprecedented monsoon rains and flooding this year which many experts at tribute to climate change have also in jured some 13,000 people across the country since mid June

The floods have displaced millions and destroyed crops, half a million homes and thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads

T South Asia, Martin Raiser, announced the pledge in an overnight statement after con cluding his first official visit to the country

Saturday We are deeply saddened by the loss of lives and livelihoods due to the devastating floods and we are working with the federal and provincial governments to provide immediate relief to those who are most affected ” he said Raiser met with federal ministers and the chief minister of Sindh, the most affected re gion where he toured the badly hit Dadu dis trict Thousands of makeshift medical camps for flood survivors have been set up in the province where the National Disaster Manage ment Authority (NDMA) said outbreaks of ty phoid, malaria and dengue fever have killed at least 300 people

The death toll prompted the World Health Organization last week to raise the alarm about a second disaster with doctors on the ground racing to battle outbreaks

“As an immediate response, we are repur

British Pakistani philanthropist extends relief assistance in flood affected areas

ISLAMABAD

S

Managing Director ISA Support Services Sunny Araf, a British Pakistani from UK has come forward to support the flood impacted communities of the country due to the massive monsoon torrential rains and has started re lief efforts for the rehabilitation of affected areas The ISA Support Services and ISA Foundation was already working in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey to support the Syrian refugees Araf told APP that the ISA had also initiated Africa Bangladesh and Pakistan The ISA man aging director revealed his disaster relief plan in a meet ing with Young Journalist Association (YJA) delegation led by its President Mohammad Yousaf Khan General Secretary Malik Zubair Awan and others Sunny Araf re gretted that there was Pakistan s complete blackout at international media due to the Queen’s demise How ever, the situation in Pakistan was one hundred times worst in Pakistan, he said, adding, “Ukraine War got huge coverage but very few attention was given to Pak istan ” He informed that the ISA Foundation had created an entrepreneur fund at global level to support people el igible of zakat to channelise innovative talent and skills among youth to support empowerment of marginalised communities “Pakistan has huge youth talent that needs to be propagated through investment as India did mas sive investment in its youth ” Commenting on his moti vation and passion behind building ISA Foundation and international philanthropic endeavours he said My three year old daughter Khadija died due to congenital heart dis ease This incident turned my life and made me realize how fragile human life is I realised that success is impor tant to give back to the society ” He mentioned that the ISA Foundation through it’s support effort had devised a strategy to enable youth to return good to their com munities “We need a pledge from youth to give back to your local communities after getting successful in their life Responding to various queries he said the ISA Foundation was very open minded organisation and had the goal of empowering the country and would collabo rate with all private and public departments and part ners under a shared and mutual objective Commenting on the mechanism of his non governmental organisa tion (NGO), he said the ISA Foundation used to de velop a local partner with local employment and procurement in the impacted countries “We do not take donations rather support the NGO through our own re sources ” Sunny Araf also met cricket star and philan thropist Shahid Afridi and informed that the latter told him that rehabilitation and relief efforts in Balochistan were difficult due to hard terrain and inaccessible far flung areas The people in Balochistan need tents, med icines, mosquito nets and hygiene kits and we will ensure its supplies to the affected population ” He fur ther added that all NGOs were aiming to fund on reha bilitation and he on behalf of his foundation was meetings with various organisations

posing funds from existing World Bank fi nanced projects to support urgent needs in health food shelter rehabilitation and cash transfers,” Raiser said

The World Bank agreed last week in a meeting with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assem bly to provide $850 million in flood relief for Pakistan The $2 billion figure includes that amount

Raiser said the bank is working with provincial authorities to begin as quickly as possible repairing infrastructure and housing and restore livelihoods, and to help strengthen Pakistan’s resilience to climate re lated risks We are envisaging financing of about $2 billion to that effect ”

Over the past two months Pakistan has sent nearly 10,000 doctors, nurses and other medical staff to tend to survivors in Sindh

A u d i o l e a k f r o m P M H o u s e a ‘s e n s i t i v e m a t t e r ’ , s a y s Fa z l

MULTAN S ta f f R e p o R t

Jamiat Ulema i Islam Fazl (JUI F) supremo and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Sunday said that the issue of the audio leak from the Prime Minister ’s House is a sensitive matter

Talking to the media Fazlur Rehman said he will ask Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take strict action on the issue of the audio leak Talking about PML N leader Ishaq Dar ’s return to Pakistan, Fazl said, No one contacted me about Dar ’s return” Fazl said that the govern ment should take advantage from of Ishaq Dar s experience

Taking a swipe at Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan, the JUI F chief said that it has been proven that he [Imran] received funding from India and Israel while Imran turned out to be a liar in every matter Maulana Fazl asked Imran to tell that who is XYZ

The JUIF chief added, when we

ousted Imran s government, his [Imran s] agenda was not completed

Continuing to lambast former prime minister Imran Khan, Fazl said that his [Imran’s] entire politics is based on the narrative of corruption, adding that he [PTI chairman] wasted money and used

institutions Alleging that his [Imran s] government was involved in giving con fidential information about CPEC to the US, Fazl said that the PTI s government had stopped working on CPEC as a result of which China went on to be unpleased with Pakistan as the CPEC project was

one of the biggest investments of China Maulana Fazl took a dig at former fi nance minister Shaukat Tarin, saying he [Tarin] wants Pakistan to default He claimed the incumbent government was waging struggle to rid country of economic crisis actually brought about by Imran Khan

He pointed out that political instabil ity started with the disqualification of for mer prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the Panama papers case However economic instability was solely caused by Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) chief, who held the reins for almost four years and led the country towards default, he added Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) foiled the designs of Imran Khan by dislodging his government, said Maulana,” who also heads the PDM

The PDM president observed that ef forts were being made to address inflation by adopting different short term policies

To a question he maintained that fed eral government announced Rs 70 billion for flood hit people However, he accused that provincial governments did not work properly in the flood affected areas

M e c h a n i s m evo l ve d t o m o n i t o r t i m e l y co m p l e t i o n o f p ro j e c t s : C M E l a h i

LAHORE S ta f f R e p o R t

Chief Minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Sun day said he has evolved an effective mechanism to mon itor the timely completion of all industrial and development projects to usher an era of progress and prosperity across the province for the welfare of all seg ments of the society

Talking to a delegation led by Chief Executive Of ficer Pakistan Furniture Council and ChenOne Mian Kashif Ashfaq he said Punjab government attached great importance to execution of industrial and devel opment projects and performance of all provincial sec retaries has now been linked to development projects Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq, former Zila Nazim Toba Tek Singh and PMA Saeed Ahmad Saeedi we’re also present on the occasion

The Punjab CM said he is himself supervising the monthly performance of projects directly from chief minister secretariat to ensure achieving targets well on

time and no any type of excuse will be tolerated at all He assured the members of the delegation that irrigation water problems of all farmers throughout the province including that of Toba Tek Singh will be solved on top priority as agriculture is main stay of our national econ omy Ch Pervaiz Elahi said the Punjab government is fully committed to gear up development activities in Toba Tek Singh and will allocate sufficient required funds for health, education, roads and communication and irrigation systems CM runs for Cover after attaCked by bees: Punjab CM Ch Pervaiz Elahi had to run for cover when a swarm of hundreds of bees attacked him in Gujrat on Sunday

The security personnel accompanying the chief minister tried their utmost to save the provincial chief executive from this unexpected attack from venomous bees The security personnel yelled for opening the door of the official car of the chief minister so he could get rid of the charged bees

After hearing his security personnel, Pervaiz Elahi

ran towards his car to save himself from the attack but the bees kept hovering over his head

The chief minister hurriedly jumped into the car and left Zahoor Palace newspapers Most authentiC sourCe of inforMation: Punjab CM Ch Pervaiz Elahi on Sunday said that newspapers were an important part of lives, were still an essential part and would remain so

In his message on the ‘National Newspaper Read ership Day he said that newspapers were the most au thentic source to derive information, adding that with the newspaper reading the reader not only acquaints himself with the current affairs but also gets easy and inexpensive access to obtain information

The CM said despite the growth of electronic and digital media newspapers were still the best source for the readers to derive information He added awareness about various economic and social issues was obtained by reading newspapers Though the newspaper reading habit had lessened in the digital world but it could not be eliminated under any circumstance, he stated

NEW YORK a f p

Pakistan’s catastrophic floods have led to re newed calls for rich polluting nations which grew their economies through heavy use of fossil fuels, to compensate developing coun tries for the devastating impacts caused by the climate crisis

The currently favoured term for this con cept is loss and damage payments, but some campaigners want to go further and frame the issue as “climate reparations,” just as racial justice activists call for compensa tion for the descendants of enslaved people

Beyond the tougher vocabulary, green groups also call for debt cancellation for cash

strapped nations that spend huge portions of their budgets servicing external loans, rather than devoting the funds to increasing re silience to a rapidly changing planet

“There’s a historical precedent of not just the industrial revolution that led to in creased emissions and carbon pollution, but also the history of colonialism and the his tory of extraction of resources, wealth and labour,” Belgium based climate activist Meera Ghani told AFP

The climate crisis is a manifestation of interlocking systems of oppression, and it’s a form of colonialism,” said Ghani, a former climate negotiator for Pakistan

Such ideas stretch back decades and were first pushed by small island nations

susceptible to rising sea levels but mo mentum is once more building on the back of this summer s catastrophic inundations in Pakistan, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains

Nearly 1,600 were killed, several million displaced, and the cash strapped government estimates losses in the region of $30 billion beyond Mitigation and adap tation: Campaigners point to the fact that the most climate vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsible Pak istan, for instance, produces less than one percent of global greenhouse emissions, as opposed to the G20 countries which account for 80 percent

The international climate response cur

rently involves a two pronged approach: “mitigation” which means reducing heat trapping greenhouse gases and adapta tion,” which means steps to alter systems and improve infrastructure for changes that are already locked in

Calls for “loss and damage” payments go further than adaptation financing, and seek compensation for multiplying severe weather impacts that countries cannot with stand At present, however, even the more modest goal of adaptation financing is lan guishing Advanced economies agreed to channel $100 billion to less developed coun tries by the year 2020 a promise that was broken even as much of the funding that was mobilised came in the form of loans

Our starting point is that the global North is largely responsible for the state of our planet today,” said Maira Hayat, an as sistant professor of environment and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana “Why should countries that have contributed little by way of GHG emissions be asking them for aid loans are the pre dominant form with onerous repayment conditions?

If the language is upsetting for some the next step should be to probe why that might be do they dispute the history? Or the present day implications of accepting certain historical pasts?” point sCoring?

Not all in the climate arena are con vinced “Beyond a certain rhetorical point scoring that’s not going to go anywhere,” said Daanish Mustafa professor in critical geography at King’s College London

ISLAMABAD

FE D E R A L Minister for Infor

mation Technology and Telecommunication Syed Aminul Haque Sunday said that Pakistan is committed to work ing for affordable internet, universal, meaningful connectivity, and close global and regional cooperation

Addressing The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference (PP 22) Ministerial Roundtable Conference held in Bucharest “Romania”, he said that Pakistan is a country with a 220 million population and 64% of youth under the age of 30 and the government is ready to bet all the resources and efforts on country’s future “A future which en sures inclusive, universal and sustain able Digital Growth he added

The International Telecommunica tion Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Con ference (PP 22)’s highest policy making body, meets once every four years to set the Union s general policies, adopt the four year strategic and financial plans, and elect the senior management team

of the organization, the Member States of the Council, and the members of the Radio Regulations Board

The government of Pakistan, he said, through its Universal Services Fund (USF) initiative is running diverse Telecom Infrastructure and Services programs that are playing a pivotal role in providing high speed internet to un served, underserved and hardest to con nect communities said a news release received here on Sunday

The minister said, the subsidy dri

UAE: Friends, colleagues pay tribute to murdered Pakistani expat Sarah Inam

UAE residents and friends paid tribute to Abu Dhabi resident Sarah Inam, who was murdered on Friday in Pakistan

#JusticeForSarah has been trending on social media as her friends and colleagues demand justice for the Pakistani Canadian national after she was allegedly murdered by her husband Shahnawaz, who is in police custody This is the second high profile murder case in Pakistan after Noor Mukadam, 27, was also reportedly killed by her friend last year Inam’s friends in the UAE said she was a wonderful colleague and that they were “shell shocked” to know about her death “She was a wonderful colleague and a dear friend She was a talented economist with a life long passion for working with governments on education reform employability and economic development initiatives,” said Stephen Nash, who worked with Sarah for four years at the Deloitte office in Abu Dhabi “May the light always shine on you my beautiful friend, Sarah We cannot, will not rest till we get justice,” said Saima Ismail Sarah received her Bachelor of Arts, Economics (Honours) and a business degree from the University of Waterloo She then studied for her Master at the same university She had also done internships at the University of Waterloo and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

ven programs are accelerating Digital Transformation and are empowering the marginal communities to ease into the digital ecosystem, with particular em phasis on gender inclusivity

Amin said, “last 4 years have been our busiest with respect to USFs out reach We have only contracted 79 new projects worth 266+ Million USD to provide coverage to 28 million people in this period

