Epaper_22-12-06 ISB

R u s s i a a g R e e s t o s e l l p et R o l t o pa k i s ta n o n d i s c o u n t p R i c e : M a l i k

pERHAPS the most talked about top c this year in the energy sector has been the potentia for Pak stan to import Russian oil and gas at discounted rates and the fallout of such a move Although Pak stan has reached out to Russia on several occasions regarding var ous projects and potential trade agreements little to no headway had been made until Monday ’s announce ment by the government that there has been a breakthrough

Minister of State for Petroleum Mu sadik Mal k who travel ed to Russia ast week to d scuss several proposals on this front, announced in a press confer ence on Monday that Russia had agreed to supp y Pakistan with crude o l petro , and d esel at discounted rates

Russia has dec ded to provide Pak stan crude at discounted rates Russ a wil a so give petrol and d esel to Pak stan at lower prices he announced

The minister added that headway was made on l qu fied natural gas (LNG) a crit cal energy source for Pak stan: The Russian government is set ting up new factories for the product on of LNG and they have invited Pakistan to begin talks on ong term contracts for 2025 and 2026”

On the pract cal front timelines re ma n unc ear as do the leve s of d s

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count Ma ik said a Russian delegat on was arriving n Pakistan in Januar y we wil tr y that all these things that I have kept in front of you wil be transformed nto a proper agreement and cou d be s gned he said On paper the deal s massive for Pakistan, which s desperate to make any sort of savings on mports a major bulk of which are energy imports ac cording to State Bank of Pakistan data Fo r e i g n r e s e r v e s w e r e l a s t m e a s u r e d a t $ 7 5 b i l l i o n a n d t h a t w a s b e f o r e

Pakistan made a $1 b llion repayment t o t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l m a r ke t f o r a m a turing bond The question is how much Pakistan can gain from Russian dea s, and how realistic th s s oil is oil?

A common misconcept on s that a l oi extracted from the Earth is the same The density and consistency of crude oi extracted from the ground in ts unprocessed natural state ranges widely from a ver y thin and com bustib e liquid to an enormously thick, sem so id heavy oil O l is categorised based on three major factors; v scosity volati ity, and toxicity

V scos ty describes how easily o flows H gher viscosity oils require more power and effort to pump from the ground since they do not flow as read ly Volat lity indicates how rapid y and easily o l evaporates In order to pre vent o loss during extraction higher

volatility oi s require additional opera tions to regulate surround ngs Toxic ty describes how dangerous and poison ous the oi is to the env ronment as it is being extracted and ref ned

Ever y type of oi provides a part cu ar set of advantages and disadvan tages Based on these factors, private and public sectors establish the r re fineries Russian oil suitable?

when Pakistan l ke other Asian countries started consider ng import ng d scounted o l from Russia, it requested nformation from local refineries on whether t would be technica ly and f nanc ally feasible

In a letter written by the Ministr y of Energy n June managing directors of four refineries were asked to conduct a detailed analysis and subm t recom mendations The letter asked the re fineries to conduct the r analys s based on five different parameters: technica su tabil ty quantity and grades trans port, payment methodo ogy, and exist ng agreements of o l

The short answer based on the re sponses from the refineries, s that al though some blends of Russ an o l can be processed it would lead to higher degradat on of machiner y Russia has a ong list of blends rang ng from heavy to light Most domest c re finer es are conf gured for offtake of lighter Arabian oi blends and therefore l ghter

Russian oil af ter

Russian crudes would be most su tab e other technical issues

Refineries also raised concern about payment mechanisms given g obal sanct ons and restrictions on Russ a China and India have the ca pacity to export products to Russia and secure oil through barter and also have currency swap arrangements w th Moscow and certain evels of Rub e re ser ves Pakistan has neither

Many experts be ieve it would be d ff cult to make payments for the oil g ven g obal restrictions but it s not im poss ble Another key concern was the freight costs Getting a shipment from Russia involves much longer distances compared to the Un ted Arab Emirates (UAE) or Saudi Arab a Pakistan s pri mar y supp iers

As per etters written by Pakistan Re finer y Limited (PRL) in June for crude oi mported from the Midd e East ship p ng prices range from $1 to $1 50 per barrel whereas freight prices from Rus

to worst inflation: Tarin

has completely shattered the market confidence He said that stock market down 450 points, witnessing a huge se l ng pressure He said that petro rationing gas load shedding and huge power bills were the p an of the PDM plan P T I C e n t r a l S e c r e t a r y G e n e r a l A s a d U m a r s a i d t h a t t h e s a l e o f c e m e n t h a s b e e n w i t n e s s e d d e c l i n e b y 1 6 8 % a n d p e t r o l e u m b y 2 0 % H e s a i d t h a t P h a r m a c o m p a n e s w a r n e d o f d r u g s s h o r t a g e a s r a w m a t e r a l s L C ’ s w e r e n o t b e i n g o p e n e d a d d i n g t h a t p r c e s o f e s s e n t i a c o m m o d i t i e s w e r e u p b y 3 0 % w h e c o t t o n a r r i v a l s w a s d o w n b y 4 0 p e r c e n t

A m i d s t t h e c h a r g e d p o t i c a l s i t u a t o n b a c k d o o r t a l k s b e t w e e n t h e c o a l t i o n government and the Pakistan

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set any discount Pakistan m ght get on the crude oi

Geopolitical question

The biggest concern in Pakistan is seldom financial or technica It is po t i c a l C u r r e n t y, Pa k i s t a n m a i n l y m p o r t s c r u d e o i l f r o m t h e U A E 5 6 % S a u d i A r a b a, 3 4 % a n d Ku w a i t, 4 % , according to the Trade Development Author ty of Pak stan wh le Pakistan im ports refined petroleum products from t h e U A E, 5 2 % , Ku w a i t, 1 7 % , a n d Oman 6 6%

This essentially means Pakistan al ready has long term dea s with these nat ons and mport ng Russ an o l can compromise the dip omatic and trade re at ons with these countr es some ob ser vers be eve Gett ng Russian o would reduce their share in the market Then there are reports that Russia and Saudi Arabia have not a ways seen eye to eye on oi production long stor y shor t

As things stand import ng Russian oil rema ns beset with challenges even f the two countr es strike a dea

A senior source in the sector be ieves the latest announcement by the government is being viewed as more of a political move than a practica one The pol tical move being that the current government has been ab e to accomplish what the previous govern ment could not

LAHORE

Punjab Ch ef Minister CM Per vez E ahi has sa d that the provinc al assembly wi l continue the same way for the next four months ti l March w th h s remarks being in contrast to the re peated threats of the assembly s m med ate disso ution by key a y and PT Chairman Imran Khan

On November 26, Imran an nounced his party s intention to d s associate tse f from the “current corrupt po itical system by quitting the assemb ies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab On Satur d a y, I m r a n s a i d h e w o u l d w a i t f o r four to f ve more days for the gov e r n m e n t s r e s p o n s e t o h i s o f f e r o f n e g o t i a t o n s, a f t e r w h i c h h e w o u l d

dissolve the assemb es Elahi, who is in power n Punjab despite a handful of MPAs due to PTI s support has on mult ple occa sions sa d that he would follow Imran s nstruct ons He again re ter ated his intentions to ob ige but the timeline he outlined seemed to be in conf ict w th Imran s In an appear ance on a TV talk show on Sunday the PML Q leader c osed the door on Pun ab Assemb y s dissolution any time before March

“ My stance is the same I w l d s s o l v e [ t h e a s s e m b l y ] w h e n e v e r he (Imran) tells me to he said That decision has been taken However, n o w y o u d h a v e t o t h n k o f i t s p r o s and cons For that we w ll have to ho d ta ks ”

ISLAMABAD

S ta f f R e p o R t

La s h i n g o u t a t t h e i m p o r t e d g o v e r n m e n t f o r c r e a t i n g w o r s t e c o n o m i c c r i s i s i n t h e c o u n t r y Pa k s t a n Te h r e e k e I n s a f ( P T I ) t o o k t o t a s k I s h a d D a r f o r m a k n g “ I d o n ’ t c a r e ” c o m m e n t s o n I n t e r n a t i o n a M o n i t o r i n g Fu n d s ( M F ) c l a i m i n g t h i s i r r e s p o n s i b l e a n d i m p r u d e n t s t a t e m e n t h a d s h a t t e r e d t h e m a r ke t c o n f i d e n c e c o m p e t e l y

Addressing a press conference here PTI sen or leader Senator Shaukat Tarin said that when his doctored audio about IMF was released a few months ago he was branded as “ tra tor ”

H o w e v e r h e s a i d t h a t n o w t h e F n a n c e M n i s t e r w a s t r a s h i n g t h e I M F a n d n o b o d y i n c u d i n g t h e n a t i o n a l m e d a

n said that now the imported government would buy Russian oil

This wou d be a step as we always advised the PDM government to seek dis counted Russian oil like Ind a But then Miftah Isma l was afra d of possible US sanctions and did not pay heed to our advice,” he said He said that now they have decided to go for the Russ an oi now after subjecting the peo ple of Pak stan to worst nflation

PTI spokesperson on Economy and F nance Muzzammil As am said that Ishaq Dar last statement on IMF “ I don’t care”

The government and Imran Khan ed party are at loggerheads over fresh elec tions in the countr y as the PTI is exerting p r e s s u r e o n t h e g o v e r n m e n t f o r e a r l y polls The PML N and its coal tion partners are not ready to budge on its position of hold ng elections on time

S o u r c e s s a d F n a n c e M i n s t e r I s h a q Dar was leading the ta ks on the behalf of the government The backdoor nego t a t i o n s w e r e s u s p e n d e d a f t e r t h e g o v ernment pu led out of the process at a t m e w h e n t h e P T I w a s w a i t i n g f o r r e sponse from it

sia s Kozm no port to Karachi is $8 00 per barre The additiona cost of freight and transportat on can potentially off

pR OfIt REpORt

a S a d U l l a h K a m R a n

ta f f R e p o R t

P u n j a b A s s e m b l y t o b e d i s s o l v e d i n n ex t f o u r m o n t h s : c m e l a h i

PResidenT Alvi's effoRTs To find middle wAy on elecTions hiT snAGs:

Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) through med ation of President Ar f Alvi ha ted due to deadlock on vari ous issues

Oil prices see a rise as Opec+ keeps its wOrd

LAHore

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e Organization of Oil exporting Countries, namely OPeC, met on Sunday to discuss the production targets of crude oil for the next two months Moreover, the eU decided to impose an embargo on Russian imports and G7 decided to cap the price of the Russian crude oil at $60 All this has caused the crude oil market to behave more abnormally than it should have To understand all this, here is a little context Crude Oil is one of the most important commodities of the world, the by products of which are LNG, Petrol, Diesel, Jet fuel and Furnace Oil etc In 1960 to negotiate the prices of Crude oil with the world and to have a united front, The Organization of Oil

Five terrorists killed, soldier mar t yred in Nor th waziristan iBO

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exporting Countries (OPeC) was formed Since then, OPeC has been able to acquire 13 members An extended alliance of the OPeC is called OPeC+ that not only has the 13 OPeC members but also includes additional 10 producers of crude oil, including Russia Together OPeC+ controls more than 60% of the entire world’s crue oil and is, therefore, at the driving seat of crude oil pricing

Since the last few weeks the increase of COVID 19 cases in China has raised concerns for the global oil market The OPeC+ in its last meeting said that they will adhere to the production targets for the rest of this year even though there has been a cut back in those targets China being one of the biggest buyers of crude oil makes a huge impact This meant that the reduced demand from China would leave surplus crude in the market, which led the prices to fall and the oil market was set to crash even further Things took a turn when the G7 countries

also decided that they will put a price cap of $60 on the Russian Urals Crude oil The eU already has an embargo (no trade), going on with Russia, with the increased sanctions from G7, there is a high chance that Russia will take a hit on its energy cash flows Russia has threatened to not deal with countries who adhered to the $60 price cap Currently the Russian Urals is trading at a massive 40% discount as compared to Brent oil, where India and China are the only major

buyers left in the market

The markets saw a near 2% increase in prices of Brent and WTI crude, as Russian Crude went out of the mix for more countries after the G7 meeting The news of Chinese lockdowns starting to ease in a few cities also were a cause of the price spike Since then, Chinese state channel, Xinhua, has reported that China s National Development and Reform Commission will cut gasoline and diesel prices by 440 yuan (about $62 51) per tonne and 425 yuan per tonne respectively starting Tuesday” The news has once again caused a decline back to its original price in the Brent and WTI benchmarks

“The OPeC+ decision to keep production unchanged, along with weak economic data out of China however could reverse oil’s price gains” , said Leon Li, a Shanghai based analyst at CMC Markets What does this mean for Pakistan?

Pakistan is currently under an IMF program

To procure affordable petrol, that doesn’t cause inflation to go up, is paramount to Pakistan’s position in that program This is because the program hinges on the petroleum levy, and therefore on the crude oil price Petroleum Minister Musaddek Malik has hinted at progress that was made in his recent trip to Russia Russia or Arab oil; prices coming down is a positive sign for Pakistan and its people Last week, the government increased the levy on diesel and light diesel oil signaling that price falls might not translate into tax breaks however, the winner will be the crippling economy of Pakistan in either case whether it comes in the form of a primary surplus or retail price decrease What happens though if China deals with the new wave of COVID and OPeC’s reduced production targets still remain intact, is only a pessimist s guess at this point

Imran direc ts PTI lawmakers to prepare for polls: Fawad

iSLAMABAD/LAHore

S ta f f r e P o r t

Security Forces conducted an Intelligence Based Operation( IBO) in Jhallar Algad, North Waziristan

District During the conduct of the operation, intense fire exchange took place between security forces and terrorists Troops effectively engaged the terrorists’ location Resultantly, 5 terrorists got killed Weapon and ammunition was also recovered from the killed terrorists The killed terrorists remained actively involved in terrorist activities against security forces and killing of innocent citizens however, during intense exchange of fire, Sepoy Nasir Khan (age 25 years, resident of South Waziristan District) having fought gallantly, embraced shahadat Sanitization of the area is being carried out to eliminate any other terrorists found in the area

afghan taliban term kabul attack ‘foreign conspiracy’

KABUL S ta

The Afghan Taliban on Monday claimed that a ‘foreign hand was involved in the attack on the Pakistan embassy in Kabul Zabihullah Mujahid, the Spokesman of the Afghan Taliban and Deputy Minister of Information Science and Culture of the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan (IeA), tweeted that the attacker has been arrested he said that the attacker is a foreign national and a member of the militant ISIS group adding that he carried out the attack in cooperation with the ‘rebels’ Zabihullah said that foreign groups are behind the attack with the aim of creating mistrust between the two brotherly countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan and added that further investigation is ongoing t h e At tA c k: Last week there were shots fired at the Pakistan embassy in the Afghan capital, in what Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called “an assassination attempt on the head of the mission Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani A Kabul police spokesman said one suspect had been arrested and two light weapons were seized after security forces swept a nearby building and prevented the continuation of gunfire” An embassy official told AFP a lone attacker “came behind the cover of houses and started firing The ambassador and all the other staff are safe, but we are not going outside of the embassy building as a precaution,” he said

Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry shared on Sunday the party Chief Imran Khan advice to all party lawmakers to go back to their constituencies and prepare for elections

The PTI Senior Vice President said that they will not waste any more time and call for elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab “The PDM would keep running from elections but they would not waste any more time

In a tweet on Sunday, Chaudhry added that “if PDM continues to run away from the elections [ ] we will go for the provincial elections of Punjab and (Khyber) Pakhtunkhwa and the elections for the National Assembly would be held later

In a tweet today, KP government spokesperson Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif assured the PTI leadership that the “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly would

be dissolved on the order of Imran Khan” Yesterday, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez elahi in a tweet once again reiterated his support for Imran “We are waiting for Imran’s signal to dissolve the Punjab Assembly We remain loyal to whom we support ” elahi also professed his loyalty towards Imran saying: We are standing by Imran Khan and will continue to stand by him ”

On Sunday, PTI ally Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid said: either Imran will get a date for the elections by Dec 30 or will break up the assemblies; the ball is in the government s court on whether they make or break politics ” he lambasted the government for not being in a state to go out into the people” and said that former finance minister Miftah Ismail had “conducted a post mortem of their economy Imran had on Friday stated while speaking to legislators from the KP Assembly via video link from his Zaman