The minister also informed the par ticipants that the government of Pakistan

also intends to provide not only a con ducive environment but to drive both the demand and supply sides of the ecosys tem, hence creating an image of a glob ally competitive and prosperous country that provides a high quality life for all its citizens As part of our digital trans formation journey, he said, the govern ment is targeting an ambitious slogan “Smartphone for All”

He said that Pakistan is also imple menting a comprehensive smart govern ment ecosystem, which is helping to consolidate the country s resources and efforts for achieving public service de livery, efficiently and effectively

He said that Pakistan has a strong vi sion to empower talented youth by pro viding opportunities where they can embark on entrepreneurship as a career

For this purpose, the government of Pakistan is providing an enabling envi ronment to talented youth by establishing tech based National Incubation Centers (NIC) across the country, he added

He said that last year, the Pakistani startup space caught the global attention of renowned investors and VC firms and attracted the record highest ever invest ments with a 275 % increase

Arabic, Persian literature on decline at IC T colleges

ISLAMABAD

S ta f f r e p o r t

Despite having a rich history and importance the Arabic and the Per sian literature are slowly dying out in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) colleges

According to an official source, some colleges have suspended their Arabic and Persian courses, asking the teachers of these subjects to teach other subjects in which they were not specialized The future of the Arabic and Persian languages in ICT colleges was ambiguous and uncertain, the source said

Some teachers were of the view that both the Arabic and Persian liter ature had lost support and patronage of the relevant authorities, hence the popularity of these subjects among the young people was declining

They urged the authorities at Federal Directorate of Education to take steps for the promotion of Ara

bic and Persian literature A professor on the condition of anonymity said, “The subject of Persian has been suspended at Is lamabad Model College for Girls I 8/3 due to unavailability of subject teacher while Islamabad Model Postgraduate College H 8 did not offer the admission in the subjects of Arabic and Persian in this session despite the availability of teachers Tasnim Akhter Mir, an Associate Professor of Persian at Islamabad Model College for Girls G 10/4, termed Persian a must to understand Allama Iqbal’s message

She said, “Persian literature is about history, psychology, philoso phy, languages, sociology and the ology No one can deny its importance Persian remained a language of administration and high culture across the subcontinent and played a role very similar to the one English does today”

Referring to the glorious period

of Persian in the subcontinent, dur ing which valuable literature was produced, she said that it was a pity that they kept themselves away from the vast treasure of the literature ” Dr Nazir Ahmed Bhutta of Is lamabad Model Postgraduate Col lege H 8 said, “Students are deserting Arabic and Persian litera ture in droves They don’t want to leave with a qualification that will not guarantee them a well paid job Decline of literature is the failure of the authorities to maintain the legacy of Arabic and Persian Ef forts should be made to rescue these important subjects in ICT col leges ” Another female teacher mentioned that even in the Cam bridge system, literature of differ ent languages was being taught, including Urdu However in our colleges not only Persion and Arabic but history and philosophy subjects are also being ignored

Minister calls on students to suppor t flood victims

ISLAMABAD

Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initia the students become commu the conference the International Day of Peace, by the Higher Education Commission

The minister said had HEC

target of two million nutrition packs supported by uni versity students

The food packs will be distributed among the flood affected people, especially among mothers and children in the next ten days through the National Dis aster Management Authority (NDMA) added

Iqbal further added that one third of the country has been submerged by floods and reiterated that the government is making all efforts for the rehabilitation of the flood affected areas

UN education fund announces emergency grant in response to floods

UNITED NATIONS

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, announced the release of an emergency grant worth $5 million in response to the deadly floods in Pakistan The 12 month investment will reach more than 80,000 girls and boys across Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said the ECW “The climate crisis is an education crisis These devastating floods have taken lives, destroyed as many as 22,000 schools [ ] and ripped families apart,” said ECW Director Yasmine Sherif “We need to act with speed ECW and our strategic partners are sprinting to deliver a fast acting response to bring children back to school without further delay and deepening suffering ” The extraordinary monsoon rains in Pakistan have caused massive flooding and landslides across the nation More than 1,400 people have lost their lives and the government estimates that 22,594 schools have been damaged or destroyed, said the ECW The new response builds on the ECW’s ongoing Multi Year Resilience Programme in Pakistan and focuses on providing equitable access to inclusive and quality learning environments, establishing temporary learning spaces and providing children with the psychosocial supports they need to avoid dropping out of school permanently, said the fund Teaching and learning materials will be provided to children in both formal and temporary learning spaces Teachers will be supported to adapt their teaching methods to best suit the new context The investment will also ensure that gender based violence mitigation measures will be implemented with a particular focus on protecting adolescent girls, said the ECW Worldwide, 222 million crisis impacted children and adolescents are in need of urgent education support The ECW and its partners are calling on world leaders to provide at least $1 5 billion in urgent funding for the #222MillionDreams campaign

21 provided government jobs on deceased employees quota

LAHORE

On the orders of Punjab Ombudsman retired Maj Azam Suleman Khan, 21 applicants from across the province have been provided with permanent employment in various government departments under Rule 17 A of the Punjab Civil Servants (Appointment and Conditions of Employment) Rules, 1974 In a statement released on Sunday, a spokesman for the agency explained that Shan Haq from Lahore, Muhammad Talha Sadiq from Sahiwal, Muhammad Saad Usman from Gujranwala, Haris Waseem Khan and Ahmad Bilal Khan from Mianwali have been recruited as junior clerks in the education department in BPS 11 after the involvement of the ombudsman office Similarly, the spokesman added that Abdul Aleem from Nankana Sahib and Faryal Hanif from Jhang have been appointed to the livestock department Muhammad Ali Raza from Multan secured a job in Punjab Workers Welfare Board while Abdul Rehman from Faisalabad has been hired by the metropolitan corporation Meanwhile the irrigation department has given employment to Uzma Zia from Lahore while Naeem Insaf Khan from Bhakkar has been posted in the higher education department the spokesman noted He further stated that applicants Saleh Muhammad of Mianwali and Abdul Aziz from Dera Ghazi Khan have been recruited as a watchman and naib qasid in the education department and Sajjad Hussain from Bhakkar has been posted as a cattle attendant in the livestock department Alongside this, the irrigation department has appointed Zain ur Rehman from Gujranwala as a helper and Rizwan Ahmad from Mianwali as a signaller

Pakistan Association Dubai (PAD) has dis patched 300 tonnes of aid to Pakistan’s dif ferent flood hit areas Emirates media reported on Sunday

Around Dh1 7 million worth of aid and seven containers have been dispersed in dif ferent cities of Pakistan to support millions of people affected by heavy rains and floods in the last few months

On September 5, the Association, in col laboration with the Dar Al Ber Society and the Department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities, launched an emergency appeal for donations to support the flood victims

The Association is also participating in the national initiative of the UAE aid under the theme “We Stand Together” and also mo bilised the community to support its coun trymen Khaleej Times reported

It is estimated that the death toll from the devastating floods has surpassed 1,600 while over 13,000 have been injured

Authorities in Pakistan have estimated that over 33 million people have been di rectly affected by the unprecedented floods which have submerged huge swathes of the country, resulting in a large number of peo ple living in make shift tents Over 1 1 mil lion cattle and domestic animals have died in the heavy rains and floods

goods from Saudi Arabia has also landed in Karachi in continuation of humanitarian as sistance from the brotherly country It merits here to mention that Saudi Arabia has so far sent seven relief planes to Pakistan re l i e f g o o d s f ro m K S A , I t a l y, D u b a i a r r i ve

The Pakistan Association Dubai has also dispatched over 3 575 food packages 3 400 kg of cloths, 7,200kg of dry ration, 1,300 plus tents and tarpaulins, 2,500 kg of dates, 350 kg of hygiene items 750 blankets 200 kg shoes, 520kg of crockery and much more

A K F s e n d s t h r e e t r u c K l o A d s

o F r e l i e F g o o d s : The Al Khidmat Foundation (AKF) Sargodha on Sunday dis patched three truckloads containing food items, bedsheets, blankets, coolers and

clothes costing millions of rupees to flood hit area of Kot Mithan

District President Mian Izhaarul Haq said the foundation would continue relief activi ties for flood hit people till their complete re habilitation He thanked people for donation to the Al Khidmat foundation He said that rehabilitation of 30 million flood victims was a big challenge which needed a comprehen sive strategy for the distribution of financial aid transparently at government level i tA ly s e n d s F i r s t p l A n e l o A d o F r e l i e F i t e m s: Two flights carrying tonnes of relief goods for flood ravaged peo ple have arrived in Pakistan from Saudi Ara bia and Italy on Sunday

The first plane carrying relief goods from Italy landed in Karachi and was re ceived by adviser to Chief Minister Sindh on Relief and Rehabilitation Rasool Bakhsh Chandio

The relief flight was also welcomed by

the Italian Consul General, Director General Foreign Ministry, Pakistan forces and repre sentatives of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Similarly another plane carrying relief

ISLAMABAD

DUBAI

PML-N on receiving end

iT might seem that Prime Minister shehbaz sharif is only now experiencing something that happened quite frequently to his predecessor, especially since he was ousted from office Then, he and his party, without getting into the merits of the leaks’ contents, had complained of the violation of privacy that they represented To its credit, the PTi has responded to the latest audio leaks, not by crying that they revealed corruption, but by expressing concern about the security of the Prime Minister House The PTi had earlier reacted to a spate of leaks of telephone conversations between PTi leaders, as well as involving PTi chief imran Khan’s wife by complaining about the violation of privacy implicit in their being made At least one of the conversations was supposed to have taken place over the internet, on an encrypted application

The present leaked audio clips seem to be not so much phone conversations as recordings of conversations in a room The content falls short of any sort of criminal conspiracy but the fact that the Prime Minister is too scared to trade with india because of the political fallout, notwithstanding benefit that would accrue to Maryam nawaz’s son in law, or that Finance Minister Miftah ismail is unpopular with her and other party leaders, is hardly news However, they do show that Prime Minister House has probably been bugged That is worrying, for the intercepts are probably not all that has been released There is also the question of who released the material it was not an enemy intelligence agency

There must be a thoroughgoing investigation, carried out by a joint investigation team with that JiT also obliged to report back periodically to Parliament about their findings if indeed such a JiT is set up, it must also be mandated to recommend measures both immediate and preventive, to end this it should not be forgotten that the PM House also houses the PM secretariat, which makes it the hub of all government activity if it can be bugged by a domestic organization what can stop a foreign spy set up? And if PM House, why not the service HQs, or the service chiefs’ residences What about the country’s nuclear installations? Until there are answers available to these and other questions, Pakistan s citizens cannot rest easy that the country’s secrets are safe

JSMU incident

Intolerance in society revealed

Afemale student at the Jinnah sindh Medical University was harassed by a teacher; she told some of her fellow students, who took on the teacher, and ended up beating him up This was a case that demonstrated the adage that two wrongs do not make a right First of all, sexual harassment is a heinous thing, and especially by a teacher, who is supposed to be in loco parentis But if someone is suspected of it, beating up the accused person is not the solution True, mostly teachers are allowed to resign and escape all other punishment, and often enough there is no woman on the departmental enquiry committee, but there is still no justification for taking justice into one’s own hands

The tendency towards violence may be justified by some because of the flawed justice system, but the justice system was long flawed, and this tendency to violence is recent it may be because there is a youth bulge, which has meant that there is a large number of young men available for any desperate venture Like beating up somebody who has been accused, without bothering to hear any defence The PTi is the political party which most encapsulates these values, and the jury is still out whether it has generated this attitude of ‘accusation is guilt or whether it is merely riding the wave of frustration that generates this intolerance

There has been no proper social searching about his rising tide of intolerance Accusations of blasphemy have been enough for crowds to kill people and storm police stations to which have been added accusations of ordinary crimes like theft, and now sexual harassment not only must curricula include strong components inculcating tolerance, but sexual harassment must be something against which people feel revulsion, and not to be dismissed with a nudge and a wink And even if the punishment is a public beating (which it is not), no one can administer it without a court convicting the accused

Pakistan needs immediate debt restructuring/relief

IT has been around two months into the cata strophic floods that hit one third of Pakistan, displaced around 33 million people, killed around 1500 one third among them being chil dren, in addition to loss to property, crops, and livestock initial estimates indicate flood caused dam age at an alarming level of around $30 billion

While the damage caused by flood could have been restrained somewhat by better gross capital formation towards putting in place better water management in frastructure Having said that, exceedingly high torren tial rains, and glacier melting at increasing rates at the back of fast unfolding of the climate change crisis to wards which Pakistan’s contribution in terms of carbon footprint is reportedly around 0 8 percent globally, but the country is among the top ten globally to be the most vulnerable in the face of climate change crisis

To understand the causes and extent of torrential rains a recent Financial Times (FT) published article ‘climate change intensified Pakistan’s rains up to 50%, report indicates’ pointed out ‘climate change is estimated to have made the rainfall that caused dev astating flooding in Pakistan up to 50 percent more intense, according to a scientific paper published just days before the issue of environmental reparations is expected to be raised at the Un general assembly The conclusions of a rapid study of the disaster in Pakistan by 26 scientists from nine countries, as part of the World Weather Attribution group, said computer mod els indicated rain over a five day stretch in southern Pakistan was significantly more intense than it would have been without a rise in global temperatures of at least 1 1°c since pre industrial times ’