Park residence that he was “all set to dissolve the Punjab and KP assemblies this month and take 66 per cent of Pakistan to the polls” The former premier had made an offer to the government to “sit and talk and announce a date for the general elections, failing which he would dissolve the provincial assemblies of Punjab and KP which his party govern The former information minister added that Khan had advised all PTI candidates to go back to their constituencies and start preparing for elections “National Assembly elections would be held afterwards if the government does not call for general polls, but PTI would opt for polls in Punjab and KP as soon as possible

In an interview with a private channel on Saturday, the PTI chief Imran Khan shared his willingness to delay dissolution of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies if the coalition government agrees to conduct elections

FBR moves to auc tion proper ties of Bio Amla manufac turer

pr ofit report S h a h z a d Pa r ac h a

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has tightened the noose around the manufacturer of the iconic Bio Amla shampoo, Forvil Cosmetics (pvt) Ltd, moving to auction their immovable properties

The FBR sent the instructions to the Director General of Copyrights and Trademarks, Patents and Design Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan (IPO) on Monday It had been brought to the attention of the office of the FBR that Zakauddin Shaikh Zunir Ahmad Khalida Parveen and Wamiq Zaka were directors of Forvil Cosmetics and hence defaulters of sales tax amounting to Rs 310 7 million along with default surcharge

Back in 2017, the FBR had asked the authority to block the transfer, sale, and sub leasing of the copyright, trademark, patent etc of Bio Amla and

others owing to the default of sales tax

Currently the aforesaid government dues have not been deposited by the above said defaulters till date and moreover the government dues have become almost Rs570 million including penalty and default surcharge which have to be paid by the above said defaulters/director of the company

Sources said that a formal opinion was taken from the department in which the legal team confirmed that the trademarks or copyrights that constitute financial goodwill fall under the category of movable property

Sources claimed that the investigation of cases of tax evasion of million of rupees is also going o n a g a i n s t t h e m a n a g i n g p a r t n e r o f F o r v i l C o s m e t i c s , M u h a m m a d Aw a i s T h e s a l e s t a x registration number of this company has also been s u s p e n d e d O ff i c i a l s s a i d t h a t t h i s i s a h i s t o r i c move which has never been done before and this initiative will discourage tax evaders and increase the tax revenue of FBR

ECC approves impor t of 580,000 MT wheat to meet local requirements

The economic Coordination Committee (eCC) of the Cabinet has approved import of 580,000 MT wheat to meet local requirements in two different international tenders

Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar chaired the meeting of the eCC of the Cabinet Sources said that the Ministry of National Food Security and Research submitted a summary on the Award of 7th International Wheat Tender 2022 opened on 30th November, 2022

Trading Corporation of Pakistan dated November 11, 2022 seeking advice on the 7th international wheat tender opened on 30/11/2022 for the import of 500,000 MT of wheat (5% MOLSO)

TCP issued 7th tender on 18/11/2022 on CFR basis at Karachi ports and Gwadar port for the shipments

from December 16, 2022 to February 8, 2023 The tender was opened on 30/11/2022 wherein 10 international bidders participated, out of nine bidders offered rates and one submitted regret

Sources said that the lowest responsive bids on CFR bulk basis for Karachi ports is from M/s Cereal Crop Trading LLC @$372/MT for supply of 130,000 MT (MOLSO) and for Gwadar port is from M/s Grainflower DMCC @$377/MT for supply of 105 000 MT (MOLSO) wheat and validity of bids is till December 5, 2022

The estimated cost of imported wheat as calculated by TCP for Karachi port is @ Rs91,121 MT or Rs3645/40kg whereas cost at Gwadar port is estimated @91,623 MT or Rs3685/40 kg as provided under PPRA exemptions for the subject imports and in order to complete tendered quantity, the matching process was finalized by the TCP

Offer from M/s Cereal Crops

Trading LLC for 130,000 MT, M/s Agrocrop International for 120,000 MT and M/s Aston FFI DMMC for additional 190,000 MT wheat have been received to award the tendered quantity of 500 000 MT

Sources said that TCP has also revised offer from M/s Prodintorg Russia on G2G basis @$372MT for supply of 450,000 MT on CFR bulk at Gwadar or Karachi ports for the shipment period from February 1 2023 to March 31, 2023 and the validity of offer is still December 5, 2022

It is pertinent to note that against the total allocation of 2 6MMT of imported wheat allowed by the cabinet, 980,152 MT has already arrived whereas TCP has awarded tenders for 685,000 MT therefore with the current tender quantity of 500,000 MT and offer under G2G for 450,000 MT, the entire allocation of imported wheat of 2 60 MMT would be completed

As per the handout issued by

Finance division that Keeping in view results of 7th International tender and G2G offer the eCC approved the lowest bid from M/s Cereal Crop Trading LLC @ US$ 372/MT for supply of 130,000 MT at Karachi ports for the shipment period from 16th December, 2022 to 8th February, 2023 and also granted approval of the offer of M/s Prodintorg Russia on G2G basis @US$ 372 /MT for supply of 450,000 MT at Gwadar Port for shipment period from 1st February, 2023 to 31st March, 2023

It was decided that any additional cost on inland transportation from Gwadar Port will be borne by PASSCO to be recovered from provinces at the time of release of wheat stock

The eCC also approved a proposal of the Finance Ministry to change the title of the revolving fund account for CPeC Independent Power Producers from “Pakistan energy Revolving Fund” to Pakistan energy Revolving Account”

by the end of March next year Khan said, “If they are ready for elections by the end of March then we won’t dissolve the assemblies Otherwise, we want to conduct polls by dissolving the KP and Punjab assemblies he added that his party won’t agree on a date after March and assemblies will be dissolved this month [December] if the government disagrees “how long will they take to decide? They either have to say yes or no We have already decided,” the former premier said, underlining his conditional stance on talks with the government on the election date

M e e t I n g S w I t h pA rt y L Aw M A k e r S r e S c h e D u L e D :

Meanwhile, former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan called off divisional level advisory meetings, which were scheduled to be held on Sunday

imran moves lHc against Fia inquir y into ‘cypher audio leaks’

iSLAMABAD S ta f f r e P o r t

Former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Monday approached the Lahore high Court (LhC) against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) inquiry into the audio leaks related to the US cypher The former PM s counsel requested the LhC to declare the probe into the audio leaks as illegal and made the FIA, federal government and the investigating officer respondents in the petition The petition stated that Imran Khan is the former prime minister of the country and “an honest, honourable and a prominent citizen of the country The inquiry was initiated against the former PM to tarnish his image as “Imran Khan’s growing popularity has become a threat to political powers” read the petition It further stated that the FIA has summoned the former premier on December 6 to record his statement while the inquiry into the audio leaks had already been challenged in the Supreme Court The former PM maintained in the petition that he was summoned by the FIA in connection with the inquiry for “political victimisation” and cited failed assassination attempt on him as example of “political vendetta” being pursued against him The petition prayed the court to declare the inquiry as illegal and issue a stay order till the final decision is announced on the application In October this year, the federal cabinet gave its go ahead to initiating legal action against former premier Imran Khan, his key cabinet ministers and his principal secretary Azam Khan in connection with the audio leaks where the former rulers discussed how to “play on cypher” The approval came on the recommendation of a committee which was formed by the cabinet to deliberate and recommend actions regarding the conversation “available on the internet regarding the Cipher Message received from Parep Washington (Cypher No I 0678 dated 7th March 2022) (Annex I) Subsequently the committee recommended that “it is a matter of national security, which is/was pre judicial to national interest and needs legal action” Therefore it added “the apex investigation agency (FIA) may be directed to inquire into the matter by constituting a team of senior officers which may co opt officers/officials from other intelligence agencies for the purpose, and to proceed further against the perpetrators in accordance with the law” Following the recommendations, the cabinet gave its nod to the investigation and legal action against Imran, Azam Khan, and the relevant former ministers through the Federal Investigation Agency

iSLAMABAD S h a h z a d Pa r ac h a

2 0 2 2 : a y e a r O F l i v i N g d a N g e r O u s ly

iSLAMABAD a f P

FR O M the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the unprecedented flash floods in Pakistan here is a roundup of the biggest events to mark 2022

wA r I n u k r A I n e : Russian President Vladimir Putin launches the biggest invasion in europe since World War II when he sends troops into Ukraine on February 24 to demilitarise and de Nazify the country, causing millions of Ukrainians to flee abroad

The West imposes unprecedented sanctions on Moscow and sends billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, which repels Putin s bid to capture the capital Kyiv and topple the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky

In the south however Russian forces capture most of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline, including the port of Mariupol, which is destroyed in a three month siege

In April, Russian forces are accused of massacring scores of civilians in the Kyiv

suburb of Bucha

By September, Ukrainian forces are regaining ground in the northeast and south Putin hastily annexes four Russian controlled regions, a move condemned as illegal by the United Nations

In November Ukrainian forces chalk up their biggest victory yet when Russian forces retreat from the southern port of Kherson, ending an eight month occupation n I g h t M A r e o n D o w n I n g S t r e e t: Britain gets its fifth conservative prime minister in six years

Rishi Sunak takes office in October after his tax cutting predecessor Liz Truss self combusts in just 44 days the shortest ever tenure for a British leader

Truss’s lightning fall from grace, sparked by a disastrous mini budget, caps a tumultuous 2022 in Britain The year is marked by the death of its longest serving monarch, Queen elizabeth II, at the age of 96 and the forced resignation of Brexiteer premier Boris Johnson after a series of scandals u S A B o rt I o n S h o c k : The US

FO hopes attack on pak Head of Mission, kabul to be thoroughly probed

iSLAMABAD

S ta f f r e P o r t

The Foreign Office on Monday said that they remained in active contact with the Afghan authorities on the matter of a terrorist attack on Pakistan’s head of Mission in Kabul and expressed the confidence that it would be fully investigated and the perpetrators and their abettors would be brought to account Responding to media queries regarding remarks reportedly made by Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, in a press release, said that it was an ongoing investigation and they were closely following it “Pakistan remains resolute in our commitment to fight the scourge of terrorism, she further added According to media reports Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on his Twitter handle, claimed that Taliban authorities had arrested a foreign operative of the Islamic State terrorist group for allegedly carrying out last week’s assassination attempt on Pakistan’s top diplomat in Kabul

lHc bars Fia , police from harassing sofia Mirza

iSLAMABA

S ta f f r e P o r t

The Lahore high Court (LhC) has barred police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from harassing Sofia Mirza, the ex wife of Umer Farooq Zahoor Umer Farooq Zahoor ’s ex wife filed an application in the LhC against him Inspector General (IG) police Punjab, Capital City Police officer (CCPO) Lahore and Director General (DG) Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were named as parties by Sofia Mirza Sofia pleaded with the court to order the police and FIA not to harass her Sofia in her plea in the LhC stated that police and FIA are harassing her at the behest of Umer Farooq her ex husband as she has filed case against him for the custody of children Chaudhry Adnan, Mirza’s counsel said his client is being pressurized for withdrawal from the case At the outset of the hearing, ShO Kevlary police station in his reply submitted in the LhC stated that the police are not harassing Sofia Mirza nor it has received any complaint against her The court while ordering police and FIA not to harass the complainant in the future dismissed her plea

ECP lacks jurisdic tion to disqualify elec ted lawmaker, rules SC

The Supreme Court has ruled that the election Commission of Pakistan (eCP) has no jurisdiction to disqualify an elected lawmaker or a candidate before election, saying that the Islamabad high Court’s (IhC) ruling in the case of former Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) senator Faisal Vawda was unsustainable

In a four page order authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial in the appeal of Vawda, the court said that the IhC had misconstrued the previous apex court ruling while determining that a formal declaration by a court of law was not required to disqualify the petitioner

In February this year, the eCP had disqualified Vawda for life for submitting a false affidavit Vawda challenged the decision in the IhC, which upheld the eCP decision Later the Vawda filed a petition against the ruling in the apex court, which was heard by a three judge bench led by Chief Justice Bandial

Last month, the bench overturned the life long disqualification of Vawda and instead simply de seated him

under Article 63(1)(c) of the Constitution on account of holding dual nationality at the time of filing nomination papers for the 2018 general elections

“The eCP has no jurisdiction under Article 218(3) of the Constitution read with Section 3c or 9(1) of the election Act 2017 to inquire into and decide upon the matter of pre election qualification and disqualification of a returned candidate Therefore, the decision of the eCP was without jurisdiction, the order said

The order also noted that the IhC found that Vawda was disqualified pursuant to the case reported in 2018 for submitting a false affidavit hence no declaration was required “By finding that a formal declaration by a court of law was not required” the IhC judgment misconstrued the Supreme Court rulings

Resultantly the apex court said the impugned IhC judgment was legally not sustainable The present petition filed under Article 185(3) of the Constitution is therefore converted into appeal and the same is allowed by setting aside both the said decisions ” the order added

The court said that Vawda would not be considered disqualified in any

subsequent election “We are of the opinion that we need not proceed further in the matter in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case,” Chief Justice Bandial said in the order

“The petitioner [Faisal Vawda] shall be bound to comply with his undertaking and shall take immediate steps to present his resignation to the Chairman, Senate, in accordance with law It is clarified that the petitioner shall not be considered disqualified in any subsequent election, on the basis of the instant matter

The Supreme Court order noted that Vawda had stated before the court that he regretted his claim of renunciation of the US nationality at the time of filing his nomination papers for the election of NA 249, Karachi on June 7 2018 while the ‘Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the US was issued to him on June 25 he admitted that he was disqualified from contesting the election under Article 63(1)(c) of the Constitution, on the date when he had filed his nomination papers for the election of 249 Karachi, and that this affidavit filed with the nomination papers thus contained an erroneous statement, which he regrets, the order said

Balochi, Brahvi languages included af ter historic amendment in Prison Rules 1975

QUettA

S ta f f r e P o r t

The Balochistan government, in a landmark decision, has made unprecedented amendments in the Prison Rules 1975 allowing the inmates get their sentences commuted by appearing in the exams of Balochi and Brahvi languages

Bengali, Urdu, Sindhi and Pashto literature was part of the Jail manual made by the British rulers under which the prisoners have been allowed to commute their sentences, while the Balochi and Brahvi natives had been deprived of the facility “It was violation of basic human rights and a sheer discrimination with the Balochi and Brahvi speaking prisoners , Parliamentary Secretary, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Dr Rubaba Buledi deplored

The issue was taken up with the parliament, and with the grace of Allah Almighty the Balochistan government has been able to amend the Rules (1) 215 sub section 2 of the Balochistan Jail Rules 1975

A notification in this regard has been issued allowing Balochi and Brahui literature course participants to get

benefit from the facility,” she maintained Inspector General of Prisons Balochistan Shuja Kasi, hailing the historic move, said that their efforts to include Balochi and Brahvi languages in the Jail manual bore fruit as amendments in the rules had been made successfully Pashto, Sindhi and Punjabi, Bengali and other languages existed in Balochistan Jail Rules 1975, but Balochi and Brahvi languages were not mentioned in the syllabus Basic rights of Balochi and Brahvi speaking prisoners were being violated since long”, the IG recalled that a letter was written to the home Department after which the Cabinet unanimously approved the amendment in the Jail Rules he hoped that continuation of jail reforms would gradually help improve the condition of prisons The facility will allow prisoners to prepare for exam and get their jail term reduced This reduction in sentence will range from two months to one year Besides, the IG Prisons noted that prisoners were also encouraged to opt for the schooling and madrassa classes to get their sentences commuted

PM Shehbaz, A JK PM Tanvir engage in verbal spat over ‘ ignoring A JK’

In

Shehbaz again asked Tanvir to remain silent, a request which met refusal from the AJK premier This goes on for one

more time “Please, listen to me, for Azad Kashmir I will talk to you Mr prime minister, please sit down, I will talk to you,” an agitated Shehbaz can be seen pleading During his address Shehbaz had lashed out at the PTI government, without taking its name, saying that prosperity comes with action not by slogans and sit ins

“The journey to development cannot

continue until there is political stability Don t raise slogans but prove your performance to the nation by your actions,” the premier said, taking a jibe at PTI s previous government When PM Shehbaz announced a power project in Kohistan, naming PML N leader Amir Muqam during the announcement, AJK PM Tanvir started arguing with the premier

But the Chinese lose patience with the

lockdowns,

curbs on movement occasioned by his signature zero Covid strategy

Thousands of people take part in several days of protests against the restrictions in Beijing Guangzhou Shanghai Urumqi Wuhan and other cities Some even dare to call for Xi’s resignation Xi s increasingly unchecked power also causes alarm in Taiwan, after China stages massive military exercises around the island h e At wAv e A f t e r h e At wAv e : europe swelters through the hottest summer in its recorded history, with the mercury topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in Britain Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic, China and the US also experience record temperatures extreme weather events linked to climate change continue to wreak havoc in developing countries Flooding in Pakistan affects vast swathes of the country, Nigeria suffers its worst floods in a decade and parts of drought hit Somalia face the threat of famine At the United Nations climate summit in egypt (COP27), developing nations finally succeed in getting wealthy polluters to agree to pay into a “loss and damage” fund to compensate poorer countries for climate damage

kp completes feasibilit y study of peshawar-di khan motor way

peSHAwAr

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government has completed the feasibility study of the much awaited Peshawar Dera Motorway According to sources of the provincial Planing and Development (P&D) Department, the feasibility study has also been approved by the Public Private Partnership Committee of the project It was informed that after completion, the Motorway will generate an annual income of Rs20 billion with 13% annual increase This road project will be constructed under the public private partnership The KP government will contribute Rs120 billion Since, the KP government does not have enough financial resources, it has started negotiations with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Finance Cooperation (IFC) for loans to complete the project

The 365 kilometers Peshawar DI Khan motorway will have 19 interchanges It will be six lines motorway with two tunnels 5 km tunnel at Dara Adam Khel and 2 km at Banda Daud Shah in Karak district The proposed motorway will have 19 interchanges including Peshawar M1, Tarnab Interchange Ring Road Interchange Matani Badhabir Interchange, Dara Adam Khel Interchange, Kohat Interchange, Sherkot Interchange, Jozara Interchange, hangu Tal Interchange, Karrapa Lachi Interchange Sur Dagh Interchange Bannu Domal Interchange, Sarai Norang Gundi Interchange, Ghazni Khel Lakki Marwat Interchange, Peezo Tank Interchange, hakla Islamabad Interchange, DI Khan Interchange Zhob Quetta Interchange and Darya Khan DI Khan Interchange

Supreme Court causes global shockwaves in June when it overturns its landmark 1973 “Roe v Wade” decision enshrining access to abortions nationwide Following the ruling, abortion bans are brought in by Republicans in 16 US states, home to 26 5 million women The issue impacts November s midterms There are smaller than expected gains for Donald Trump loyalists in the

Republican camp, as US voters in several states side with candidates advocating access to abortion Trump nonetheless announces he will stand again for president in 2024 X I c e M e n t S c o n t r o L: President Xi Jinping cements his control at the helm of China after winning a historic third term in November as leader of the world’s second largest economy

snap

mass testing and

iSLAMABAD

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Tanvir Ilyas engaged in a verbal spat as the Pakistani premier inaugurated the refurbishment project of units five and six of Mangla dam on Monday

videos circulating on social media, Tanvir who belongs to Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI), can be seen trying to speak during the prime minister ’s speech Shehbaz asked him to sit down and told him that they will talk later however, AJK PM did not listen to him

iSLAMABAD

A b b A s i b l A m e s N A b ’ s f o r m e r b o s s i q b A l f o r e c o N o m i c lo g j A m

He termed the NAB responsible for the current eco nomic crisis of the country

fORMER prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi

on Monday chided National Accountability Bu reau (NAB) and its former chairman retired Jus tice Javed Iqbal and held him responsible for the logjam of present economic crises While talk ing to the press, the vice president of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML N) said the two brought great harm to the country without clarifying He added the dirty money watchdog played a crucial role in ruining the economic condition of the country

The former prime minister said investors feared the accountability laws of the agency and they hesitated in investing in the country

While lashing out at the agency and its former chief he said several “bogus cases” were filed against the lead ership of PML N and an environment of “political vic timisation was created for them

china honors Prof. Dr. m. iqbal choudhar y with china friendship Award

ISLAMABAD: Coordinator General COMSTECH and Director International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) Prof Dr M Iqbal Choudhary has been honored by the government of China with the Chinese Government’s Friendship Award The award was presented by Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Pakistan, Mr Nong Rong in a special ceremony held at the Chinese Em bassy The Chinese Government s Friendship Award is the People’s Republic of China’s highest award for “foreign experts who have made outstanding contri butions to the country s economic and social progress” The winners of this award have been se lected by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) under the State Council The award is conferred as part of the celebrations for the Na tional Day of the People’s Republic of China on Oc tober 1 and it consists upon a medal and an award certificate Prof Choudhary has played a key role in China Pakistan cooperation in the field of science and technology, including establishment of Sino Pak istan centers in various fields S ta f f R e p o R t

Meanwhile an accountability court in Islamabad on Monday adjourned until December 20 the hearing on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project against him without holding any proceedings due to the unavailabil ity of the accountability judge

Judge Azam Khan’s term of office has been com pleted and a new appointment is being awaited to pro ceed further

The agency, in 2018, ordered an inquiry against Ab basi former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and others for granting a 15 year contract of LNG terminal to a company of their liking in violation of rules and by mis use of their powers, which caused national exchequer a loss of billions of rupees”

Abbasi was the mastermind behind Pakistan’s push to embrace LNG after the PML N party swept to power in a 2013 election Pakistan is now seen as one of the world’s fastest growing LNG markets

Pakistan’s table tennis talent seeks C hina’s suppor t to shine

ISLAMABAD

X i n h ua

Asad Ali, 30, has been playing table tennis for the last ten years and with each passing year not only does his interest in the game increase, but also the regret of not getting the opportunity to start it earlier in life

“I remained the top player of my district in the re gion of Azad Kashmir I represented the Pakistan Army at departmental level games and now I am a part of an academy teaching the game to kids and playing matches at the national level,” Ali said

After every success, I think that if the game en tered earlier in my life and had proper training I might have been a big name in the world ”

Ali first got the chance to play table tennis when he joined the university at the age of 20 but as there was no coach in the school, he started learning the game by watching videos of table tennis players on the internet

I searched for the best table tennis players in the world on the internet, and the list was dazzling with Chinese players I watched their games and was impressed by Zhang Jike the most Gradually I started copying his style and started winning inter university competitions,” Ali told Xinhua

Although not as big a sport as cricket in Pak istan table tennis is still one of the favourite sports at the school and college

level, and it is also an important part of inter school and inter college competitions

A number of private clubs are also running in the country including in Islamabad, where children of dif ferent ages learn and play the game as part of their rou tine physical exercise

Raheela Kashi Satti, a table tennis veteran, runs a table tennis club in sector G 6 of Islamabad, where she trains young kids who visit the club after school in the evening

Satti told Xinhua that a large number of girls also play table tennis in her club and the interest in the game in Pakistan is increasing More and more students get enrolled in her club every year

During the pandemic when gyms and sports clubs were closed, table tennis became famous as it is an af fordable and very interesting game,” she said, adding there are tournaments of different clubs in Islamabad which also increase the interest of the people in the game

Some talent in table tennis goes wasted because of the absence of proper training, Rafeeq Sarhadi, secre tary of the Pakistan Table Tennis Federation, told Xin hua adding that if the players get proper training at the right time their potential can be tapped and can play big games at international level

We were once the best in table tennis in South Asia Many players like me were trained by Chinese coaches who used to visit Pakistan and set up camps for players said the 55 year old who remained num ber two in the table tennis ranking in the country

Although Pakistan is not a powerhouse on the world table tennis map he said the fondness for the game exists

interim bail of buzdar in liquor licence ‘bribe’ case extended

LAHORE

An accountability court in Lahore on Monday extended interim bail of Usman Buzdar, former chief minister of Punjab, in a case pertaining to awarding a liquor licence to a hotel in violation of relevant laws The National Ac countability Bureau (NAB) suspects Buzdar allegedly received Rs50 million in bribe to force the Excise and Taxation Department to issue a liquor licence to a hotel in violation of the law At the outset of the hearing, the court asked a prosecutor representing the dirty money watchdog if they needed Buzdar’s custody in the case

During the last hearing in the case, his counsel, Barrister Momin Malik, said there was not an iota of evidence on record to suggest the former chief minister derived any illegal pecuniary advantage or benefit in any manner whatsoever He said no offence was made out against the petitioner for want of arrest under any provision of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 Subsequently, the court extended Buzdar s bail by December 19

Punjab ombudsman retrieves land of an overseas Pakistani from illegal occupant

RAWALPINDI

S

On orders of the Punjab Ombudsman Advisor Ombuds man Rawalpindi Jamal Yusuf, while taking action against the land mafia, had returned the possession of land worth Rs 50 million sold through forgery This was reported by the spokesman of the Office of the Ombudsman in a statement issued on Monday An online complaint from an overseas Pakistani was received complaining that some fraudsters registered a fake power of attorney using the identity card of the complainant At the request of the overseas Pakistani the provincial ombudsman of Punjab took timely action, canceled the said power of attorney and returned the land to the complainant The land meas uring 45 kanals and 17 marlas situated in Fateh Jang has a market value of around Rs 50 mln A case was also reg istered against the counterfeiters

german ambassador calls on Dar

ISLAMABAD

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

The speakers at a seminar on Monday u n d e r l i n e d t h e n e e d t o p r o m o t e r e l i gious tourism by projecting the Gand hara civilization and Buddhist heritage of Pakistan at the international level in a n e ff e c t i v e w a y T h e s e m i n a r t i t l e d ‘ G a n d h a r a C i v i l i z a t i o n a n d B u d d h i s t H e r i t a g e o f P a k i s t a n ’ w a s a i m e d a t studying and analyzing the deep foot prints of Buddhism origin and civiliza t i o n i n P a k i s t a n T h e s e m i n a r w a s o rg a n i z e d b y I s l a m a b a d P o l i c y R e search Institute (IPRI) in collaboration with MISIS (Myanmar)

The highly intellectual discourse thread barely dwelt into the rich culture history and monuments of Buddhism in Pakistan, as it is the seat of the ancient re ligion The speakers were Aye Kyaw Man aging Director and CEO of Rubyland Tourism Services, Myanmar; Dr Nadeem Omar Tarar Gandhara Chair University of Wah; Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, MNA and Patron in Chief of Pakistan Hindu Council; and Dr Pyiet Phyo Kyaw Prof Department of Archaeology, University of Yangon, Myanmar Former Ambassador to Vietnam Shahid Kiani was the discussant

The speakers said that a couple of well prepared documentaries were needed to project the culture and history of Pakistan vis à vis Buddhism “Muse ums and other relevant literature are too

dry, and does not carry the required en thusiasm,” they noted They called for furthering tourist ex change, as well as incoming of monks so that more harmony and cooperation be tween the great civilizations can be buoyed The need for inviting cultural at taches from Buddhist countries as well as archeologists, was also underlined

It was pointed out that the culture pertains to an era between 200 BC and 900AD, and the present Pakistan territory was home to the first and largest lived ur banized civilization Dr Nadeem Omar Tarar, Gandhara Chair at University of Wah, remarked that the state ownership of Buddhist heritage was very old in Pak istan The country used to issue souvenir stamps on such special occasions, and the Rs 5 postal stamp in 2002 on the 50th an niversary of Pakistan Japan relations was a case in point, he added

He also said that a book on Raja Tridev Rao: Buddhism in Pakistan was published in 1955 This was why, he noted from 1950 to 1969 Buddhism was part and parcel of academic dis course The major highlight of Pakistan is that apart from Gandhara Taxila Swat, Waziristan and Northern Areas, Sindh and Punjab also have major traces of Buddhism This makes Pakistan the epic centre of Buddhism, as it houses seven great museums and numerous stu pas too and Mohenjo Daro is a classic melting point

Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Al fred Grannas called on Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Mon day The finance minister welcomed Alfred Grannas, Ambassador of Germany and shared warm sentiments with him, said a press release issued here The finance minister highlighted bilateral relations between the two countries and stated that Pakistan highly values its bilateral relations with Germany He also pointed the importance of enhancement in trade and economic relations between both countries The finance minister briefed Alfred Grannas about the economic policies of the present government aiming at promotion of trade and investment He also shared the potential avenues for investment present in Pakistan through which both countries can further deepen the commercial and eco nomic ties Ambassador Alfred Grannas shared senti ments of gratitude with the finance minister on offering the cooperation and support for enhancing and strengthening bilateral relations between both the countries The ambassador also showed keen interest for getting benefit from investment opportunities in Pakistan in various sectors The finance minister in conclusion, thanked the German Ambassador and of fered full support and cooperation for future invest ment endeavors in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD

S peakers for projec ting Buddhist heritage of Pakistan in effec tive

SPEAkEr PA dirECtS PML-N to Sit with Pti to Sort out MPAS’ bAN iSSuE

Pu N J A B Assembly Speaker Sibtain Khan allowed PML N to sit with provincial Minister for Parliamen tary Affairs Raja Basharat after one of its lawmakers requested to re store their 18 MPAs who had been banned from attending 15 assembly sessions

As the assembly session started on Mon day with Speaker Sibtain Khan in chair

PML N s Khalil Tahir Sindhu on a point of order, drew attention of the House towards a specific clause of assembly rules, saying a member could only be banned for fifteen days if he/she repeated the same mistake

However, in this case, the PML N law makers did not commit the same mistake and they could only be barred from attend ing one assembly session, he added

The MPAs were banned for 15 assem bly sittings while rules allow banning only for 15 days not for 15 sittings of the assem

bly proceedings the PML N MPA noted Responding to his query, Speaker Khan told the PML N MPA to sit with the parlia mentary affairs minister and others to sort out the matter

It is worth mentioning that the action had been taken against PML N s 18 law makers following their alleged conduct of hampering assembly’s proceedings on Oc tober 22 when former chief minister Sardar usman Buzdar was presenting resolution against Election Commission of Pakistan

S a c ré b l e u : G i l l s u m m o n e d to

B a l o c h i s t a n fo r c r i t i c i s i n g a r my

S ta f f R e p o R t

Days after police in Balochistan booked Shahbaz Gill for using blue language while criticising the former army chief retired Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and his institution for striping him and a senator naked in cus tody, the Pakistan Tehreek i Insaf (PTI) leader was sum moned to the southwestern province to defend himself against the charges

Incidentally, the former chief of staff to party chairman Imran Khan is currently out on bail in a sim ilar case which accuses him of inciting the public against the military after he apparently implied that

(ECP) s decision to disqualify former prime minister Imran Khan Despite repeated re quests by the speaker, the lawmakers con tinued passing derogatory remarks and blowing whistles

The absence of majority of lawmakers from both treasury and opposition benches on Monday also showed their lack interest i n a t t e n d i n g ‘ q u e s t i o n a n s w e r s e s s i o n ’ wherein their queries over different issues are responded by the ministers concerned Speaker Khan called the names of sev

e r a l M PA s f r o m b o t h s i d e s o f a i s l e b u t none of them was present in the House as a result of which their questions were dis posed of “It seems Dr Sahib has asked someone t o d a y t o o ff e r s p e c i a l p r a y, a s t o n i s h i n g e n o u g h t h a t w h o s e n a m e i s c a l l e d f o u n d a b s e n t , ” s a i d S p e a k e r S i b t a i n K h a n i n a lighter note addressing to Dr Muhammad A k h t a r M a l i k , m i n i s t e r f o r p r i m a r y a n d secondary health care, who was to answer the queries of the lawmakers

Moreover The Punjab Trusts (Amend m e n t ) B i l l 2 0 2 2 T h e P u n j a b E m p o w e r m e n t o f P e r s o n s Wi t h D i s a b i l i t i e s B i l l 2022, The Mutahida ulema Board Punjab Bill 2022 and others tabled by the provin cial government were passed with majority v o t e A f t e r c o m p l e t i n g a g e n d a i t e m s , t h e speaker adjourned the House till December 19 at 2pm

was registered on Saturday in the Qilla Abdullah dis trict of Balochistan after he lambasted the then out going military chief and an intelligence official under him while addressing a public rally in Rawalpindi last month