Hence, more than favour, it is the responsibility of the international community to provide needed finan cial assistance to Pakistan as climate justice, especially by those rich countries, which have a significant level of carbon footprint Yet little international financial as

sistance has materialised up till now while water borne diseases are becoming rampant, as a significant num ber of people are becoming exceedingly vulnerable, and are being pushed below the poverty line Having said that , lack of international support up till now, is in addition to the insignificant level of commitment shown by rich countries on their $100 billion annual release of climate finance for developing countries in this regard, while on his visit to attend the 77 h United national General Assembly (UnGA) session PM shahbaz sharif gave an interview to Bloomberg, which was highlighted in a Bloomberg published ar ticle Pakistan PM says All hell to break loose without debt deal’ as follows: ‘Pakistan Prime Min ister shehbaz sharif made an urgent appeal for debt relief from rich nations as catastrophic floods exac erbated by climate change displaced millions of peo ple in the south Asian nation Pakistan has debt obligations in the next two months he said in an in terview with Bloomberg Television in new York, adding that his government had just signed an agree ment with the international Monetary Fund with “very tough conditionalities” that include taxes on pe troleum and electricity He noted a “yawning gap” between what Pakistan is asking for and what is avail able, warning that the nation is facing the imminent threat of epidemics and other dangers “God forbid this happens, all hell will break, sharif said The catastrophic floods have tremendously added to a debt sustainability worry that Pakistan faced even before the floods, as reportedly the country is among the most debt distressed countries in the world Hence, there is an urgent need for debt restructuring/relief, es pecially as floods impose greater import needs for in stance, in terms of cotton and wheat, which enhances already high financing needs that the country faces reportedly debt owed by Pakistan for 2022 stands at around $30 billion while even after the recent release from the international Monetary Fund (iMF), and as sistance from some other donors/creditors, only around $8 billion could be arranged up till now in this regard, pointing towards a recent policy paper by United nations, a september 23, an FT pub lished article pointed out ‘Pakistan should seek to sus pend international debt repayments and restructure loans after devastating floods triggered a humanitarian emer gency and imperilled the country’s finances a Un pol icy memorandum has argued The draft paper from the Un Development Programme, seen by The Financial Times proposes that Pakistan negotiate debt relief with creditors to “stem the climate change fuelled crisis” The memorandum, which the UnDP will share with Pak istan’s government this week argues that creditors should consider debt relief so islamabad can prioritise financing its disaster response over repaying loans in another Bloomberg published article ‘Pakistan seeks relief from bilateral creditors, not bondholders’, it was pointed out ‘Pakistan is seeking debt relief from

G l o b a l r a c e o f u n i c r n

bilateral creditors and not from commercial bondhold ers, Finance Minister Miftah ismail said hours after comments from the nation s premier roiled its dollar bonds The south Asian country will repay on time its $1 billion sovereign bond due in December, ismail said by text message in response to Bloomberg queries A large portion of debt is in the form of de posits from “friendly countries” who have promised to roll them over, he added We are seeking debt re lief from the Paris club’s bilateral creditor countries, just as it was done during” the pandemic, ismail said We are not seeking, nor do we need to seek, any re lief from our commercial bank debt nor from Eu robond debt ”’ Having said that, it needs to be strongly emphasised that any restructuring/relief effort by de velopment partners/donors should include both the private sector and china, since they reportedly have significant presence in the debt portfolio of Pakistan Here it needs to be emphasised that Pakistan had very little to do in terms of the climate crisis unfold ing there, it therefore, should not have to bear the cost of dealing with it in any significant way from either its own kitty, or by taking on added debt pressures An early september FT editorial Pakistan s perfect storm is an urgent call to action’ pointed out in this regard as follows ‘one third of Pakistan is under water There is anger among leaders in the devel oping world about rich countries’ failure to provide resources for investment in adaptation Their attitude, understandably, is that industrialised countries caused the problem with two centuries of carbon emissions and they should pay to fix the damage in Pakistan, the challenge is complicated by the country s debt cri sis Floods will only exacerbate Pakistan’s economic problems, creating risks that current iMF support is not enough to achieve debt sustainability it is nonetheless important to keep the issues distinct: Pak istan should not be denied investment in climate adaptation because of fears cash will be diverted to shore up its short term finances Pakistanis desper ately need help now, but they need a future as well ’

There is an urgent need for debt restructuring/relief, also because foreign exchange reserves are less than $10 billion providing only around four to six weeks of import cover, while international best practice asks for at least three months of import cover cushion A re cent Bloomberg published article ‘rupee approaches record low as Pakistan awaits Middle East aid’ pointed out in this regard Pakistan s currency is on the cusp of a record low, as billions of dollars of promised aid from the Middle East to bolster the hard hit south Asian na tion s finances have yet to arrive The rupee is about 0 4% away from 240 375 per dollar, the all time low it reached earlier this year The currency is among the worst performers globally in september having fallen more than 8% A weakening currency may worsen Pak istan’s price pressures after inflation surged to the high est in almost five decades The nation is also grappling with the aftermath of a series of deadly floods and needs additional funds beyond the international Monetary Fund s $1 1 billion loan to avert a default

Un i c o r n s have become a symbol of the strong startup ecosystem of an economy numbers of unicorns in a country reflect a favourable environment to nurture new ven tures, clear taxation laws for foreign in vestors, developed human resources to cater to the needs of today s digitised business world and government s facilitation in providing efficient infrastructure to expand and sustain innovative commercial initiatives

The recent closure of Airlift after a very successful series B funding round of $85 million less than a year ago certainly raises concerns about the strength of our country s startup ecosystem The popularity of Airlift s operation in the public was amazing, referrals were quite common We also started using Airlift’s services on the recommendations of our neighbours satisfied by their quality of service our prime time is dedicated to putting down political rivals, debating interventions of the deep state propagating every violation taking place within our boundaries and then mourning the havoc created by our irrational approaches How a country at the verge of default can ignore termination of a startup which displayed tremendous potential for growth but terribly failed to sustain?

it was at this point the intervention of the govern ment and relevant policy makers is usually required, to send a message to all relevant stakeholders that the state is with them if they exhibit business potential You can t find even a single analysis or discussion on this failure to ensure that it doesn’t happen again to any emerging startup Because it is a globally proven fact that startups rejuvenate the economy by creating goods and services at a high growth output rate which existing organiza tions can t match, startups explore new markets and re form existing opportunities

As Jacob E Lee suggests, “startups are most beneficial to the economy because they contribute to the creation of jobs in a country startups create more opportunities for employment since they can add to job creation at a rate of 25 percent or more

Airlift’s customer care and quality of services were generally admired by the users of the service; however, bleeding operations remained a concern among in vestors which eventually spoiled the only aspiring homegrown unicorn in Pakistan Airlift also attempted to expand operations internationally which, i think, was ambitious and probably not required which may have terribly affected their financial position i have hands on experience of international business development, it is extremely tricky to explore and establish an interna tional market for every business and this needs extensive due diligence other operations of the same kind are pro gressing slowly and i hope they will certainly learn from the failure of Airlift to ensure sustainable operations Why is it unicorns we are focusing on today?

Unicorns are billion dollar startups According to Aileen Lee, “startups that reached this mark are so rare that finding one is as difficult as finding a myth ical unicorn But it isn t true anymore for some economies in the world as there are now numbers of unicorns with successful operations and maybe hun dreds are in the queue to join the club india has been successful and consistent in ex panding its startup ecosystem with significant growth in unicorns numbering 105 ranking third in the world after the UsA with 618 and china 174 unicorns, while israel features 96 and the UK 44 This clearly indicates that these economies provided room to new and innovative ideas to flourish and extend employ ment to thousands of people through their operations Pakistan is the fifth largest market of the world pro viding exceptional opportunities for new and innovative business ideas, but Joe o’callaghan, Managing Partner at Vation Ventures very rightly suggests offering the right product and service to the right customers in the right market and at the right time is half part of being in business The other half is having the right partners technologies, and strategies to help you reach the mar ket and deliver your products and services The most successful technology ecosystems help you bridge the gap between customers, partners, products, technolo gies, and markets to help you deal with your responsi bilities and innovate at a much higher rate

Minnalearn website suggests, “The startup ecosystem consists of a group of people, startups, and related organizations that work as a system to create

and scale new startups startup ecosystems are formed often in a relatively limited area with a centre of gravity like a university or a concentration of tech nology companies This ecosystem draws together key actors and stakeholders that gravitate towards growth ventures, including new entrepreneurs, men tors, incubators, sources of talent such as universities and corporations, investors and supporting services like startup savvy laws and accounting agencies ”

According to Humra Laeeq, author at The Print, “Alongside a ‘drastic’ gender inequality other road blocks that more directly appear to impact start ups in the Pakistan include a lack of diversity among local angel investors unclear taxation laws for foreign in vestors, and a workforce that is not yet trained for senior positions in this new wave of digital firms it is imper ative that the government and all other key stakeholders understand that we are at a crossroads where addressing the needs of these startups and creating a favourable en vironment for them will determine the course of the en tire digital economy over the years to come ”

Despite technical skills startups need thorough train ing in developing their business models A venture cap ital firm that did not back Airlift (before the closure), stated that Airlift needed to fix its unit economics, as the company was bleeding money which was a concern for investors Aftab of Zayn capital said, “it takes multiple liquidity cycles before you are able to stay and survive to get that unicorn status Young founders who haven t gone through a liquidity squeeze like 2008 are also going to see that money won’t be readily available ”

According to Ahsan Zafeer a digital marketing professional, “china still dominates the overall uni corn list in Asia on the other hand, Pakistan has only three unicorns in the form of careem valued at $3 1 billion, Afiniti at $1 6 billion, and Keep Truck in val ued at $2 3 billion However, these companies have either been started by non resident Pakistanis or are headquartered outside the country Pakistan still awaits its first home grown unicorn ” We as a nation have to build favourable infrastruc ture and an all encompassing mentoring programme to nurture innovative startups and facilitate them to join the club of unicorns to exhibit strength and po tential of our economy and supporting systems

The writer is Associate Professor Management Sciences and Head Center of Islamic Finance COMSATS University (CUI) Lahore Campus He can be reached at drabdussattar@cuilahore edu pk

U n l u c k y P M L ( N ) a n d f o r t u n a t e l e a d e r s

did something wrong” imran has been granted more time to review his “if”

Storm-Water Drains

K A r A c H i, the capital of sindh province, is the economic hub of Pakistan with a population of over 20 million people it requires special attention Though it has many problems, i will discuss only stormwater drainage, non existence or inefficiency of which creates havoc, resulting in damaged roads disruption of traffic etc

Being a civil engineer with diversified experience involved in drainage projects design and construction and having worked on senior positions in Pakistan and Australia including Karachi i am of the view that the available resources should be utilised to cater to increased population requirements by utilising rainwater while considering environmental protection Karachi enjoys the presence of two natural drainage outlets; Lyari and Malir rivers, which can be utilised efficiently Hydraulics estimate water discharge conduit, by area, width and depth, and velocity which determines how much water can flow By increasing both, water can be drained out efficiently without allowing it to accumulate anywhere Area can be increased by digging deeper as more width is not possible in cities Velocity of water can be increased by converting riverbeds into half pipes, like the London underground drainage system, with grooves on concrete floor, to create whirling force, which throws forward water to the location of storage or diversion The two rivers in Karachi are many kilometres long Lyari 50km, and Malir 20km and, therefore, many reservoirs can be built at appropriate locations, by excavation, say 100 meters deep and 5km long, where water can be stored and from there it can be pumped out for parks, car cleaning or can even be used after due treatment for milk producing animals

From the environmental point of view, some water must go into the sea But these rivers are being used as sewerage outlets and will continue that way Therefore, before letting water go into the sea, it has to be treated professionally This way we can utilise the rivers in increased capacity to drain water utilise most rainwater as well save sea environment

Spate irrigation

A Letter from Prometheus AghA iqrAr hArOOn

PA K i s TA n is going through an eco logical disaster and its over 2 5 mil lion acres of agricultural land is still under the worst flooding interna tional experts believe that the latest floods in Pakistan are unprecedented in the his tory of south Asia

According to estimation, a total of 13, 093kKm of roads and 396 Bridges have been damaged, over one million livestock washed away with flood water and over 1 9 million dwelling units (houses) have succumbed to floods

However, this huge disaster has failed to change the political scene of Pakistan PTi chairman imran Khan is still holding public meetings in areas that are not inundated and de manding new elections before november 2022 The reason behind his deadline is the appoint ment of a new Army chief and imran has said that the sitting government must go home, elec tions must be held and a newly elected govern ment would appoint a new Army chief

Democratically, imran Khan has every right to continue his campaign against the sit ting government when the world is talking about the flood disaster in Pakistan he United nations secretary General in his opening re marks at the UnGA talked about floods in Pak istan and demanded the world’s help for relief and rehabilitation of over 33 million affectees of the flood World famous philanthropist An gelina Jolie arrived in Pakistan as a part of her campaign to flash Pakistan as a “country in need she believes the recent flood devasta tion was not matched by the 2010 floods she witnessed Pakistani television channels pro vide half of their airtime to show imran Khan and half of the time is contributed to other pro gramming and flood news