Reportedly Gill was booked under sections of the notorious Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 law introduced by Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML N) during its previous tenure between 2013 and 2018 According to the police, Gill has “agreed” to co operate with law enforcement

Meanwhile police said if Gill didn’t turn up in Quetta on Monday, it reserve the right to arrest him from his residence in Islamabad

New mechanism to replace national flood response body, announces minister

ISLAMABAD S ta f f R e p o R t

The government has announced the clo sure of the National Flood Response and Coordination Centre (NFRCC), the top calamity response body, disclosing the process of rehabilitation of flood victims will now be carried out under a new strategy to build a climate resilient and adaptable infrastructure

The body comprising federal ministers, representatives of armed forces chief ministers and experts was formed in September to provide a proper institutional response to the calamity according to a government

spokesperson at the time

Speaking about damages incurred due to floods Ahsan Iqbal the minister for planning and development, said a framework has been prepared to make Pakistan a climate resilient country

The framework will also be pre sented to the international community for their support he said while speaking at the National Flood Response Center in Islamabad

The minister pointed out that the central government, federating units, armed forces, and other institutions suc cessfully tackled the immediate chal lenge posed by the recent devastating floods

Punjab Assembly to be dissolved in next four months: CM Elahi

ContInueD froM pAge 01

Elahi cited Imran’s mobility as the reason why the as semblies would continue till March, saying that consul tation over strategy could not take place until Imran was completely healthy It is pertinent to mention that Imran was shot in Wazirabad last month Since then, his mobil ity has been affected Elahi said that from now till March would be the best time for the opposition to ini tiate talks adding that homework also needs to be done on how the election would be conducted “We have reservations with the chief election commissioner,” CM Elahi said “He is trying to disqualify Imran Khan ” Re plying to a question on whether he saw the assembly completing its term, the Punjab CM said “No it’s not like that [It] depends on the opposition’s behaviour ” In an interview with Bol News over the weekend, Imran said he had committed a big mistake by granting Gen (retd) Bajwa an extension and accused the former army chief of engaging in double games double speak mixed messages, and more Elahi, however, said that neither Gen (retd) Bajwa nor Imran played a double game The PML Q leader ’s son Moonis, in a recent interview, claimed that Gen (retd) Bajwa had advised his party to support the PTI in a weeks long tussle that ended with the ouster of Imran as the prime minister through a no confidence vote in April Elahi clarified that it was him who had approached the former army chief rather than being given unsolicited advice

ISLAMABAD

Speaking at the National Flood Response Center here in Islamabad on Monday he said the framework will also be presented to the international community for their support

“As a result of this synergy, we man aged to mitigate the effect of the catas trophe he said

The minister pointed out that the floods caused damage of over $30 bil lion which is 10 percent of the nation s GDP He noted Balochistan and Sindh witnessed the worst destruction

Iqbal also urged donors to continue to help the flood victims until the com plete rehabilitation of the affectees

He said the establishment of a loss and damage fund at the climate summit in Egypt is a big triumph as Prime Min ister Shehbaz Sharif headed a group of world leaders to present their case

The minister said Pakistan is one of

the most vulnerable countries to climate change and help is being sought from the international community to cope with this challenge

Last week, Iqbal announced that Pak istan will share a framework based on Re silient, Recovery, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation (4RFs) with international partners next week before it formally pres ents the document at a donors’ conference “Next week the comprehensive framework will be shared with the part ners so they can study it and their valuable feedback will help the ministry to proceed further, said Iqbal, while urging the inter national partners to continue to support Pakistan in the rehabilitation phase

Recent floods, rains pose ‘serious ’ threat to wildlife in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD

Recent super floods and torrential rains combined with drought and wildfires across Pakistan have posed a se rious” threat to already under pressure wildlife in the country On the occasion of World Wildlife Conserva tion Day observed on Sunday the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said in a report the recent climatic events such as floods and widespread rains coupled with drought and wildfires have damaged the wildlife habitats and posed a serious threat to the wild species in Pakistan The theme of the day for this year is “Re covering key species for ecosystem restoration

In addition to climate change, the report added, a string of other factors, including illegal wildlife trade and hunting human wildlife conflict unsustainable development, habitat loss and encroachment, and water pollution are also contributing to a gradual de cline in wildlife

Enumerating the damages caused by the succes sive climatic events, including loss of habitat, dwin dling food availability and migration the report cautioned that these factors are likely to lead to the disappearance of various wild species in the country We need to assess the adverse impacts of climate

change on threatened animals, including resident and migratory birds, marine and freshwater dolphins, snow and common leopards smooth coated otters and pangolins, among others,” it maintained Rab Nawaz, senior director of biodiversity at WWF Pakistan in his remarks regretted that despite several initiatives to save biodiversity, the country has lost several species in the recent past and is “about to lose others Not many people will realize that ani mals such as the gharial, despite being seen as re cently as 1985, are probably lost now, he added

This crocodile harmless to man was hunted to ex tinction due to its perceived threat to fish stocks Its pop ulation in neighbouring countries, he went on to say, also faced similar threats but awareness campaigns and re introduction schemes have seen the successful return of this strange looking animal back into the water bodies C o n s e rvat i o n s u C C e s s e s

Pakistan is home to rare, unique, and iconic wildlife species such as the snow leopard, markhor, brown bear, Indus River dolphin freshwater turtles and many others In spite of the challenges, according to the WWF, there are a few conservation success stories in Pakistan’s con text, where community led and coordinated conservation efforts have helped enhance the population of several en dangered wildlife species and their habitats

carried out under a new format and institutionalized setting to build a climate resilient and adaptable infrastructure

The Minister pointed out that the federal and provincial governments, armed forces and other institutions collectively and successfully tackled the immediate challenge posed by the recent devastating floods As a result of this synergy, we managed to mitigate the impact of the disaster

He said this platform of National Flood Response Center is being closed down after successfully completing the mission of emergency response He said the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction will be

The Minister for Planning pointed out that the floods inflicted a damage of over thirty billion dollars which is ten percent of the GDP He said Balochistan and Sindh provinces witnessed the worst devastation He urged the philanthropists to continue to help the flood victims till their complete rehabilitation

He said Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and help is being sought from the international community to cope with this challenge

S

choolchildren

stranded on Abbottabad ski lift resc ued

LaHore: At least 12 children trapped on a ski lift in Abbottabad were rescued on Monday morning The chil dren took the lift from the town of Gul Dhok early on Monday But minutes into their journey up the slope, the lift shut down leaving them stranded in freezing condi tions, according to a spokesman for the police Rescue 1122 personnel took one and a half hour to rescue the children and landed them safely The 12 children were on their way to school from the Gul Dhok town of Dhamtour and boarded the ferry as part of their daily mode of travel S ta f f R e p o R t

LAHore S ta f f R e p o R t

QuettA

servicemen should refuse to obey illegal orders from the military leadership T h e l a t e s t c a s e a g a i n s t h i m

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said a framework has been prepared to make Pakistan climate resilient country

Framework prepared to make Pakistan climate resilient countr y: Ahsan

Hand to mouth

The AI boom

WI T h the country’s foreign exchange reserves with SBP taking a turn for the worst, falling to $7 5 billion over the past week, accompanied by an aura of uncertainty surrounding the current and future status of the IMF program, it is no surprise that the stock market opened in the red on Monday, shedding 550 points While we were able to fulfill a $1 billion international bond payment on Friday, there were legitimate concerns of defaulting leading up to it and that too added to negative pressure on markets To top it off, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, in an interview to a private television channel over the weekend, when asked about the 9 h IMF review, stated without any hesitancy or restraint, rather with disdain, that he ‘did not care if they come here or not, I will not plead before them’ Whether Mr Dar likes it or not, Pakistan is currently in an IMF program, granted, it’s not the one he would’ve negotiated but it’s the one we have The IMF is therefore a reality the Finance Minister cannot simply wish away and ignore; more often than not it has proven to be a bitter pill to swallow in order to secure necessary funding to save the economy

Pakistan s perpetual hand to mouth financial condition is further evidenced by the fact that in order to not miss making the $1 08 billion international bond payment, $500 million received from AIIB were arranged to support FX reserves The last major inflow of dollars was the IMF’s $1 2 billion tranche that came in October and most if not all of that has been consumed to keep from losing control of the uSD/PKR parity Apart from dwindling reserves and a shortage of dollars in the market, another key problem is a lack of political stability Senator Dar is merely trying the same solutions as were tried by his PTI predecessors, which in turn were much the same as he himself tried before, and which have left the country where it is: one payment away from default Pakistan is in the unenviable position of having to borrow on increasingly onerous terms in order to make the next payment on previous loans Senator Dar was brought in to revive the economy and thus restore the sagging fortunes of the PML N; but instead he is forced to run furiously to stay in the same debt ridden spot

Hu M A N beings are living in amazing times; automatic cars, delivery drones, and chatbots taking orders define the lifestyle of the twenty first century however, if we take a closer look at the fast unraveling re alities, we may come to realize that the common man of today is increasingly becoming irrelevant Artifi cial intelligence is manifesting itself as a double edged sword It is freeing human beings from needless drudgework while slashing millions of jobs in the process

This makes one think; is AI shaping a world where the principle of survival of the fittest will de termine the evolution of the human race? Many ex perts including Yuval Noah harari Michael Chui and Maddalaine Ansell, think so As per them, it is only a matter of time before the Luddite riots of 1811 appear again on the world streets Yuval harari in his magnum opus “21 lessons for the twenty first century opines the future job market looks uncer tain at best A possible convergence between biotech and infotech can revolutionize things further by marking numerous breakthroughs that may involve the emergence of AI doctors examiners artists in vestors, hR personnel, traffic safety and control of ficers, manufacturers, and the list goes on A report by McKinsey Global Institute states al most 15% of the global workforce is likely to get displaced in the period 2016 2030 due to ongoing automation and a further 3% could be forced to change occupations Although many are optimistic that AI will generate more jobs just like mechaniza tion of the 18th and 19th centuries did it seems un likely as this time around, machines are replacing humans in jobs that require physical as well as cog nitive abilities Scientists believe that AI is rapidly

improving its ability to perform pattern recognition and understand emotions

As a matter of fact, AI has already made signif icant inroads in a number of notable professions For instance, Buoy health is an AI based symptoms checker that uses algorithms to diagnose and treat illness It is currently being used by harvard Med ical School as a health assistant This development directly influences the career prospects of General Physicians and Radiologists In 2016, a renowned cognitive psychologist and computer scientist, Pro fessor Geoffrey hinton remarked, It s quite obvi ous that we should stop training radiologists ” his s t a n c e c a n b e s u b s t a n t i a t e d w i t h t h e e x a m p l e o f enlitic , a deep learning software that accurately s t u d i e s x r a y s t o i d e n t i f y h e a l t h i s s u e s w h i c h i s lauded by the likes of MIT

It would not be wrong to suggest that workers e m p l o y e d i n t h e m a n u f a c t u r i n g i n d u s t r y w i l l g e t hit the most We are already seeing robots overtak ing the majority of production at factories Ware h o u s e o p e r a t i o n s a r e a l s o b e i n g i n c r e a s i n g l y automated According to a Forbes strategic report Warehouse 2025 , Amazon has 30,000 fulfillment robots doing tasks at its warehouses The state of t h e a r t f a c t o r y p l a n t b y Te s l a “ G i g a f a c t o r y 1 ” i n Nevada is also a case in point as it largely employs self navigating and customizable robots to aid the production process

The banking and entertainment sectors are also witnessing the ever expanding application of Arti ficial Intelligence Smart chatbots are handling cus tomer service, algorithms are buying bonds and shares and Machine Learning models are making personalized recommendations for clients One would not be surprised to know that Netflix is using AI to make viewing recommendations based on user interest Big data analysis employed during predic tive and descriptive analytics is helping firms craft desirable offers and run effective marketing cam paigns Not to mention, AI is also taking care of human Resource Management by interviewing and

recruiting candidates for companies like PepsiCo A SeMRush report states, Artificial Intelligence in creased business value worth $2 9 trillion across the globe in the year 2021 alone

It is important to highlight that this is not a one time event It is a dynamic process that will keep on shaping the world forever, meaning people will have to keep updating their skills in order to stay relevant in the job market It might have been easy for a weaver struggling in the times of the first industrial revolution to switch to a different and relatively more technical job, but it may not be possible for a content writer of today to quickly learn a new highly specialized skill if he is suddenly put on a notice pe riod in turbulent times where there is scarcity of jobs opportunities As Yuval Noah harari also says, we might have to keep reinventing ourselves to remain employed in the future This also means revolution izing the education sector to instill critical abilities and psychological resilience in our children so they can cope with the rapidly changing world

The author is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and holds a Master ’ s degree in Political Science She can be reached at hafsamustafa02@outlook com

The banking and enter tainment sectors are also witnessing the everexpanding application of Ar tificial Intellig ence .

Smar t chatbots are handling customer ser vice , algorithms are buying bonds and shares

h a n g i n g p r o f i l e o f S o u t h A s i a

developments and feelings gave in increasing hand to the term South Asia, while Indian subcontinent began lessening in in use at regional and global levels In ad dition because of the socio cultural commonalities of the region it has also been called ‘Asian subcontinent’, ‘South Asian subcontinent’ India as well as Greater India in classical or pre modern sense especially events which took place in early and mid seventies, like nuclear explosion by India in May 1974 and integration of Tibet in 1975 made India s neighbours including the small powers of the region apprehensive about country’s motives and designs The atmosphere of fear and suspi cion gave birth to the famous regional organisation the South Asian Association for Regional Co operation (SAARC) in December of which India was also a founder member and other nations of South Asia played a decisive role in its making

(96%)

It

spread

but

Th e recent popular term, ‘South Asia’ in world politics, has traditionally been defined in sev eral perspectives like geography history eth nicity, politics, culture and also known as the southern subregion of Asia, situated on the In dian plate which includes seven countries of the region India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan but now in its periphery we fre quently include Afghanistan which is classified as a Central Asian country In the context, partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, as a result of which Pak istan emerged and again in 1971 when Bangladesh took birth as an independent and sovereign country of the globe, for many including these two the term, ‘Indian’ subcontinent became offensive and suspicious The new

P o P u l at i o n P r o f i l e : Over the years and decades since partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, several regional as well as global changes of im mense significance took place which shaped the con temporary/future course of action and behavioural approach of powerful nations of the area and the world As the region South Asia occupies about 5 2 million kilometre of land which is 11 71% of world’s surface portion, while in sphere of population it is the most pop ulous and most dense populated regions of the globe, having 24% of world’s population and 39 49% of Asia’s population According to an estimate it accounts for the largest populations of hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians, accounting for 98 47 of hindus, 90 5% of Sikhs, and 31% of Muslims, 35 million Chris tians and 25 million Buddhists Thus, from religious points of view, South Asia had/has the largest popula tion of hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Christians scattered in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, while the Muslims of the region are concentrated in Afghanistan (99%), Bangladesh (90%), Pakistan

e c o n o m i c S tat u S: This apart, the first decade of twenty first century registered a remarkable growth and progress in respect of economy where new found devel opment of India was taken as special while on the other, the increasing number of extremist/terrorist incidents in Pakistan and Afghanistan presented a different picture of the region In the context, while Indian economic de velopment attracted many countries of the region includ ing the People’s Republic of China, the terror profile of South Asia attracted many global powers as they were facing the same problem in their homeland Over the years, the economic leap of India which has made it world’s fifth largest economy in normal terms but 3 d by purchasing power with an 80% contribution to the econ omy of South Asia It is the member of G 20, a global organisation of world economic power and BRICS and is considered as the fastest growing economy obtaining an average growth of 7%, although, in recent few years, Bangladesh has surpassed India in terms of growth rate and registered a GDP as well as per capita income above both India and Pakistan According to various surveys and reports Bangladesh is among the eleven emerging

economies of the world and fastest growing middle in come nations It has/had maintained an increasing annual growth rate which crossed 7% in the financial year 2015 16 in comparison to continued growth rate of 6 % in re cent decade and expected to grow high in coming years/decades Next to Bangladesh in the region is Pak istan which holds 5th position in terms of GDP and per capita income in the region South Asia By the time the South Asian share in global economy received a leap un expectedly and made it a world hot spot of regional as well as global powers simultaneously e d u c at i o n a l c h a n g e S : The other aspects which attracted the world s attention towards South Asia are education and mal nutritional status of the region and mixed politics prevailed in the region particularly since partition of the Indian sub continent in 1947 The edu cation system of South Asia as available in countries of the region are challenging as well as complicating be cause there are number of pitfalls in the structural arrangements which largely lack quality, proper skill de velopment programmes as well as mass drop outs in al most all nations Several observations and studies conducted by different agencies governmental and non governmental support the view that only 48% children of Indian schools and 46% of Pakistani schools could read a class two text when they reach in class five Their class rooms are also teacher based where they hardly take care of learners and students in general receive a unjustifiable punishments on minor faults For schools public and private both centralised and decentralised sys tems are in practice and partly they all but India and Pakistan have gradually moved towards establishing more private educational institutions to get more skilled man power and required skill set in this era of globali sation Along with them other nations of South Asia in cluding Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal are struggling hard to accommodate with new challenges and social requirements as well

The writer is head of the political science department of the B N Mandal University Madhepura Bihar India and can be reached at rajkumarsinghpg@gmail com

and Maldives (100%) Although all religions which are deeply rooted in South Asia like hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism have regional origin except Islam and Christianity simultaneously they all in course of time, spread to east Asia and Southeast Asia In the context, while, Christianity and Islam were taken to the coastal region by the merchants who settled there with local populations, the latter conquest of Sindh, Balochistan, and parts of Punjab by the Arab Caliphates with which came an influx of Muslims from Persia and Central Asia

not only resulted in the

of Shia and Sunni Islam in parts of the region,

because of the influence of Islamic Sultanates in cluding the Mughal empire, Islam spread forcefully in the South Asia and made it a home of one third of the world s Muslims

Is AI shaping a world where the principle of sur vival of the fittest will determine the evolution of the human race? Many exper ts, including Yuval Noah Harari, Michael Chui, and Maddalaine Ansell, think so.

Are we becoming irrelevant?

Yousaf Nizami Editor

Dedicated to the legac y of late Hameed Nizami Arif Nizami (Late) Founding Editor

M A Niazi Joint Editor Umar Aziz Executive Editor Aziz ud Din Ahmad Joint Editor

R i g h t i n g t h e w r o n g

How the US can help Bangladesh Repatriate the Rohingyas

comes great responsibility The uSA has good bilateral, strategic, military, economic, and diplomatic relations with both Bangladesh and Myanmar The country can also be a trusted, legal and functional mediator to resolve the repatriation of the Rohingya Sometimes power ful states need to get involved in mediating dis putes with their allies If the uSA wants to be benevolent hegemon in global refugee gover nance, it must prioritize principles like refugee protection This is a global responsibility for a powerful country like the uSA

Th e Rohingya are the most persecuted minority group in the world Such per secution has forced Rohingyas into Bangladesh for many years, with sig nificant spikes following violent at tacks in 1978, 1992, and again in 2016 More than 700,000 were forced to flee from the north ern Rakhine state in western Myanmar following a brutal military crackdown in 2017 Around 1 2 million Rohingyas are living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bashan Char in Bangladesh At this point, there are more Rohingyas in Bangladesh than in Myanmar

Owing to the advent of other crises around the world, the Rohingya issue lost global atten tion for a while In February 2021, the Myanmar military staged a coup and the Rohingya repatri ation talks have been halted since then More over, there is a history of a strained relationship between the Myanmar Military and the Ro hingya, most of whom think that their lives are more threatened than before Due to this crisis, the socio economic and security situation of Bangladesh is worsening and there seems to be no other way except repatriation, which has been a hanging case for the last five years

This humanitarian crisis is currently at a deadlock and to bring momentum, Bangladesh needs a supporting mediator to repatriate such a huge number of people A strong, credible, and neutral third party’s presence is necessary to re solve the differences and disagreements between the parties Without resorting to violence, both Bangladesh and Myanmar can resolve their dis agreements over Rohingya refugees repatriation by involving a mediator, namely, the united States, as it is evident that both countries can’t solve this without the help of a third party W h y S h o u l d t h e u S a h e l P B a n g l a d e S h ? Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement to repatriate this huge num ber of Rohingyas to Myanmar in 2017 and 2019 Two earlier attempts failed to repatriate the Ro hingyas because Myanmar couldn’t ensure their safety if they returned home Bangladesh has raised the issue at every international forum, with the support of many countries But Myan mar has been indifferent to international laws and norms Some powers and vested interests may have been behind the scene It is clear that given the progress so far, the bilateral process is not working

There is a saying that with great power

The uSA, as a heavyweight in international politics, requires not only military or financial assistance but also soft power in situations like these With comparative power rivalry with Rus sia and China, the uSA can play a constructive role here in this situation Besides the uSA has geopolitical and geo strategic interests in both countries Therefore, it would give its full com mitment to resolving issues between both par ties Noteworthy, the united States can offer an interest based approach to both countries which will satisfy both of them

u n i t e d S tat e S h e l P i n g S o fa r: The united States has contributed the most to the Ro hingya crisis so far At this year ’s uN General Assembly the uS Sec retary of State an nounced $170 million in additional humani tarian aid Since 2017, the country has con tributed more than 190 million dollars to the Rohingya crisis which makes it the leading global donor This aid from the united States is muchly appreciable as this makes the bilat eral bond between the two countries stronger Since 2017, the uSA has been playing two cards at once to maintain its influence over the region It has sup ported Myanmar in the global community also including in the uN and in working with Bangladesh in the repatriation of Rohingya peo ple But even after 5 years of displacement the uSA is thinking of relocating some Rohingyas to their country permanently as there is no fa vorable environment for repatriation in Rakhine Canada, Germany and other developed states also should follow the footsteps of the uSA to make their life easier

It should be noted that Washington has of fered to permanently resettle more than half a hundred Rohingyas skilled in various jobs in the united States A list of more than half a hundred Rohingyas who have agreed to be resettled in the united States has also been recently shared with Dhaka Out of a large number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh the resettlement of 600 Rohingya is not a big thing in terms of numbers, but it has a lot of political importance In the mediation process the uSA might offer financial aid to people in the area to help improve their lives, while at the same time, using diplomacy to try to persuade Myanmar s government to acknowledge the identity of the Rohingya people as its citizens As a well wisher friend and partner in the development process and trade, Bangladesh can expect the co operation and support of the uSA regarding the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar The Foreign Ministry of the uSA has worked ef ficiently on the mediation process

It is worth mentioning that the uS State De partment Assistant Secretary of State for Popu lation, Refugees, and Immigration Julieta Valls Noyes arrived in Bangladesh on a four day visit on December 03 She already visited the Ro hingya camp in Cox’s Bazar to discuss refugee protection and humanitarian assistance for vul nerable populations in Bangladesh and contin ued support for humanitarian partners Considering the hu manitarian crisis in Myanmar, it is hoped that Valls Noyce will meet with government officials during her visit to Bangladesh for showing generosity by sheltering Rohingya and other refugees Needless to say, that both uSA and Bangladesh are deeply involved in a crisis that is completely Myan mar ’s domestic prob lem The uSA wanted Myanmar and Bangladesh to deal with the situ ation bilaterally instead of having multilateral intervening forums but that did not work So now it has to negotiate with Myanmar diplomat ically and bilaterally The uSA should take con crete steps in favor of Bangladesh regarding the Rohingya refugees’ repatriation to Myanmar A favorable situation should be created for the Ro hingya refugees in Myanmar, where they can live without the fear of persecution

Energy: A story of economic division

PA K I S TA N I power is predominantly produced by private institutions in a public grid system Though many measures have been taken to ensure that these institutions make electricity readily available, problems arise through the supply chain, providers, fuel extractors, and independent power generators energy is an oligopoly a fragmented market controlled by multiple hegemonies that take control of their respective areas under this sector This sector is a fragmented monopoly each controlled by organisations who have sold their morals and duties for a quick buck

When you control the flow of energy, you control the economic output of a state everyone, from industries to the state, is at your beck and call due to your control of production This situation has led to energy theft a system where energy is diverted off grid without any consequences or providers don’t pay bills, and the hiking of prices This has inadvertently resulted in the failure of the supply chain, making this commodity a privilege for those that can afford it and a curse for those who can’t The failure of the supply chain has resulted in ‘Load Shedding’ when distributors shut down the power supply to recuperate for the high demand and the short supply The supply will continue to deplete showing how independent organisations have taken to neglect the need for sustainability One of the other major problems is development: all data on Pakistan energy consumption is commercial energy consumption, the energy that is billed in the National Grid with WAPDA and companies, what it doesn’t take into account is non commercial consumption Non commercial consumption shows the entire picture of Pakistani energy use showing the true picture of the underdevelopment of this sector and the criminal negligence and exploitation of the people by Multinational Organisations energy has become a privilege when it was supposed to be a right Governmental policies abet this issue no less, with higher subsidisation of oil based fuels and lower development into more sustainable and renewable power sources The lack of supply the lack of power transportation, along with higher payoffs for private institutions have made energy an industry to profit off of The most disquieting problem is the redundancy of current laws there is no evolution in this sector and the current bills that profited energy distributors are no different from the ones introduced 30 years ago In the span of three decades, we have seen growth and evolution in the education sector the financial sector and the state But one remnant of an age old time is the energy sector And as long as this is the status quo, Pakistan will always be fighting with one arm behind its back by its own choice

Ahmed Arif Piracha LAHORE

Valet parking

S e V e R A L restaurants, banquets, shopping malls and movie theatres offer valet parking services to their visitors and guests these days Many a time, people report damage to their vehicles due to the valet s incompetence or loss of their personal items, but nothing happens to compensate the owners For instance, a person claimed that his vehicle’s tyres had been replaced with low quality tyres at a valet parking in Karachi Needless to say, the valet service did not accept its fault Young and inexperienced valet drivers can harm vehicles, and can create legal problems for the owners by parking at unreliable and unsafe places Besides some people can misuse these vehicles for their illegal activities Valet parking is a matter of great responsibility as the vehicles cost millions, and it would be pretty difficult for the staff members to be held liable for their acts of irresponsibility unfortunately, no laws exist to safeguard the clients’ valuable possessions because valet services and paid parking lots frequently waive culpability for theft or damage when a car is abandoned after being parked The authorities concerned should take necessary action and develop proper rules and regulations regarding valet parking

SHAYAN KHOWAJA KARACHI

Cardiac health

A C C O R D I N G to the World health Organisation (WhO), 17 9 million people die globally from cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) every year The burden of heart diseases on the national economy is increasing day by day Studies have reported that Asians carried more than double the risk of developing diabetes hypertension and CVDs It is estimated that more than 80 per cent of deaths occurred due to CVDs and strokes in low and middle income countries (LMICs), and women are at a higher risk With the rise of non communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes mellitus and chronic respiratory diseases, CVDs are increasing dramatically owing to low health budget, lack of screening, and no education on health diet and lifestyle Some modifiable changes in everyday life can prevent the incidence of NCDs in Pakistan, including CVDs however, knowledge and education about cardiac health and associated factors are limited and this leads to late recognition of the disease even relatively younger people in their 40s are known to be suffering from heart attacks due to excessive smoking, diet choices, low level physical activity and altered sleep patterns These choices generally first cause obesity, diabetes and hypertension before leading to heart attack Around one quarter of the adult popu lation is living with CVDs in Pakistan Contrary to general perception that women tend to live longer than men, it has been proven by studies that both men and women are susceptible to heart diseases, and about 35pc of women die due to CVDs alone globally Some factors make women even more vulnerable to heart diseases than men, including preterm labour, early mens truation or menopause, stress, depression, diabetes or hypertension during pregnancy, inflammatory diseases etc Awareness about heart diseases is not common among the population, especially among women, who are likely to overlook their health due to cultural barriers and a lack of women physicians

Sometimes symptoms like shortness of breath nausea and fainting are not associated with heart diseases and are completely ignored by women, thus increasing the chance of complications There is a need for upgrading cardiac health facilities for the population especially women targeting early detection diagnosis and treatment while spreading awareness about heart diseases and regular medical checkups Living a sedentary life increases the chances of being overweight, obese, hypertensive and diabetic The importance of diet and physical activities should be inculcated in society, while the harm due to smoking and passive smoking also needs to be highlighted

TABINDA ASHRAF SHAHID ISLAMABAD

The writer is a freelance columnist

Dr arpita Hazarika

BidEn must AnswEr for t wittErgAtE

report got the New York Post suspended on Twitter and suppressed on Facebook

Twitter said they shut the story down because they allegedly suspected it to be based on hacked material, but as Taibbi revealed even they didn’t believe it

‘They just freelanced it,’ one former employee told Taibbi Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold But no one had the guts to reverse it ’ Now pause here for a moment Imagine a world in which roles are reversed What would my life be like if there were enough pictures and videos to fill an entire ‘laptop from hell’ showing me committing a variety of lewd and illegal activities

If there were videos of me having sex on camera measuring and smoking crack cocaine with prostitutes, and wielding firearms

tW I T T E R G AT E is nothing short of a scandal and it absoutely reeks On Friday night, jour nalist Matt Taibbi live tweeted the proof of what many people have long suspected Joe Biden’s political team pressured Twitter to ban their critics and remove negative stories about the Biden family in the run up to election day

Now, it was one thing for the then presidential can didate to mislead the American people in the light of day, as Biden did on the debate stage in 2020 when he sug gested his son Hunter ’s infamous laptop was a ‘Russian plant ’ But it’s another thing for his campaign team to do it in secret too And that s apparently what happened And we have the evidence in black and white Taibbi, presumably fed documents by Twitter ’s new boss, Elon Musk showed us how it all happened More to review from the Biden team,’ read one redacted email, which listed five Twitter accounts ‘Handled’ was the reply, which meant the accounts had been suspended It’s still unclear what those accounts were tweeting But a post by outspoken conservative and actor James Wood was also targeted He was reportedly tweeting photos of Hunter Biden doing drugs and having sex with unknown partners

Taibbi also revealed new insight into how Twitter decided to censor the bombshell New York Post report on the Hunter Biden laptop in October 2020

The Post report focused on evidence that Hunter, then a highly paid consultant for a Ukrainian energy firm, introduced his then Vice President dad to a high powered Ukrainian executive

The smoking gun email read: ‘Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together It s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure ’ As we all know that

Imagine that there was evidence that I was taking money from foreign adversaries and connecting them with influential members of the U S government And more than that that my family may have been involved and was profiting from it!

I believe people in the mainstream media would care I believe people at Twitter and in Big Tech would be slightly interested to say the least

But the ugly truth is that there is no scenario in which I would be covered for the way Hunter and Joe Biden were covered for, because I am a conservative and the media loves slandering conservatives and pro tecting Democrats

In his reporting, Taibbi no great friend of the con servative movement, who has worked for some of the most liberal news outlets in America makes it very clear why this happened ‘Twitter was and is overwhelm ingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels more ways to complain open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right,’ he wrote

It’s obviously true and the Biden campaign obvi ously knew it and they put their thumb on the scale to take advantage of that fact The Democrats knowingly and actively sought to shut down the opinions of ordi nary Americans big and small because they knew they could and get away with it President Biden must answer for this

Does he now regret how his campaign influenced political debate in the waning days before an election?

Knowing what we know today that the laptop is real, and Hunter Biden is in very real trouble with law en forcement, does President Biden think that was ethical? Does he think that his campaign’s backroom influence strengthened our democracy? I doubt it But he ll never answer those questions

We all remember that on a presidential debate stage in 2020, Biden suggested the scandalous Hunter laptop was a ‘Russia plant ’ To date there is absolutely zero ev

The Twitter censorship files

much of the content on the laptop with documentation in the form of voluminous text messages

idence whatsoever that Russia or spies or disinforma tion’ had anything to do with it

The honest truth is that a desperate and drug ad dicted Hunter dropped his laptop off at a repair shop and left it there After a period of time, the owner of the lap top shop, who was shocked by what he found on the ma chine turned it over to the authorities and associates of the Trump campaign But still the truth couldn’t get out Silicon Valley leap to censor a story that could po tentially do immeasurable damage to a Democrat before an election Imagine again What if instead of Joe and Hunter a laptop emerged that held information about Donald and Donald Jr Do you think Twitter would have erred on the side of safety? In fact, we don’t have to imagine this scenario at all, because we know that the mainstream media gladly published and reported on the phony Christopher Steele Dossier That was not just false, it was faked But it helped the Democrats’ cause so it was deemed worthy to print and tweet and post and spread around the world a million times a minute This sad episode reveals once again that Big Tech which has a stranglehold over speech in America

is ideologically captured by the left and the Democrats There is a line from the book ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller that I cite frequently, ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn t mean they aren t after you So many times, conservatives feel like they’re being censored and lied too We feel that we’re having our opinions suppressed and that powerful forces in this country are against us What are those conservatives sup posed to think tonight?