The most aired news of imran Khan is di rectly or indirectly linked with the contempt of court cases imran Khan is facing Under the ad vice of the court imran Khan had been submit ting regretful statements for what he commented against the Additional session Judge of islam abad His last statement of regret still has if i

There is a debate going on in islamabad about court reliefs imran Khan had been receiv ing but i must avoid sharing details of this debate here because this debate can lead anybody easily to a sluggish land where “contempt of court” can end the career of anybody i know my name is not imran Khan and my star is not as strong as Khan sahib so i must avoid this discussion i remember what happened to former Prime Minister Yousaf raza Gillani, Tallalch, Daniyal Aziz and nihal Hashmi All of them had poor stars that determine the political fate of some one none of them was imran Khan and none of them was as popular as imran Khan none of them had skills to gather 5000 plus followers anywhere with one message imran Khan is imran Khan and they were what they were They are people who were born with poor birth charts

According to Hindu Mythology, everybody is born with his or her unique Janam Kundli (birth chart) and if Yousaf raza Gillani Tallalch Daniyal Aziz, and nihal Hashmi want to compare themselves with imran Khan then they must be born again after consultation with talented crystal gazers so they can fix their Saadh (good for future) birth time to live with a fortune imran Khan is enjoying

According to Hindu mythology, a Kundali or horoscope is a predictive diagram that is made in view of the correct birth date place of birth, and time This diagram decides the situation of differ ent planets, signs, the sun and the Moon, visionary angles, and only a talented crystal gazer can draft and read a Kun dali A Kundali is partitioned into 12 houses with different planets and signs The principal house begins with the dominant and the rest of the houses are numbered in a clockwise heading These houses have a clear position for a man The signs and planets travel from one house to another for particular periods, this way helping in anticipating the different parts of a person Jy otishis (fortune tellers) are of the view that the rising star of imran Khan will go through a cru cial phase in the next two months (october no vember) and it can gather the strongest powers that are usually not possible for a human to enjoy if it gets support from another star it had been close to in the past

is ladla (blessed and pampered) of someone be cause he is beyond the law of the land and he has never been arrested, jailed, or disqualified if these are criteria of being a ladla of invisible powers, then PML(n) could also find such lad las in its cadres and ranks who have never been arrested, jailed, or disqualified even while being in former and sitting kitchen cabinets

I n Pa k i s t a n , e v e r y t h i n g c a n b e s u p r e m e bu t o f c o u r s e , n o t D e m o c r a c y o r Pe o p l e , a n d t h i s i s t h e l e s s o n p o l i t i c i a n s mu s t l e a r n Po l i t i c i a n s i n Pa k i s t a n mu s t r e a d t h e p o e t r y o f H a b i b J a l a b , A h m a d Fa r a z , a n d Fa i z A h m a d Fa i z o n c e a w e e k t o r e m e m b e r w h o i s t a q a t k a s a rc h a s h m a i n Pa k i s t a n a n d w h o i s S u p r e m e i n t h e s y s t e m . To d ay ’s S u p r e m e i s I m r a n K h a n a n d o n e mu s t n o t d e ny t h i s r e a l i t y

The PML(n) also has a list of the fortunate having strong stars like imran Khan who had been “untouched” during the worst kind of po litical victimization that started around 2014 against the PML(n) once upon a time, the PML(n) was a fortu nate party like the PTi is today However, one sentence of its leader Mian nawaz sharif changed the fate of this party once Mian nawaz sharif said i will not take dictation” and since then the party has been in turbulence The unlucky supreme leader cannot appear on the television screens and people like Pervaiz rasheed, who dedi cated their lives to PML(n) cannot qual ify for a senatorship i think there is no need to explain the core reason for being “unfortu nate” Pakistani politi cal history tells us stories of elected gov ernments being thrown out of power since the country got independ ence Whosoever wishes to survive in Pakistan must read the Iliad of Homer one of the lines of the 10 h book says “Tactics, my noble Menelaus That’s what we need now Tactics for survival include avoiding fa mous slogans like “Awam takat ka sar chashma hain\” (people are the source of power), “Vote ko izzat do” (respect the vote), “Jamhooriat Taraqqi ka Wahid Rasta Hai (Democracy is the only path to progress) or any other slogan that claims “Democracy” and “People” are supreme in Pakistan, everything can be supreme but of course, not Democracy or People, and this is the lesson politicians must learn Politicians in Pakistan must read the poetry of Habib Jalab, Ahmad Faraz, and Faiz Ahmad Faiz once a week to remember who is taqat ka sarchashma in Pakistan and who is supreme in the system Today’s supreme is imran Khan and one must not deny this reality

The PML(n) always says that imran Khan

The writer is an international award winning journalist who has been in the field since 1988 and appears in national and international media as analyst and political scientist

SHAFIQ MUSAVI AUSTRALIA

L i K E many other parts of the country, Dera ismail Khan has been badly affected by the recent floods The devastation is worse than that caused by floods in 2010 The main reason of heavy floods was the long monsoon spell in the area, especially over the adjacent mountains

Dera ismail Khan is the southernmost district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) which lies in the foothill of sulaiman range on the west and river indus on the east The piedmont plains in the foothill of the range, locally called rodh Kohi, mostly depend on the water received from the mountains as floods after rainfall in the catchment which is utilised for agricultural production and drinking purposes after being stored in big embanked fields and ponds The magnitude of water storage mostly depends on the amount of rainfall received in the huge watershed which extends throughout the range The water, after rains in the watershed, rushes down through the opening or gate, called zam There are five of them in the rodh Kohi system of Dera ismail Khan; Gomal Tank sheikh Haider, Daraban and chaudhwan

The people of rodh Kohi mostly wait throughout the year for rain in the mountains so that they may utilise the floodwater in their fields especially during the monsoon season After the rain over the mountains, water finds its way to the plain due to the steep landscape The water is diverted through big earthen check dams that are locally called gandi The check dams are constructed in a head to tail sequence After irrigating the field in the head, the check dam is breached so that water may be consumed in midstream and then downstream areas Each year floodwater of varying magnitude is received and utilised for growing crops, and the whole system is in the domain of spate irrigation, which, in effect, means it is flood based

After the construction of chashma right Bank canal, a huge area is now being irrigated in the east, while the western part still remains flood based in the irrigated area, to avoid damages caused by the floods, the older riverines of rodh Kohi system are converted into drainage channels This serves as drain for excess canal water and as passageway for floods to the indus The unpredictability and unknown magnitude of the flood make it more precarious in the current season, the heavy and prolonged rainfall in the catchment was the major factor responsible for the massive flood The water came out with greater force due to greater mass and velocity

This greater magnitude of flood was difficult to be diverted or controlled by the earthen check dams, for they got breached quickly and water swiftly moved downstream As most of the land has remained fallow without any agriculture crop shrubby trees etc due to scarcity of water also the soil having clayey hard surface, accelerated the flow of water without any resistance Due to continuous siltation in the drainage channel, the capacity to flow of the flood was low which built enormous pressure on the channel banks, and the banks were worn away easily

After the shattering of banks, the flood spread speedily with greater pressure in all directions causing severe destruction to villages roads houses, and everything else There is a dire need for taking onboard all the stakeholders to probe into the different causes that triggered such massive devastation to improve coordination among different government departments, and to effectively manage rodh Kohi channels construction of big water reservoirs is also needed, but detailed feasibility reports have to be first worked out especially in terms of siltation, water distribution and biodiversity Last but not least, the floods of 2010 and 2022 have issued a clear warning that undeveloped and inattentive rural areas pose great threat to urban areas This makes the development of rodh Kohi system all the more essential

DR QUDRAT ULLAH KHAN

Fundamental rights

T H E world is fast moving on to high speed 5G internet service while many areas in Pakistan remain deprived of even the most basic internet facility Bedian and chathianwala are two cases in point The towns have a population of over 20,000, but no cellular company has initiated 3G or 4G services in these areas so far The absence of such an essential facility affecting the lives of people in today’s world, internet practically a basic human right

Po l i t i c s a m i d f l o o d s

We WaTch The ProTesTs In Iran and hoPe, buT false oPTImIsm may be cloudIng our eyes

Guardian J a s o n B u r K e

IN the second week of December 1978, between 1 and 2 million people marched peacefully through tehran calling for the Shah to leave Around a fifth to almost a half of the city s population was on the streets the CiA, war ily watching opposition in a key regional ally and client for US arms, noted that one man was “the focal point” providing “guidance and support for the movement acting in his name in iran this was the Ayatollah ruhol lah Khomeini then thousands of miles away in exile in Paris, though his portrait was car ried by many of the marchers Decades later and the regime established by Khomeini is still in power in iran Crowds are on the streets again in tehran and other iranian cities following the death on 16 September of 22 year old Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police, who accused her of breaking laws on wearing the hijab introduced by Khomeini’s regime in 1981 Women have thrown headscarves on

to fires vast posters celebrating the regime have been torn down, police stations torched the unrest appears set to intensify Could this finally be the spark that leads to massive change in iran, as many hope? Some believe a fuse has been lit Oppression of women is an existential issue for the regime, but perhaps, too, a fundamental weakness the powerful and impressive im ages coursing through our Facebook and twitter feeds, and reproduced by mainstream media, might lead us to believe they are right is history repeating itself? Certainly some protesters have invoked parallels with the tumultuous events of 1979, chanting : Death to the oppressor, be it the shah or the supreme leader!” there are many reasons to be impressed by what is happening in iran Protests on this scale prompted by anger over the abuse of women’s rights are rare anywhere Men are on the streets, too, and those involved in the unrest are reported to be more demographically diverse than par ticipants in similar events in recent years No one can doubt that the protests are also tap ping into wells of deep discontent with the manifest economic, political and moral fail ures of the repressive theocratic regime

But we may be letting our hopes run ahead of reality What we are seeing is very far from being a full picture of events reporting from the ground is extremely limited After a decade or so of exposure to the extraordinary

impact of contemporary media technology we have seen again and again how a single clip uploaded from an individual’s mobile phone can be broadcast to hundreds of millions through social media, then further amplified by mainstream media We see something that is happening in one street in one town in one province but that is not always representative of events across a vast and populous country in iran now it s difficult to work out exactly how extensive the unrest is Journalists, aca demic experts and government intelligence analysts will seek to supplement inadequate visual evidence, but their conclusions very often have little impact compared with emo tive images Populist politicians know this, so do terrorists of every ideology and creed We prefer to believe what we want to be true

Forty three years ago, the Shah was ousted not just by Khomeini and his clique of radical clerics, but by a broad coalition of opposition groups, which mobilised diverse constituencies: secular urban liberals, old school communists, new left fedayeen, is lamo Marxist guerrillas and nationalists who venerated the memory of Mohammed Mosaddegh, the prime minister deposed in 1953 in a coup backed by the US and Britain there were also the young men from the sprawling new shanty towns on the outskirts of iranian cities or from the provinces who provided the shock troops of the radical cler ics and who now, grown old, cling to the

P a k i s t a n c o u l d h a v e a v e r t e d i t s c l i m a t e c a t a s t r o p h e

power they won back then

Witnesses of the unrest in iran in 1978 and 1979 included rzyard Kapuściński, the celebrated Polish journalist who described one massive march in tehran as “a human river, broad and boiling, flowing endlessly, rolling through the main street from dawn till dusk A flood, a violent flood that in a mo ment will engulf and drown everything ” the crowd took eight hours to pass through the city centre there is no Kapuściński in tehran now and we can be fairly sure there are no eight hour marches either the harsh truth is that though these are important protests, they are likely to be crushed by the still powerful regime

Our excitement at the stirring images we see of demonstrations not only often leads us to exaggerate the breadth and depth of a protest movement, particularly when those on the streets appear to share many of our own values and aspirations, but also to un derestimate the strength of their enemies, too those ranged against those now protest ing in iran are still very formidable indeed the problem of interpreting far off events is evidently not a consequence merely of smartphones and the internet the iranian rev olution of 1979 was covered by hundreds of reporters from all over the world in the few months that Khomeini was in Paris before his return to tehran he granted 150 interviews Even hard bitten hacks were taken in by

Khomeini s words about democracy women s rights and tolerance the US ambassador in tehran decided the statesman whom Khomeini would most resemble after taking power was Gandhi Within two years of taking power, Khomeini had ruthlessly eliminated almost all opposition filled prisons and introduced the laws that imposed the hijab on women But the ubiquity of news today, how it reaches us and how it is consumed and the primacy granted to the image by technology brings a particular risk the passage of in formation is often described as a flow which implies something continuous, steady, rhyth mic in reality, it is utterly choppy and irreg ular and as we work to build what we hear and see into something with sufficient unity to make sense, we fill the many gaps our selves Some deploy prejudices and fear, cre ating elaborate conspiracy theories Others complete the incomplete picture with dreams and hopes, a more positive reaction to be sure but also one that can do harm this does not mean that those on the streets in iran are not to be admired and their example celebrated But that when we think of how we can help and support them, we should be careful to do so with eyes that are clear not clouded by false optimism this will make our support even be more valuable

Jason Burke is an Observer and Guardian foreign correspondent

I s t h e p o u n d c l o s e t o t h e b r e a k i n g p o i n t ?