The fallout from this remains to be seen but you can only fool so many for so long Americans are sick of it The extremely unethical business practices that helped put Joe Biden in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue cannot be ignored Americans are fed up with the idea of outsourc ing control over their speech to Silicon Valley

Hunter Biden on the other hand is living his best life in Malibu, selling his art for upwards of $500,000 and taking celebrity turns at the White House I am not fool ing myself There will be very little ramifications for the people behind this behavior But maybe, with the help of Elon Musk, at least one Big Tech platform will reimagine itself

A humanitarian calamity in the making

l O N Musk’s release of internal emails relating to Twitter ’s 2020 censorship is news by any def inition, even if the mainstream media dismiss it

There will be many threads to unspool as more is released, but a couple of points are already worth making

The first is that Mr Musk would do the country a favor by releasing the documents all at once for everyone to in spect So far he s dribbled them out piecemeal through journalist Matt Taibbi’s Twitter feed which makes it easier for the media to claim they can’t report on documents be cause they can t independently confirm them

A second point is an huzzah for Rep Ro Khanna the California progressive Democrat, who warned Twitter in 2020 about the free speech implications and political backlash of censoring the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop That was good advice, even if Twitter didn t take it

A third point is the confirmation of the central role that former spies played in October 2020 in framing the Hunter Biden story in a way that made it easier for Twit ter and Facebook to justify their censorship

Recall that former Democratic intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan led the spooks in issu ing a public statement suggesting that the laptop may have been hacked and its content was Russian disinfor mation On Oct 16, 2020, Mr Clapper told CNN that “to me this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work ” On Oct 19, 51 former spooks released their statement claiming that the arrival of the emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation

We now know that the Clapper Brennan claims were themselves disinformation and that the laptop was gen uine and not part of a Russian operation CBS News re cently waddled in two years later with a forensic analysis of its own and concluded it is real

But the claims by the spies gave an excuse for the media to ignore the Hunter Biden story and even to dis miss Hunter ’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, who went on the record before the election to confirm

We examined those messages ourselves at the time, and our Kimberley Strassel spoke with Mr Bobulinski and put it all on the record before the election We also wrote an editorial But nearly all of the rest of the press ignored or trashed the story The Twitter documents published by Mr Taibbi include part of what appears to be a memo from James Baker, the Twitter deputy general counsel “I sup port the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked At this stage however it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted, Mr Baker wrote

He continued that there are some facts that indicate that the materials may have been hacked, while there are others indicating that the computer was either abandoned and/or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to access it for at least some purposes We simply need more information ”

With an election so close, any delay helped the Biden campaign which was trying to squelch the Hunter Biden story that raised questions about what Joe Biden knew about Hunter ’s foreign business dealings Twitter went ahead and suppressed the story across its platform going so far as to suspend the New York Post’s Twitter account

Readers may recall that Mr Baker was director Jim Comey s general counsel at the Federal Bureau of Inves tigation during the Russia collusion fiasco in 2016 He was the main FBI contact for Michael Sussmann, the Clinton campaign lawyer who spread falsehoods about the Trump campaign regarding Alfa Bank, among other things

Mr Baker ’s ties to the former intelligence officials who signed the Russian information operation state ment may have influenced his Twitter memo and the cen sorship decision All of this is likely to be fodder for House Republican hearings into the FBI s role in the Hunter Biden story

The partisan foray by current and former U S intel ligence officials in the last two elections should be deeply troubling to Americans on the left and right They have authority by dint of access to information that isn’t con firmable by the press, which takes their spin as gospel

This is a form of political corruption that needs to be ex posed, and perhaps the Twitter documents will help to unlock the story

WITHOUT A 25% RISE IN AID, TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL BE PUT AT RISK OF STARVATION AND DISEASE. WE MUST STEP UP TO THE CHALLENGE

Observer E d i to r i a l

Agrim warning from the United Nations last week that a record 339 million people will need some form of emergency relief in 2023 is a reminder to Britain and European coun tries that Ukraine is not the only crisis zone in a world beset by extreme climate change unprece dented food shortages and numerous other conflicts

This is not to minimise the acute distress caused by Russia s illegal invasion The UN says nearly half a mil lion Ukrainians needed direct winter assistance in recent weeks Millions more are displaced or lack electricity, heating and water following Russian missile attacks

There is no league table of suffering, no World Cup of misery The UN’s predictions speak to a shared trauma transcending national boundaries The figure of 339 million is 65 million up on 2022, affecting 68 countries It is roughly the population of the US or 4% of the population of the planet

This is not next year ’s problem; a human calamity is already unfolding It is estimated that 222 million people in 53 countries will face severe food shortages by the end of 2022, with 45 million of them at risk of starvation and associated diseases People are dying avoidable deaths now every day largely unremarked

Five countries Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, So malia and South Sudan are already experiencing catastrophic hunger To meet this and similar chal lenges, the UN and partners are seeking $51 5bn (£41 5bn) in 2023 donor funding, up 25% year on year They will be lucky to get half of that Only 47% of UN requested 2022 relief funds materialised

A global downturn is not the best time to seek ad ditional cash The effects of the pandemic continue to cause serious economic dislocation, as in China En trenched poverty in least developed countries is a

longstanding problem So, too, is the sort of selfish ness that led the Tories to slash Britain’s overseas aid budget in 2020

But such factors do not excuse inaction Nor are they the fundamental cause of today s accelerating hu manitarian crisis Manmade climate change and avoidable conflicts are primarily to blame This year ’s extreme flooding in Pakistan for example was hardly the product of normal weather cycles The UN chief, António Guterres, said he had “never seen climate carnage on such a scale

The droughts, extreme heat, creeping desertifica tion and crop failures in the Horn of Africa and poorer countries in Africa and Asia are likewise principally attributable to global warming triggered, initially, by the countries of the wealthy north So, more than ever it is their responsibility to fully fund the UN s 2023 appeal, especially in the light of the Cop27 “loss and damage” agreement

War and conflict are other big drivers of this global emergency Yemen provides a tragic example One of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, its long running civil war appeared close to ending earlier this year But a truce collapsed in October and intermittent fighting has resumed

Yemen s plight has been exacerbated by climate factors But it is worsened by external actors, princi pally Iran and Saudi Arabia The same holds true in northern Syria, where another Turkish invasion is threatened Numerous foreign interventions in Syria since 2011 have contributed to food insecurity affect ing 60% of the population

The development minister, Andrew Mitchell, vis iting war and drought hit Somalia last week, said the world s neglect of the Horn of Africa was unaccept able” He announced £14m in new humanitarian and security aid But this a drop in a desiccated ocean De spite their own problems, Britain and its wealthy friends can and must afford to do more

Daily Mail

M E g h a n M c c a n

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W I T T E R R E V E A L P R O V E S B I D E N P U T H I S F I N G E R O N T H E S C A L E B E F O R E T H E 2 0 2 0 E L E C T I O N . I T ’ S A

S C A N D A L A N D H E M U S T A N S W E R F O R I T

T H I S S A D E P I S O D E R E V E A L S O N C E AG A I N T H AT B I G T E C H , W H I C H H A S A S T R A N G L E H O L D O V E R S P E E C H I N A M E R I C A , I S I D E O LO G I C A L LY C A P T U R E D B Y T H E L E F T A N D T H E D E M O C R AT S . T H E R E I S A L I N E F R O M T H E B O O K ‘C ATC H 22’ B Y J O S E P H H E L L E R T H AT I C I T E F R E Q U E N T LY, ‘J U S T B E C AU S E Y O U ’ R E PA R A N O I D, D O E S N ’ T M E A N T H E Y A R E N ’ T A F T E R Y O U ’

Wall street JOurnal E d i to r i a l B oa r d

Friesland Campina brings D utch farmers to Pakistan under Farmer2Farmer initiative

K a r a c h i: To aid knowledge transfer and best practice sharing in line with its Dairy Development Program (DDP), FrieslandCampina Pakistan invited certified dairy farmers from the Netherlands to train and advice Pakistani farmers on best dairy farming practices Under the Farmer2Farmer initiative, 2 Dutch farmers, Petrus Adrianus and Gerhard Herman visited FCEPL factory and partner farms in Sahiwal to engage with local dairy farmers on dairy farming practices like animal health and welfare, feeding and watering, calf rearing milking hygiene cow fertility housing and barn design Explaining the main goal of the Farmer2Farmer program, Muhammad Sohail Sarwar Chaudhary, Director Agri Business FCEPL said This visit enhanced the farmers knowledge with reference to global expertise through the lens of local scenario Our aim is to boost dairy production both qualitatively and quantitatively to uplift the socio economic position of our farmers and make rural communities more viable ” One of the objectives of the Dairy Development Program and Farmer2Farmer initiative is to build capabilities of the local farmers as per global benchmarks and transform the dairy industry of Pakistan Earlier this year, FC Pakistan announced the Pakistan Netherlands Dairy Development Center (PNDDC) in partnership with UVAS, to improve and enhance the dairy value chain in Pakistan p r

Alibaba.com to Disc uss Potential E commerce Oppor tunities with Lahore -based Businesses at Hybrid Event

LahOrE: Alibaba com a leading platform for global business to business (B2B) trade announced that it wil hold and export seller summit in Lahore on 8 December 2022 at Nishat Hotel The event will emphasize on the opportunities for exporters, manufacturers, wholesalers, traders and retailers in Lahore to reach the global online B2B buyer base The hybrid event, which will be live streamed concurrently online will gather existing and aspiring exporters and provide tips and advice on practical ways to start an online export business using the Alibaba com platform p r

Pakistan, korea sign MoU on sending and receiving of workers Under ePs

ISLAMABAD

S ta f f r e p o r t

tH E Ministry of Overseas Pak istanis and Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Employment and Labour (MOEL) of Korea on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understand ing (MoU) on the Sending and Receiv ing of Workers under the Employment Permit System (EPS) in 2006

The MoU is renewed after every two years So far Overseas Employ ment Corporation (an attach depart ment of the Ministry of Human Resource Development) has dis patched more than 10,000 workers to the Republic of Korea under EPS

The signing ceremony of the re newal of EPS was held on Monday here in the Ministry for Overseas Pak istanis and Human Resource Develop ment, Islamabad Federal Minister for Overseas Pak istanis and Human Resource Develop

ment Sajid Hussain Turi, signed the MoU on behalf of the Government of Pakistan Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, Mr Suh Sangpyo, presented the signed copy of the MoU from the Minister for Labour and Employment, Mr Lee Jung Sik, on behalf of the Re public of Korea

On the occasion, Mr Turi said that Pakistan and Korea’s relations have grown from strength to strength in all fields He said Pakistan and Korea are enjoying long standing relations which are based on decades old economic partnerships

On the request of the Federal Min ister, the Ambassador of Korea also gave the assurance that Korea will consider the hiring of Skilled Work force and IT Professionals from Pak istan under a separate MoU/Agreement during their Minister for Labour and Employment visit to Pakistan in the next year

Mr Turi also appreciated the efforts of the incumbent Korean Ambassador

for the enhancement of quota for Pak istan from 1100 to 2400 during the cur rent year, out of which 1600 workers have already proceeded to Korea

National Urban S anitation Workshop star ts in Islamabad

The recent catastrophic floods in the country have badly damaged sanitation, water, and hygiene facilities with an estimated cost of around $182 million

Over 5 4 million people (16 percent) from the 33 million people in flood affected 84 dis tricts moved from the use of protected to un protected drinking water sources, and 6 3 million people (19 percent) lost household sanitation with an estimated 950,000 house hold latrines, said speakers at National Urban Sanitation Workshop on Monday

Over 100 representatives from national and international organizations and development partners participated in the inaugural session of the National Urban Sanitation Workshop to de liberate issues related to urban sanitation The work was organized by the Ministry of Climate Change, the United Nations International Chil dren s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the Is lamic Development Bank They said that Pakistan made significant sanitation progress in the last decade reducing open defecation from 36 percent in 2010 to 7 percent in 2020 In urban areas, basic sanitation coverage is 82 percent, however data on safely managed sanitation is not available Lack of safely managed sanitation systems in the country has led to the o contami nation of most drinking water sources they said Speaking on the occasion Nasir Javed, a sector specialist, said that approximately one child dies every 10 minutes due to poor sani tation The cost of poor sanitation is a loss of 3 96 percent of Pakistan s GDB, which is ap proximately 5 7 billion US Dollars

Sana Rusool, Director of Environment, Ministry of Climate Change said that more than 15 million people still practice open

defecation in Pakistan, which is a public health crisis She further added that this issue had gained much needed impetus in recent months due to the unprecedented and devas tating floods of 2022, which is why this work shop was a very crucial step in bringing together all key stakeholders to discuss and deliberate upon urban sanitation, its chal lenges, and opportunities

Inoussa Kabore, deputy Representative of UNICEF Pakistan, highlighted that urban san itation is at the center of UNICEF’s WASH programming in its next country program “As part of the overall UN cooperation framework with the government of Pakistan, UNICEF leads the social services pillar and access to sanitation is one of the priorities I, therefore, want to reiterate our commitment and support to the government as it seeks to accelerate the provision of safely managed, equitable, and climate resilient water sanitation and hygiene services targeting the vulnerable and margin alized, children and women he said

Hammad Hundal OIC IsDB Regional Hub Turkiye, said that the Islamic Development Bank was committed to supporting its member countries to achieve their national SDG targets “IsBD has allocated USD 8 billion so far for the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector We seek to expand our collaborations in Pakistan for boosting recovery, tackle poverty, building re silience, and drive green economic growth as per IsDB’s strategy I foresee this workshop would be a stepping stone to discussing and planning actions for addressing urban sanita tion challenges in Pakistan Participants will discuss the key challenges facing urban sani tation systems in Pakistan and mutually share their viewpoints to formulate recommenda tions for addressing the challenges during four days long workshop

corporate corner

All set for first International Housing Expo 2022 launching on Dec 8

Ministry of Housing and works in collaboration with Islamabad chamber ofcommerce (ICCI) has completed all the arrangements to organize First International Housing Expo 2022 starting from 8th 11th December at Jinnah Convention Center, Islamabad It is a public private partnership wherein ICCI is the lead collaborator No reliance will be made on government resources and itsfinancial support will be acquired through sponsors and partners In this regard, Iftikhar Ali Shallwani, Federal Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Works and Ahsan Zafar Bakhtawari President ICCI along with their teams visited the venue and shows satisfaction over the work done so far and both have vowed to make the event successful along with facilitating the participants To promote the real estate business and ensure safe housing for the people and to encourage the approved housing projects and uplift the construction sector in the country, Expo will be organized in collaboration with other relevant ministries, agencies, organizations educational institutes This initiative will augment the growth of housing sector in Pakistan and will help contribute in the growth of economic development in broad terms Everyone has a fundamental right to housing, which ensures access to a safe, secure, habitable and affordable home and to achieve this objective ministry of housing and works intends to organize thisevent All the major international and national developers, builders and real estate enterprises would be invited to display their projects in the Expo The Expo will help in attracting local and foreign investment to Pakistan and revive the economicactivities in the country p r

India’s Muslim heritage under threat as Hindu zealots eye Taj Mahal’s claim af ter Babri mosque

ISLAMABAD

Pursuing the agenda of Babri mosque s dem olition 30 years ago, the Hindu zealots con tinue to make false claims about the historic sites, most recently the magnificent Taj Mahal, for its alleged origins to an early Hindu rule

A recent writ petition filed by a leader of Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sought a fact finding committee to study the real history of the Taj Mahal with an aim to declare the UNESCO heritage site Taj Mahal as originally a Hindu temple Rajneesh Singh, head of the BJP s media relations in Ayodhya north India in his pe tition, said there was no “scientific evidence” to prove that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal

Though the attempt was foiled by the In

dian court, the BJP leaders over the years have been repeating and amplifying unhis torical claims that the Taj is in fact a Hindu temple, which was built much before the reign of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan

The Hindutva driven RSS is peddling the narrative all across India against historical monuments built by Muslim rulers

Under the BJP rule the right wing Hindus of RSS is pursuing a campaign that involves changing the names of cities and claiming over 36 000 mosques across India through claims that they were built over a temple The list of cities includes Aligarh, Deoband, Far rukhabad Badaun Sultanpur Ferozabad and Shahjahanpur The UP government has al ready changed the name of Faizabad to Ayod hya and Allahabad to Prayagraj

Yogi Adityanath, a close aid of Modi and the Chief Minister of UP is leading the effort to eradicate Muslim identity by renaming the

names of districts and localities with Muslim background

In 2017, Vinay Katiyar, who was then a BJP Rajya Sabha member, claimed that the monument was in fact a Shiva temple named ‘Tejo Mahalaya’ which was “originally” built by a Hindu ruler

The recent Taj Mahal episode has re freshed the sad demolition of Babri mosque on December 6, 1992 as a black chapter in the annals of history

The demolition led by L K Advani Pres ident Ram Janambhumi Movement, was part of an effort to revive BJP and RSS who claimed that it was built on the exact spot in Ayodhya where Hindu god, Lord Ram, was born Shriraj Nair national spokesperson for the Hindu nationalist group Vishva Hindu Parishad (sub group of RSS) said that, “”I felt very proud when the mosque was demolished From that time onward the word ‘Hindutva’

or the feeling of being Hindu came into everybody s mind It was a big success

During the second term of Modi, all ac cused for the Babri Masjid demolition were acquitted by a special CBI court Despite the fact that demolition was recorded in newspa pers and on video, the court said evidence was not acceptable

However the Babri mosque is not the only one taken over under the Hindutva ideology

About the 17th century Gyanvapi Mosque built by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in Va narsi, the right wing Hindus claim that it was built over Vishweshwar temple

Tensions sparked in 2021 when five women filed a petition and demanded access to pray inside the mosque The single peti tion has now grown to 15 separate petitions with many calling for the mosque to be torn down and a temple built in its place Keeping the precedence set in Babri

Right wing Hindu groups have created a controversy over Jamia Masjid Shamsi by claiming that it was built by demolishing the temple of Neel Kanth Mahadeva

Unfortunately, the global community has turned a blind eye towards the blatant human rights violations committed by Hindutva driven BJP government towards Muslims and other minorities in India, thus requiring a strong introspection at national and inter national levels

Both the sides agreed to enhance the cooperation and extend it further to other sectors like Construction, Fish eries and Agriculture

ISLAMABAD

Masjid in mind, it is highly likely that the courts under the Modi led government will give verdict in favor of the Hindus

The Shahi Eidgah Masjid built by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1669 at Mathura is also being claimed to have been built on Keshav Dev temple that was de stroyed by the ruler during the Jat rebellion

N o r t h Ko r e a f i r e s a r t i l l e r y b a r r a g e i N t o b u f f e r z o N e

NORTH Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells into a mar itime buffer zone on Monday Seoul’s military said, the latest in a series of launches by an increasingly belligerent Pyongyang

About 130 artillery rounds were si multaneously fired at 2:59 pm (0559 GMT) from two separate sites, one on North Korea’s east coast and one on the west coast, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement

Seoul’s military said the barrage was a “clear violation” of the 2018 agreement between the North and South that estab lished the buffer zone in a bid to reduce tensions

It said none of the shells crossed the Northern Limit Line the de facto mar itime border between the two countries

The military said it had issued sev eral warnings” over the barrage without giving any further details

Our military is strengthening its readiness posture in preparation for emergencies while tracking and monitor ing related developments under close co operation between South Korea and the

United States,” it added North Korea, however, claimed the barrage was a “tit for tat warning” against what it described as multiple ar tillery firings by the South

A spokesperson for the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement that dozens of projectiles supposed to be the shells of multiple rocket launchers” had been fired by the

B u t s i n c e t a l k s c o l l a p s e d i n 2 0 1 9 , K i m h a s d o u b l e d d o w n o n h i s b a n n e d w e a p o n s p r o g r a m m e s , a n d e x p e r t s s a y h e m a y n o w b e t e s t i n g S o u t h K o r e a b y v i o l a t i n g t h e b u f f e r z o n e a g r e e m e n t

Pyongyang has fired artillery into the buffer zone repeatedly in recent months

I t h a s a l s o c o n d u c t e d a r e c o r d b r e a k i n g b l i t z o f m i s s i l e l a u n c h e s i n r e c e n t w e e k s , i n c l u d i n g i t s n e w e s t i n t e r c o n t i n e n t a l b a l l i s t i c m i s s i l e ( I C B M ) l a s t m o n t h t h e m o s t p o w e r f u l s u c h t e s t b y t h e n u c l e a r a r m e d c o u n t r y y e t Pyongyang, which is banned

russia says oil price cap will not stop ukraine offensive

ag E n c E S

Russia shrugged off a Western imposed price cap on its oil exports on Monday, warning that it would not disrupt its military campaign in Ukraine The $60 per barrel price cap agreed by the European Union, G7 and Australia aims to re strict Russia s revenue while making sure Moscow keeps supplying the global market “Russia’s economy has all the necessary potential to fully meet the needs and requirements of the special military operation ” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, using Moscow’s term for the Ukraine offensive These measures will not affect this ” he said Russia he added “will not recognise” the measures, adding that they amounted a step towards destabilising the global energy markets” and that they would “change” oil prices The cap is the latest in a number of measures spearheaded by Western countries and introduced against Russia the world’s second largest crude oil exporter after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine over nine months ago The measure comes on top of an EU embargo on seaborne deliveries of Russian crude oil that came into force on Monday The embargo will prevent seaborne shipments of Russian crude oil to the European Union, which account for two thirds of the bloc’s oil imports from Russia, po tentially depriving Russia of billions of euros

BEIJING

S Ta F F r E P O r T

in all respects and advance national reju venation on all fronts At the initial stage of developing Pudong we were so motivated by Jiang’s encouragement and so inspired by his great foresight, re called Zhu Xiaoming previously a man ager of an export processing zone developer of Pudong in Shanghai Jiang put great emphasis on the development of the private sector, said Nan Cunhui, chairman of CHINT Group, a Chinese smart energy solution provider

Chinese Academy of Sciences, recalled her meeting with Jiang during his visit in 1998 “Attaching great importance to the role of science and technology in boost ing social productivity, Jiang encouraged us to contribute to China’s food security with continuous scientific research ef forts, said Wu

Comrade Xi

Chinese

Li Keqiang, Li

Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Han Zheng Cai Qi Ding Xuexiang Li Xi Wang Qishan and Hu Jintao either visited Jiang Zemin in hospital when he was critically ill or sent condolences to his relatives after his passing C h i n e s e p e o p l e c o n t i n u e t o m o u r n Jiang pooling strength for striving for w a r d P e o p l e f r o m a c r o s s C h i n a c o n t i n u e d t o m o u r n J i a n g Z e m i n , w h o d i e d o n N o v e m b e r 3 0 i n S h a n g h a i a t t h e a g e o f 9 6

The mourners recalled the former Chinese leader s words and deeds and how the policies and measures during his time in office improved their lives The mourners also said they will turn the grief into actions contributing to the ef forts to build a modern socialist country

“The private businesses were the wit nesses, practitioners, and beneficiaries of the establishment of a socialist market economy,” Nan said, adding that they will persist with the undertaking and break new ground in the real economy Wei Jizhong, the 86 year old former secretary general of the Chinese Olympic Committee still remembers the night of July 13, 2001, when Jiang and the entire country celebrated China’s suc cessful bid for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing

“The process of the bidding had mo tivated all Chinese people to strive for the better,” said Wei “Now, the Chinese nation has demonstrated more self re liance and more confidence with an ever stronger country ”

In east China’s Anhui Province, Wu Lifang a research fellow with the Hefei Institute of Physical Science under the

To Yu Guogang one of the founders of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Jiang’s support for the establishment and devel opment of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets led to significant progress in the financial system reform

The fast growth of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange over the last 30 and more years is an epitome of the booming future of China’s stock market said Yu

The news of Jiang’s passing brought sorrow to Liu Qiyun, a village Party chief in southwest China s Guizhou Province In October 1996, Jiang visited the ethnic Miao community that had been relocated to Liu s village from inhospitable moun tainous areas

“Comrade Jiang Zemin cared about the ethnic minority groups in the moun tains and people who live in the impov erished areas,” Liu said Before moving to the new village the 23 Miao house holds lived at an altitude of over 1,500 meters with no running water, electricity and proper roads

“We will continue to advance the

rural vitalization drive in a tribute to Comrade Jiang Zemin, he said Lobsang a former national law maker hailing from the Tibet Au tonomous Region, met Jiang when attending the annual session of the Na tional People’s Congress (NPC) in 1998 The next year, Jiang put forth the idea of large scale development of western China The strategy opened new horizons for rapid development in Tibet Like Comrade Jiang Zemin envisioned today’s Tibet enjoys social harmony and stability, and people here live and work in peace and contentment We miss him forever,” said Lobsang In grieving over the passing of Jiang, Chinese people expressed determination to rally around the Communist Party of China Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and strive in unity to build a modern socialist country in all respects and advance national rejuvena tion on all fronts

In Hong Kong, residents sponta neously went to lay flowers outside the office building of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Re gion (SAR) to pay their respects over the weekend On condolence websites set up by some residents, many people laid vir tual flowers and left messages to express their condolences

head of uK broadcaster sky News resigns after 17 years

The head of Sky News will step down after 17 years, having steered the broadcaster through a tumultuous period in British political history and journalism s digital revolution Being the Head of Sky News is one of the most exhilarating jobs in journalism,” John Ryley said in a statement re leased late on Sunday Nonetheless, after almost 40 years in the news business, 28 of which have been at Sky including 17 lucky years at the helm, I have decided, as of next year, to stop and leave Sky News behind ” Ryley took over in 2006, when the broadcaster was known almost entirely for its news channel and oversaw its transforma tion into a multimedia platform Around 10 mil lion Britons watch the television channel each month, but the outlet is increasingly focusing on applications such as TikTok to reach a younger online audience Ryley was at the helm during Britain s seismic vote to leave the European Union its subsequent political upheaval and the Covid 19 pandemic

Jiang’s remains cremated as na tion mourns great leader C hina’s S henzhou-14 crew returns home af ter six months in space station

BEIJING

China’s Shenzhou 14 astronauts, or taiko nauts, Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, returned to Earth safely on Sunday evening after a six month mission in the country’s or biting space station

The re entry capsule carrying the trio touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Au tonomous Region at 8:09 p m Beijing Time after a journey of about nine hours

China declared the Shenzhou 14 mission a complete success after the medical team waiting on site confirmed that all three taiko nauts were in good health

Chen, the commander of the mission, was the first to come out of the capsule “I am honored to witness the formation of our space station s basic configuration I feel so proud of my country,” he said

He is also the first Chinese person to have stayed in orbit for more than 200 days

over multiple missions setting a national record

He was followed by Liu, China’s first fe male astronaut She said it was an unforget table experience living in the space station, but she felt good to return to the embrace of the motherland adding that there s always more to expect from China’s space program

Cai, who had just concluded his first spaceflight, exited last from the capsule He said he enjoyed the most spectacular views of the universe and hoped to return to the space home again Busiest crew: The Shenzhou 14 crew, sent into space on June 5, is dubbed the busiest crew in China s manned space pro gram

When they arrived in orbit, the space sta tion only had one module the Tianhe core module

During their six month stay, the trio wel comed the Wentian lab module in July and Mengtian lab module in October witnessing the basic T shaped three module “space

home taking shape

The T shaped structure of China's space station /CMSA

The T shaped structure of China s space station /CMSA

They conducted three extravehicular ac tivities (EVAs) and set up an out of cabin “bridge” that links the three modules of the space station during the last spacewalk

The crew also welcomed the Tianzhou 5 cargo vessel and the Shenzhou 15 manned spaceship in orbit for the first time, and con ducted China s first ever in orbit crew rota tion with the Shenzhou 15 taikonauts

The trio also gave a live science class from the Wentian lab module for the first time

“The three taikonauts did very well dur ing the mission, showing their extraordinary mental and physical qualities I think these well trained taikonauts set a good example,” said Huang Weifen, the chief designer of the taikonaut system of the China Manned Space Program

MoScow

loNDoN a F P

South on Monday

North Korea s army will always take account of all provocative actions of the enemy and respond with resolute and overwhelming military action, added a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency Seoul s military did not mention any exercises but local reports said the South Korean and US militaries were conduct

ing firing drills in the area

At a summit in Pyongyang in 2018, former South Korean president Moon Jae in and the North s Kim Jong Un agreed to establish buffer zones along land and sea boundaries in a bid to re duce tensions

from testing ballistic missiles by repeated UN Security Council resolu tions, has claimed its weapons tests are a legitimate response to Washington’s moves to boost the protection it offers to allies Seoul and Tokyo Officials and analysts in Seoul and Washington say the launches may build up to a seventh nuclear test

The remains of Jiang Zemin, who passed away last Wednesday were cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing on Monday Xi Jin ping and other leaders of the Communist Party of China and the state paid their re spects to Comrade Jiang at the Chinese PLA General Hospital before escorting Jiang’s body to the cemetery for crema tion

leaders

Jinping

Zhanshu, Wang Yang,

M i a n a b r a r

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S u n B e at e n h a l f - c e n t u r y S c r i p t S B l a S t e r S

f i v e - r u n w i n o v e r D y n a m i t e S i n n at i o n a l t 2 0

cluded eight fours and one six All rounder Nida Dar was other notable run getter scor ing an unbeaten 32 ball 38, smashing four boundaries

BLASTERS and Challengers got off to a winning start in their first of the three matches in the second phase of T20 Women s Cricket Tournament 2022 23, here on Monday It was Pakistan’s captain Bismah Maroof unbeaten 60 and Blasters captain Fatima Sana two for 28 which led to Blasters five run win over Dynamites at the LCCA Ground

After being put into bat, Blasters scored 136 for seven in 20 overs Left handed Bis mah top scored with an unbeaten 48 ball 60, which included eight fours Opening batter Shawal Zulfiqar scored a 20 ball 21, hitting three fours Dynamites captain Umm e Hani with her off spin bowling bagged two wick ets for 10 in three

In return, Nahida Khan s unbeaten 60 ball 70 went in vain as Dynamites were re stricted to 131 for three in their 20 overs The right handed batter Nahida s innings in

In the second match of the day, at the La hore Gymkhana, Aimen Anwar ’s all round performance led Challengers beat Strikers by one run After being put into bat, Challengers managed to score 115 for eight in their allot ted 20 overs Aimen coming to bat at number nine scored a valuable unbeaten 16 runs off 14 balls and struck one four Opening batter Javeria Khan too scored 16 off 13 balls, which included three fours

For Strikers the 20 year old Fatima Khan picked three wickets for 16

In return, the strikers fell one run short off the target as managed to score only 114 for the loss of seven wickets in their allotted 20 overs Natalia Parvaiz 28 off 32 balls and Syeda Aroob Shah’s unbeaten run a ball 26 goes in vain

Challengers leg spinner Ghulam Fatima took two wickets for 16 while Aimen took a wicket for 24 runs in her four overs

Securit y put on high aler t for pak-england cricket matches

City

Saddar, SP Security and other officers were also present on the occasion The CPO while reviewing the arrangements also visited the entry gates, parking, adjoining areas, markets and different other important places He di rected the senior officers to personally check the duty points and brief the personnel on duty Around 7,000 of ficers of Rawalpindi Police were performing security duties whereas 432 traffic police wardens were deployed to maintain the flow of traffic Special teams of Elite Force and Dolphin Force were also patrolling around the stadium The CPO said all measures were being taken to ensure foolproof security of cricket teams, matches and cricket lovers He said the restoration of international cricket in Pakistan is a happy moment for all

england’s livingstone out of pakistan tour with knee injur y

RAWALPINDI R e u t e R s

England’s Liam Livingstone has been ruled out of the remainder of their Pakistan tour after the all rounder suffered a knee injury in his debut Test in Rawalpindi, the team said on Monday The 29 year old who made nine in the first innings and was on seven in the second when England declared, jarred his right knee while fielding on Friday “He will re turn to the UK on Tuesday and commence rehab with the ECB and Lancashire medical teams respec tively,” the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said in a statement