IF you re looking for an emblem of why Pakistan will struggle to recover from the floods that have killed more than 1,000 this summer, consider the latest bailout from the international Monetary Fund the infusion of $1 16 billion might help unlock enough cash to get the country through the next couple of years but the floods themselves have caused more than $10 billion of damage much of which will end up boosting the coun try’s $255 billion in debt

For as long as we ve raised crops from the rich soils laid down in river valleys floods have challenged humanity that’s one reason that deluge myths are almost universal the solutions haven’t changed much, either An implausibly mas sive piece of capital investment saves humanity in Genesis and the Quran, in the form of Noah’s ark Modern govern ments take the same approach the 1928 Flood Control Act, introduced to tame the Mississippi after the previous year s devastating inundation, was at the time the largest public works project the U S government had ever authorized, cost ing more than the Panama Canal Flood management forms one of the biggest parts of China’s budget, with the 1 trillion yuan ($144 billion) invested in these projects in 2017 (the last time data was published) amounting to a larger sum than was spent on health care or railway construction

As the largest irrigation system in the world, the indus valley is another monument to massive investment whose roots date back more than 4,000 years Like Pakistan whose backbone it forms, however, the indus and its tributaries have been starved of the investment they need to effectively manage the risks of natural disaster Some of the most im portant lines of defense against floods are colonial era proj ects such as the vast Sukkur Barrage a system of dams and canals that divert the waters of the indus’s to irrigate the arid southern Sindh Province Many are in a poor state of repair thanks to years of underinvestment in mainte nance; corruption; and disputes between Pakistan’s four provinces about the allocation of water and funds the tarbela and Mangla reservoirs on either side of is lamabad have become so choked with silt sweeping down from the himalayas that they’re losing their ability to swal low up floodwaters and prevent inundation further down

stream Just 57% of tarbela’s storage capacity is now avail able and increased silting may clog it altogether, a govern ment committee was told earlier this month the underinvestment that has led to this state of affairs is chronic Among the world’s top 20 economies by popu lation only Egypt has a lower rate of gross capital forma tion than Pakistan a sign of a country that’s unable to build the infrastructure it needs to support a growing pop ulation With the costs of climate impacts rising more and more money is going to be spent not on the long term in vestments needed to protect the country against future nat ural disasters but simply on the clean up and compensating for the loss of productivity following catastrophes

A changing climate will make the problems Pakistan is experiencing now even worse Warmer air is able to hold more moisture, making extreme monsoon rainfall a more frequent occurrence it also causes mountain ice to melt faster a significant issue in Pakistan home to more gla ciers than any country outside the polar regions Flash flood ing from the overflow of glacial lakes can be devastating, particularly in mountainous regions of the country close to the Afghan, indian and Chinese borders the global pool of financing available to deal with climate change isn’t up to the challenge and more than three quarters of the total is still going to mitigation investment in transitional tech nologies to prevent future emissions that spending is im portant but unlikely to be as useful to a nation like Pakistan whose emissions are minimal its far greater need is for funds to adapt to the changes that are already happening

Sufficient expenditure could solve many of these prob lems at a stroke but Pakistan is struggling to run up a de scending escalator, with energy import dependence, weak agricultural productivity and lack of external investment con tributing to a vicious cycle of underdevelopment Even when cash has been made available for nation building infrastruc ture (the country was one of the biggest recipients of Chinese funding for Belt and road projects, much of it spent on hy dropower and water management), Pakistan’s exposure to economic shocks has left it ill placed to pay its way rich countries are reluctant enough to invest in Pakistan’s energy transition, which at least offers the prospect of returns, how ever meager and uncertain they re still less likely to donate the grant funds necessary to insulate one of the world’s poor est countries against the impact of rising global temperatures Cash can t prevent a flood, but it can prevent natural disasters capsizing an economy Pakistan badly needs that support

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities

Pr oject Syndicate G e n e F r e da

Th i rt y years ago, on September 16, 1992, currency speculators forced the British Government to abandon the com mitment of pound sterling to the Euro pean Exchange rate Mechanism in the days that followed “Black Wednesday”, sterling subsequently lost 15 per cent of its value By early 1993, it had lost almost one third of its value the pound’s recent weakness, last week, it fell to its lowest level against the US dollar since 1985, has understandably evoked memories of this earlier episode leading some to compare the pound to an emerging market currency But the comparison is im precise and arguably inaccurate Whatever its current economic travails the United Kingdom retains strong institutions, a thriving democracy, and a reasonable track record of decent growth and low inflation

So what exactly has gone wrong and is the pound really at risk from a generalised loss of con fidence in UK assets?

Like almost every other currency except the US dollar and perhaps the euro, the pound lacks attrib utes of a dominant currency Aside from trade within the UK and between a few small Commonwealth countries, there is no natural international demand for sterling Nor is there any evidence of pounds being held as a store of value When uncertainty strikes, UK government bonds typically rise in value (current circumstances notwithstanding) but the pound tends to fall against the dollar the pound lacks the perceived safe haven properties of the US dollar and a few other currencies that benefit from large stores of foreign assets as a result of run ning consistent trade surpluses over long periods this means that the pound’s value, like that of most other currencies depends on whether foreign investors consider the government’s economic policies prudent in one sense, Brexit was no dif ferent from any other negative shock to the coun try’s terms of trade: the currency depreciated accordingly But it also raised concerns about the UK s continued ability to borrow cheaply given its

impending divorce from its largest trading partner initial evidence suggests that these concerns were overblown the UK’s external financing needs, as reflected in its current account deficit, rose from 2 6 per cent of GDP during the first decade of this century to almost 4 per cent of GDP by 2020 yet, adjusted for inflation, the UK s fi nancing costs actually fell in the period after Brexit More recently, the sharp rise in its energy bill led to further deterioration in the UK s current account resulting in a record high deficit of more than 8 per cent of GDP in the first quarter of 2022 and significantly higher borrowing costs to be sure the UK is not the only developed economy muddling its way through the aftermath of the COViD 19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine Even so the fact that the UK is not doing worse than some other countries is no excuse for complacency the truss government’s decision to cap domestic energy prices for households in order to limit the impact of higher wholesale prices on consumption, is analogous to the UK’s failed ex change rate peg of 30 years ago if wholesale gas prices soar, owing to russia’s cutoff of deliveries to Europe or because the UK’s own foreign suppliers choose to limit gas exports in order to mitigate the effects of high energy prices on their own domestic economies, the cost of the subsidy scheme could skyrocket With the government s balance sheet ex posed to huge potential losses, its borrowing costs would become closely linked to the wholesale price of gas over which it has no control in other words, the UK is establishing a price peg that will be financially difficult to sustain and politi cally difficult to remove Further increases in gas prices would lead to even higher interest rates; given Britain’s high debt levels, a deep recession would al most certainly follow there would be no currency peg to break per se, but sterling would still become collateral damage as foreign financing dries up

T H E B AC K L AS H AG A I N S T T H E D E AT H O F M A H S A A M I N I H AS G E N E R AT E D V I R A L I M AG E S O F C I V I L U N R E S T, B U T H OW CO M P L E T E A P I C T U R E D O T H E Y P R OV I D E?

BLooMBer G

daV i d F i C K L n G

Gene Frieda a global strategist at PIMCO is a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics

D E C A D E S O F CO R RU PT I O N A N D U N D E R I N V E S T M E N T L E D TO T H I S M O M E N T

T H E P O U N D L A C K S T H E P E R C E I V E D S A F E H AV E N P R O P E R T I E S O F T H E U S D O L L A R A N D A F E W O T H E R C U R R E N C I E S T H AT B E N E F I T F R O M L A R G E S TO R E S O F F O R E I G N A S S E T S A S A R E S U LT O F R U N N I N G CO N S I S T E N T T R A D E S U R P LU S E S O V E R LO N G P E R I O D S

IESCO issues power suspension schedule

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) on Sunday issued a power suspension programme to IESCO Spokesman, Malhwali, Khadapa, 10/3, 11/3, Bahria University, Phone, Market, Katarian, Dhokpathan, Kot Sarang,, NCI (Toba), Lilla Town, Ahmedabad, ISI, Tiramari, Rahara, Azad Shaheed, Lahtrar Road, Muslimabad, Gulzar Shaheed, Quaidabad, Ahsanabad, Peerwadhai, Bagh Sardaran, Dhok Hasu, Shahpur, KS Maniz, Kachhari, PD Khan, Mandi Bhalwal, Dhadial Express, Mureed feeders and surroundings p r

AIOU holds Int’l conference on ‘Education for Future’

BOP, PARtnER tO SEtUP dIgItAL ExPERIEnCE, InnOvAtIOn CEntRE

LAHORE

s ta f f r e p o r t

tH E President of Bank of Pun jab (BOP) and Vice Chancel lor of LUMS entered into an arrangement to create a roadmap for digital innova tion and customer experience The In novation Center aims to turn challenges into opportunities facing digital ecosystems in various sectors including payments, lending, Agri, In surance & Education

Mr Zafar Masud, President & CEO The Bank of Punjab, said, “I strongly believe in customer centricity; digital space is a powerful way to help serve our customers by giving them ac cess to our products and services any time anywhere We embarked on a digital journey over one and a half years ago, setting up a digital chal lenger bank, unveiling the digital brand digiBOP and launching state of the art digital platform Partnering with LUMS and incubation centers will act as a catalyst in achieving our digital in

novation drive and there couldn’t be a better collaboration possible ” Dr Arshad Ahmad VC LUMS spoke highly of BOP’s inspirational journey in several domains and sectors and congratulated his senior team to take personal interest in this vital col laboration with LUMS He added, “This partnership has the potential to usher digital transformation and plat form learning on campus and beyond, for students to become familiar with

FinTech solutions, leverage their entre preneurial dreams and make a contri bution in the growing IT and ed tech sector in Pakistan ”

Expressing his thoughts Nauman Zaffar Project Director at National In cubation Center Lahore, said, “NICL’s partnership with BOP to establish this FinTech Digital Experience and Inno vation Center allows a unique co cre ation opportunity where industry knowledge of BOP combined with the

energy, capability and drive of NICL startups, and expert advice from LUMS faculty in deep tech and digiti zation to allow quick conversion of new ideas to market ready products

The Digital Experience and Innova tion Center will provide access to de velop new ideas concepts and designs based on innovation and technology along with innovative solutions for exist ing and upcoming challenges in the in dustry to support growth and productivity The Center will also pro vide networking opportunities to startups and investors while being a platform for mentorship and coaching for the startups BOP aspires to be top five commer cial bankin Pakistan while keeping its core values of empathy and giving back to so ciety at the forefront The Bank has rap idly expanded its footprint specially in the unbanked and rural areas Digital Trans formation has been at the top of the BOP’s priorities therefore setting forth a digital strategy to realize a fast paced catch up with the market and leapfrog to endeavor digital innovation and collaboration in the financial technology space

ISLAMABAD: The sixth international conference on "Research and Practices in Education" at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is starting on Monday (today) The opening session will be held at 10 am, which will be presided over by the Dean Faculty of Education Prof Dr Nasir Mahmood Renowned educationist and former vice chancellor of AIOU, Prof Dr Shahid Siddiqui will be the chief guest

Dr Jason Laker, Professor of Higher Education, Student Affairs, and Community Development, San José State University (SJSU), and Dr Faith Muirhead Senior Associate Director of the Professional Development Center at the University of Delaware, Newark, USA will attend the conference as international keynote speakers while Prof Dr Irfan Ahmed Head of the Education Department at Sukkur IBA University will be the national keynote speaker

Dr Afshan Huma is the coordinator while Dr Sudra Rizwan is the conference secretary 159 research papers will be presented at the conference Panel discussions will also be held on both days of the conference on the theme of "Education for Future" Different NGOs will also take part in this conference The organizers of the conference include Prof Dr Fazlur Rahman, Prof Dr Tanzeela Nabil, Dr Naveed Sultana, Dr Muhammad Ajmal, Dr Tanveer Afzal, Dr Athar Hussain, Dr Ayub Buzdar and Dr Azhar Majeed Qureshi p r

BISP disburses over Rs42b to 1.7m flood-affected families

ISLAMABAD: Benazir 122,208 flood affected Pakhtunkhwa, So far, a total of Rs 42,633,300,000 has been disbursed among 1,705,332 flood affected families under Flood Relief Cash Assistance

In Balochistan, 144,080 flood affected families have received Rs 3,602,000,000 while 1,218,674 affected families in Sindh have received Rs30 466 850 000 In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 156,828 families have received Rs3,920,700,00 whereas 185,506 families in Punjab were paid Rs 4,637,650,000 In Gilgit Baltistan, 244 flood affected families have received Rs 6,100,000 Despite the weekly holiday, Special Payment Campsite were kept open to facilitate the flood affectees A control room has also been established at the BISP headquarters to ensure smooth payments

ISLAMABAD s ta f

The Lessons on the recovery of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) from the unprecedented challenge of COVID 19 should be replicated and modified to strengthen response and recovery from large scale loss incurred during current floods, Joint Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Dr Vaqar Ahmed He was speaking at the launch of a study on titled: “Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises amid Disaster: Lessons from Pakistan’s Experience”