Kylian Mbappe said Sunday he dreamed of winning the World Cup for a second time after his brace helped France to a 3 1 win over Poland which advanced the holders to the quarter finals in Qatar

“Of course, this World Cup is an ob session for me, it s the competition of my dreams ” said the 23 year old who burst onto the global stage by starring when France won the title in Russia four years ago

“I have built my season around this competition and around being ready both physically and mentally for it

“I wanted to come here ready and so far things are going well, but we are still a long way from the objective we set and that I set ”

The Paris Saint Germain superstar now has five goals in just four games at the tournament and is already France’s second top scorer ever at the World Cup with nine goals in 11 appearances over

all Only Just Fontaine who scored an incredible 13 times at the 1958 tourna ment in Sweden, has more World Cup goals for France

However Mbappe insisted he was not bothered about the prospect of win ning the Golden Ball for the tourna ment’s best player

DOHA Ag e n c i e s

Jude Bellingham’s outstanding display in England s 3 0 FIFA World Cup 2022 win over Senegal announced the 19 year old’s arrival among the global elite but now comes the biggest test so far of his young career

Much will be expected of the supremely talented central midfielder when Gareth Southgate’s side face world champions France in Saturday’s quarter final in Qatar

Bellingham helped create the open

ing two goals as England swatted aside Senegal in the last 16 on Sunday and the teenager delivered a fine all round per formance that left seasoned observers searching for superlatives

I think he s a fantastic player He has everything with and without the ball presses really well, gets around the pitch, tackles, said captain Harry Kane

“With the ball he can run he can take players on, he can play a through ball and as you saw today he was really im portant with our goal said the England striker

“I like Jude a lot, he’s a really good

“That

Scores in brief:

Blasters beat Dynamites by five runs

Blasters 136 7, 20 overs

’

Neymar looks set to return to action against South Korea in the last 16 of the World Cup on Monday as Brazil step up their bid to be crowned champions for a record ex tending sixth time

The superstar forward has been absent since hurting his ankle in Brazil’s opening match in Qatar and their supporters have been sweating on his fitness ever since Coach Tite said the 30 year old would be assessed in Brazil’s final pre game training session on Sunday but gave a heavy hint that the Paris Saint Germain attacker would start

“He’s going to train this afternoon and if he’s OK, he will play tomorrow, Tite told reporters

Pre tournament favourites Brazil got their World Cup off to a flying start with a 2 0 win over Serbia and then sealed their place in the knockout phase with a 1 0 victory over Switzerland

But they went down 1 0 to Cameroon in their final group game and also lost Arsenal forward Gabriel Jesus for the rest of the tournament placing even more onus on Neymar to get back to full fitness

They face a South Korea side who famously reached the semi finals 20 years ago when the tournament was hosted between them and Japan who are also in action on Monday, against Croatia

The Koreans have not reached the knockout stages since 2010 and only got to the last 16 in Qatar thanks to an injury time winner from Hwang Hee chan in their final group game against Portugal

They will need to do an awfully lot better than a friendly in June when Brazil romped to a 5 1 victory with Neymar scoring two penalties

“We have good memories of 2002 of making it to the last four, and we want to relive that,” said Korean de fender Kim Jin su, who was 10 years old at the time Japan veteran Yuto Nagatomo said his side want to show their samurai spirit in their clash with unbeaten Croatia, after having already stunned Germany and Spain on their way to topping Group E

“Before battle, the samurai would polish their weapons and refine their technique, but if they were scared in battle all that would count for nothing the former Inter Milan left back said

“The most important thing is to have ”

Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu gives a start against

person he’s mature for his age and he’s got great leadership skills as well,” Kane added High praise indeed but it is unlikely to go to his head Bellingham is accus tomed to accolades and well used to de fying age expectations

At 16 years and 38 days old, the son of a police sergeant became the youngest player to debut in the first team at his boyhood club Birmingham City and 25 days later became the youngest player to score for the team When he was sold to Borussia Dort mund for a reported fee of 25 million

(Bismah Maroof 60 not out, Shawal Zulfiqar 21; Umm e Hani 2 10)

Dynamites 131 3, 20 overs

(Nahida Khan 70 not out, Nida Dar 38 not out; Fatima Sana 2 28)

Player of the match Bismah Maroof (PCB Blasters)

Challengers beat Strikers by one run

Challengers 115 8, 20 overs

(Aimen Anwar 16 not out, Javeria Khan 16; Fatima Khan 3 16) Strikers 114 7, 20 overs

(Natalia Parvaiz 28, Syeda Aroob Shah 26 not out; Ghulam Fatima 2 16)

Player of the match Aimen Anwar (Challengers)

win and help the French national team ”

While the veteran Giroud netted his 52nd international goal to move past Thierry Henry and become France’s all time top scorer, Mbappe was once again France’s outstanding player

He had been named man of the match in France s opening two wins over Australia and Denmark only to shun his post match media duties, exposing the French Football Federation to a fine from FIFA as a result

However, this time he showed up to speak to reporters

There were lots of people wonder ing why I was not speaking but it was nothing personal against the journalists,” he said

“I just needed to concentrate on my competition and when I need to focus it needs to be at 100 percent I can t lose energy on other things

“That is why I didn’t speak before I have learnt that the federation is going to get a fine but I have promised personally to pay it ”

euros he became the most expensive 17 year old in the history of the game and promptly became the German club s youngest scorer H e b e c a m e a f u l l E n g l a n d i n t e r n a t i o n a l i n N o v e m b e r 2 0 2 0 , w i t h o n l y Wa y n e R o o n e y a n d T h e o Wa l c o t t h a v i n g p l a y e d f o r t h e c o u n t r y a t a y o u n g e r a g e

At last year ’s Euros Bellingham be came the youngest England player to have played at a major tournament and, at that time the youngest player from any country to have featured in the Eu ropean Championship

Mbappe rifled

Mbappe called the World Cup his obsession after his match winning performance which took his tally to a tournament leading five and also included an assist for Giroud s record breaking opener

“The only objective for me is to win the World Cup ” said the 23 year old France will face England on Satur day at the Al Bayt Stadium, where Gareth Southgate s team strolled past Senegal in a performance full of pos itives, not least the form of teen sensation Jude Belling ham Bellingham, 19, set up Jordan Henderson s opener and the Borussia Dortmund midfielder was involved again when England captain Harry Kane bagged his first goal in this World Cup

Spain will be looking to join France and England in the last eight when they face a dangerous Morocco in the last 16 on Tuesday Spain coach Luis Enrique set each of his players the homework of practising 1 000 penal ties before coming to Qatar “I imagine that they have done their homework If you wait until getting here to practise penalties (it won t be enough) he said

DOHA Ag e n c i e s

Croatia to forward Ritsu Doan, rewarding him for two goals off the bench in the group phase Kylian Mbappe was the star of the show again for France on Sunday with a superb brace which sunk Poland 3 1 and gave the world champions a mouthwa tering last eight showdown with England easy 3 0 win ners over Senegal Paris Saint Germain superstar

home two blistering second half strikes after his veteran strike partner Olivier Giroud became France’s all time leading scorer with his 52nd goal for his country just before half time

LAHORE s tA f f R e p o R t

RAWALPINDI s tA f f R e p o R t

Police Officer (CPO) Syed Shehzad Nadeem on Monday visited Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium and re viewed the security arrangements for Pak England cricket series According to a police spokesman, SSP Operations Waseem Riaz Khan, SP Rawal, SP

DOHA Ag e n c i e s

The only objective for me is to win the World Cup which means now to win the quarter final,” said Mbappe, who also set up the opening goal against Poland for Olivier Giroud

is what I am dreaming of I didn t come here to win the Golden Ball That is not why I am here I am here to

A g g r e S S I v e e n g l A n D b e At PA k I S tA n b y 74 r U n S I n r Aw A l P I n D I t e S t

eNGLAND showcased their masterful approach of aggression in Test cricket with a superb 74 run victory over Pakistan in the final session of the first game on Sunday

Needing 263 runs with eight wickets in hand on Day 5 Pak istan were dismissed for 268 against the reverse swing of James Anderson (4 36) and Ollie Robin son (4 50) losing its last five wickets for just 11 runs after tea Jack Leach had the last wicket

of Naseem Shah trapped leg be fore wicket, after England delayed the second new ball for well over an hour with Anderson and Robin son doing the damage with the old ball

Pakistan succumbed to the re lentless attacking field settings of England captain Ben Stokes be fore Robinson and veteran Ander son sliced through the lower order after Pakistan were placed at 257 5 going into the final session

Robinson had earlier ended the nearly four hour defiance of one of the four debutants Saud Shakeel in the second session to a brilliant diving catch by

Keaton Jennings as the lefthander top scored with 76

England had posted an electri fying 657 and Pakistan responded with 579 to concede a 78 run lead on a grass less wicket where seven batters from both sides scored centuries

England made a bold declara tion with another rapid 264 7 in just 35 5 overs on Day 4 and set Pakistan a challenging target of 343 in four sessions

England lead their first Test series in Pakistan in 17 years 1 0 with Multan and Karachi sched uled to host the remaining two games

S tA F F R e P o R t

Former information minister Fawad Chaudhry confirmed on Monday that “in formal communications between the PTI and federal government, pertaining to the snap elections, had begun

Former premier Imran Khan last week gave the federal government an ul timatum to either “sit and talk and give a date for the general elections or we will dissolve the assemblies”

“Either they can sit with us and talk, gave us a date for the general elections [ ] or else we will dissolve our assem blies on December 21,” he had said Imran s offer came after the PTI lead ership greenlit plans to dissolve the KP and Punjab assemblies after Imran said the party would no longer be part of the corrupt system on the last day of his long march in Rawalpindi in November

Speaking to the media in Lahore today Chaudhry said that “informal com munication” with the federal government had begun

“We are trying to make the coalition representatives, especially Finance Min ister Ishaq Dar [ ] who is more [deter

mined] from the PML N [ ] we told the president [ ] the problem is that the gov ernment is rapidly becoming irrelevant due to the economic situation

“We have tried to make them under stand that no system other than elections can bring stability in the country,” he told reporters PTI workIng on ImProvIng TIes wITh army: Meanwhile, Chaudhry asserted that his party was seeking betterment in ties with the

armed forces and judiciary, not “deterio ration” of their relationship

We d o n

e “But we are seeing that constantly, despite our efforts for betterment [there is] deterioration in ties with the judiciary and the armed forces Some elements are exacerbating the differences the PTI

leader claimed He said that some people, “maybe the government are trying to ruin the relations we are trying to improve Talking about the dissolution of assemblies, Chaudhry said that the party had decided to hold a meeting with the senior leadership on Tuesday (December 6) He admitted that there was a differ ence of opinion among lawmakers over submitting their resignations, but in the same breath contended that Imran had the final call on the matter

“In this regard, we have kicked off meetings We have called Lahore’s MNAs and MPAs to hear them out To morrow Imran has called a meeting of the party’s senior leaders to mull the strategy relating to politics and dissolution [of as semblies] ”

The PTI leader also highlighted that the party was receiving notices from the Federal Investigation Agency “There are reports in the media suggesting that the Election Commission of Pakistan is initi ating action for the disqualification of Imran as the party chief

It is a mistake [ ] the political scene in Pakistan is incomplete without Imran Khan,” he added

Where is the locally assembled MG HS?

LAHORE

MG Motors’ CEO Javed Afridi caused a storm on social media with a prehype of MG4 Fully Electric that he claimed could travel from Lahore to Peshawar on a single charge Despite the big an nouncement MG has yet to fulfil an older promise it made: Releasing com pletely knocked down (CKD) versions of the MG HS by the end of 2022 but with just a month left in year end the launch is nowhere in sight

As new projects are coming in what does it mean for the old ones? Is local production for MG cars in the pipeline or just a pipe dream?

ComPleTely knoCked down (Ckd) fIasCo: MG is yet to intro duce any CKD models in their roster As the term implies, it means that the car will be completely manufactured and as sembled in the local plant This qualifies CKD cars models for government bene fits and exemption from excise duties As a result, the price of a CKD car is cheaper than a completely built up (CBU) car which is essentially imported in the country as whole vehicles

Ever since MG began local assem bly March at their Lahore plant, predic tions about MG HS have been making r o u n d s H o w e v e r a c o n f l i c t w i t h t h e

in Pakistan

There has been no update regarding the conflict being resolved from either the EDB or MG as of yet The latter is

particularly important as not sharing any development on social media would be very uncharacteristic of MG given their social media outreach and approach across all the platforms they utilise

The hs TImelIne: The update in the HS’ timeline came in June 2022 when Afridi, in a social media post, stated that MG may begin domestic pro duction as early as July The statement came on the back of the MG HS com pleting its all terrain testing the same

month However, even then speculation was rampant that MG would not meet the July deadline

Pakwheels had estimated the issue to reach a conclusion in October, only after which MG will introduce their local portfolio in the market However, it is now December and there is no update re garding when the CKD HS will be avail able to customers Profit reached out to Syed Asif Ahmed, General Manager of Sales and Marketing at MG Motors re garding the matter However, we were unable to receive any response regarding the matter

On a visit to MG dealership, Profit learned from the staff that booking for the HS would tentatively begin in Jan uary 2023 with delivery being promised by March The retail price is expected to be Rs 6 641 000 Currently however CBU HS is available for Rs 7,700,000 inclusive of on payments The units available are either leftover units the company has given the dealerships or units owned by investors looking to dis pose of them The latter was made very evident as the dealership team explic itly stated that they were willing to ne gotiate the price downwards if customers did express their desire to purchase the vehicle

Afghanistan arrests ‘foreign IS member’ for embassy attack

ISLAMABAD/KABUL

A foreign member of the Islamic State (IS) militant group has been arrested in connection with an attack last week on Pakistan’s embassy in the capital of Kabul, chief spokesperson of the Taliban government of Afghanistan said Monday A security guard was critically wounded by shots fired at the embassy in Friday s attack, in which shots were fired at the building housing Pakistan’s mission from a nearby building, which Islamabad described as an “assassi nation attempt against the head of the mission, Ubaid ur Rehman Nizamani

PM inaugurates refurbishment project of Units 5 and 6 of Mangla Dam

ISLAMABAD

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated on Mon day the refurbishment project of Units 5 and 6 of Mangla Dam aimed at enhancing its electricity gen eration capacity Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister termed the project a wonderful example of cooperation between Pakistan and the United States He said the total cost of this up gradation project is 483 million dollars, of which 150 million dollars were provided by the US as a grant He emphasized the need for further enhancing bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and the United States in the field of trade and investment Alluding to the contributions made by Mangla Dam to the country’s economy, the Prime Minister said Pakistan cannot afford expensive energy on which annually twenty seven billion ru pees are currently being spent He underlined the need for exploiting the indigenous resources includ ing hydel solar air and coal to produce cheap elec tricity He said the present government has prepared a project to generate ten thousand megawatts of elec tricity through solar energy He said a power project 1320 megawatt has also been initiated at Thar to use the indigenous coal for electricity production The Prime Minister regretted that the country could not fully exploit the hydel power potential of sixty thou sand megawatts He said apart from extension of Mangla and Tarbela Dams Diamer Basha Dasu and some other projects have been launched He said had these hydel projects been earlier completed, the country would not have faced much destruction due to recent floods as well as its reliance on the im ported fuel would have been negligible The Prime Minister stressed for unity to serve the country and steer it out of all challenges In his remarks on the occasion, the US Ambassador to Pakistan Donald Blome said Mangla Dam is a great symbol of Pak istan US cooperation He said amongst other hy dropower projects, his country is also assisting Pakistan to rehabilitate Tarbela power stations The Ambassador said the rehabilitation work at Mangla Dam will increase electricity output to meet elec tricity needs of additional two million people He said it will also ensure that Mangla Power Stations remain productive for the next several years Speak ing on the occasion Chairman WAPDA Sajjad Ghani said the government is showing keen interest to produce clean, green and cheap energy He said the WAPDA is pursuing a two pronged strategy under which the existing hydropower projects are being upgraded while construction work has been started on new projects as well

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RAWALPINDI

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LAHORE