The research conducted jointly by SDPI

Ambassador of Qatar to Pakistan, Sheikh Saoud Bin Abdul Rahman Bin Faisal Al Thani called on FBR Asim Ahmad FBR

Headquarters Matters of mutual concern pertaining to cooperation in cus toms, trade facilitation and taxa tion were discussed in the meeting Chairman FBR assured that maximum facilitation will be

extended to the Qatari business men investing in Pakistan He said that Pakistan greatly values the co operation and support of Qatar in various fields especially in educa tion and health sectors

During the meeting it was agreed that relevant departments of both countries would further en hance cooperation in the field of customs and tax to benefit from best practices of each other to fur ther boost bilateral trade between the two brotherly countries

Chairman FBR also briefed the Qatari Ambassador about the re cent policy and administrative measures taken by FBR for further mobilization of revenue and facil itation of taxpayers Qatari Ambas sador appreciated the performance of FBR in the last year as well as during the first two months of the current financial year

16 criminals held, 192 wine bottles, 240 liter alcohol recovered

ISLAMABAD

Islamabad police have apprehended 16 accused involved in criminal activities and recovered hashish wine alcohol and weapons from their possessions, police said on Sunday According to police, Khanna police arrested two drug peddlers namely Asif and Sajjad Sohail and recovered 192 bottles and 240 litres alcohol from their possessions Phulghran police nabbed Shahzaib and recovered one 30 bore pistol from his possession while Sangjani police arrested Subhan and Ali for having one 30 bore pistol and 1120 gram hashish respectively Similarly, Karachi Company police arrested Hamza khan and recovered one iron punch from him Cases have been registered against the nabbed accused and further investigation is underway During a special crackdown against outlaws, police teams arrested 10 proclaimed offenders wanted to police in crime cases of heinous nature

PAF enhances medic al suppor t, rehab process in flood-hit areas

ISLAMABAD

In the backdrop of threat of water borne and infec tious diseases like Dengue, Malaria, Cholera, Dysen try and Gastroenteritis in the flood affected areas, Pakistan Air Force has escalated provisioning of crit ical medical supplies and health care support to the flood victims of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh, Balochistan and South Punjab

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) personnel includ ing medical and support staff were extending maxi mum health care support along with provisioning of basic necessities like food, shelter and drinking water to the flood affectees a PAF news release said The Flood affectees were being provided free

medical

During the last 24 hours, PAF emergency re food

FBR to ex tend full cooperation to atari businessmen in Pakistan floods losses

and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is based on 750 firms across the country with special focus on women owned and women led firms Among other factors, the study highlighted the impacts of supply chain and transmission disruption, re silience to bounce back, and efficacy of gov ernment interventions Dr Vaqar said that the study revealed that at the initial stages of crisis there was a de crease in import export, production and short term consumption patterns along with liquidity squeeze and decline in capital and investment, which has left MSMEs strug gling for survival He said that tax reforms and subsidies did not have much positive im

pact and majority SMEs could not avail pub lic financial facilities due to lack of aware ness, doubts, cumbersome transaction costs and process whereas informal borrowings remined highly preferred He suggested that communication channels must be improved exponentially to improve the response to cri sis He also recommended that transaction costs and time for registration of SMEs should be streamlined and government should support resilience and recovery of SMEs through specific quotas

Dr Arjan De Haan, Senior Program Spe cialist, Sustainable Inclusive Economies, Inter national Development Research Centre (IDRC) stressed the need to realize that gov

ernments and other stakeholders need well re searched data and policy recommendations to recover and develop resilience to COVID 19 He said that the research analyzed the impact of COVID 19 on MSMEs and utilizes gender perspective to further understand the impact on different stakeholders and women led firms

Faheem Sardar, Senior Policy Specialist, Prime Minister ’s Office said that it is crucial to identify hidden disasters and crisis and so lution to these issues He informed the par ticipants that the processing and clearance time in cross border trade has been brought down to 24 hours after one window opera tion was introduced He further said that MSMEs must abide by “evolve or die” when

it comes to e commerce which has simpli fied and sped up interaction between seller and buyer While there is tremendous growth in e commerce, it is crucial to remember that it creates space for cyber crimes, which is more than worth US$3 trillion per annum

Ms Nadia J Seth, General Manager, Pol icy and Planning Division, SMEDA said that 70% of SMEs are informal and unregistered which hinders their access to government fa cilities Till March 2021, the State Bank of Pakistan has provided Rs 435 billion to SMEs through various COVID 19 relief and recov ery initiatives, she said, adding that such ini tiatives are based on learnings from post 2010 flood initiatives

‘GO BaCK tO INdIa’ tReNd haUNtS

INdIaNS IN eUROpe, GUlf StateS aNd US

WaShINGTON Ag e n c i e s

hAT R E D against Indians is massively increasing in Eu rope, the Arab world and the United States as a result of racist Hindutva agenda being pursued by Narendra Modi in India and other parts of the world wherever the Hindus are living in large number

The Indian nationals are pursued by Go Back to India trend in the streets as well as on social media

After the UK’s city Leicester, the “Go back to India trend is being faced by the

Indians in the US states and cities, espe cially in Texas where a few days ago a group of Indian women were chased by an American woman with the above slogan

The incident, which was caught in a now viral video took place in the parking lot of a restaurant in Plano Texas The four Indian women were heading back to their cars after having dinner when the American woman identified as Esmer alda Upton, approached them and said, Go back to India

“Life has not been the same since the incident,” Dr Bidisha Rudra Rudra, one of the four Indian women told the media “There’s a lot of trauma, emotional dis

Many countries agree to reforming UN Securit y Council, but how?

NEW YORk A n A d o l u Ag e n c y

The efficacy of the UN Security Council has long been questioned, and the chorus of calls for change is growing louder day by day

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been one of the most vocal advocates for restructuring of the UN’s top decision making body, leading the charge with his mantra that “the world is bigger than five ”

At the heart of the debate lies the use or rather misuse of the veto power held by each of the five permanent Security Council members the US UK France China and Russia Each of them has, at one point or another, used that decisive vote to block moves they believed threatened their interests, paying no heed to the greater good or larger public benefit It has left the Security Council toothless and quite incapable of fulfilling its purported aim of maintaining global peace

At this week s 77th UN General Assembly US President Joe Biden, among other leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, brought up the issue after Erdogan Biden called for expanding the Security Council s membership, saying permanent seats should be granted to nations in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean

So is it a case Turkey and the US seeing eye to eye? Are Erdogan and Biden pushing for the same thing? Not quite, according to some experts Richard Gowan, UN director of the International Crisis Group, said Biden’s announcement has created a stir among diplomats at the UN ”

“I think the US was responding to a widespread sense at the UN that Russia s war on Ukraine has highlighted deep flaws in the Security Council,” he told Anadolu Agency

The US does not want to look like it is defending a fundamentally flawed body even though it enjoys a privileged position in the Council,” he said

The US was hoping to win some “diplomatic goodwill with this gesture Gowan argued but Washington does not have “a detailed model of reforms” needed

According to Kadir Ustun the executive director of the Political, Economic and Social Research Foundation (SETA) in Washington, Biden was “frustrated” with Russia’s position at the UN Security Council following the war in Ukraine, which led him to call for reform

‘It is time for UN to come to Kashmiris’ rescue in IIOJK’

ISLaMaBaD Ag e n c i e s

tress and a feeling of insecurity that keeps haunting me all the time The assailant’s words keep ringing in my ears when I go to sleep u P aT s a R R e s T s 6 M e M b e R s

o f P f i: Stepping up the crackdown on the Popular Front of India (PFI) the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terror Squad arrested six members of the organisation from two different towns Four members of PFI were arrested from Meerut on the inter vening night of Friday and Saturday while two others were nabbed in Varanasi during the same period last night Cases have been registered at the Kharkhoda Police Station in Meerut and

in Thana Adampur, Varanasi

Meanwhile, the largest ever crack down that was conducted against the Popular Front of India (PFI) members spread across 15 states was code named “Operation Octopus” The joint teams of the Indian infamous National Investiga tive Agency (NIA) and Enforcement Di rectorate (ED) arrested over 106 PFI members in multiple raids spread across several states on September 22

A large number of criminal cases have been registered in different states over the last few years against the PFI and its leaders and members for their in volvement in many violent acts

Far right eyes historic vic tor y as Italy votes

R OME A f p

Italians vote Sunday in an election expected to usher in the country’s first government led by the far right since World War II, bringing eu rosceptic populists to the heart of Europe

The Brothers of Italy party, led by one time Mussolini supporter Giorgia Meloni, is leading polls and looks set to take office in a coalition with the far right League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia parties

Meloni, 45, who has cam paigned on a motto of “God, country and family”, is hoping to become Italy s first female prime minister Polls open at 0500 GMT and close at 2100 GMT Many voters are expected to pick Meloni the nov elty, the only leader the Italians have not yet tried”, Wolfango Piccoli of the Teneo consultancy told AFP Brussels and the markets are watching closely amid concern that Italy a founding member of the European Union may be the latest member to veer hard right less than two weeks after the far right outper formed in elections in Sweden If she wins, Meloni will face challenges from rampant inflation to an energy crisis as winter approaches, linked to the conflict in Ukraine

The Italian economy, the third largest in the eurozone rebounded after the pandemic but is saddled with a whopping debt worth 150 per cent of gross domestic product

(GDP)

‘Limited room for manoeuvre’

Meloni has dedicated her cam paign to trying to prove she is ready despite her party never before being in power Brothers of Italy, which has roots in the post fascist move ment founded by supporters of dic tator Benito Mussolini, pocketed just four percent of the vote during the last elections in 2018

Meloni has moderated her views over the years, notably abandoning her calls for Italy to leave the EU’s single currency

However, she insists her country must stand up for its national inter ests, backing Hungary in its rule of law battles with Brussels Her coalition wants to renegoti ate the EU’s post pandemic recovery fund, arguing that the almost 200 bil lion euros Italy is set to receive should take into account the energy crisis aggravated by the Ukraine war

But “Italy cannot afford to be de prived of these sums”, political soci ologist Marc Lazar told AFP which means Meloni actually has “very limited room for manoeuvre”

The funds are tied to a series of reforms only just begun by outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who called snap elections in July after his national unity coalition collapsed

Despite her Euroscepticism, Meloni strongly supports the EU’s sanctions against Russia over Ukraine although her allies are an other matter

Berlusconi, the billionaire for

mer premier who has long been friends with Vladimir Putin, faced an outcry this week after suggesting the Russian president was pushed into war by his entourage ‘Woke ideologies’

A straight speaking Roman raised by a single mum in a working class neighbourhood, Meloni rails against what she calls “LGBT lob bies”, “woke ideology” and “the vi olence of Islam She has vowed to stop the tens of thousands of mi grants who arrive on Italy’s shores each year, a position she shares with Salvini, who is currently on trial for blocking charity rescue ships when he was interior minister in 2019

The centre left Democratic Party led by former prime minister Enrico Letta, says Meloni is a danger to democracy It also claims her gov ernment would pose a serious risk to hard won rights such as abortion and will ignore global warming, despite Italy being on the front line of the climate emergency

On the economy Meloni s coali tion pledges to cut taxes while in creasing social spending, regardless of the cost Unsurprisingly perhaps they want the EU’s rules on public spending amended

The last opinion polls two weeks before election day suggested one in four voters were backing Meloni

However, around 20 percent of voters remain undecided, and there are signs she may end up with a smaller majority in parliament than expected

23 dead after boat sinks in Bangladesh: police

Dhaka Ag e n c e s

At least 23 people were killed and several dozen more were missing on Sunday after a boat capsized in a river in Bangladesh police said “We have recovered 23 bodies Firefighters and divers are searching for more bodies,” local police offi cial Shafiqul Islam told AFP

The boat was packed with up to 50 Hindu pilgrims, police said They were travelling to a centuries old tem ple when the vessel suddenly tipped over and sank in the middle of the Karotoa river near the town of Boda in northern Bangladesh

Another police officer said up to 25 people were still

missing Local media said at least 10 people were res cued and sent to hospital

Thousands of Hindus in Muslim majority Bangladesh visit the Bodeshwari Temple every year Sunday marked the start of the Durga Puja the biggest Hindu festival in Bangladesh and also eastern India drawing large crowds at the temple

Boat tragedies caused by poor maintenance and over crowding are common in Bangladesh, a poor nation crisscrossed by rivers

A ferry sank in Dhaka in June 2021 after a collision with another vessel, killing at least 32 people

At least 78 people died in February 2015 when an overcrowded ship collided with a cargo vessel in a river west of the capital

It is high time for the United Nations (UN) to show that it is not a toothless organization and come to the Kashmiris’ rescue in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir

Now is the time for the UN to act and save the people of Kashmir from the onslaught of the Modi led fascist Indian government and implement its resolutions on Kashmir, said a report released by the KMS, today

It said more inaction on the part of the UN will further embolden India to repress the IIOJK people, adding that it must stop remaining a silent spectator on what is happening in occupied Kashmir

The report said how many more decades of Indian repression of Kashmiris will it take for the UN to wake up from its slumber? Resolution of the Kashmir dispute lies only in relevant UN resolutions it maintained

It said it is time for the Word Body to expose the so called democratic India’s ugly face before the world as fascist Modi is attempting to obliterate the distinct Kashmiri identity by altering IIOJK’s demography Peace will continue to elude South Asia until the lingering Kashmir dispute is resolved on the basis of UN resolutions and the world community must prosecute the Modi regime and its military for their crimes against humanity in IIOJK, the report stated

Moscow pledges ‘full protection’ to any areas annexed by Russia

Russia has sought to defend its seven month old war at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying that regions of Ukraine where widely derided referendums are being held would be under Russia’s “full protection” if annexed by Moscow The referendums in four eastern Ukrainian regions aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force since its invasion in February, entered their third day on Sunday and the Russian parliament could move to formalise the annexation within days Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed the referendums as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and a mobilisation drive by Moscow after recent battlefield losses President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia’s first military mobilisation since World War Two, a move that triggered protests across the country and sent flocks of military age men fleeing causing tailbacks at borders and sold out flights from the country Russia’s two most senior lawmakers on Sunday addressed a string of complaints about the mobilisation, ordering regional officials to get a handle on the situation and swiftly solve the “excesses” that have stoked public anger Addressing the UN General Assembly and the world s media in New York on Saturday Lavrov attempted to justify Russia’s invasion of its neighbour, repeating Moscow’s false claims that the elected government in Kyiv was illegitimately installed and filled with neo Nazis

He cast opposition to what Russia calls a “special operation” as limited to the United States and countries under its sway Nearly three quarters of states in the assembly voted to reprimand Russia and demand it withdraw its troops In a news conference following his speech Lavrov said the regions where votes are underway would be under Moscow s full protection” if they are annexed by Russia

Asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend the annexed regions, Lavrov said Russian territory, including territory “further enshrined in Russia s constitution in the future, is under the full protection of the state” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Russia’s mentions of the possible use of nuclear weapons were “absolutely unacceptable” Ag e n c i e s

King Charles faces battle to win over UK black communit y

LONDON A f p

Queen Elizabeth II’s death earlier this month prompted a flood of tributes but not from everyone In Britain’s black community, many asked: what had she ever done for us?

The question gave her eldest son and successor, Charles III, an early taste of what he will have to confront as king, with feel ings still running high about the toxic legacy of Britain’s colonial past At her death, the queen was head of state of 14 countries out side Britain, including nations in the Caribbean exploited by the slave trade Charles immediately succeeded his mother as their distant head of state but the question of for how long is increasingly

being discussed as republican movements gather pace Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at the University of Birmingham, wrote the day after the queen s death on Sep tember 8 that he did not share the country’s loss

“For the children of the British empire, those of us who were born here and those of us who were born in the 15 nations of the ‘commonwealth’, the Queen is the number one symbol of white supremacy

“She may have been seen as an institu tion but for us, she was the manifestation of the institutional racism that we have to en counter on a daily basis,” he wrote on the Politico website R o ya l s a c c u s e d : Many black Britons no longer want to stay silent about the racism that they see as rooted at the heart

of many British institutions

The subject came to the fore in Black Lives Matter anti racism protests, which saw calls for statues of historical figures linked to slavery to be torn down

During the national mourning period which ended with the queen s funeral on September 19, protests were held about the death of Chris Kaba, an unarmed black man who was shot dead by police in London

The monarchy itself had previously been drawn into the debate when Charles s youngest son, Prince Harry, and his mixed race wife, Meghan, accused the royal family of racism

That claim saw the queen promise to in vestigate but prompted an outright rejection from Harry’s brother William “We are very

much not a racist family,” he told reporters

Harry and Meghan quit royal life in early 2020 and moved to California, winning many fans among younger people and in the black community for taking on the British establishment ‘ M a s s awa k e n i n g ’: Unresolved questions about race and colonialism are all the more significant as Charles stands to suc ceed his mother as head of the 56 nation Commonwealth group of nations

Many members are former British colonies, while most of the body’s 2 6 billion people are not white and most are aged under 30 David Olusoga the author of Black and British: A Forgotten History, said there had been a “mass awakening to the realities and legacies of imperialism and slavery in the

Commonwealth But the British historian wrote in The Guardian that Buckingham Palace had failed to recognise or understand the shift of consciousness

He highlighted William and his wife Catherine’s Caribbean tour earlier this year, which was widely criticised as smacking of colonialism William also faced calls to apol ogise for slavery and for the monarchy to pay reparations “Historians might well look back at that tour as the first portent of the age in which we now find ourselves: the post Elizabethan age,” Olusoga said

Since then, William has praised the immense contribution of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants, who came to Britain after World War II to help the country rebuild

IndIa captaIn defends controversIal run-out to seal engl and sweep

LONDON A f p

INDIA captain Harmanpreet

Kaur insisted her side had committed no “crime” after sealing victory over England at Lord s on Saturday with a run out at the non striker ’s end England were eyeing a remark able win in the third women s one day international when India bowler Deepti Sharma ran out non striker Charlie Dean, who was well out of her ground

Dean’s 47, batting at number nine, had given England, who were 53 6, the hope of chasing down a tar get of 170 Instead, they were bowled out for 153 as India won by 16 runs to complete a 3 0 series sweep

An emotional Dean broke down in tears when her dismissal was con firmed before sportingly shaking hands with her opponents

Despite being allowed under cricket s rules, running out a non striker backing up has long been re garded as unsporting by many within the game

But it was only this week the In ternational Cricket Council (ICC) reit erated the dismissal, known as a “Mankad” after India’s Vinoo Mankad, who ran out Australia batsman Bill Brown backing up in a 1948 Test in Sydney was completely legitimate This was both teams’ first match at Lord s since England beat India in the 2017 Women’s World Cup final

And while some boos were heard following Dean s dismissal, Kaur was adamant Sharma had done nothing to overshadow either the victory or India pace great Jhulan

Goswami’s last match before inter national retirement

Today whatever we have done I don’t think it was any crime, it is part of the game and it is an ICC rule and I think we just need to back our player ” Kaur said “I don’t think (Sharma) has done something wrong and we just need to back her England seamer Kate Cross said she would never take a wicket in this way but added: I think it s a dis missal that’s always going to divide opinion That’s all that’s ever going to get said about it: some people are

going to like it, some people aren’t “Deepti chose to dismiss Charlie Dean that way I m more disap pointed for Charlie Dean that she couldn’t get a fifty at Lord’s today

Kamran Akmal fumes at team management for sitting in dressing room with empty mind

LAHORE f f R e R t

pcB, faysal Bank join hands to strengthen cricket at grassroots level

LAHORE

s tA f f R e p o R t

In a bid to continue to strengthen the cricketing foun dations in the country, the Pakistan Cricket Board has entered into a strategic partnership with Faysal Bank Through this partnership, Faysal Bank will support the PCB Grassroots Cricket Development Programme This programme will sponsor both domestic and for eign coaches and world class coaching clinics, which will help to identify and groom young talented crick eters across Pakistan These coaches will also share with our young cricketers their vast playing and coach ing experience and knowledge from around the cricket ing world PCB Chairman Ramiz Raja said on Sunday: “I am delighted to welcome Faysal Bank on board One of the core objective of Pakistan Cricket Board is to strengthen the cricket base in the country by providing state of the art facilities and knowledge to cricketers from a very young so they groomed into top notch cricketers, who are ready to serve the country at the in ternational stage “Through this partnership, we will develop a strong grassroots structure to help our up and coming cricketers and bring foreign coaches into our domestic cricket who will impart their vast knowledge and depth about the game “It is vital to have coaches who have coached and played around the world at domestic level as that is where a player is fine tuned and graduates to the international level While working on the technical side, these coaches will also develop our domestic cricketers into strong characters by work ing on the psychological aspects of the game, which will help us in developing cricketers who are ready to rise to the demands of international cricket ” Faysal Bank President and chief executive Yousaf Hussain said : Diversity and inclusion is a part of our core ethos which entails grooming young talent and en gagement on a positive and sustainable basis The in tent has always been to further strengthen the infrastructure for opportunities and development of the youth across all segments of society as we have im mense talent that remains untapped ”

tanveer, his team mate bag gold medal in andorra open

Pakistan wicketkeeper batter Kamran Akmal has slammed coaches of domestic teams for showing fa voritism and management of the Pakistan team for sit ting with an empty mind over not working on players shortcomings

Recently, veteran batter Shoaib Malik claimed that friendships liking and disliking is going on in the Pak istan team Kamran, 40, opined that he has been talking about these things for the last few years and the same is happening in domestic cricket too

“I have been talking for the last four to five years about liking and disliking in the team The same thing is happening in domestic cricket This will damage Pak istan cricket as these things are coming out and have now become obvious,” Kamran said in an exclusive in terview with Cricket Pakistan

“When we used to play, this culture was not there Has anyone talked about these things during our time compared to today, where players are saying openly?

The concerned individuals used to form good teams The best way is to dig out performance We can’t say only the captain is doing it PCB Chairman must start from High Performance camp where best coaches are thrown out and friends are being appointed,” he slammed

Kamran further added that the management of the Pakistan cricket team has never been held accountable for bad performances and all the burden is being put on the players

“There is no coordination in management; they are egoistic and think that they will remain in PCB for their whole life I have seen that all the blame is associated with players and management doesn’t take on to them The past three coaches also blamed players and didn t accept that our decisions were wrong,” he added

“Tell me when coaches have been held accountable but I have hope because of Ramiz Raja who is also a former cricketer,” he added

Kamran also suggested PCB Chairman to look at why seniors are not being made part of domestic teams “Ramiz Raja must know the value of a cricketer is whether he is part of an international team or not We can see in National T20 Cup too, the ones who have scored 5000 runs are in the second XI Can’t he ask Nadeem Khan, Mohammad Wasim and selectors what they have done to the domestic sides? If players can t make their way into the national side, should they also not play domestic?” he asked

Alastair Cook is still playing domestic despite re tiring in 2018, MS Dhoni is still playing IPL, are they mad? But here they start chirping about age,” he added M e a n w h i l e , K a m r a n c r i t i c i z e d P a k i s t a n t e a m m a n a g e m e n t f o r n o t i d e n t i f y i n g p l a y e r s ’ s h o r t c o m ings as it was obvious during the Asia Cup 2022 that they were doing nothing In Asia Cup, teams knew Mohammad Rizwan is weak on offside but who are responsible for bringing betterment, why there are six coaches in support staff, they should tell what they are doing International teams analyse and work on it they don’t just sit with an empty mind in the dressing room he maintained

PCB introduces retainers for supplementar y panel match officials

LAHORE

s tA f f R e p o R t

The Pakistan Cricket Board on Sunday said that for the first time it has introduced retainers for its supplemen tary panel match officials

As such, all 23 match officials, including 15 um pires and eight match referees, in the panel will receive a monthly retainer of PKR 25,000 during the 2022 23 season Previously, only match officials on the interna tional and elite panel were on retainers, but the latest decision ensures all 43 match officials on the PCB panel are now being looked after by the game s governing body in Pakistan The retainers of the match officials on the international and elite panels are PKR132,250 and PKR69,575, respectively

Apart from the retainers the PCB also provides

other benefits to its match officials during the cricket season, including match fees (PKR10,000 per day), daily allowances (PKR2,500 per day), four or five star accommodation (whatever is available) as well as air and ground travel

As such, a match official can earn up to PKR52,000 from a four day match, including match day minus one daily allowance while his earning from a limited overs match will be PKR15,000, including match day minus one daily allowance Furthermore, the scorers are also looked after by the PCB For a domestic match, a scorer receives a match fee of PKR7,500 (per day) and a daily allowance of PKR2 500 whereas for a practice match a scorer receives PKR1,500 (per day) as match fee and a daily allowance of PKR2,000 For outstation domestic and age group matches, the PCB also provides logisti cal support to the scorers

because she looked set to do that

Kipchoge breaks his world marathon record by 30 seconds

BERLIN Ag e n c e s

Kenyan great Eliud Kipchoge has beaten his own world marathon record by 30 seconds, running 2hr 01min 9sec in Berlin on Sunday At the halfway point the back to back Olympic champion in Rio and Tokyo looked set to become the first to officially run under the elusive two hour mark But despite slowing slightly the 37 year old held on to best his own record from Berlin in 2018 After the race he credited his team for the result “I was so happy with my prepara tion, Kipchoge told German television The world record is because of real teamwork ” Asked if he was already coming back to Berlin to take on the two hour mark Kipchoge said he was focused on celebrating his achievement “Let us plan it for another day I need to celebrate this record Kenyan Mark Korir finished second behind his countryman with a time of 2:05:58, while Ethiopian Tadu Abate came third with 2:06:28 Ethiopian Andamlak Belihu who kept up with Kipchoge for around two thirds of the race, held on for fourth In the women s field, Ethiopian Tigist Assefa ran the third fastest time in history setting a course record of 2:15:37 Assefa was not among the pre race favourites and sensationally beat her previ ous best by 18 minutes Kipchoge, who on Friday said his only goal was to run a good race , burst out of the blocks clearly aiming not only for a world record but to beat the two hour mark A pod of around seven runners kept up with Kipchoge for the first 10 kilometres, before 2021 winner Guye Adola and Be lihiu pulled away after 15 kilometres Adola was un able to maintain the pace and began to fall back after 18 kilometres, with both Kipchoge and Belihu reaching the half marathon mark in less than an hour Kipchoge emerged on his own after 25 kilome tres and was still on pace for the sub two hour mark, but began to slow slightly despite still keeping the world record in his sights Kipchoge became just the second man to win four Berlin Marathons joining Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie who owned the event from 2006 to 2009 He boasts an unmatched record over the marathon having now won 15 of his 17 ca reer outings over the event, including not only his two Olympic triumphs but also 10 World Marathon Majors victories The women’s field was also one of the fastest in marathon history, with four women beating the two hour and 20 minute mark Only one of the women taking part in Berlin, American Kiera D Amato had previously run under the landmark time Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru came second with a time of 2:18:00 in her first ever marathon, making it the second fastest debut time ever recorded by a woman Ethiopian Tigist Abayechew came third in 2:18:03 while countrywoman Workenesh Edesa also ran under the 2:20:00 mark

Fit and still driven Djokovic not thinking about retirement

Pakistan the United Kingdom the by in

Meanwhile Tanveer would also compete against Kathleen of Belgium in the semi final tomorrow in 18m individual event Earlier, Tanveer, who was ranked No 2 in World VI Archery Rankings also bagged a silver medal in the Andorra International Open in 30m event He had also won the first ever sil ver medal for the country as well as for Asia in the Visually Impaired Category of the World Archery Para Championship held at Dubai earlier this year He also clinched a bronze medal in the Para Archery World Ranking Event and European Cup 2022 at the Czech Republic held in July

Roger Federer ’s departure from tennis has raised the question of the retirement of the other two members of the revered “Big Three” but Novak Djokovic has as sured he does not feel “old enough” to consider bringing down the curtain yet

Federer ’s decision was not unexpected given the 41 year old’s recent struggles with injuries and form, but it was still met with an outpouring of sadness by fans and former players when the Swiss great bid an emo tional goodbye to the sport

His exit has brought the longevity of his great rivals, Rafa Nadal and Djokovic in sharper focus while fans and pundits have wondered how men’s tennis would cope with the prospect of losing their most marketable athletes “I don’t feel yet so old to be honest for my ten nis career to finish,” Djokovic told reporters on Saturday after returning to tennis for the first time since winning his 21st Grand Slam singles title at Wimbledon

old Spaniard won a men’s record 22nd major title at the French Open, playing with numbing injections before each match in Paris

Nadal said he was not contemplating retirement at the moment after a radio frequency treatment eased the pain in his foot and allowed him to play Wimbledon

Djokovic the fittest among the three said he has made necessary adjustments to his schedule to look after his body

“I’m not playing as much as I played a few years ago I want to peak at the best tournaments, biggest tournaments in the world which are Grand Slams and some of the biggest ATP events, playing for my coun try, the Serb added

“That’s what gives me the most motivation and in spires me to play the best tennis I really want to keep g o i n g I d o n t h a v e t h e e n d i n g o f m y c a r e e r o n t h e horizon at the moment

I just want to keep going as long as I feel good and I can compete with the youngsters, that I could be one of the candidates to win Grand Slams ”

I still feel my body is serving me, is listening to me well That’s the key I think when you get to 35 plus ” The so called men’s “Big Three” revolutionised the sport with their own achievements and riveting ri valries They have won a combined 63 Grand Slam sin gles titles between them

A chronic foot issue forced Nadal to contemplate retirement in 2021 and again this year after the 36 year

U N t o h o l d f U N d R A I s e R f o R f lo o d v I C t I M s o f PA k I s tA N , s Ay s P M

Muhammad bin Salman

LONDON S ta f f R e p o R t

ravaged areas of the country

The meeting was attended by fed eral ministers and the relevant author ities PM Office said in a press release

Sharif on Sunday said that

P R I M E Minister Shehbaz

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres had assured that they would be soon arranging a donors’ conference for the rehabilitation of the flood hit people of Pakistan

The prime minister chaired a meet ing via video link to review relief and rehabilitation activities in the flood

During the meeting, the prime minister said he held important meet ings with Guterres and other world leaders in which he apprised them of the devastation caused by floods in Pakistan and the government’s efforts at the provision of relief and rehabili tation of the flood affectees

He also mentioned his telephonic conversation with Saudi Crown Prince

The prime minister said he also ap prised the world leadership of Pak istan s viewpoint over the climatic changes and the destruction it brought upon the country

They had expressed their deep sympathies and offered condolences over the losses in Pakistan and assured that they would fully support the coun try with sincerity, he added

He said that during his meeting with Bill Gates, chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they

discussed seeking help from the World Food Programme (WFP) for the supply of infants and children’s food in the flood hit areas

The prime minister expressed the confidence that with the international community s help and with the efforts of the national institutions, they would soon be out of the difficulties

Relevant authorities of the Na tional Flood Response Coordination Center (NFRCC) gave a briefing to the prime minister about the relief and re habilitation work in the damaged areas

Ayaz Amir remanded in custody in daughter-in law murder case

ISLAMABAD

S ta f f R e p o R t

Imran in pain as nothing illegal in leaked audio: Marriyum

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday said that nothing illegal was in the (purported) leaked audio from the Prime Minister s Office which made Imran Khan angry and caused him pain “Imran Khan has gone mad as he finds nothing illegal in the leaked audio she said adding his speech at a public gathering in Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was akin to a “shameless act”

Reacting to Imran Khan’s speech, she said the purported audio was “a proof that no illegal act was done nor was any undue benefit given to anyone She said the power plant was imported from India in accordance with law and the policy approved by the Imran led government Imran Khan should better go through from the decision given by Multan Bench of the High Court on July 18, 2020 about installation of a grid station for a housing society Marriyum said Imran Khan, who traded off the country’s freedom, independence and economy against the foreign funding, was now raging with pain and anger as nothing illegal found in the audio leak

The person who received funding from Romita Shetty and Inder Dosanjh, was now crying out of the pain caused by uselessness of the audio leak

She said Imran Khan was angry that he did not find PM Shehbaz Sharif involved in changing any policy, nor asking for land or 5 carat diamond

The Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) chief was angry and in pain as there was no mention of his wife Bushra Bibi and 5 carat diamond in the leaked audio

The person (Imran), who caught red handed in spending charity for political and personal use, had every right to make hue and cry over a audio leak which did not prove any illegal conduct, she said while accusing Imran Khan of changing government’s policies for a five carat diamond She regretted that such a person (Imran Khan), who changed the government’s policy for 458 kanal land, was now hurling accusations on others

The minister said Imran Khan, who changed rules of Tosha Khana for earning profit from three watches worth millions of rupee should better introspect instead of accusing others of misconduct

“No anti Pakistan conspiracy found in this audio as it was revealed in the leaked conversation of former finance minister Shaukat Tarin with the provincial ministers of the PTI governments,” she maintained

KARAK S ta f f R e p o R t

Chairman Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan has said that Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif s audio leak proves that they can ignore Kashmiri’s struggle and ille gally import machinery from India for their gains

Addressing the public gathering in Karak, the PTI Chief said that America carried out 400 drone attacks in Pak istan and killed innocent peo ple But the rulers did not utter a word against them because their properties are in foreign countries, he added Imran Khan said that he would soon give a call to his supporters to steer the country out of the quagmire

The PTI chief reiterated that the country will be stuck in a quagmire if the imported gov ernment’s” tenure is prolonged further He further said that both parties PPP and PML N had given themselves an NRO and closed down corruption cases worth Rs1 100 billion

Talking about Maryam Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif ’s al leged audio leak Imran Khan said that, Maryam wanted to il legally import machinery from India for his son in law’s factory He added that Pakistan cut off all trade ties with India after they abolished Kashmiri’s right to self determination and violated the UN charter But, this government is trying to re store ties with India, they are ready to neglect the struggle of Kashmiri people for their

gains, he added Imran Khan said that the audio leak proves that their only purpose is to hoard money and nothing else 60% of the cabinet is facing corruption charges they have derailed the process of accountability by amending the NAB laws he added He said that Rana Sanaullah used massive teargas shells against PTI women and children on May 25 as we were not fully prepared He added that the minister will not find a place to hide this time around He added that it is a dis grace to our people that our Prime Minister goes around the world begging for aid No country can progress by beg ging for loans and not expand ing its production and exports, he added

Sh S ultan donates $2.5m for flood vic tims during meeting with COAS

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R

Sheikh Ahmed Sultan Bin Su layem chairman of the Dubai Port World (one of the largest port operators globally), on Sunday called on Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said Relief efforts in the wake of the devastating floods and “all that can be done on the road to recovery for Pakistan” were reportedly dis cussed between the two Sheikh Sultan who had earlier Sunday visited flood af fected areas in Sindh, an nounced a donation of $2 5 million in the army relief fund for flood affectees

Commending the Pakistan Army for its relief efforts in the flood affected areas, the DP chairman said that UAE and its leadership stood with the peo ple of Pakistan in this time of distress and offered to bring

other donors for flood relief ef forts in the days ahead

The dignitary committed to raising the issue of climate jus tice for Pakistan at the world forums as the COAS thanked Sheikh Sultan for his valuable and timely support to Pakistan

Sheikh Sultan also thanked Mr Fakhr Alam, Sitara e Imtiaz, for arranging this visit and creat ing awareness in the UAE about the need for help in Pakistan

Matters of economic devel opment in Pakistan were also discussed Sheikh Sultan ap prised the army chief of DP World s interest in investing

further in Pakistan

It may be noted that DP World is working to set up an industrial park in Pakistan to attract global investors due to the country’s geographically ideal location and strong eco nomic fundamentals

“Pakistan’s economy has strong fundamentals, re sources and an ideal location,” the DP World chairman had said on Saturday while ad dressing the media Sheikh Sultan had also in formed the audience that the company is donating millions of dollars in flood relief to Pakistan

A local court in Islamabad remanded senior journalist Ayaz Amir in police custody for one day in connection with the murder of his daughter in law by his son Shahnawaz Amir The sessions court on Sunday granted one day physical remand of Ayaz Amir, father of Shahnawaz Amir who had brutally murdered his wife Sara Inam with a dumbbell the other day

Earlier journalist Ayaz Amir was produced by police before the court of a magistrate in F 8 Kutchery, Islamabad The Investigative officer and concerned deputy superintendent officer were also present in the court Ayaz Amir had been detained by police for investigation into the murder of his daughter in law Sara by her husband Shahnawaz Amir

Moreover, the father of Sara will also arrive in Pakistan tonight from Canada

It is learnt that Shahnawaz and Sara got married on July 18 last Both had studied together in school A few months ago they became friends on social media again It has also been learnt that Shahnawaz owned no business, nor did he have any job He lived on the rent of shops that he had inherited from his father

Shahnawaz’s first wife, Fatima, had left him after a few days of marriage, whereas, his second wife had left him after six months of marriage Sara was his third wife

After the separation between his father and mother, Shahnawaz had left his education incomplete for continuously failing in the A levels Sara’s family had recently learned about her marriage with Shahnawaz Discussion for a formal marriage ceremony and departure of the bride was underway between the two families

The body of Sara will be kept in the morgue of the Polyclinic Hospital till her burial

The Shahzad Town Police had arrested Ayaz Amir in connection with the murder of his daughter in law on Saturday night According to sources, Section 109 has been added to the case now along with 302 to investigation Ayaz Amir and his wife

Chinese People’s Association donates RMB 125m for flood relief to Pakistan

BEIJING ag e n c i e S

Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) donated relief and rehabilitation assistance worth RMB 125 million for the flood victims of Pakistan at a special ceremony held here on Friday Sharing his grief and condolences with the bereaved families, President of CPAFFC, Lin Songtian said that in the wake of devastating floods, the government and people of China have made a substantive contribution to Pakistan’s relief and rehabilitation efforts

He said that Chinese assistance to Pakistan was demonstrative of its unique friendship with Pakistan and strong people to people ties between our two countries

President Lin highlighted that besides ongoing assistance, China would also play its role for post flood rehabilitation and infrastructure development in the affected areas

Pakistan defeated England by three runs in the fourth T20I and leveled the seven match series 2 2 here at the National Stadium on Sunday

Earlier, the tourists won the toss and opted to bowl first Captain Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan shared a 97 run stand for the opening wicket and put his side on track for a big total Rizwan was incredible, scored 88 off 67 balls and led the host to a total of 166 for 4

in 20 overs In reply, the tourists were all out with 163 runs in 19 2 overs

Today’s game was the last show in the port city as both the teams will head to La hore for the fifth game on Wednesday

Earlier, Middle order batters Harry Brook and Ben Duckett smashed robust maiden half centuries in England’s thumping 63 run win in the third Twenty20 interna tional against Pakistan in Karachi on Friday Brook scored a 35 ball 81 not out while Duckett cracked an unbeaten 42 ball 69 to lead England to an impressive 221 3 in their

20 overs after they were sent in to bat at Na tional stadium

Shan Masood led Pakistan’s recovery in a 40 ball 65 not out but they finished well short on 158 8 in 20 overs to give England a 2 1 lead in the seven match series

The match proved an anti climax to Pak istan’s big ten wicket win in the second game on Thursday that avenged their first game defeat by five wickets two days earlier both in Karachi

The remaining matches are in Lahore on (September 30 and October 2)

KARACHI S ta f f R e p o R t